Revit Tip – Improving the look of Revit Content

by: Dennis Collin

The default installation of Revit typically installs with a default library of content, doors, walls, electrical fixtures etc. The electrical portion is very bland looking in terms of detail. Whilst there are switches, sockets, sensors, and lighting modules the geometry is all rather simplistic and is represented by a generic white box.

Fig 1. The default out of the box electrical content is a bit bland for more detailed views.

When generating elevations and 3D views it is desirable to provide some clarity in drawings to show what these various white boxes are! Ie. Have a light switch, actually look like a light switch and a UK electrical power socket looking correct, as well as have all the correct dimensions, connectors and parameters.

Fig 2. More detailed linework can be created in Revit or another CAD package and then imported to a family.

I have seen some Revit users model such features as rocker switches, screws, and recesses but this is too much detail for most modelling purposes and can adversely impact project performance and file size.

Fig 3a. Use Generic Model Face-based family template for the additional model lines.

For electrical content and indeed many other disciplines some additional simple linework is all that is required to make the content look better, in this example, some lines for screws, switches and connectors. Drawing lines is cheaper in terms of file size than expensive solid modelling subtraction cuts!

Fig 3b. By placing this linework into a nested family, variations can be created much more efficiently.

This linework can be drawn as model lines, so they can displayed in multiple views. This should be done in a separate face-based family, so it is easier to control and can be swapped out more easily if other variants are required.

If project time is an issue, drawings produced in AutoCAD can be imported into the nested family. As with any imported data, best practice states that users should ensure that these files are well constructed with correctly specified drawing units and have been freshly cleaned with the Audit and Purge commands.

Fig 4. The improved family file size is only slightly larger than the plain family supplied out of the box.

Adding additional linework to this example switch family adds just 92 Kilobytes to the family file size, but when adding augmented families to projects, the resultant 3D views, sections, and elevations look a lot better, more complete and less additional manual detailing is required.

Fig 5. Adding increased detail to families need not cause excessively sized projects!

Once complete, purge the family and its nested components of any superfluous information to minimise load times and to reduce project performance issues. This process should be performed for any content being used in a project.

Fig. 6. Detailed families with model lines, reduce the need for the placement of detail lines and families.

Content creation, parameters and family creation are just some of the topics covered on our follow-on Revit training courses. Visit the Arkance UK site to get an overview of the courses on offer and talk to one of the team for dates and availability or if you have more bespoke requirements, just ask, we are here to help!