Tag Archives: Hidden Lines

Linework Tool and Underlay

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This is a tip that I have been showing for years and I was reminded of it today while training a student.  The tip involves the use of the Linework tool along with underlay while in plan views.  This student was asking how to display the roof overhang in plan and wondered if it could be displayed as hidden lines.  The first, most CAD-like, response was to simply draw hidden lines where these elements were.   I explained how that is an option, but what happens when the roof changes or moves?  Now someone would have to go back and adjust the lines to match the changes.  If Revit could do that automatically, that would be a better solution.  My suggestion was to turn on the underlay so that the elements in question could be seen.

To do this, set the underlay to the current level, and the set the plan orientation to Reflected Ceiling Plan.  Then, on the Modify tab in the View panel, select the Linework command and set the line style to <Overhead>.  Now select the lines that need to be displayed in the plan.  Once that is done go back and change the Underlay to None and the lines that had been changed via the Linework tool will still be displayed.

 

 

If you decide later that the lines are no longer needed DO NOT DELETE the lines, this will delete the physical element.  Instead, again use the Linework took and with the linestyle <By Category> and select the lines.  The lines will go back to their default display, or not displayed if the were changed as an underlay.

 

Show Walls Below Roof

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After my post about show hidden lines someone had contacted me and had a concern that this tool didn’t work for what he needed.  In this particular case the person was talking about showing walls below the roof.  He had went through and used the show hidden lines tool and some of the walls displayed hidden while other didn’t.  The underlay value had been set to display the floor below the roof, some of the walls remained half-toned and others displayed hidden. Once the underlay was turned off (see note below on underlay) the walls that weren’t showing hidden disappeared.  In this case there were actually different issues that were causing the walls not to display hidden.  One of the issues was with the view range settings.  The view range bottom and depth were set to to current level at 0″ so that nothing below the view could be seen, so once the underlay was removed the hidden lines didn’t display.   The view range was changed to be -1″ below the current level, for both the depth and bottom, and then the hidden lines appeared.  The other issue was the fact that some of the walls had been attached to the roof, this allowed the show hidden lines to work with out adusting the view range.

NOTE: Underlay displays another slice of the model under the current plan view. That slice of the model can be from above or below the current level. The underlay appears dimmed and is visible even in hidden line visual style.  The orientation can either be a Plan or RCP .

Show Hidden Lines

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This is a tool that seems to be underutilized when I visits firms, yet a tool that is very useful when it comes time to setting up construction documentation.  If there has ever come a need to show one objected hidden behind another, there is a tool for that.  On the View tab in the Graphics panel there is a command called Show Hidden Lines, this tool allows for an element to be picked an that needs to see the dashed line through, then the element to be hidden.

As usually the status bar will always display the steps needed to accomplish a command.

One tip I usually talk about when using this command is to go into Wireframe, other wise it is really hard to get the element that is being hidden. Once the command is done the view can be put back into Hidden Line mode to see the effects.  In the example below I did this with a partial height wall that was being covered with a counter top to display the wall below.

Another little tip about this tool is that is also works with detail components and modeled elements.  A modeled element can be displayed hidden through a detail component that has a masking region built into it.  The example below shows this for a plate detail component over a modeled structural beam.