Linework Tip

Its raining in Waltham.  The building energy program has increased the lighting a bit to compensate for the gray day outside.  Perfect atmosphere to compose and share a Revit tip.

The line work tool lives here on the Modify Tab in 2011 (similar for 2010).

The tool simply allows you to change the view specific style of a model edges (cut or projection) to a line style different than the one assigned to the category.  Common uses may be to increase the weight of specific lines or eliminate them by choosing the style <Invisible Lines>.  To set a line back to its default you choose <By Category>.

A neat trick first proposed by the developer that implemented the tool way back in the day is to use the line work on lines from other views displayed via underlay.  I'll demonstrate on this simple model.

In the Level 1 view I'll set the view underlay property to Level 2 so I can see the roof.

The lines from the gable roof ridge and eve are now displayed.  Using the line work tool set the line style to <Overhead> and click each of the eave lines.

This will cause the edges to appear in the overhead style (dashed).  Next turn off the Level 2 underlay and note that the view specific line work remains.  The line work is not just visible but is still referencing the original edges even though they are not displayed.  When an edit affects the roof the overhead lines will adjust automatically.

Other overhead elements such as slab openings, balconies, lighting, and soffits can also be referenced using this line work technique. Give it a try.

_erik

Comments

[Scott Davis]

Do you remember in Revit 1.0,and maybe 2.0, the overhead line style was automatically applied to roof overrhangs/eaves? Then customers said they wanted to control when these lines were displayed or not. I think that's when this little linework trick/tool was born.

[Erik]

Its definitely from around that vintage but I never knew the specific request. The ability to apply to cut edges and partial edges was added a bit later.

[Brad Clark]

This is one of my favorite tools that blows people's (even seasoned Revit users) minds when I show it to them. Thanks for the blog mention. I'm adding a link to this post to our KB.

[Marc Toppel]

I know the trick, but the overlay things doesn't work how you want it many times. It's unpredictable if it'll show the actual floors or roofs above.

[Franck Bricaud]

cette astuce, je l'utilise et l'enseigne depuis plusieurs années. Elle est parfaite.
La seule problématique concerne le niveau en fond de plan ; il nous faudrait plusieurs améliorations :
- les worksets de la vue courante commande les éléments du niveau en fond de plan (pas toujours pratique)
- Au lieu de choisir un niveau en fond de plan, il faudrait une vue en fond de plan (et donc avec annotations), avec possibilités d'exclure les annotations/détails.
- possibilité de verrouiller le niveau en fond de plan (pas de sélection possible des éléments du fond de plan)
- Pouvoir choisir une couleur pour le niveau en fond de plan

[Tim Waldock]

We have used this technique in the past - yes it is great that the roof overhead outline changes when the roof does. But there is another problem:
Because you can easily select the dashed lines representing the roof above, it means that an unwary user can move or delete the entire roof way too easily. It just needs one wrong click with the align tool (or something similar) to cause havoc, and the user won't even know what they've done.

If only Revit had some clever way of locking down the underlay elements so that the only tool that can modify them is Linework, then I'd recommend my users to follow this technique.

[Tim Waldock]

There is another issue with the linework tool:
The rationale for when the blue dots appear when you select a line seems quite random. However, once you know that they never appear on cut lines it seems more consistent, but even so, I'm still not convinced that they always appear when they should.

What is the reason behind not being able use the linework blue dots on a cut line? I have often wanted to do this, and wondered if it was one of those decisions made by a programmer, or maybe there is a technical reason why it can't happen?

[Anthony Hauck]

Making underlay not selectable is a popular request.  Its good you bring it up. It would seem it either needs a setting or a additional step to affect the underlying element.  TAB or some as you call it clever way.

[Anthony Hauck]

Merci Franck pour les autres améliorations.
Possibilité de bloquer le plan de niveau inférieur ou le vue est une demande populaire.
Choix dune couleur cest utile aussi. En 2010, nous a permis de définir certaines propriétés, mais ne pas la couleur.

Cest vrai aussi une carte de base au niveau est moin bon que la vue comme un fond de carte.

[Tim Waldock]

Yes colour overrides for underlays would be useful too - in fact much more useful than weight or linestyle. When I first saw the underlay override capability in v2010 I was at first disappointed that it project-wide rather than view based. However, I think that view-based overrides would be opening a pandora's box (rather like the new v2011 workset visibility controls have increased flexibility, but made things really confusing for our users).

Another issue with the linework tool is the process of resetting the linework overrides - it currently has to be done by laboriously setting each line to "By Category", which is such a pain as it is not obvious which lines have been over-ridden. A right click "Reset linework on element" option to reset any linework to By Category on a given object would speed this up; however, this might allow accidental global changes outside the field of vision or loss of work.

[www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmgZbAI6ZYIfszFhwqIro-voqDQnXvXRa8]

Has the plotting issue associated with this technique been resolved?
Because in a previous version of revit when the linework was obstructed by a slab it occasionally wouldn’t print.

[Anthony Hauck]

RE: Has the plotting issue associated with this technique been resolved?
Because in a previous version of revit when the linework was obstructed by a slab it occasionally wouldn’t print.

I checked on this.  I was able to find one issue with beams but it seemed to be related to the content rathe rthan the linework tool.  Can you email me an example?  I can make sure it gets the right attention.  It may still be filed elsewhere and I am just unable to find it but I can file my own.  [email protected]