Starting a Project in Revit – Part 11 : Detailing and Drafting Views

In Revit Architecture, you have the flexibility of reusing details from your typical detail library, or you can use parts of Sections, Elevations and Plans to create great looking details. Today we’re going to look at how you can do both of these.

In the first scenario, we access a section view or a plan, somewhere that we will need to reference a detail. In the View tab, we click on the Callout button and create a window around the area we want to show more information. The callout window automatically generates an annotation bubble so when we drag the new Callout onto a sheet, it will populate the appropriate information for referencing.

Once you have your window in place, you can select the window and grips will appear if you need to adjust the location of the annotation bubble and apply an elbow to it.

Now you can expand the Sections category in the Project Browser and notice you have a view called ‘Callout of Section’. Select the Callout view, and in the Type Selector, change the format to Detail.

The view moves from the Sections category in the Project Browser into the Details category. You can now expand the Details category and see that you have the same view with the same name. We rename the view accordingly, in this case Typical Strip Footing, and we can also adjust the crop region and annotation symbols for the detail. We’re now ready to annotate and finish the detailing of this new view. Access the Annotate tab and try applying the necessary dimensions, and annotations, but before this you can use the Detail Components to finish this detail quickly and efficiently with Revit’s predefined data sets. You’ll also want to make sure to change your scale to something more appropriate like 1/2” : 1’. For more information on keynoting and annotations, please refer to our entry on Annotations and Sheets.

The next method of creating details might be a little easier if you already have a detail library in place and you’re going to simply reuse something you’ve already drawn in AutoCAD. Revit allows you to link AutoCAD DWG’s so if you make changes to the AutoCAD drawing after the detail has been inserted into the Revit model, it will update within the view as well.

In the View tab, click on the Drafting View button and name a new view Typical Strip Footing. Expand the Drafting Views category in the Project Browser. You’ll now see the new view at the scale you specified, and you can now import your DWG.

In the Insert tab, access the Import CAD tool, and locate your DWG. You’ll need to specify the import units, whether you want the detail to be brought in as black and white, or retain the colour information from your CAD file, and you can also specify how you’d like to place the drawing once you bring it in to the view.

This feature is extremely handy as you can now use the annotation tools to either add more to the detail, or define what needs to be changed if it’s required. Anybody working on the project can see revision notes from the drafting view from another user, and they can either recreate the detail using the Callout method and Revit detailing tools, or they can revert back to the CAD drawing to complete the detail accordingly.

It is a commonly thought that Revit is not the tool to use for detailing but the truth is that it’s detailing tools were developed to work hand in hand with AutoCAD so that users with varying strengths and experience with the two programs can implement their skills in either program efficiently, and still leverage the powerful workflows of the Building Design suites. Because CAD is so commonly used it was important to have these import features that allow you to work efficiently with pre-existing data from your previous projects, or use specific details from product manufacturers without having to reinvent the wheel in Revit. 

Once again, thanks for reading and if you have any Revit questions or topics you would like to see covered, please feel free to contact us or leave a comment!

~ Travis Van Clieaf