Who Knew? Setting Electrical Wire Appearances in Revit MEP 2010

I have a friend whose company’s evaluation of Revit MEP includes whether they can replicate their existing company standards in Revit construction documents. A question he passed on to me was whether it was possible to show wires with solid line styles connecting light fixtures in two separate rooms on the same circuit yet display the single wire that connects the fixtures from each room with a hidden linetype. I responded that the answer was yes, in fact, his company would have two options!

Option 1:
Quick Solution-Override Graphics in View by Element 

Each time the different wire appearance is required, users could select the wire that connects the fixtures in the two separate rooms, right-click, choose Override Graphics in View by Element..., and in the resulting dialog choose a line pattern of Hidden 1/6" (or any other pattern, color, or line weight as shown below.

The disadvantages to this method are that it takes several clicks to accomplish and that the process requires that users know specifically what Revit line pattern to select for the  room-to-room wire to meet their company's standards for wire display.
  

Option 2: 
Create New Wire Type(s) and a Visibility/Graphics Filter to Standardize Room-to-Room Wire Display

This option takes a bit more effort to set up. However, once the required wire types and filter are available in a project, a single click will allow users to replace solid line wires with a room-to-room wire type that will automatically meet their company standards for wire display.

You will find that that you can change many of a wire's parameters such as tick mark display, material assignment, etc. in the Element Properties dialog, but not a wire's line style. However, you can create new wire types and use them to define a new V/G filter that can be used to uniquely control the appearance of wires connecting fixtures in multiple rooms while carrying the same electrical data as the other wires on the same circuit as described below.

Create a New Wire Type

1. Select any wire in the current project and navigate to the Modify Wires tab > Element Properties panel > Type Properties, or, right-click, select Element Properties and then click the Edit Type… button.

2. Evaluate the wire types you currently have defined. Create as many corresponding new room-to-room wire types as needed. For example, since I am using THWN wire for my lighting circuits, I will make a new “THWN Room-to-Room” wire type.

3. Click the Duplicate button to create a copy of an existing wire type used for wiring lighting circuits (THWN in my example). Name the new wire type so that users will easily recognize its purpose by name when listed in the Type Selector. In our example, the new wire type will be named THWN Room-to-Room and click OK.

Create a New Filter

1. With your cursor in the Revit drawing area, type in VG to open the Visibility/Graphics dialog and click the Filters tab.

2. Click on the Edit/New… button at the bottom of the Filters tab dialog.

3. Working from left-to-right across the dialog, click on the New filters button to create a new filter named Room-to-Room Wire.

4. Check on Wires in the Categories column in the middle of the dialog to specify what category of objects are to be affected by this new filter.

5. On the right side of the dialog under Filter Rules set Filter by: to Type Name > contains > Room-to-Room and click OK. This will assure that any wire types names created by your users containing Room-to-Room will automatically be set to display as you specify on the Visibility/Graphics Filter tab.

6. Back on the Visibility/Graphics Filters tab click the Add button to open the Add Filters dialog.

7. Click the Room-to-Room Wire filter from the list of filters available in the project that have not yet been added to the Visibility/Graphics filters for the current view and click OK.

8. Click in the Projection/Surface Lines column to the right of the newly created Room-to-Room Wire filter.

9. Click on the Override… button which appears in the cell. In the resulting Line Graphics dialog click on the Pattern pull-down and select the linetype you wish to assign to the Room-to-Room Wire filter. I chose Hidden 1/16” for my 1/8” scale plan.

Any wires in the current view that contain Room-to-Room in their Type Name will now automatically be displayed with the hidden 1/16” line pattern.

Users will also be able to select a solid line wire in the current view and click on a Room-to-Room wire type in the Type Selector on the Modify Wire ribbon tab to easily apply the company standard for room-to-room wire appearance in the current view.

Once you are satisfied with the display of objects in the current lighting plan, save the settings so they can be duplicated in other lighting plan views in the current and future projects as described below.


Reuse Lighting Plan Display Settings in the Current Project

Create or update a view template

In the Project Browser, right-click on the name of the view with the ideal display settings and click Create New View Template from View… You will then be prompted to provide a view template name.

• If you type in the name of an existing view template you will be alerted that the view template already exists and have the opportunity to replace it or to provide a different view template name.

Apply the view template to to similar views within the current project

In the Project Browser, right-click on the name of the view that you wish to apply the view template settings to and click Apply View Template to View…

In the resulting dialog, select the name of the view template you wish to apply to the current view and click OK.

Reuse Lighting Plan Display Settings in Future Projects

If you are responsible for maintaining and improving your company’s Revit MEP project start-up templates use the Transfer Project Standards tool to copy the settings we have created into one or more of your company’s project templates.

1. Leave the  project open that has settings you wish to copy from into a company project template.

2. Open your company project template and set it to be the current project. You start the Transfer Project Standards tool in the project that requires additional settings.

3. Navigate to the Manage tab > Project Settings panel > Transfer Project Standards.

4. In the resulting dialog confirm that the project you wish to copy your project settings from appears in the Copy from: slot at the top of the dialog. If not, use the pull-down arrow in the slot to select the correct project. Only those projects that are currently open will be available for selection.

5. In the Transfer Project Standards dialog click the Check None button to uncheck all the possible settings that could be copied over.

6. For this example, we need to click to check on: Filter, View Templates, and Wire Types to transfer these three setting categories into your company project template.

Tip! You are selecting categories of settings to copy from one project to another in the Transfer Project Standards dialog. You do not get to pick and choose which specific filters, view templates, or wire types you wish to copy from one project to another. So, you might do some housekeeping, by deleting outdated filters, view templates or wire types in the file from which you are going to copy settings or be prepared to do so in the project to which they are copied.
  

If you already have filters, view templates or wire types of the same name in the project you are transferring settings to, you will be provided options to override or rename the transferred settings.

Links to other BIM Bulletin Revit MEP filter related posts: http://tinyurl.com/yazuvbl, http://tinyurl.com/yejmh7g and http://tinyurl.com/yehcjyx.