Mastering Revit Architecture 2008

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Mastering™

Revit®

Architecture 2008

Tatjana Dzambazova

Greg Demchak

Eddy Krygiel

44831.book Page iii Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

44831.book Page ii Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

Mastering™

Revit®

Architecture 2008

44831.book Page i Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

44831.book Page ii Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Mastering™

Revit®

Architecture 2008

Tatjana Dzambazova

Greg Demchak

Eddy Krygiel

44831.book Page iii Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

Acquisitions Editor: Willem Knibbe

Development Editor: Jim Compton

Production Editor: Eric Charbonneau

Copy Editors: Tiffany Taylor, Judy Flynn

Production Manager: Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher: Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher: Joseph B. Wikert

Vice President and Publisher: Neil Edde

Book Designer: Maureen Forys, Judy Fung

Compositor: Craig W. Johnson, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Proofreader: Ian Golder

Indexer: Ted Laux

Anniversary Logo Design: Richard Pacifico

Cover Designer: Ryan Sneed

Cover Image: © Pete Gardner / Digital Vision / Getty Images

Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-4701-4483-1

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the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Krygiel, Eddy, 1972-

Mastering Revit architecture 2008 / Eddy Krygiel, Tatjana Dzambazova, Greg Demchak.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-470-14483-1 (pbk.)

1. Architectural drawing--Computer-aided design. 2. Architectural design--Data processing. I. Dzambazova, Tatjana. II. Demchak, Greg. III.

Title.

NA2728.K793 2008

720.28'40285536--dc22

TRADEMARKS: Wiley, the Wiley logo, and the Sybex logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affil￾iates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Revit is a registered trademark of Autodesk,

Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor men￾tioned in this book.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

44831.book Page iv Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing Mastering Revit Architecture 2008. This book is part of a family of premium

quality Sybex books, all written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a

gift for teaching.

Sybex was founded in 1976. More than thirty years later, we’re still committed to producing con￾sistently exceptional books. With each of our titles we’re working hard to set a new standard for the

industry. From the paper we print on, to the authors we work with, our goal is to bring you the best

books available.

I hope you see all that reflected in these pages. I’d be very interested to hear your comments and

get your feedback on how we’re doing. Feel free to let me know what you think about this or any

other Sybex book by sending me an email at [email protected], or if you think you’ve found a

technical error in this book, please visit http://sybex.custhelp.com. Customer feedback is

critical to our efforts at Sybex.

Best regards,

Neil Edde

Vice President and Publisher

Sybex, an Imprint of Wiley

44831.book Page v Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

To my dad Aleksander and my brother Igor who I miss

so much. To all the authors who are brave enough to

write books that live much longer than themselves. And

to a part of my life that went into writing this book.

—Tatjana

To all my students over the years; you make this worth

the effort.

—Greg

To all my critters.

—Eddy

44831.book Page vi Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

Acknowledgments

Hats off to the innovators who conceptualized, designed, and made Revit happen. You have

changed the world! Huge thanks to all the faithful followers! Without you, Revit wouldn’t be what

it is today.

Personal thanks to the Grand Master Philippe Drouant, without whose expertise, generous help,

and amazing illustrations we wouldn’t have been able to make this book. Many thanks to Guillermo

Melantoni and Erik Egbertson, whose participation was crucial to getting this book out the door. To

all our friends who have contributed to this book, the inspirational leaders Mario Guttman and Ken

Sanders for their contributions and to the development of Revit, we wish to extend our sincerest

gratitude.

And finally, huge thanks are due to our excellent support team at Sybex: Jim Compton, for his

great editorial insight and patience; Craig W. Johnson at Happenstance Type-O-Rama, copy editors

Tiffany Taylor and Judy Flynn, and proofreader Ian Golder for making us look good in print; Eric

Charbonneau for managing the schedule; and our friend Willem Knibbe for his constant support

and positive attitude in the face of our deadlines. Janet Chang and Pete Gaughan also helped out

behind the scenes.

44831.book Page vii Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

About the Authors

Tatjana Dzambazova was the product manager for Revit Archi￾tecture in Autodesk for the last two years and has recently moved

into a new position where she explores emerging technologies,

immersive experiences, and the impact of the Web 2.0 on our

lifestyles. Before joining Autodesk in 2000, she practiced architec￾ture for 12 years in Vienna and London. At Autodesk, she has

focused on evangelizing technology and established herself as

an internationally renowned speaker who has fostered relation￾ships with architects and industry leaders around the globe.

