Revit Tips: Referencing Sheet or Back Referencing

Revit has a parameter built into views called Referencing Sheet (which is also known as Back Referencing). Referencing Sheet lists the sheet number that a view placed on a sheet is referenced from. For instance, if a floor plan on sheet A2.01 - FIRST FLOOR PLAN shows a section cutting through a wall and the reference on that sheet is 1/A3.05. If you look at view 1 on sheet A3.05, you'll find the section cutting through the wall. On that view title may also be a Referencing Sheet field telling you when you look at that view that the section was cut on sheet A2.01.

 

Pretty useful and logical right?

 

Unfortunately, the Referencing Sheet value doesn't always reference back to the sheet that you would expect it to.

 

Let's say you have a set of drawings set up as:

 

A0.XX General

A1.XX Site

A2.XX Plans

A3.XX Sections

A4.XX Elevations

A5.XX Enlarged Plans

A6.XX RCP

 

And you have a section that you want to place on a sheet in the 3.XX series. Why do you get a back reference number from a Site Plan (1.XX) or other view if you created the section in a Floor Plan (2.XX)?

 

Referencing Sheet lists the first sheet, in order, that has a reference to that view. So if the section mark is showing in the Site Plan, it will show as the Referencing Sheet on the sheet for that view. To change that, hide the section annotation in the Site Plan. The Referencing Sheet will then look for the next sheet to have the section mark.

 

Fortunately, if the Referencing Sheet is listing a view that is different from what you want it to show, you know right where to look because the Referencing Sheet parameter tells you what sheet to look at..

 

One place where Referencing Sheet values can get more fouled up is with Dependent Views.

 

Let's say you've got a floor plan split into two areas, A to the west/left and B to the east/right and both plans are Dependent views off of the same Parent view. If you have a section, elevation or other callout in Area B, then when you place that view on a sheet, it may very well list the sheet that Area A is on as the Referencing Sheet. This is a bug related to how Dependent views relate to each other via the Parent view. What you will need to do is go into the view for Area A, uncrop the view, find the section/elevation/callout annotation for that view and hide it manually.

 

It can be a frustrating process at times and obviously the tool needs some tweaking, but all in all it's a useful tool and beats entering the information manually.

Revit Tips: View Title Wrapping

View title lengths can sometimes wrap in awkward ways in Revit.

For instance, a view may be named "ENLARGED POWER AND COMMUNICATION PLAN - EIGHTH FLOOR - JS-1 ADA" but when it's placed on a sheet, it ends up looking like this:

ENLARGED POWER AND COMMUNICATION PLAN - EIGHTH FLOOR - JS-1
ADA

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Not exactly what we want to see graphically.
If you go into the View Properties, you can see two parameters under Identity Data that can help you fix this. The first is View Name, which is the name of the view as you will see it in the Project Browser and as it will appear on the sheet.
Below View Name is Title on Sheet, which will override the View Name on the sheet. You can also control where the line break will occur in this parameter by holding 'Ctrl' and pressing 'Enter'. Using this approach, we can change how the View title appears on the sheet to something a little more graphically sensible:

ENLARGED POWER AND COMMUNICATION PLAN
EIGHTH FLOOR - JS-1 ADA

Additionally, since Title on Sheet does not need to be unique, you can use this parameter to give multiple views the same name on the sheet.

Title on Sheet is something that should generally be used sparingly, only when absolutely necessary. Having to manage the Title on Sheet parameter as well as the View Name for every single view could lead to confusion and consume time better used on other aspects of the model.

BIM Dictionary: BIM

So what exactly is BIM?

Well, for starters, BIM stands for Building Information Modeling, which tells you a little, but not nearly enough. The simplest explanation I have heard, and probably my favorite, is BIM means we build the building in the computer before it's built in the real world.

The Building Smart Alliance, which produces the National BIM Standards, has described BIM as:

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. A BIM is a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle; defined as existing from earliest conception to demolition.

What does that mean though?

For one thing, it means that instead of drafting two dimensional lines to represent, for instance, a wall, a BIM user instead picks a wall tool, then selects a wall type, picks a start and end point and voila, you have a wall. In plan, this wall may look like anything you may have drafted in CAD. However, this wall also exists in 3D. It has finish information associated with it. It has layers of construction, i.e. gypsum wall boards, tile, 3 5/8" metal studs, plywood, etc. The wall has a sound rating, fire rating, wall type for tagging, specification section references and much more. This is where the "I" in BIM comes from.

This information allows for much more advanced levels of coordination. For instance, an appropriately built BIM model can calculate the amount of gypsum wall board needed in a project. Or tile, plywood, metal studs, concrete, paint, etc. Any material used in the project can be estimated from the BIM model. Some structural firms even model the rebar used in concrete pours.

Additionally, by modeling systems in three dimensions, BIM software allows designers to do detailed Spatial Coordination, checking the locations of the designed systems of the various disciplines against each other in 3D, including clearances. This illustrates to designers instances where a fire protection pipe might run into a mechanical duct, or where a mechanical duct may run along the access clearance of a run of cable tray. By modeling the systems in 3D, this coordination becomes easier to see, hopefully reducing costly changes in the field during construction.

There are many more facets to BIM, too many to cover succinctly in a single post. Put it all together though and what BIM does is allow designers to manage and coordinate the design of increasingly complex buildings in a more manageable way.