Controlling the Graphical Representation of Elements in Revit

Dan Stine, CSI, CDT
Registered Architect and Author

This article will help Revit users understand the basics of how the graphical representation of various elements in Revit are controlled. The primary focus will be placed on controlling color but line weight, line style, and materials are also controlled the same way. This discussion applies to all three “flavors” of Revit: Architecture, Structure and MEP.

Project-wide Control

The project-wide settings of an element can be controlled in the Object Styles dialog, which is found on the Manage tab. In this dialog, you have access to the Model tab, which lists all the building elements, and the Annotation tab, which contains notes, tags, and dimensions. All the predefined categories can be found on these two tabs.  You can check the “Show categories from all disciplines” option to see a complete list.

Clicking the plus next to a category (e.g., Doors) reveals its subcategories. Notice how the two subcategories, Panel and Plan Swing, for the doors have been changed to Magenta for this exercise; these subcategories represent the 2D line work displayed in a floor plan view for a door.

Note: This exercise is using color to make the point more clear, as it is easier to discern than changing line weights. It is not recommended that categories be changed to color to match an AutoCAD layer standard. This will create printing issues for the entire design team.

Once a change has been made in the Object Styles dialog, all views in the project are instantly updated. For example, the plan view shown below has the doors colored in magenta. This would be the case in any plan view in the project. Since the Object Styles dialog controls the project-wide graphical control of any element in Revit, it is the best place to go when you need to make a change to the entire project.

View Specific Control

On occasion, certain elements will need to be modified in a single view rather than at the global level just discussed. This type of change can be done in a view’s Visibility/Graphic Overrides (VG) dialog, and they override the project-wide Object Styles settings for that view. In the example below, the two door subcategories for the floor plan view have been changed to green, which will override the default magenta color. Any changes made here will only affect the current view.

Once changes have been made in the view’s VG, the results will be seen immediately, as shown below. This view now has green doors rather than magenta, as the view’s VG settings have over-ridden the default Object Style settings. Again, only this view is modified. Any other plan view will still have magenta doors (assuming they do not have VG modifications). This is true even for other views at the same level, for example, Level 1 code plan, Level 1 finish plan, Level 1 area plan, etc.

View Specific Filters

Each view can have Filters applied to them. These are similar to VG settings in that they only apply to the current view. In fact, Filters are controlled in the VG dialog, the main difference being that they provide a more refined level of control of what elements are changed graphically. Rather than changing the color of an entire category (such as doors), it is possible to make a change based on a specific characteristic about the doors (such as fire rating).

In the example shown below, the Filters dialog (which is a project-wide dialog) specifies the criteria for what is filtered, and the Filters tab in VG specifies what to do when elements are found in a specific view. In this example, any door that has a Fire Rating (which is a parameter set within the door family) is to be displayed in red.

The view shown below does not have any VG overrides other than the Filters specified above. Notice that Door #1 changed to red because it has a one hour fire rating. The other two doors do not have a fire rating so they remain magenta (based on the Object Styles settings). However, now that the filter is set up, any new or modified door in this view that has a fire rating will automatically turn red.

                             
It should be noted that a Filter cancels out any conflicting VG settings for a specific view. So, if both a VG and a Filter modification have been made to the same view, the Filter wins.  But as we have already seen, the VG settings take precedent over the Object Style settings. This is illustrated in the example below, where Door #1 continues to be red because it has a fire rating, while the other two doors are shown in green, as specified in the VG overrides of the view.  The magenta color specified in the Object Styles dialog does not appear at all.

Phasing Related Overrides

When a project has phasing (e.g. existing, new, future, etc.), a view’s Phase Filter setting can have a significant impact on how elements are represented in that view. Every [model] view has two phase related settings, Phase and Phase Filter, as shown in the dialog below. Phase Filters are used to change the appearance of existing elements so they are visually discernable from any new elements in the same view. Similarly, these filters can also completely hide elements, if required. For example, a proposed floor plan can hide all walls set to be demolished so the view is not so cluttered.

In our first phasing example, the plan view will contain all existing elements and no VG or view Filter modifications. The goal is to see what happens when a Phase Filter is imposed on a basic view and the project’s Object Style settings.  This is why the Phase Filter for the view is set to Show All. The exact settings for this filter are shown in the Phasing dialog, accessed via the Manage tab. This is a project-wide rather than a view-specific dialog. It allows three different options to be set for the Phase Filters: By Category, Overridden, and Not Displayed.

When a view has a Phase Filter applied to it, you have to pay attention to what the overrides are in the Phasing dialog. When the Phase Filter is set to Show All—as with our view—you can from the Phasing dialog that all Existing elements in that view will be overridden. The exact overrides for a specific view can be seen in the last tab in the Phasing dialog. As shown below, the overrides for Existing elements for this specific view are gray lines.

The impact of the Show All Phase Filter on the view can be seen below. Since all the elements in this view are existing elements, they are controlled by the Phase Filter override and are displayed in gray color. This shows how the Phasing graphic overrides take precedent over everything in Object Styles. It is important to reiterate that this view does not have any VG or View Filter overrides.

The final test is to see what happens if this plan view has both VG and view-specific Filters applied in addition to the Phase Filter. Which color will win: magenta, green, red, or gray?

And the winners turn out to be gray and red, which are both filters. The View Filter is the ultimate winner as it is overriding anything the Phase Filter would otherwise be doing to Door #1. Thus, while the phasing graphic overrides take precedent over everything in Object Styles and VG, view-specific Filters still rule the view when they are applied.

Conclusion

To summarize, the hierarchy for controlling the graphics of a view is as follows (listed in order of what takes precedence):

• View Filter: View specific setting
• Phase Filter: Project-wide setting applied to a specific view
• Visibility/Graphics Override (VG):  View specific setting
• Object Styles: Project-wide setting

There are a few other things that control how elements are displayed in a view, such as element-specific overrides, linking, and variations on how content is created. Additionally, a view’s Discipline setting can affect how the architect’s elements are displayed when set to Mechanical or Electrical. A discussion of these, however, is beyond the scope of this article.

About the Author

Dan Stine, CSI, CDT is a registered Architect with eighteen years experience in the architectural field. He currently works at LHB (a 160 person multidiscipline firm) in Duluth Minnesota as the CAD Administrator, providing training, customization and support for two regional offices. In his current and previous positions, Dan has participated in collaborative projects with several other firms on various projects (including Cesar Pelli, Weber Music Hall – University of Minnesota - Duluth).  Dan is a member of the Construction Specification Institute (CSI) and the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) and also teaches AutoCAD and Revit Architecture classes at Lake Superior College. Additionally, he is a certified Construction Document Technician (CDT) and certified Revit Architecture 2011 Professional.

Mr. Stine has also written the following textbooks (published by SDC Publications; www.SDCpublications.com):

Design Integration using Revit 2011 (Architecture, Structure and MEP): includes DVD
Residential Design Using Revit Architecture 2011 : includes video instruction on DVD
Commercial Design Using Revit Architecture 2011 : includes video instruction on DVD
Residential Design Using AutoCAD 2011 : includes video instruction on DVD
Commercial Design Using AutoCAD 2011 : includes video instruction on DVD
Chapters in Architectural Drawing (with co-author Steven H. McNeill, AIA, LEED AP)

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