views in various ways in order to work with your project in a manner that meets your needs. Although creating views is quick and easy, you should avoid populating your project file with too many unnecessary views. An overabundance of unused views will increase the size of your project file and cause it to perform poorly. Let’s review the procedures to create different view types and see how to control their extents after they’re created.
Figure 2.42 Creating new views from the ribbon
Another quick way to create new views is to right-click a view name in the Project Browser and select one of the Duplicate View commands (Figure 2.43). You can also duplicate the current view by using the Duplicate View button in the Create panel of the ribbon.
Figure 2.43 Duplicating views from the Project Browser
As you can see in Figure 2.43, there are three choices in the Duplicate View flyout command: Duplicate, Duplicate With Detailing, and Duplicate As A Dependent. Let’s take a quick look at what each of these options means:
Duplicate This command will create a copy of the selected view but will not replicate any of the annotation in the view. Use this command when you need a fresh copy of a view in which you will create new annotation for a different documentation purpose.
Duplicate With Detailing As its name suggests, this command will create a copy of the selected view with all of the annotation in the view. We don’t recommend using this command too often because replicated annotation is often a sign of an inefficient production process.
Duplicate As A Dependent This command allows you to create a series of partial views that assume the properties of one parent view. Using dependent views does not mean that you can have a parent view with a larger scale like 1:100 and then create dependent views at larger scales such as 1:50. The parent view has all the same properties as the dependents, but you can manage the crop regions and settings from the parent view.
As you learned in the section “Creating and Duplicating Levels” earlier in this chapter, when you create a level in an elevation or section view you have the option to create a plan view for that level in the Options bar. If you have levels without corresponding plan views, you can also use the Plan Views tool from the ribbon to create a plan view.
The vertical extents of plans and ceiling plans are controlled by the View Range settings. The View Range settings, as shown in Figure 2.44, define the vertical range of the view.
Figure 2.44 View Range dialog box
The view range properties can be difficult to understand, so we created a diagram to illustrate the principles. In Figure 2.45, you will see that the primary range is the zone you usually see in a default floor or ceiling plan. If an object crosses the cut plane, the object’s Cut values are used. If the object is below the cut plane but above the bottom, the object’s Projection values are used. Cut and Projection values can be found in Visibility/Graphics.
Figure 2.45 View range properties explained
For most views, the Bottom and View Depth parameters are set to the same plane. Therefore, objects below the bottom of the view range simply won’t appear. So, what happens if you need to show objects on a lower terrace for reference in the current view? When you set View Depth to Level Below or Unlimited, objects that are below the bottom of the view range but within the view depth will be overridden with the <Beyond> line style.
Perhaps you only need to apply a different view range setting to isolated areas of a view. This can be accomplished with the use of the Plan Region tool. You can find this tool in the Create panel of the View tab along with the other Plan View tools. The Plan Region tool allows you to sketch a boundary within which the View Range dialog box will be available to make specific changes. You can use this method for areas such as windows that might be placed in a wall above the cut plane but need to be shown on the plan for documentation.
Another useful property of plans is known as an underlay. Although this property may function more like a tool, it is found in the Properties palette along with the other view properties. An underlay allows you to use any other level as a reference in the current view. You can use the underlay to display ceiling soffits in a floor plan, to display furniture layouts in a ceiling plan, or to use another level as a reference for replicating partition layouts.
Selecting the Elevation tool on the View tab creates elevations of various types. You’ll also notice that as you place an elevation tag, the elevations automatically orient to walls (Figure 2.46). If there’s no host element nearby to reference, they’ll automatically orient to the left.
Figure 2.46 Elevation tag orientation
Selecting the center of the tag will allow you to create additional elevation views (more typically done for interior elevations) by selecting the unchecked boxes that surround the elevation tag (Figure 2.47).
Figure 2.47 Creating additional elevations
If you select the directional point of the elevation tag, you’ll see a blue line that defines the beginning of the cut plane for the elevation as well as a dashed line that defines the side and rear extents (Figure 2.48). This allows you to control the analytic extents of the elevation without moving the graphic tag, which is useful if you want the tag in a particular location but you want the cutting plane to start somewhere else.
Figure 2.48 Elevation extents
Finally, there are three types of elevations in a Revit project: exterior, interior, and framing. Their differences are more than graphic. Exterior elevations by default don’t have an active crop boundary, only a starting cut plane. Interior elevations have their crop boundary on by default and attempt to find boundaries of host elements, like walls, floors, and ceilings. Framing elevations can be placed only along a grid line, and their cut plane corresponds to the respective grid.
Selecting the Section tool on the View tab creates sections. By default, three types of sections are available from the Type Selector: Building, Wall, and Detail. This allows them to be grouped with better clarity in the Project Browser, but there are also other important properties.
Unlike with elevations, the cutting plane of a section must correspond with its graphic line. Figure 2.49 shows the instance properties of a Building section. The far and side cut planes of a section can also be controlled. This goes for both Building and Wall sections.