Revit MEP course, Mechanical, by VDCI, offers an in-depth tour into different methods of viewing models and organizing sheets in a project. The course also provides insights into the functionalities of the system browser and the creation of 3D views.
Key Insights
- The course explains the use of system browser in Revit, which displays a hierarchical list of the components in each discipline in a project, either by system or by zone. This tool aids in finding components that may not be assigned to a system and shows load or flow information.
- The course teaches the creation and organization of sheets in a project following the National CAD standards. The sheets are arranged in series, with each series representing different elements such as plans, large views, details, and schedules.
- It also provides guidance on populating the cover sheet of a mechanical project. The cover sheet can include a 3D image of the overall project and general notes or abbreviations, providing an overview of the project at a glance.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Welcome back to the VDCF video content for the Revit MEP course, Mechanical. In the previous video, we started talking about different ways of viewing our model. And the first one we kind of looked at was this air terminal schedule.
I actually noticed that I didn't quite make all of this correct. I'm actually going to drag this off and get it so it's all in one line. There we go.
And if you wanted to play with the formatting with this, you could. And we'll take a little bit of a deeper look at schedules here a little bit later. Because again, these are just a table view of our model.
We're just looking at specific things. So another way that we have of looking at the model, I'm going to go ahead and go to my Ceiling One Mechanical, my Working—let's go to my Working view. So one way I have of looking at it, and this one isn't used terribly often, but it is another way of looking at a model, is on my View tab here, I'm going to go over to my User Interface.
Under my User Interface, this is where you can turn on or off specific elements of the UI of Revit. So you can see I have things like Navigation Bar, Project Browser, Properties, Status Bar, so on and so forth. Well, another one that is there is called the System Browser.
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If you check the box for System Browser, it displays a hierarchical list of the components in each discipline in a project, either by system or by zone. Use the System Browser to find components that may not be assigned to a system and show load or flow information. So really where this is going to be useful is if you have a project that you're working through and you want to make sure that everything is modeled correctly, that there's nothing kind of off on its own system or whatnot. We're gonna take a peek at this.
If I go here to System Browser, it comes up as a dockable item. So you can see I have a whole bunch of unassigned systems. And I have a mechanical system.
If I pick down here, different exhaust airs—so Mechanical Exhaust Air One. And if I'm clicking through these, you'll notice that it will actually highlight it in the model. So I can see what the flow is.
So how much flow is there? So like this Mechanical System One—or this Exhaust Air One—is this system here. If I went to, say, a supply air, you can see all these different supply airs I have.
And as you click through it, it'll kind of start to highlight in the model if it's on your particular view. So this is one way of going ahead and using this. I haven't seen it used too terribly much.
But this is a methodology of maybe figuring out a system and figuring out maybe exactly how much CFM it is—all that kind of good stuff. But it's kind of a different way of doing it. This is a dockable window.
If I drag it off, you can see I can have it—I could drag it to another monitor, I could dock it somewhere else. Pretty sure I could stack it with, like, Properties if I wanted to. You can do quite a few different things with this.
But that's another way of looking at our model. I'm going to go and close that out. Again, that's going to be under User Interface, my System Browser.
Another thing that we can go ahead and do is that we have—we have three sheets currently, right? Or four sheets, because we just created that schedule sheet. But I have a Mechanical Plan One, Mechanical Plan Two, our Roof Plan—we're going to create a couple of other sheets. What I'm going to first create is a new sheet here.
I'm going to use that VDCIE 30 × 42 and hit OK. I'm going to name this one. So I'm going to hit F2 to do the rename.
And you can use F2. I actually—this is a new thing I've started kind of using—is F2 to rename these things. It will rename sheets and everything and views in the Revit Project Browser.
It'll also rename files and folders within the Windows environment, which is kind of nice. I'm going to name this M-001. And I'm just going to go ahead and call this Mechanical Cover Sheet.
There we go. I'm going to create another new sheet. I'm going to use that same VDCIE 30 × 42.
Hit OK. I'm going to go ahead—now you see it popped in here.
I'm going to rename this one. This one's going to be M-401. I'm going to go ahead and name this Mechanical Enlargeties.
We're going to do something kind of cool here in a little bit. I'm going to do one other sheet because we're going to talk about some details. I'm going to go right-click New Sheet.
I'm a VDCIE 30 × 42. Hit OK. And I'm going to rename this one to be M-501 and call this Mechanical Details.
So I've kind of ordered these sheets as they would be per the National CAD Standards. My zero series here—this is just my cover sheet. The M obviously stands for Mechanical.
That's my discipline designator. The dash here—this is actually a holder for a secondary discipline designator. If I had, say, Mechanical Demo, I would not have this dash.
I would just have MD and then a sheet number. I have the 100 series, which are my plans. I have the 400 series, which are going to be my large views.
Now I'm jumping from M-100 to 400 because I really don't have any plan or elevations or sections. The 200 and 300 series of sheets are typically reserved for your elevations and sections. I have my M-500 series, which are going to be my details and my detailing.
And we'll talk about that when we start to put those together. And then my 600 series, which is my schedules. So you should have these 1,2, 3,4, 5,6, 7 sheets there.
And let's go ahead and go to our Mechanical Cover Sheet. So the Mechanical Cover Sheet can house different types of information depending on the project. Most offices will have a standard of what they want to have on their cover sheet.
Traditionally, it may show a 3D image of the overall project. That's kind of a more of a showy cover sheet, I'd say. Sometimes they'll also put the general notes or abbreviations or those kinds of things on here.
We're going to go ahead and kind of do a combo. We're going to have both a 3D view that is aligned and locked and oriented a certain way. And then we're going to go ahead and have some general notes and details put also on here—or abbreviations.
So I'm going to go and stop this video here. When we come back, we'll go ahead and populate these sheets and we'll get more into the documentation. See you then.