Controlling Visibility of Structural Elements

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DEEPAK MAINI: The last objective of this course

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is to control the visibility of various structural elements

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in Autodesk Revit.

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As we saw when we imported the structural connections

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from advanced steel into Revit, they

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were displayed at green lines and circles.

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That's because the detail level is set to medium

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by default in the model.

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We are going to learn how we can change the detail level to fine

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so we can see all the connections with the plates

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and bolts.

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We are also going to interrogate the Revit model

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and if there's any missing connection,

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we are going to apply that inside Revit

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so we'll learn how to add connections and Revit as well.

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And finally, I'm going to show you

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how we can control the visibility

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of various structural connection elements using the visibility

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graphics settings.

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Let's get straight into Revit now.

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As you can see in this model, all the imported connections

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are displayed as green lines and circles.

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To change this, I'm going to click on detail level

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and I'm going to change it to fine.

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With this, if I never get closer to a connection,

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you will notice that the connection is now

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displayed with the plates and the connecting bolts as well.

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The best part of this workflow is that these connections are

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imported as smart connections.

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And if required, you can modify them inside Revit as well.

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So if I need to modify let's say,

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to this baseplate connection, I can simply click on it

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and then I can override the instance parameter

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by clicking on the Edit option.

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It will display the dialog box which

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is exactly similar to what we saw in advanced steel

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with the same categories and the same tabs in those categories.

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Although I would recommend not to modify these parameters here

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in Revit because then your Revit model

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is different from your detail model and advanced steel.

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Now if I navigate here, I can see that the bridging joint

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here was not imported.

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This is where I'm going to show you how you can create joints

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within Revit as well.

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For that, I'll go to the structure ribbon tab.

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And in the connection ribbon panel,

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I will first load the connection type that I want to add.

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All the connections that were created inside advanced steel

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are automatically displayed under the loaded connection

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category.

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Any other connection that I want to use,

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I can simply add that from the available connections category.

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I can also filter the connection types.

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In this case, I'm going to go and select the general bracings

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connections.

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And the one that I want to use is this one here, gusset plate

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to column and baseplate.

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I'm going to add this to the loaded connections category.

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And now, I can use this.

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To add the connection, I'm going to click on the connection

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button.

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And now from the generic connection dropdown list,

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I can pick the connection I want to apply which in this case

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is gusset plate to column and baseplate.

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Now, I need to hold down the Control key

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and select the elements.

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So I'll first pick the column and then the baseplate

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by holding down the Control key and then the bracing.

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And now, I'm going to press Enter.

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As soon as I do that, it not places a connection

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but it comes up with an error message

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because it is selected bracing as the second element

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not the third.

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So all I need to do is drag this number three

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tag onto the bracing.

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And now it shows me the preview of the connection.

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And now if I need to modify this instance,

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I can go and click on this override by instance checkbox

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and then edit the detailed parameters.

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As I mentioned earlier, the options in these dialog boxes

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are exactly the same as what we saw in advanced steel.

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So in my case, under the gusset plate ship tab

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I'm going to change the shape at dim or plate

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and I'm going to pick variable.

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And now I'm going to select the align to baseplate checkbox.

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I'm happy with the rest of the parameters

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so I'm going to close the dialog box.

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A really cool thing is that if need be,

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you can select this connection and you can

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propagate it and Revit as well.

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Similar to what we saw in advanced steel.

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So a really simple, easy way of creating connections in Revit

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and also propagating and copying them.

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The last thing I want to talk about

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is to control the visibility of all these structural connection

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elements.

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So then, I'm going to go into the visibility graphics.

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There are a number of different shortcut keys

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you could use to activate the dialog box.

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I simply press VB key on the keyboard.

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And now I'm going to expand the structural connections

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category.

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And I can see all these connection elements.

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If I clear this check box and hit the apply button, now

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as you could see, none of these connection elements

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are displayed in the model.

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So if you want to simplify the model,

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you can actually use this process.

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But please not because the holes were

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created on the structural sections, they are displayed.

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Similarly, going back into the visibility graphics dialog box.

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I [INAUDIBLE] structural connection category, apply.

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Now this is also important, in cases

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where structural template was not used to start the project.

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In that case, by default the structural connection elements

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are not turned on.

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So you have to first turn them on only then

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you'll be able to see them in the model.

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And that's all we have in this course.

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I hope you enjoyed it.

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Thank you.