Revit 2013 - View Reference Tags

I've have actually been meaning to post this for about 6 months now, but I'm so busy these days I rarely get around to these types of things.  I've got a weeks break and can't help myself, so here is a quick tutorial on the new View Reference Tags.

In 2013 Autodesk added the ability to allow a View Reference Tag to reference almost any view (not legends) from almost any view.  Previously View Reference Tags were exclusive to Dependent Views and Matchlines.

Some tricks I thought of immediately were placing a "smart" view reference tag in a string of text that references some standard details or alike.  Or how about showing where 3D views are taken in plan and being able to graphically print them and hyperlink to them?

In TEXT

to a 3D View

The below video shows a quick snapshot of these in action.  But to create them simply:

1. Create a new Generic Annotation
2. Go to Family Category & Parameters and change the category to View Reference Tag
3. Place labels for the detail number and sheet number and draw your desired symbology (note, I always make my tags parameter so I only ever have one tag type per family category, this is typically done through visibility parameters controlled by integer values to switch between them)
4. Save the family and load it into your project
5. Switch to the view you want to place it in
6. Swith to the View tab and in Sheet Composition choose View Reference
7. Edit Type, and select the view reference tag you wish to use from the drop down
8. OK
9. Now you can start placing in the view your require it!  NOTE: you can place them in 3D views also but you need to ensure you lock the view orientation.

I hope someone finds this useful!

Revit Formula Rounding

Today I came across a circumstance where I needed to round a value in a family to be to the nearest 5mm increment (+ tolerance).

The Round functions in Revit only round to the nearest whole number.  So a little maths is required to achieve this.

EG:

I have a parameter called "Param1" that I want to drive "Param2" from.

Param2 = (roundup((Param1 + 5 mm) / 5 mm)) * 5 mm

Essentially what we are doing is first adding the tolerance we want, then dividing by 5 (the rounding increment we want), rounding this off to the nearest whole number and the multiplying by 5 again to give us the desired rounded dimension.

Pretty simple, but hopefully someone will find it useful.

Xrev New Website Launched

Please let us know what you think of the new Xrev website.  Expect some exciting stuff to appear in the coming weeks including Revit 2013 support and the all new Xrev Transmit.

If you haven't used Xrev Transmit for issuing you Revit sheets to DWG, PDF, DWF, Hard Copy, DXF or DGN yet then you don't know what you are missing.

Download the Free Trial today!

http://www.xrev.com.au