Building and Wall sections must be created in a perpendicular orientation with respect to levels. But after you create them, they can be rotated in elevation. However, doing so would lead to confusion in your project because, once rotated, the section wouldn’t be displayed in plan view because the section cutting plane would no longer be perpendicular to the plan view.
A Detail section will have a different graphic symbol by default, although you can customize this to your liking. We discuss this form of customization in Chapter 4. Beyond the differing graphic symbol, Detail sections will have a smaller clipping region than a Building or Wall section. In Figure 2.50, a Building section is shown at the left of the image and a Detail section is shown to the right.
Figure 2.50 Building and Detail sections shown in plan view
Also note the color of callout and section heads in Figure 2.50. These blue icons act as hyperlinks to the other views in your project. Double-click on any of these blue heads to activate that view.
The Callout tool allows you to create views that are intended to be enlarged from the scale of the parent view in which you create the callout. When you are in a parent view – a floor plan, section view, or elevation view – you can create a callout from the View tab in the ribbon within the Create panel.
The most important aspect of the Callout tool you need to understand is the difference between the types of callout views you can create. When you activate the Callout tool, click on the Type Selector in the Properties palette. You will see several choices that depend on what kind of view you currently have activated. For example, if you are using the Callout tool in a floor plan view, you will see Detail and Floor Plan listed in the Type Selector, as shown in Figure 2.51. Two types of callouts are available in the Type Selector: 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.
Figure 2.51 Be aware of the different types of callouts you can create from the Type Selector.
In the example shown in Figure 2.51, if you select Detail, the callout view you create will be listed in the Project Browser under Detail Views. If you select Floor Plan, the callout view will be listed under Floor Plans. You cannot change a callout view from one type to another after it is created, so plan the configuration of your views carefully.
Beyond the organization of callout views in the Project Browser, choosing the right type for your callouts affects other functionality as well. The Detail callout has a unique property called Show In. This property can be set to either Parent View Only or Intersecting Views. If the callout is set to show in Intersecting Views, this type of callout in plan would display as a section detail mark in an intersecting view such as a Building section. In Figure 2.52, you can see the callout added to the floor plan (left). When the Show In property of that callout is set to Intersecting Views, it displays as a detail section mark in the building section (right).
Figure 2.52 Detail callouts can be set to show in intersecting views.
If you create a callout using the same type as the parent view, the callout view will also have all the same view controls as the parent view. In the floor plan example, you will still have view properties such as Depth Clipping and View Range. In a Detail callout, the property called Far Clip Settings can be set to either Independent or Same As Parent View.
Take a moment to note the grips on the boundary of a callout when one is selected. You can use these grips to change the size of the callout boundary, but this also modifies the crop region within the callout view. As you might assume, if you modify the crop region in the callout view, the callout boundary also changes.
Callouts can be created in either a simple rectangular shape or in any custom sketched shape. You will see these two tool options in the Callout flyout button in the ribbon, but you can always edit a rectangular callout by first selecting a callout and then selecting Edit Crop from the contextual tab in the ribbon. You can also return a custom shape callout to a simple rectangular shape by clicking Reset Crop in the ribbon.
Finally, you may customize the appearance of the callout boundary and leader line from the Object Styles dialog box. Go to the Manage tab in the ribbon and from the Settings panel, click Object Styles. Select the Annotation Objects tab, and you will be able to customize the line weight, color, and pattern for the callout boundary and the leader line.
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 and any other annotation content. Drafting views are great for quickly documenting typical conditions that don’t require an actual model geometry.
Once you create a drafting view, you can 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 (Figure 2.53), simply select the Reference Other View option from the contextual tab of the ribbon, 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. You can even use the search bar to easily locate specific view names instead of scrolling through a long list of all project views.
Figure 2.53 Use the search bar with the Reference Other View option.
Legends are views in which you can display samples of model elements that won’t affect schedules and quantity takeoffs. 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 – which are live representations of 3D model elements. Legends are unique in that they are the only view that can be placed on more than one sheet.
A Legend component (Figure 2.54) is a special live representation of a system or component family that may appear only in legend views (not drafting views). If you make a change to an element in your project, the representation of that element in the legend will change as well. When you are creating a legend view, the Legend Component tool is located in the Component flyout button on the Detail panel of the Annotate tab in the ribbon.
Figure 2.54 Legend components
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 (Figure 2.55). These types of legends are meant to be placed on either one sheet or multiple sheets. If the legend is placed on every sheet in which keynotes are used, the Filter By Sheet option should be selected on the Filter tab of the Keynote