Chapter 23 • BIM Management 914 Setting Up the Template If you think you are going to start a real project with deadlines and budget with no prior setup, you are going to fail. So don’t. If you take nothing away from this chapter other than this small bit of advice, it has been successful. Granted, you don’t have to get it all, but you need as smooth of a transition as possible. Also, once you start down the Revit path, don’t look back, and don’t say, “We can always just push it out to AutoCAD.” I have found that if you think you have something to fall back on, well, you will fall. You don’t have to spend weeks upon weeks preparing for the Coming of Revit. You can knock this stuff out if you do it in an orderly fashion, and the first order of business is creating your company’s templates. If you do nothing more than simply save the default template and give it your company name, you are off to a good start. People who are jumping to a new way of working will be looking for any comfort they can find. No, this is not like giving someone a sugar pill for a migraine, because we will populate the tem- plate with custom content. The objective of the following procedure is to save a default template and to “map” Revit to this template. 1. Open Revit. 2. In the Projects menu, click New, as shown in Figure 23.1. 3. Click the Application button, and select Save As ➢ Template, as shown in Figure 23.2. 4. Save this file to your network. The file in our examples will be called NER-TEMPLATE.rte. You can call yours whatever you see fit. NOTE When I say save this file to your network, give this simple instruction some thought. We will be mapping our network deployment to this directory. Also, don’t get into the habit of having errant templates scattered around your network that you are “practicing” on. You will get confused. (This author still needs to practice what he preaches regarding this matter.) The file is now saved as NER-TEMPLATE.rte. The .rte extension indicates that you have indeed created a template and that you are now working in it. The next order of business is to tell Revit that every time you wish to start a new project, Revit should choose this template. 1. Click the Application button. At the very bottom of the menu, you will see an Options button, as shown in Figure 23.3. Click it. Setting Up the Template 915 FIGURE 23.1 Clicking New on the Projects menu FIGURE 23.2 Saving as a Revit template 2. In the Options dialog, click the File Locations tab, as shown in Figure 23.4. 3. For the default template file, click the Browse button, and locate your newly saved template. 4. Once you have browsed to the .rte template, click Open. So, it’s official. You have a separate template for your company to get started with. Now the fun begins! Chapter 23 • BIM Management 916 FIGURE 23.3 Finding the Options button FIGURE 23.4 Finding the new template In your options, if you go to the File Locations tab, you can map your Revit to always use this template as your default. Managing Settings 917 The first item we will address for setting up this template to your company’s standards is the nagging line-weight issue that has persisted throughout this book. You take care of this issue by managing your Revit settings. Managing Settings Given that Revit is such a robust, deep application, you would think that there would be an endless stream of convoluted settings (like AutoCAD Architecture). Although Revit has quite a few settings, you will find that they are straightfor- ward. In fact, the mapping of the default template is almost the only mapping that you will need as you set up and work in Revit. The objective of this section is to locate the settings for your line weights and then apply them to your object styles. 1. In Revit, select the Manage tab on the Ribbon. 2. Click the Object Styles button as shown in Figure 23.5. FIGURE 23.5 Selecting Object Styles 3. With the Object Styles dialog open, notice that there are categories. Click on the + next to the Casework category, and you’ll see the subcategories. To the right of the category field is the Line Weight column. There is a Projection and a Cut. Projection refers to whether you view the item in plan, elevation, or a 3D view. Cut refers to whether you view the item in section. (Boy, this beats layers, huh?) Notice that you can change the line color, the pattern, and the rendering material each item will use (see Figure 23.6). Well, that was easy. I wish I could tell you specifically what number to assign each item, but that is up to you! Chapter 23 • BIM Management 918 FIGURE 23.6 The Object Styles dialog What do all those 1s and 2s mean? You’re used to seeing something like “0.35mm” for a line weight, but now we are looking at plain numbers! Don’t worry—Revit has it figured out. You see, these numbers refer to a chart where you will see these familiar line weights. Also, these are line weights that comply with NCS 4.0 standards. To find the line weights associated with the object styles, follow these steps: 1. On the Settings panel of the Manage tab, click Additional Settings ➢ Line Weights, as shown in Figure 23.7. In the Line Weights dialog (see Figure 23.8), notice that not only are numbers 1 through 16 assigned a pen thickness, but the thick- ness will actually degrade as the line weights get