Indeed, who knew? Not me, and perhaps not some other experienced Revit users who haven't experimented with the features found on the View Cube right-click menu.
I did a post back in December, 2009 where I showed a method for making 3D views of individual Revit levels a bit easier, but it lacked the speed and accuracy I was looking for. I became inspired this week by a video I came across on designreform.net posted by David Fano on November 2, 2009 entitled “Revit-View and Orient to View (3D to 2D)” at http://tinyurl.com/yav7h7z. David spent just a few seconds on how the Revit Orient to View tool can be used. I thought Orient to View just might be the tool I've been looking for to quickly create precisely cropped 3D views of levels. Not bad! Try out the following process:
Create a 3D Level View Cropped to your View Range
Create a 3D Level View Cropped to your View Range
1. Create a floor plan view and apply your typical view template that specifies the view range you require to control the top and bottom boundaries of your plan.
2. Check to see if you have a default 3D view named “3D” in the Project Browser that you need to keep. If you do, right-click the 3D view name in the Project Browser and choose Rename to prevent it from being written over by the following process.
3. Click on the 3D View (the house) tool on the Quick Access toolbar or click on the ribbon’s View tab > Create panel > Default 3D View (the house) tool.
By default, the View Cube will appear in the upper right hand corner of your View Window whenever you are in a 3D view. If not does not appear, go to the ribbon’s View tab > Windows panel > User Interface pull-down to toggle it on.
Adjust View Cube characteristics such as View Window position, size, etc. on the Options dialog > View Cube tab which can be found at the bottom of the Application Menu (click the big purple “R” in the upper left hand corner of your Revit window).
4. Right-click the View Cube and click Orient to View > Floor Plans. Select one of the floor plans that you wish to create a 3D level view of as shown below, from left to right. The current 3D view will be replaced with the plan view you selected.
5. Click on one of the top corner hotspots on the View Cube or the house icon located above the View Cube as shown in the image to the right to quickly flip this new plan up to a 3D view.You should now have a 3D level view of the plan view you selected with a Section Box cropped precisely to the top and bottom values of your plan’s view range (as well as the four vertical crop boundaries). No need to eyeball the size (and resize) the Section Box’s top and bottom to get the 3D view you need.
6. If you are satisfied with the Section Box cropping and no longer wish to see it in this view, uncheck its listing on the Visibility/Graphics dialog > Annotation tab. If you turn off the display of the Section Box in the View Properties dialog you will disable its ability to crop your view and your entire 3D model will be displayed in your view.
7. Don’t forget to rename this new 3D level view as in step #1 above so that it is not overwritten if you repeat the process to create another 3D level view.
