Plan Regions

Do you have windows that don't show in plan view because they are too high above the cut plane? Do you have a fireplace opening that doesn't show because it's too far below the cut plane? Use the Plan Region Tool in your View Tool Palette. With this tool you can set a unique view range to include objects above or below the cutting plane that's set in the given view.

Once plan regions are placed they can often be difficult to locate. Select one you can find and Edit it. You'll notice that all the other plan regions are now visible.

Split Face and Paint Tools

Does your floor material transition from carpet to tile and you want to show the change in material in your floor plan view? Use the Split Face tool (SF). Select the face you want to split and sketch how you want the transition to occur. Now Finish Sketch and use the Paint tool (PT) to apply your patterns to the face.

Detail Groups

Revit Groups are like AutoCAD blocks. Draw a couple of lines and group the selection. Copy multiple instances of the group and then edit one of the grouped objects. You'll notice that the changes you made will propogate to all the other similar groups. Go to File... Save to Library... Save Group and Groups will be saved to RVG files. We use Detail Groups a number of ways.

Let's say you want to add multiple line text like revision dates to your titleblock. Just add the dates with the text tool to one of your sheets and group the new text. Copy the group (Ctrl+C). Go to another sheet. Now go to Edit... Paste Aligned... Current view and Revit will paste the text in exactly the same spot on your new sheet. Do the same for all your sheets. Now you can edit your grouped text from any sheet and the changes will propogate to all the other sheets.

Now let's say you want to build a library of Typical Details. Draft your typical detail in a Drafting View and group the selection. Go to File... Save to Library... Save Group and Groups will be saved to RVG files. At the moment there is no thumbnail viewer for RVG files so plan on creating hardcopies in a details binder or you can create Detail Project files with all your roof details in one project file. With a dedicated Detail Project file you can copy and paste drafting views from one project to another.

Update: 03/07/06
I understand Revit 9 will have a Details Library and tools for saving and reusing Drafting Views.

Filled Regions

We use filled regions in a number of ways.

You'll notice right away that Revit's interior elevations look more like sections. We use a No Pattern Filled Region to crop the extents of our interior elevations. This comes in handy since crop regions can not yet be shaped the way a filled region can.

Very often sub grade basements will show in elevation when no topography model is present. Again we use a No Pattern Filled Region to "crop out" the basement walls. If you want to hide an edge of the filled region just edit the filled region and change the boundary line to Invisible lines.

Area Calculations and Illustration

Lets say you need to calculate and illustrate areas that are existing and new for instance. Go to View... New... Area Plan and select the type of area (Gross or Rentable) and the level you want to apply the area calcs to. It will then ask you if you want to automatically create area boundary lines or if you would rather draw them yourself. Make a choice then go to Drafting... Area Boundary and you can edit the area boundaries yourself. Go to Drafting... Area Tag and you can tag each area in much the same way that you would tag rooms.

After you have your boundaries and tags placed go to Drafting... Color Fill and drop a color fill legend onto the view. You can now select the color fill legend and Edit Color Scheme to show areas by SF, Type, Name, or Perimeter.

Go to View... New... Schedule and you'll notice that you can now schedule your Gross and Rentable Areas.

Changing Family Categories

Let's say you started to create a storefront (with door) using the door family template and now you want it to schedule as a window instead. While in the family editor go to Settings... Family Category and Parameters... and just switch to another compatible family. Now when you import your storefront it will schedule with all the other windows.

Rotate Model Patterns

Do you want to rotate a model pattern that you've applied to a surface?

Place your mouse over any line of the pattern and TAB through until the line you want is highlighted. Then just use the rotate command.

You can not rotate Drafting patterns by this method.

Conical Roofs

We found this feature very useful. If you want a conical or octagonal roof select Roof By Footprint and draw a circle. Select the sketch and change its Number of Full Segments under Properties to 0 or 8. You can play around with the number of segments to see how it reacts.

Custom Patterns

Want to create your own custom PAT files? You can try these third party softwares:

AutoCAD Hatch Manager
http://www.cadopolis.com/autocad_addons/GlobalCAD_Hatch-Manager.shtml

HatchKit
http://cadro.com.au/hatchkit/index.html

EDIT (04/19/2014) mertens hatch22 comes highly recommended.

Custom Shortcut Keys

Shortcut keys like LW(linework), VH(Visibility Hide), VG(Visibility/Graphics Override) are configured in a file called KeyboardShortcuts.txt. You can find this file in Revit's program directory (C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit Building 8.1\Program)

The Character Map

You can find the following characters in Window's Character map (Start... Programs... Accessories... System Tools) and add them to your template for easy access:

Degrees °
Diameter Ø
Plus/Minus ±
1/4 stacked ¼
1/2 stacked ½
3/4 stacked ¾
1/8 stacked ⅛
3/8 stacked ⅜
5/8 stacked ⅝
7/8 stacked ⅞
Number №
Bullets ●