Category Archives: Platform

Revit 2016 r2 Family Types Dialog

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One thing that has changed in Revit 2016 R2 is the dialog box for Family Types while in the family editor.  It is following along with the rest of Revit and has allowed for Searching.  This is a welcomed feature for those families that have a bunch of parameters involved.  This dialog has also moved all of the buttons (i.e. New Type, Add Parameter) from the side of the dialog to the top and bottom.  Again a nice touch for viewing those long formula strings associated to parameters.

What has also changed is the fact that the dialog box doesn’t remember the size of the columns.  For instance if you make the formula column wider once the dialog is closed and reopened it goes back to the default column widths.  Not a good feature addition.

Revit 2016 R2 subtle change Sketch lines

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While creating an extrusion in a family the other day I noticed a subtle change to the sketch lines.  In Revit 2016 or prior when a sketch line was selected there was a property “Visible” which could be turned ticked off, or a parameter could be added to the variable.  This did absolutely nothing for the sketch or the family.  In Revit 2016 R2 this property value has been removed.  Not a big deal but removing unnecessary values to objects does make things cleaner and less confusing.

Revit 2016 R2 reference planes

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Currently I have been working on family editor training as well as creating content.  With the 2016 R2 update of the minor feature updates are the changes to reference planes inside the family editor.  The first and most noticeable update is the fact that the referenced plane when selected displays <click to name> on both ends of the reference plane.  Two things are new here, first you can select to rename, we no longer are forced to go into the properties to edit the name, second the name is displayed at both ends of the reference plane.

A subtle improvement that may go unnoticed is the fact the name displays differently depending on which view the reference plane has been drawn in.  For example if the reference plane in drawn in plan then the name will be parallel to reference plane in plan, if it had been drawn in an elevation then the name will be perpendicular to plane in plan.  Plus the names will be displayed on the back (or negative value) side of the reference plane depending on the direction they were drawn.

2016 R2 Reference Planes

Curved Grid Quirk

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There have been numerous posts on curved grid lines and getting them to display as well as many forum responses, even Tim’s post on correcting the height of the curved grids.   I have known about this for years but today none of these tools were working for me to display one single curved grid in a project, this is where I had noticed a quirk with grids.  I was able to reproduce this situation in both Revit 2015 and 2014, I don’t have older versions installed so couldn’t test there.

If the 3D extents of a grid line is larger than 237° the grid will not display in any perpendicular section.

Grid_CurveQuirk

If the grid needs to be shown further in plan and still needs to be displayed in sections, then toggling the grid extents to 2D and rotating it around in a plan view is the answer.  However remember this doesn’t have to be done in all the different plan vies, using “Propagate Extents” will push this change into all the other plan views as well.

 

Loaded Tags

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Today I noticed a small feature that either I didn’t notice in the what’s new documentation, ok maybe I just missed it.  In Revit 2015 (currently using update 5) the Loaded Tags command has been replaced with the Loaded Tags and Symbols command.  It is nice to finally be able to set up what symbol will be used for those categories that use them, (i.e.: floor span direction, Structural Path Symbols, Structural Fabric Symbols).  This is documented in the Revit 2015 Help file.

Revit Help

Revit_Loaded_Tags_Symbols