Figure 2.55 An example of a keynote legend placed on a sheet
All model elements have information about their properties such as size, material, and cost. You can report and interact with this information in tabular views known as schedules. There are six types of schedule views that can be accessed from the Create panel in the View tab of the ribbon: Schedule/Quantities, Graphical Column Schedule, Material Takeoff, Sheet List, Note Block, and View List.
Schedule/Quantities This is the most commonly used schedule type, allowing you to list and quantify all the element category types. You would use this type to make door schedules, wall schedules, window schedules, and so on. These schedule types are usually limited to scheduling properties within the same category; however, you can create a multicategory schedule or use some fields from other elements. For example, many model elements can refer to the properties of the room in which they are placed.
Graphical Column Schedule This schedule is different from the other schedule types and is commonly used by structural engineers. Structural columns are displayed according to their grid intersections, indicating top and bottom constraints as well as offsets.
Material Takeoff This type of schedule lists all the materials and subcomponents of any family category. You can use a material takeoff to measure any material that is used in a component or assembly. For example, you might want to know the volume of concrete within the model. Regardless of whether the concrete is in a wall or floor or column, you can tell the schedule to report the total amount of that material in the project. Material takeoffs will report material properties across multiple categories.
Sheet List This schedule allows you to create a list of all the sheets in the project.
Note Block This tool creates a unique schedule that lists the properties of a generic annotation symbol used in a project.
View List This schedule shows a list of all the views in the Project Browser and their properties. A view list can be a valuable tool to help you manage your project’s views efficiently.
You will use sheets to organize views and other annotation for the purpose of issuing printable (physical or digital) documents. Sheet borders can be customized, but the important fact to realize is that sheets are always scaled at 1:1. 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 using them is little different than printing from a word processing application.
You will learn more about creating sheets in Chapter 17.
Two kinds of 3D views are supported: orthographic and perspective. The Default 3D view is orthographic, whereas the Camera and Walkthrough views are in perspective (Figure 2.56). You can right-click on the View Cube and select the Toggle To command in the context menu. To enable the ability to toggle between isometric and perspective, you must have a crop region activated in the view. We’ll also cover 3D views in detail in Chapter 11.
Figure 2.56 Creating 3D view types and toggling between them
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 software from a 3D orthographic view. For a more thorough explanation of annotating a 3D view, refer to Chapter 20, “Presenting Your Design.”
Create camera views by placing the start and end points of a camera (typically from a plan view). The first point you select in plan is the point from which the view will be taken, but the second point is also the rotation origin for the view (Figure 2.57). 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.
Figure 2.57 Setting camera and target origins
A perspective view will not be to scale, but it can be made relatively larger or smaller by selecting the view’s crop region and then selecting the Size Crop button 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 not proportionally (Figure 2.58). You can also simply drag the nodes of the bounding box.
Figure 2.58 Modifying the view size and field of view
Camera extents are defined by the Far Clip Offset option, accessed in the Properties palette for the view. If the Far Clip Offset is too low, the view may resemble the image shown in Figure 2.59. Geometry that you’d expect to see will be “clipped” in the view.
Figure 2.59 The Far Clip Offset is too shallow.
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 camera view in the Project Browser, and then selecting Show Camera. Once the camera is shown in your plan view, you can 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 in a similar manner to that shown in Figure 2.58.
Finally, the extents of 3D views (even walkthroughs) can be customized with the use of section boxes. You’ll find the Section Box option in the Properties palette for a 3D view. This will allow you to control how much of the project is shown (Figure 2.60) and is helpful for creating cutaway visualizations in real time or in renderings.
Figure 2.60 Section box applied to a 3D view
Once a section box is enabled in a 3D view, you can select it in order to stretch or rotate it according to your needs. The section box is not considered a crop region, and therefore it is not affected when you use the Show Crop Region command. If you want to hide a section box, select it and then select Hide Elements from the View panel in the ribbon.
Project management involves all the settings that control (and therefore restrict) the graphic information previously described in this chapter as relationships, repetition, and representations. Returning to the organization chart in Figure 2.22, you’ll see that a Revit project is managed with settings such as line styles, phasing, and view templates.
To cover all aspects of project management in this one chapter would be overwhelming; therefore, you can find more detailed information about the following topics throughout this book:
● For object styles, line styles, fill patterns, line weights, and view templates, refer to Chapter 4, “Configuring Templates and Standards.”
● For worksets and