Discover the different ways of viewing a Revit model and learn how to prepare documentation using these views. This article provides a step-by-step guide on creating a schedule, a table view of the model looking for specific elements, and placing it on a sheet.
Key Insights
- Revit models can be viewed in different ways, including 3D view, different floor plans, ceiling plans, 3D sheets, and schedules. The latter is a table view of the model looking for specific elements.
- Creating a schedule involves choosing elements for the schedule, adding fields, and adjusting the formatting. The fields are parameters pulled from the individual families, and the formatting can be adjusted as per the user's requirements.
- After creating a schedule, it can be placed on a sheet. Sheets traditionally reserve the 600 series for schedules. Overriding a field in the schedule does not alter the parameter that is being scheduled, and the alignment of the text in the fields can be centrally adjusted.
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 course content for the Revit Framing Mechanical. In the previous videos, we went ahead and finished up our system. In these next series of videos, we're going to go ahead and start preparing some documentation, but before I get into that, I wanted to kind of take a look at the different ways we have of looking at our model, and this is going to go ahead and tie into our documentation.
So I'm currently here in the 3D view and I currently have a section box applied. The Revit link is visible using the section box. I'm able to go ahead and cut away certain portions.
I'm actually going to go ahead and remove my section box. So I think we're all pretty familiar with the 3D version of viewing a Revit model. Obviously, we also have our different floor plans here in the Project Browser, our different ceiling plans, 3D, and sheets.
Obviously, these views here go on the sheets. Another way of looking at our model would actually be what is called a schedule. Now, in the terms of Revit, a schedule is nothing more than a table view of your model looking for specific elements.
So realistically, that schedule view is seeing the same exact model elements that you see in your particular view. So let's say I want to go ahead and create an Air Terminal Schedule. What I could end up doing is I'm going to go to View, I'm going to go to Schedules, Schedule Quantities.
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I'm going to choose what I want to be. Well, I want to go ahead and use Air Terminals. I'm going to schedule my building components and I'm also going to be under Phase: New Construction.
I'm going to hit OK. Now, to create this schedule, I need to add fields. Now, fields are parameters that are pulled from the individual families.
You can see the available fields. We have quite a few of them in here and these are all kind of put in here. So what I want to go ahead and do is I'm going to select Type Mark, bring that over.
I can also go ahead and bring in, let's see here, where is Type. I could bring in Type Comments and we'll go ahead and have that for now. I'm going to go ahead and also scroll up and find Manufacturer, and let's see—is that all I want?
I think that's about it and there we go. Oh, I also want to go ahead and bring in CFM, and notice there's another Comments here. Now, you'll notice I have Type Comments and Comments.
Now, this kind of goes back to some Revit basics with regard to type parameters, which is what these Type Comments are, versus Comments, which are on the instance. So these comments that are Type Comments go for every instance of that type, though these Comments here only go for the individual instance.
So let's see—everything else is good. I don't think I need anything else. We're going to go ahead and bring in Family also just to kind of see how that happens.
Everything there is good. Let's go ahead and bring in Size, and we'll just kind of pull on some of these different items so you can kind of see what's happening. I'm going to go ahead and hit OK, and we've effectively created a schedule. So you can see some are already put together, some are not.
So I have my Type Mark. Now, Type Mark has not been defined for any of these yet. There's Type, Type Comments, Family, Size, Manufacturer, CFM.
We may need to figure out exactly what parameters populate in the CFM, and we'll kind of take a peek at that here in a second. But you can see this is going to list every single diffuser that is in my project. Now, I don't necessarily need to show my diffusers in this fashion for this Air Terminal Schedule.
I only really need to show one type of this. So what I'm going to go ahead and do is I'm going to go ahead and I can filter or sort and group this. The biggest item here is “Itemize Every Instance.”
Now, I could uncheck “Itemize Every Instance, ” and I hit OK. I haven't established any sorting, so it just tells me everything varies.
Let's go ahead and go back to “Itemize Every Instance.” I'm going to go ahead and hit OK. Now, from here, I need to give some items to sort this by.
