Revit Architecture 2011 Interface,InfoCenter and Properties

Revit Architecture 2011 Interface Organization 
InfoCenter
To the far right of the QAT is the InfoCenter.

From left to right, you have the ability to search, access the Subscription Center, access the
Communication Center, save favorites, and get help.

Properties
The Properties tab contains the instance parameters of whatever you’re currently working on.
From this palette you can access the Type Selector, filter properties, and edit type parameters.

Revit Architecture 2011 Interface,Application Button and Quick Access Toolbar

 Revit Architecture 2011 Interface Organization
Application Button
The Application button,

also called the application menu, allows you to access commonly used commands: New, Open, Save, Print, and so on. You can also export your project to a number of 2D and 3D formats from this menu. This is also where you would manage licensing information. The Publish option will allow you to publish RFA files to Autodesk Seek.

Quick Access Toolbar
The Quick Access toolbar (QAT) allows you to create a group of frequently used tools into one selection area.

Right-clicking a command in one of the tabs will allow you to add elements to the QAT

By clicking the small, down-facing arrow to the far right of the QAT, you’ll find that commands
may be further customized, grouped, and removed from the toolbar.

You also have the option to show the QAT below the Ribbon.

Revit 2011 Interface Organization

Interface Organization
As mentioned, the interface has evolved for Revit Architecture 2011 and has improved in a lot of areas. Persistence of command location is the key. So even though functions remain contextually exposed and hidden depending on what you’re working on, the majority of those contextual commands are in the same place.

shows the Revit 2011 UI. To illustrate some different project views, we’ve tiled four different view windows: Plan, Elevation, 3D, and Sheet.

Revit 2011 Project management

Management
Project management has to do with all the project settings that control (and therefore restrict)
any number of project variables. Looking at the Revit organizational chart ,we’ll discuss each of the management options in the rest of the chapter as we discuss the UI.
At the moment, the most important part of project organization to discuss is worksets, because this has to do with workflow and how the team comes together to work on the project simultaneously. Worksharing is covered in more detail, but we’ll cover this topic here at a high level as it relates to overall workflow of Revit.

There are two kinds of worksets: system managed and user managed. The user cannot create, manage, or assign system-managed worksets. Users can only create, manage, and assign worksets and elements that are assigned to user-created worksets.

When worksharing is enabled, Revit creates worksets for everything in the project: datum, content, views, and settings. Revit manages the worksets related to families, views, and project standards.

But as for the actual content that is being used in your project (not just loaded, but actually in use) such as datum, 3D host and system families, and spaces, Revit allows you to create, manage, and assign worksets to those elements. The elements that are assigned to user-defined worksets are illustrated in

Levels and grids are assigned to the Shared Levels And Grids workset. All other 3D project
geometry (system or components) is assigned to Workset1. The great thing is that you only need to create and assign workset to a limited number of things that you’re using in your project. Revit is managing the worksets assigned to everything else.

Revit 2011 Create 3D Views

There are two kinds of 3D views in Revit: orthographic and perspective. 3D views are orthographic, and Camera and Walkthrough views are in perspective. You can’t change one to another after the fact, so select carefully.

Orthographic views will always show parallel edges along Cartesian X-, Y-, and Z-axes. Orthographic views are best if you need to show model information to scale. A lot of people don’t realize that it’s possible to dimension and detail in Revit from a 3D orthographic view. After isolating the part of the model that you want to dimension, the trick is to set the appropriate work plane.

before dimensioning.
As long as you’re careful about setting the work plane as you work, you can add dimensions and text to your views, as shown in

Create perspective views by placing the start and end points of a camera (typically from a plan view). It should be noted that the first point you select in plan is where the view will be taken from, but the second point is also the rotation origin for the view.

This is important because if you select a second point that is far beyond your view, when you open the view and attempt to modify it, it will rotate around a target that doesn’t seem to make sense. That’s because the target location of the view is off in the distance. A perspective view will not be to scale, but it can be made relatively larger or smaller by selecting the view’s boundary and then selecting the size crop from the Modify | Camera tab.

Once you do this, you’ll have the option to change the view size and field of view (proportionally or nonproportionally). You can also simply drag the nodes of the bounding box.

Camera extents are defined by the Far Clip Offset option, accessed in the View Properties’ View Extents settings.

If the Far Clip Offset is too shallow, the view will look something that.

Geometry that you’d expect to see will be “clipped” in the view.

Simply increase the Far Clip Offset value to show more of the model. You may also do this graphically by returning to a plan view, right-clicking the view, and selecting Show Camera.

Once the camera is shown in your plan view, you may select the node at the far end of your clipping plane and manually drag the node to extend the Far Clip Offset of your view.

Finally, 3D views (even walkthroughs) contain section boxes, which become active when selecting the Section Box option.

This will allow you to control how much of the project is shown and is helpful for creating cutaway visualizations in real time or in renderings.

Revit 2011 Creates Legends and Schedules

Legends
There are two types of legends: legends and keynote legends. Regular legends are used to assemble
analytic views of content in your project, graphics, geometry, tags, and so on—anything that lives in
your project. Legends may contain Detail, Repeating Detail, and Legend components.

A Legend component

is a special bidirectionally associative representation of 3D system and component families that may only appear in legend views (not drafting views). If the actual thing in your project changes, the representation of that thing in your legend will change as well.

Keynote legends are special schedules. When creating a keynote legend, you’ll be prompted
much the same way as you are when creating a schedule.