scaled down! NOTE You may be inclined to start tampering with these line weights, but hold off doing that. You are probably seeing the industry finally shifting to some form of unified line weight system. This is the NCS (National CAD Standards). These line weights are set to these standards. Change the object styles all you want, but I recommend that you keep these pen assignments just the way they are. Managing Settings 919 FIGURE 23.7 Clicking Additional Settings ➢ Line Weights 2. Click the Perspective Line Weights tab on the Line Weights dialog. Notice that you can alter your line weights for an object in a perspec- tive view, independent of a standard plan, elevation, or isometric view. 3. Click the Annotation Line Weights tab. Again, notice that you can set your line weights for your annotation. This tab will come in handy as you start to set up your templates. Remember it is available. 4. Click Cancel to leave this dialog. I wish I could tell you that you don’t have tons of work ahead of you in terms of trying to match your AutoCAD line weights, but many of you will be inundated with the effort of adjusting line weights for quite a while. You will have to make at least some tweaks before you can submit a set of drawings with your name on them. That being said, suppose your submittal includes sending CAD files. Hang on here, we use Revit! You can do that? Chapter 23 • BIM Management 920 FIGURE 23.8 The Line Weights dialog Import/Export Settings Of course, you can import and export CAD files! The beauty of it is, you can import and export to a predefined set of layers. This works wonders for firms that find themselves surrounded by “CAD people.” The objective of this section is to learn how to deal with the issue of import- ing a CAD model into Revit, so follow along with this procedure: 1. Open the last model you have been working on. At this stage of the game, it does not matter which one. 2. On the Insert tab, click on the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the Import panel, as shown in Figure 23.9. 3. In the Import Line Weights dialog, notice that all the line weights are set to 1. This does not make for a very spectacular drawing. At the upper-right corner of the dialog is a Load button, as shown in Figure 23.10. Click it. 4. You will automatically be taken to the directory where you mapped Revit to find your line weights files. They are simple text ( .txt) files. Find the file called importlineweights-dwg-AIA.txt and click Open. Your line weights have been adjusted, as shown in Figure 23.11. Managing Settings 921 FIGURE 23.9 Clicking the down arrow on the Import tab FIGURE 23.10 Importing some line weights 5. Notice that you have a Save As button. Change a few line weights around and click the Save As button. 6. Save the file in the same directory as NER Line Weights.txt. As mentioned before, you will probably have a good amount of work to do con- figuring these line weights. If you have been sticking to the AIA or NCS layering conventions, you will not have an issue. If not, then you have some translating to do! Chapter 23 • BIM Management 922 FIGURE 23.11 The adjusted line weights Great! We have importing down. Suppose we want to export a Revit model to CAD. It’s a little different, but the concept is the same. You need to physically map the Revit objects to AutoCAD or MicroStation layers or levels. The objective of the next exercise is to examine export settings when sending a model to CAD: 1. On the Application Menu button, select Export ➢ Options ➢ Export Layers DWG/DXF. In the Export Layers dialog notice that all of your Revit objects are represented and are given a unique layer name. That layer name is also assigned an AutoCAD pen number. This assigns the layer a color. You can change both of these items in this dialog (see Figure 23.12). Wa i t ! i do n ’t ha v e th a t Ch o i C e When you click the Application button and look for an item, you will notice an arrow in a wide blue strip at the bottom of the menu. If you hover your pointer over this blue strip, you will see the menu scroll up so you can see more choices, as shown here: Managing Settings 923 FIGURE 23.12 The Export Layers dialog 2. In the Export Layers dialog, click the Standard button. 3. The Undefined Layering Standard dialog opens, as shown in Figure 23.13. Here you get a choice of four standards. By default, the American Institute of Architects Standard (AIA) will be current, but you can change to one of the other three. Choose a standard or click Cancel. FIGURE 23.13 The four choices for standards 4. If you want to change your layering scheme, go right ahead. Because the AIA standard is saved to an external .txt file, you will not have . matter.) The file is now saved as NER-TEMPLATE.rte. The .rte extension indicates that you have indeed created a template and that you are now working in it. The next order of business is to tell Revit that. (see Figure 23.8), notice that not only are numbers 1 through 16 assigned a pen thickness, but the thick- ness will actually degrade as the line weights get scaled down! NOTE You may be inclined. preparing for the Coming of Revit. You can knock this stuff out if you do it in an orderly fashion, and the first order of business is creating your company’s templates. If you do nothing more than simply