Revit Tip for Making 3D Views of Individual Levels

When I work with a firm to develop a custom training plan for users that have some experience with Revit I frequently receive a request for help creating 3D views of individual building levels.

The process requires manipulating a Section Box to restrict your view of the portion of the building you wish to display. However, you may have found yourself burning up a goodly amount of time estimating (eye-balling) and re-estimating what heights the top and bottom of the Section Box should be set to as listening dimensions are not available. You may find the following steps offer a faster and more accurate solution.

Making 3D Views of Individual Revit Levels

1. Navigate to an appropriate 3D view of your entire building.
2. Right-click in the view and select View Properties.
3. In the resulting Element Properties dialog > Instance Parameters > Extents > Click in the box in the Value column to the right of the of the Section Box parameter.
4. Click OK. A black Section Box should display that encloses the entire building. If the Section Box does not appear, go to the Visibility Graphics > Annotation Categories and confirm that Section Box is checked on.                  

5. Click on the Section Box to select it. The Section Box should be highlighted in red and display blue arrow grips as shown below.

6. Navigate to an elevation view.  The tip here is that if you have the Section Box selected when you switch from a 3D to an elevation view, it will be visible for editing.  If you accidentally deselect the Section Box, it will not be visible in the elevation view. You will need to navigate back to a 3D view and reselect the Section Box.
7. In the elevation view, with the Section Box selected you are able to pick and drag the blue arrow grips using the level datum lines as references to more accurately crop your 3D view to the elevations you require as shown below.

8. Return to your 3D view and check your work. Tweak the blue arrow grip locations in the 3D view or return to the elevation view to make minor adjustments if necessary.

9. When satisfied with the cropping of your 3D view, type in VG to go to the Visibility Graphics dialog > Annotation Categories tab to uncheck the display of Section Box to turn off the display of the Section Box in the view. You should now have a view that permits you to look down into the view much like looking into a shoe box as shown below.

WARNING! Returning to the View Properties dialog and unchecking the Section Box would also turn off its display. However, your building would also no longer be cropped to the Section Box boundaries in the 3D view. Your entire building would again be visible.

TIP!  Many Revit MEP users will create 3D views of each level and then work with two views side-by-side; a plan view of a level and a 3D view cropped by a Section Box as created above. In this manner, they can work in either view and observe the results in the other.

TIP! The method used here to select objects in one view and taking advantage of their selection in another view is also a great way to examine interferences. I will do a follow-up example in my next post.