Spot Dimensions Features

There's more to Spot Dimensions than meets the eye.

Within the Spot Dimension tool you can choose between spot elevations and spot coordinates. Spot Elevations will report the elevation of certain objects. Spot Coordinates will report the distance and direction of a point from an origin that you define (see Tools, Shared Coordinates... Specify Coordinates at a point)

While Spot Coordinates will report the coordinates of any model or drafting element it is not really clear in the help files that Spot Elevations will report the elevation of only certain parts of model elements. Here is the list of elevations that Spot Elevations will tag:

• toposurfaces
• roof eaves and ridges
• stair steps and landings
• window sills and door thresholds
• tops of footings & beams
• the sill and head of openings in a wall
• any point within the area of (non-sloping) floors and ceilings
• the height of a family's model objects (provided they are visible in the view)
• apparently ramps too but I haven't figured this one yet
• if you know of any more please add a comment

The visibility of Spot Elevations and Spot Coordinates can be controlled by the visibility of its host object or the visibility of the annotations themselves.

Taging the elevation of a horizontal surface won't work in wireframe mode. Spot Elevations may be deleted when trying to modify some objects in certain ways.

Two interesting parameters in the properties dialog are Relative Base and Elevation Origin. If you go to the type properties and change the Elevation Origin to Relative you will notice that the Relative Base instance parameter is no longer greyed out. You can now report the elevation of a point relative to any level you've created.

One nice thing about all Spot Dimensions is that you can control the units format separately from the project's units format by going to the type properties dialog so that their units display in decimal feet if you wish. It would be nice if levels had the same ability.

Hide & Seek (updated)

Did something in your project disappear?

• First, check to see if it is still visible in other views.
• Check Visibility/Graphics. Is the object category (and subcategories) ON?
• Check Visibility/Graphics. Is the linestyle set to Override?
• Check Visibility/Graphics. Is the detail level set to By View?
• Check Visibility/Graphics. Are all the worksets ON?
• Check Visibility/Graphics. Are all the filters ON?
• Check Visibility/Graphics. If the object is in a linked file check Revit Links.
• Check Visibility/Graphics. Check each design option.
• Try changing phase and phase filter in View Properties (VP).
• Try changing the detail level of the view.
• Are all your worksets opened? (it may be hiding in a closed workset).
• Check View Range in View Properties (VP).
• Check for Plan Regions if in a floor plan view.
• The object may have been moved to a new elevation.
• Check Crop Region and Far Clip settings in View Properties (VP).
• Set your view to wireframe. It may be hiding behind a filled region or other object.
• Select the Linework tool (set to By Category) and see if it wasn't hidden with this tool. It would be very benefitial if one could toggle on/off the use of the linework tool in a view.
• If the problem is with a family file open the family and check the visibility of the elements.

If you can't find it by now it was probably deleted.