Phases & Phase Filters

Are you doing a remodel project? You’ll need to learn about phases. There are 3 dialog boxes you’ll have to become more familiar with.

1. Phase Settings: Under Settings... Phases... you will find Project Phases, Phase Filters, and Graphic Overrides.

Project Phases: Here you can add new phases to the project. The best practice is to set these up before you begin work on your project. Later Phases are ok to add at a later date but you cannot rearrange the order of phases after entering them. Revit is setup by default with Existing and New Construction phases.

Phase Filters: Here you can control the graphics used for objects who’s relative phases are set to New, Existing, Demolished, or Temporary. Phase Filters will determine whether the Category’s Object Styles are used or whether Revit will use the Graphic Overrides established under the Graphic Overrides tab. You should leave these alone until you grasp an understanding of them.


2. View Properties: Every View has View Properties (VP). In the view properties you will find the Phase and Phase Filter used for that particular view. It is very important that you setup duplicate views for each phase (Existing and New Construction).

Phase: Revit’s views are setup by default with the New Construction Phase. This simply means that all objects placed in this view will automatically be set to New Construction and will show. If you plan on using a remodel project to learn Revit (or teach someone Revit) make sure you setup all the view's phases to Existing before you start. This way you don’t have to think about what phase you’re placing an object in and you won’t have to switch all of the objects from New Construction to Existing after the model has progressed. Once you’re ready to move on to the addition then you can add new views and set their phases to New Construction.

Phase Filter: Revit’s views are setup by default with Show All phase filter. We typically change this to Show Complete. The chosen phase filter will determine how objects that are New, Existing, Demolished, or Temporary (relative to the active phase) will display. Goto Settings... Phases... Phase Filters to view and modify how phase filters affect the display of objects.


3. Object Properties: Under the properties of most objects you will find Phase Created and Phase Demolished.

Phase Created: In what phase was the object created? For example, when you place an object into a view that is set to the Existing Phase the object's properties will automatically reflect that the object was created in the Existing Phase. If the view’s phase is set to Existing and you change the object’s Phase Created to New Construction the object is still there but will disappear from view because the view is setup to only show objects placed in the Existing Phase.

Phase Demolished: In what phase was the object demolished? Very simply if you demolish an Existing object in the New Construction phase the object will display as dashed lines in views who’s phases are set to New Construction. However, the object will still display as whole in views who’s phases are set to Existing.