Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Revit 2013 - View Types

It is now possible to create new view types for all views except for area plans and sheet. This means you can create your own versions of floor plans according to discipline or perhaps design phase. We've been able to do this with sections, elevations and detail views for some time. As Revit's features have been merged into the new Building Design Suite "Revit" it became apparent that putting all the tools in one box created some curious view, view template and discipline control issues that had to be sorted out, thus being able to create view types for more views was born.

Further, views can be tied to view templates and have changes to a view template take effect immediately in a view or many views. We can apply a view template like before, just to make a change or we can assign a view template to the view so that it will alter the view without the past extra step of applying the view template. This is the typical assumed behavior that most people where surprised to learn did not happen in the past.

One curious thing that is documented at the WikiHelp site regarding these new view types, changing a view from one type to another does not actually apply the view template change that is assigned (if any) to the view. It is an instance parameter so it's an extra step you've got to take to make sure the view has the correct template assigned.

If you use the Apply View template option on a view assigned to view template already you'll get this message.


It's confirming that you really want to apply a different template's settings to the view. It also says that the only properties that will be altered are those that aren't in conflict with the other template. Hopefully the swapping of view types won't occur much after creating them initially and getting this sorted out. If you do find yourself needing to swap them around, just remember to check the view template assignment.

Tip: They've added View Template to the available fields in View Lists (schedule) so it can be managed there too.

3 comments:

Valkin said...

We have actually been able to do this with Area plans for some time, in a way. To create the different Area plan view types you have to create different Area Schemes.

Steve said...

The distinction is theirs, the view type behavior of other views is not landlocked to a area scheme and we can't create a new view type with the same tools for area plans.

Bill Allen said...

Thanks Steve. I wanted to mention you can still create new area types, just not the same way you do for plans, sections, etc. You have to go to the "Room & Area" button under the Architecture tab/Area and Volume Computations, and click the Area Schemes (not to be confused with color schemes) Tab. When you create new "Area Schemes", it creates the new "Area Type" in revit when you creat a new area plan.