Revit 2009 Rendering

Here is me doodling with Revit's new rendering engine in 2009.



I had to scale the roof tiles to 16' and the grass to 6". I also had to load some of our custom families to detail the elevations. The plants are out of the box.

Filtering View Specific Content

Do you want to know if Text Backgrounds used in a view are opaque or transparent?
Are you trying to find hidden filled regions in a view?
Are you having trouble distinguishing detail lines from model lines in a view?

Well, the easiest way to separate view specific content from model content in a view is to place a temporary filled region with a Solid Fill Pattern that covers the entire view (choose a neutral color). Then just select the filled region and Send To Back. All view specific content will pop out and all model content will be hidden behind your Filled Region.

However, if you want to know where the Linework Tool was used you'll have to resort to selecting the Linework Tool... By Category... and floating your mouse over the model to "scan" for where it may have been used. Lines will highlight when you roll your mouse over them if the Linework Tool was infact used.

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.

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.

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.

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.