Creating a Revit Annotation Symbol for Exit Access

Peter Gehring
Building Solutions Technical Director, Synergis Technologies, Inc.

This tutorial will show how to create an annotation symbol for exit access in Autodesk Revit Platform Products.
  
One of the issues you may run into when creating an annotation symbol with text and graphics is that when you rotate the symbol in a plan view, the text also rotates with it, as shown in the figure below.

Let us see how to create an exit symbol that can show an arrow in the desired direction without the need to rotate the symbol.

We’ll start by creating a new family using the generic annotation template Generic Annotation.rft. This template is available in the default Annotations folder in the out-of-the-box Imperial Library. An easy way to get to this is to go to File > New > Annotation Symbol.

This will open the Revit Family Editor. When you zoom in to the reference plane intersection, you’ll see an informative note telling you to set the appropriate Family category for the annotation type. Since we started with a generic annotation symbol template, this will be set for generic annotation and we do not need to change it. Erase the note and with the Text command, type the required text centered on the reference plane intersection. You can go into the element and type properties of the text object to set the Justification (Horiz Align), Text Font and Size, Line Weight, Background, etc.
  
To draw the geometry for the direction arrows, you can use a filled region with a solid fill of the desired color.  You can set the region lines to invisible lines or create a new subcategory in Object Styles if you do not want the default color and lineweight of the Generic Annotation category. Then using the Mirror command, you can copy the arrows in all desired directions. (Remember that you can mirror around a 45 degree drawn axis.)

                         
The next step is to create a Yes/No parameter for each arrow direction. This will allow us to toggle on the visibility of the appropriate arrow when present in the project. To create the parameter, right-mouse-click the geometry of one of the arrows and select Element Properties. Under Graphics, you’ll see a Visibleparameter and a small Browse button on the right. Clicking this will let you create and associate the Visibility parameter to a Yes/No parameter.

In the Associate Family parameter dialog, select Add parameter. Give it an appropriate name, make it an Instance parameter and put it in the desired group. It will automatically be set to a Yes/No Type. Repeat the same procedure for each arrow.

           
After completing this, you can select Family Types on the Design Bar and see all the parameters you created. Unfortunately, if you try to flex the family to preview the Visibility parameter by unclicking on Arrow and hitting Apply, you will not see any change in the Family Editor. To test it, we will select Load into Projects on the Design Bar to import it into a project that is already open in the background.

In the project, use the Drafting tab on the Design Bar to launch the Symbol command and look for the family you created in the Type Selector pull-down. It should come in with all arrows visible. To turn off the arrows, you can select the symbol and access its Element Properties to toggle off the arrows that are not required.

To save some mouse clicks in the project, you can create family types for each arrow direction back in the family editor. Select one of the symbol instances in your project and on the Options Bar, select Edit Family to open up the family editor. Select Family Types on the Design Bar. We’ll create a family type for each arrow direction. This will allow us to add the appropriate one at the very beginning in the project instead of having to toggle things off or on. In the Family Types dialog, select New on the top right to create a new type. Name it, and then set the arrow visibility appropriately. Repeat the process for each arrow direction.

Load the family back into the project. Select one of the egress symbols in the project and in the Type Selector, modify it to another type direction. You can, of course, also set the appropriate type when adding the symbol initially.

About the Author

With 18 years of industry experience, Peter Gehring is Building Solutions Technical Director for Synergis' Engineering Design Solutions, an independent division of Synergis Technologies, Inc., a leading Autodesk Value Added Reseller for Manufacturing, Infrastructure, and Building Solutions in the Mid-Atlantic region. He is responsible for spearheading the delivery of solutions, technical expertise, and resources to increase customers' productivity and profitability in the Building & Infrastructure industry. Gehring is an Autodesk Architectural Desktop Certified Expert, an experienced CAD instructor, and architectural and engineering designer. He graduated from Bucknell University with a B.A. in Fine Art and previously worked for 10 years with Perks-Reutter Associates, an architecture and engineering consulting firm. He can be reached at: peter.gehring@synergis.com.

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