Schedules
There are five types of schedules in Revit: Schedule/Quantities, Material Takeoff, Sheet List, Note Block, and View List.

Schedules/Quantities in Revit are used to quantify the actual building elements that are being used in the project, not the elements that are loaded in the project.

Three categories of elements may be scheduled via Schedules/Quantities:

• Masses: Mass and Mass Floors
• Spaces: Rooms and Areas
• Content: System and component families

There is also a special schedule called a Multi-Category schedule. It is used to create and master schedule component families (and may only contain component families) across many categories. We think that being able to create a Multi-Category schedule that could contain everything in one place would be great, as it would allow you to see your entire project in one schedule. We hope this is being planned for the future.

Documentation
Sheets in Revit ultimately contain all the documentation for your project and will come in a variety of standard as well as custom sizes. The important thing to remember is that you’re not going to select a “scale” when you print a sheet; it’s really more like printing than “plotting.” If you need your sheet to be smaller or fit on the desired page, these options are available and little different than printing from a word processing application.

Revit 2011 Creates Callouts and Drafting Views

Callouts
There are two types of callouts: Detail and Floor Plan.

Although Detail callouts may look like Detail sections graphically, they’re not visible inside other perpendicular views. So a callout created in plan view will not be visible in elevations or sections like a Detail section.

It’s probably best to think of a Detail callout as an enlarged view. Its Far Clip settings are by default the same as the parent view.

You can think of a Floor Plan callout as another plan view but with associated callout graphics. Floor Plan callouts also have all the same view controls as a regular plan view, such as Depth Clipping and View Range.

Take a moment to note the line and control arrows around the border of the view. By modifying the location of these arrows, you’re modifying the extents of the view. Of course, more than plan views can have their extents modified; elevations, sections, and callouts can all have their view extents modified in the same way.

Drafting Views
Drafting views give you the ability to draw without first creating a reference to something in your project. They may contain Detail and Repeating Detail components, as well as all the annotation and documentation tools that Revit has to offer. Drafting views are great for drafting standard or analytic conditions that don’t require an actual geometric underlay.
And once you’ve created a drafting view, you may refer to this view when creating an elevation, section, detail, and so on that would normally rely on an actual view of the model. As you start to create a standard project view,

simply select the Reference Other View option and then you’ll be allowed to select a reference view from all the other like views in your project, as well as any drafting views.

Revit 2011 Creates Sections

Selecting the Section function on the View tab creates sections. By default, there are three types
of sections: Building, Wall, and Callout.

This allows them to be grouped with better
clarity in the Project Browser, but there are also other important properties.

Unlike elevations, the cut plane of a section must correspond with the line of the section.

shows the Instance Properties of a Building section. The far and side cut planes of a
section can also be controlled. This goes for both Building and Wall sections.

Neither Building nor Wall sections may be created in a nonperpendicular orientation with regard to project levels. But after you create them, they can be rotated in elevation. But this would lead to confusion in your project because once rotated, the section wouldn’t be available in plan. This is where the Detail section is such a great help. A Detail section that’s created in plan can not only be seen in corresponding views, but it will also presume different graphic conventions.
For example, take a look at the two Detail sections in

that are to the right of the Building section. When you create a Detail section, it will look like Detail Section 1. But when you view it in referring views, it will look like Detail Section 2. The other thing that you should note is the color of callout and selection heads in

These “blue” icons act as hyperlinks to the other views in your project. The great thing about them is they are automatically coordinated numerically when you place the views on your document set.

If we go to the view of the Building section, we see that the Detail sections are graphically the opposite of what you’ve seen in plan view

Revit 2011 Creates Elevations

Selecting the Elevation function on the View tab creates elevations. You’ll also notice that as you place an elevation tag, they automatically orient to walls

If there’s no host element nearby to reference, they’ll automatically orient to the west.

Selecting the center of the tag will allow you to create additional elevation (more typically done for interior elevations) by selecting the unchecked boxes that surround the elevation tag

 If you select the nose of the elevation tag, you’ll see a blue line that defines the beginning of the cut plane for the elevation as well as a dashed line that defines the side and rear extents.

 This allows you to control the analytic extents of the elevation without moving the
graphic tag, which is useful if you want the tag in a particular location but you want the actual
elevation to start apart from the tag’s location.

Finally, there are three types of elevations in Revit: exterior, interior, and framing. Their differences are more than graphic. Exterior elevations by default don’t have an active crop boundary,
only a starting cut plane. Interior elevations have their crop boundary on by default and attempt
to find boundaries of host elements, like walls, floors, and ceilings. Framing elevations become
active in the presence of grids, and their cut plane corresponds to their grid.

Revit 2011 Creating and Duplicating Views:Plan

It’s important that you understand how to create different view types and how to control their
extents after they’re created.

Plans
When you create a corresponding level in elevation, you typically create plan views for your project.

shows all of the level instance properties.

If you have a level without a corresponding view, you can also use the Plan Views function, as shown in

to create a plan view.

Next to the Plan Views option is the Duplicate View option, which allows you to duplicate the active view

You can also right-click a view name in the Project Brower and access the same option to duplicate the view

The vertical (in plan) and horizontal (in elevation) extents can also be controlled from View Properties. The View Range settings, as shown in

define the vertical range of the view.

Checking the Crop Region Visible option can turn on the horizontal extents of a view. The shape may only be rectilinear

Although you can control the visibility of the crop region from this same dialog box, we recommend that you keep it turned on since you can control the visibility when you print