We have a very large residence that requires an overall coordination plan at 1/8" scale and 5 individual quadrants at 1/4" scale because a complete 1/4" scale plan isn't going to fit on a 30x42 sheet.
Well after placing the electrical outlets that come with Revit we noticed that in plan view the outlet symbol doesn't scale when you change the floor plan scale from 1/4" to 1/8". In other words the symbols appear much larger relative to the floor plan when viewed at 1/8" scale. The reason is because the plan view symbol nested in Revit's electrical outlets are Generic Annotations and by design Generic Annotations don't scale when you change a view's scale. Well we wanted the symbols to scale with the floor plan so they wouldn't overwhelm the drawing at 1/8" scale so we drew our outlet symbols as Generic Models instead. Generic Models will scale with the rest of the floor plan.
Now that we've got our outlets and switches scaling the way we like we have a new problem. The text for our Switches (Dimmer, Door-op, Four-way, etc) doesn't show anymore. That's because when we were using nested Generic Annotations, text was supported. Now that we are using nested Generic Models for our electrical symbols text isn't supported. The solution is to create your text in Autocad, import the dwg into your Generic Model, import your Generic Model into your Electrical Family, and there you have it.
3 comments:
Question: Why not use symbolic geometry in the plan view of the electrical outlet family? For instance you can have an electrical outlet family, that has elevation data & plan data. Both can use symbolic geometry, and should scale correctly. You could also probably use a detail component too in both cases (nested into the electrical outlet family. The text though remains a problem, and you're using the same work around that we use.
Just my 2 cents.
Symbols are generic annotations and won't scale with the rest of the model so we use symbolic lines in a nested generic model instead. True, you could start with a nested detail component family instead of a nested generic model family. You'll get the same result. Thanks Robert.
Is this still a viable aproach in Revit 2011 MEP? I am new to Electrical drafting. I have arch and structural revit experience. Electrical depends so much more on annotative symbology. I am creating existing, demo and new views. The problem is that some of my families are strictly 2D anno. Like an existing motor symbol that is shown on power plan and labeled as EF-1 on roof above (subscript). I have duplicated with detailing from existing to create demo view. So now I can't demo with hammer. I was wondering if an empty generic model family with nested anno (2d) family would be the solution? or any other basic advice would be appreciated. just a little stumped. Thanks Maria
Post a Comment