Well, let's go ahead and populate some marks. So looking at our types, we have our Supply Diffuser here, rectangular, and I'm going to set the Type Mark to A. Enter. Now, because this is a Type Mark, it's telling me this will change all elements applied.
Hit OK. So you'll notice all of my A's now are listed here. This is my Return Diffuser.
So I'm going to go ahead and call this a B Diffuser. Hit ENTER. Hit OK.
And again, because it's a Type Mark, it applies to every single instance. This is my Perforated Return. We'll go ahead and name this one a C. That's going to be applied to everyone there.
Perfect. And I think—is that all we have? Oh, we have some Exhaust Grilles. I'm going to make those a D. And this is just one way of populating.
I can go to these families and do that. This is my 36×12. These are the on-duct diffusers in the gym.
We just did D, so let's go ahead and go to E. Hit OK. And there we are. Perfect.
Now I'm going to go to my Sorting and Grouping. I'm going to change my Sort By. I'm going to sort by Type Mark.
And that's really all I need to do. I hit OK. And so now it's going to group all of the A's together, all of the B's together, and so on and so forth.
If I go back to my Sorting and Grouping, let's see what happens when I uncheck “Itemize Every Instance.” Hit OK. Now, you see I have a very nice Air Terminal Schedule that is with Type Mark, Type, Type Comments, Family, Size, Manufacturer, and CFM.
Great. So that's kind of a quick and easy way to create a schedule. The one thing about these schedules is obviously we want to go ahead and make sure that our formatting is set up correctly.
So I'm going to go to my Air Terminal Schedule. I'm going to hit Caps Lock here, and I'm actually going to type it in as AIR TERMINAL SCHEDULE. I'm going to go ahead—instead of this being Mark, I can override this to just say MARK in caps.
I can change this to TYPE. I can—instead of this being Type Comments, I can just say COMMENTS. I can leave that.
I can have this as FAMILY, but we may want to change that from Family. I can give SIZE, or I could say CONNECTION SIZE, because I might have a connection size and then a face size, right? Because this is a 24×24 face with a 12×12 connection. MANUFACTURER.
So I'm going to go ahead and make sure that's all in caps. I will say that overriding it here does not change the parameter that is being scheduled, and I'll show you in the CFM. I'm going to go to Fields and notice, I still have the same fields scheduled here.
And up here, this still says MARK. This is just so that it looks correct there. The other thing I'm going to go ahead and do is I'm going to change some of the formatting of this.
So under Formatting, I'm going to go to my Type Mark. I'm going to change the alignment to Center. I'm going to go to Size, Manufacturer, and CFM.
Also change that to Center. And that is going to center up this text. Hit OK.
And there we are. Through this process, we'll create a couple of other schedules. And you can see here, I can go ahead and move those around and adjust so I can see the entire name there.
Let's go ahead and make that a little bigger, and we'll leave the CFM there. So from here, what I'm going to go ahead and do is I'm going to create a new sheet and place this on the sheet. So I'm going to go to Sheets.
I'm going to right-click New Sheet. I'm going to use that VDCI E1 30×42. Hit OK.
I'm going to name this. I'm going to rename it. So right-click Rename.
This is going to be my M-601. Now, you may be wondering why I'm saying 600 series of sheets. Well, traditionally, my 600 series of sheets are reserved for my schedules.
So, and then I'm going to go ahead and go in here and type in SCHEDULES and hit OK. Now, some offices may decide to put, like typical schedules, on a cover sheet. On this one, we're just going to go ahead and put it in our M-600.
To put this schedule on a sheet, I'm going to expand this out. I'm going to come here to my Air Terminal Schedule. I'm going to drag over to here.
And there we are. While I'm here, I can go ahead—I want everything to be on one line.
So I'm going to adjust these sizes a little bit. And if I need to move it around, I do kind of sometimes like to kind of get up in here and get it so it's aligned with my printable area. But traditionally, you want to do that after you've done all of this sizing.
So see—now I have it all as one. So what I can go ahead and do is drag it in here and go there. Perfect.
So this is technically a view of the model. I'm seeing model elements, but I have certain filters and certain things applied. I'm going to go ahead and stop this video here.
We're going to look at a couple of other different ways of looking at the model. See you then.