Revit and the CadLab – Suggestions for Working with it

First, our apologies for the difficulties of running Revit on the machines in the CadLab. We are in the process of replacing a number of them, but we hadn’t realized how problematic the current ones are for running Revit (it seems that Revit is the program that stresses them the most - most other programs run fine).

Revit

What follows are some suggestions (mostly from Jonathan Eboli) about how to work with Revit. We hope that they help.

• Be sure to read the Lab instructions given on VistaBB.  You must follow these directions for full credit. 
  • People with short last names are welcome to use 100 + 10 x LettersOfLastName as the length of the longest side.
• Save often!  As noted above we realize there are issues with running Revit in the CAD Lab.  For now please remember to save every few minutes while working in the lab.
• Some had issues with the viewports (the views of your model that you drag onto the “sheet”) being too large after you placed them on a new sheet.  There are several ways of addressing this,
  • A suggestion would be to move the elevation symbols on your "level 1 plan" closer to the building.  Then when you drag level 1 back onto the new sheet, the viewport will be much smaller. 
  • You can change the scale and thus the size of your viewport by
    • right clicking the viewport
    • Selecting element properties
    • selecting a different “view scale” from the drop-down box.
  • You can change the “cropping” of the viewport several ways
    • Most likely to work without problems is to change the size of the viewport by specifying its dimensions on the sheet. To do this:
      • Select the viewport by clicking on it – this should change the tab on the ribbon bar (top of Revit window) to the “Modify Viewports
      • Click on “Size Crop” in the crop subsection of the ribbon
      • Now put in your desired dimensions. Play till you get it as you want.
    • You are supposed to be able to drag “handles” on the edge of the viewport to do the same thing, but how to make those handles appear is not well documented – we couldn’t find it – sometimes they appear and sometimes they don’t. Here are some posts from the user sites on the web that did not work for Jim Mitchell, but may for you.
      • According to RevitCity.com: if you want to  "resize the viewport in the window go to VP, turn on annotation crop and pull the grips in to your model limits." 
      • Furthermore, another post states: "If you need to adjust the limits of your views, get into the view & right click to choose view properties.  From there you can adjust your view crop regions."
• To make drawings look professional, you may want to use guidegrids.  These help you line up elevations, plans, sections and schedules on your sheet.  See this video tutorial for more info.  Note this is not required but could help with arranging your sheet.
• In order to plot a PDF, select file, print, and then select adobe PDF.  You need Adobe Pro on your computer to do this.  Each computer at the Lab has this feature already downloaded. 
  • I believe Drexel has a site license that includes students so you should be able to download it from – software.drexel.edu
• We suggest uploading your revit model to google docs as another method of transferring your model from back and forth between your PC and the Lab computers.  This is a good alternative to using a flash drive.  To learn more about this, watch the google docs upload tutorial.
• Lastly, Jonathan Eboli will be available all weekend should you have any questions about your lab.  Please email me at jae46@drexel.edu to set up a time to meet in the CAD Lab.  If you don't have time to meet, I will do my best to answer your questions via email.

Jonathan Eboli & Jim Mitchell