Powered with seemingly unlimited resources of energy, Tanja

manages to make three days out of one, and when she is not

working (is that ever?) or coauthoring technology books, she is

advocating wildlife conservation and sustainability, reading

books like a maniac, and getting inspired at the theater. If you’re

lucky enough to be in the Bay Area, you might catch a glimpse of

Tanja cruising the streets on her Ducati Monster.

Greg Demchak is a designer, technology advocate, urban

explorer, and post-apocalyptic webisode producer. He holds

architectural degrees from the University of Oregon and

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a product designer

for Revit Architecture and has been working with Revit since the

year 2000 (Release 2.0, if anyone’s counting). He has been teach￾ing Revit and BIM technology at the Boston Architectural College

since 2003. He currently lives in Massachusetts.

Eddy Krygiel is a registered architect, a LEED Accredited Profes￾sional, and an Autodesk Authorized Author at BNIM Architects.

He has been using Revit since version 5.1 to complete projects

ranging from single-family residences to office buildings as large

as 1.12 million square feet. Eddy is responsible for implementing

BIM at his firm and consults for other architecture and contract￾ing firms looking to implement BIM. For the last three years, he

has been teaching Revit to practicing architects and architectural

students in the Kansas City area and has lectured around the

nation on the use of BIM in the construction industry. Eddy also

coauthored a paper on sustainability and BIM that was presented

at the 2006 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice conference.

44831.book Page viii Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

Contents at a Glance

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

Chapter 1 • Understanding BIM: From the Basics to Advanced Realities . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2 • Revit Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Chapter 3 • Know Your Editing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chapter 4 • Setting up your templates and Office Standards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Chapter 5 • Customizing System Families and Project Settings in Your Template . . 127

Chapter 6 • Modeling Principles in Revit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Chapter 7 • Concept Massing Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Chapter 8 • From Conceptual Mass to a Real Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Chapter 9 • Working with Design Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Chapter 10 • Creating Custom 3D Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Chapter 11 • Extended Modeling Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Chapter 12 • Presenting Your Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Chapter 13 • Fine-Tuning Your Preliminary Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

Chapter 14 • Evaluating Your Preliminary Design: Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

Chapter 15 • Annotating Your Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Chapter 16 • Developing the Design with Smart Workflows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

Chapter 17 • Moving from Design to Detailed Documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

Chapter 18 • Advanced Detailing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

Chapter 19 • Tracking Changes in Your Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601

Chapter 20 • Worksharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

44831.book Page ix Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

x CONTENTS AT A GLANCE

Chapter 21 • Troubleshooting and Optimizing Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635

Appendix A • The Bottom Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667

44831.book Page x Friday, October 12, 2007 12:31 AM

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

Chapter 1 • Understanding BIM: From the

Basics to Advanced Realities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Advantages of Building Information Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

A Brief History of Design and Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Building Information Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

What to Expect from BIM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Be Creative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Every Element in Revit Has Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Elements Interact with Other Elements—All the Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Duplicating a View Takes Two Clicks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Problem-Solve Your Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

You Create a Full Range of Documents with BIM, Not Just a 3D Model . . . . . . . . . . 7

Embrace the Family Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Forget About Layers and X-References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

BIM Is More Than a Technology: It’s a Change in Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Revit Is Relatively New Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Where Can You Go From Here? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Chapter 2 • Revit Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Working with Revit Parametric Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Model Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Annotation Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Subcategories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Imported Categories/Subcategories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Type and Instance Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Bidirectional Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Revit Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Overriding the Representation of Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

The Revit User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

The View Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

The Design Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

The Options Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

The Project Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Using the Project Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Working with Views and View Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

44831ftoc.fm Page xi Friday, October 12, 2007 8:09 AM

xii CONTENTS

Chapter 3 • Know Your Editing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Selecting, Changing, and Replacing Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Copy/Paste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Place Similar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Editing Elements Interactively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Moving Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Rotating and Mirroring Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Arraying Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Resizing Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Aligning Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Trimming and Extending Lines and Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Splitting Lines and Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Offsetting Lines and Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Keeping Elements from Moving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Other Useful Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Join Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Split Face and Paint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Keyboard Shortcuts (Accelerators) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Chapter 4 • Setting up your templates and Office Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Starting a Project with a Custom Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Strategies for Making Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Settings for Graphic Consistency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Object Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Line Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Line Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Fill Patterns (Hatch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Dimension Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Creating Custom Annotation Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

View Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Customizing Element Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Keynotes and Text Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Creating Custom Title Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Creating a Custom Title Block with the Family Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Chapter 5 • Customizing System Families and

Project Settings in Your Template. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Wall Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Creating Custom Wall Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Floor and Roof Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Ceiling Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

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