Placing Reinforcing Bar and Annotations in Revit Structure Detail

Hello and welcome to Revit Structure. Let's get started. In our previous video, we had placed components and annotations in a detail that we had imported from AutoCAD into our Revit project.

Let's continue on with a couple more. First thing we want to do is look at the second detail we imported, Wall at Foundation Interior*. We're going to change this since we have a Revit detail that looks more correct as a wall detail, and we’re going to change this to a Column detail.

What we're going to do is change the name only. Let's pick the detail, and what that does is activate the Title Line*. We can change the title here, or we can go to our Properties panel and see that we can change it in the View Name*.

Let's go with this location first. Let's pick it and change Wall to Column*. There you have it.

Now you have Column at Foundation Interior*, and it has also changed in our Properties*. Very good. Let's get started placing some reinforcing bar and annotations in this detail.

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The first thing we want to do is right-click and Activate View*, or we can double-click it to activate. Let's go to our Annotate tab and choose Components*. Let's pick that, and we see we have the Reinforcing Bar Section*.

Let's start with our vertical and horizontal bars first. Let's open the dropdown. Let's scroll to Elevation*, and here we see we have options from No. 3 bar to No. 18 bar.

We'll use the No. 3 bar because we want a clear and concise detail. Let's pick that. Here we have a horizontal bar.

We can place it here, and we can place it here. If we hit the spacebar, we get a vertical bar. We'll place it here.

Let's escape out of that command. The reason I haven’t placed it on the other two faces of the column and slab is because we’re going to mirror them so they are equally spaced on each side. So let’s go to our Modify tab.

Let’s go to Mirror*. Let’s go to the midpoint of the footing. Let’s draw a line straight up, press Escape to exit the command, and there you have it.

Now we can stretch these again to the border or to the breakline, and we’ll do the same with the vertical bars. Now, since we have Column ties, what we’re going to do is copy a horizontal bar as a symbolic representation of the stirrups and place it here. Escape out of that, and since the reinforcing bar is a sketched element, we can pick it and align it with the outside edge.

Let’s see if we can get that to snap to the outside edge. There we go. Let’s do this one.

There we have it. Let’s escape out of that. Now we can copy that bar vertically.

Let’s go to Copy*, and choose Multiple*. Let’s pick anywhere and give it any length we want.

Let’s start the first ones at 3". Let’s do three at 3", and with Revit, we can use a fractional entry for that. Let’s go 1'-0" after that.

We can type in “1” and there we have our ties. Let’s clean this up a little. Let’s move this one a little to the left so it aligns properly with the edge.

There it is. There we have it. Now let’s stretch this bar out to here.

Now we have our horizontal and vertical reinforcing. Let’s place our dowel bars from the column into the footing. Again, let’s go to the Annotate tab.

Let’s go to Components*. Let’s go to our dropdown in the Properties panel. Let’s select Bar Bend*.

Again, we’ll use the No. 3 bar. Every office is different—use what your office or Designer specifies.

Let’s place it here. Press Escape*. Let’s pick the bar.

Let’s give it a length of 4'-0". Again, trial and error. Let’s set that to 1'-0".

Let’s set this one to 4'-0", and now you have a dowel bar. And since it’s still selected, let’s mirror that bar. Let’s go to the middle vertical line.

There you have your dowel bars from your column to your footing. Now let’s finish this by placing our horizontal bars that are going away from the viewer in the screen. Again, go to Annotate*, Components*.

Let’s pick that, and again, we want the Bar Section*. Let’s go to the Bar Sections list and use the No. 5 bar. It gives us a better graphical appearance.

Let’s place it here. Generally, we don’t have to get out of the command. You can continue placing and dimensioning, but I prefer to use Copy*.

Dimensioning works better in this case. Let’s use Copy*, and we can gauge how much spacing we want. Since we’re working with 2'-8", let’s use 10" on center.

Since we have Multiple selected, it will continue placing bars until we cancel. There we have it. Now let’s mirror.

Draw once, copy twice. It’s an efficient workflow. Let’s go here.

Let’s go to the center. Let’s place this. There you have the bars.

Now let’s place them in the slab. Let’s go to Components*, and you’ll see it defaulted to our last-used bar. We don’t have to select it again.

We just place it. Escape out of that. Go to Copy*.

Let’s copy more bars in. Let’s use 12" on center here. Then let’s mirror them over to the opposite side.

There you have it. We’ve just placed elements in our detail. Now what we’re going to do is add some hatching in this detail to improve clarity.

Let’s go to Region*. Here we have Concrete Filled Region*. We want to edit it slightly to make it transparent instead of opaque.

So let’s click Duplicate*. Let’s rename it Concrete – Transparent*.

Let’s change its Background property. Open the dropdown, select Transparent*, and click OK*. Now we can place it.

We can use Pick Lines or draw over the existing geometry. For the Line Style*, we want Invisible Lines because we’re only creating a Filled Region*. Alternatively, you can use Visible Lines if needed.

I prefer using Pick Lines*. Now let’s pick the outside edges of the element. Let’s trim the corners, then click OK*.

Since it’s transparent, our placed elements show through. Let’s continue placing more Filled Region in the rest of this detail. Again, go to Region*, and it’s already defaulted to Concrete – Transparent*.

Let’s go to Rectangle and outline our footing. Click OK*. Then we can right-click and repeat our last command.

Let’s go here. Go again to Pick Lines*. Let’s trim the corners.

We need to trim one more here. There you go. One more here.

Let’s finish trimming. Click OK*. If you get an error about intersecting lines—

Let’s go back and continue trimming. When that happens, either two lines overlap or the boundary is not properly closed.

It looks like there are two lines. Down at the bottom right corner, Revit will notify you. We have two lines there.

Let’s delete one. Let’s make sure everything is trimmed properly. Okay, it looks good.

Click OK*. Again, check to see if two lines are drawn. In this case, they are.

Delete the duplicate. Type TR*, then trim it.

Just double-check to ensure everything is clean and properly trimmed. Click OK*. And there you have it.

Now, instead of drawing it again on the other side, let’s mirror it. Select it. Go to Mirror*.

And now you have a complete detail with hatching and reinforcing. That’s it for this detail. We’ll come back in the next video and finish annotating the remainder of this sheet.