Dimensioning curved things

So for dimensioning curved things/circles... What Options do we have?.. Radius and now Diameter in 2013.. well boo hiss.. I wanna dimension from face to face of my curves. 

This seems unpossible! But here's the trick folks. Draw a detail line near by.. or reference plane... or something straight. You'll want it approximately perpendicular to where you want the final location of the dimension to be....

 

Now use the Aligned Dimension tool and select the line First, then select each face of the curved elements. When you pull the dimension away the witness line ends are at the perpendicular "where i want the dimension to end up" line shown above. (perpendicular apparent intersection?? Ha..I'm just making phrases up now.)

Now you may think you can get rid of that extra dimension to the straight line by simply using "Edit Witness Line" and deselecting the temporary line...

WRONG. It will hate you. and you will hate it.

 

Just Delete the line!! Way easier and every one's happy! 

 

Much better than showing a radius dimension for each face.

Dimensions will update as elements are changed and you can use the dimensions to adjust the locations and what not. 

 

However you will need to add another straight line via "edit witness line" if you want to add or remove any curved elements from the string. In 2013 you can use tab-select to select just a portion of the dimension string and then delete it that way!

Example 2: Diameter pulled away and/or for diameter pre-Revit 2013..

 

 If you know of a better way to do this please let me know in the comments :)

Revit 2013 and Design Options

I can't change my Design Options in my views.... ugggg.
 
I was working with a user to create Design Options just like any other project, created the options and went to set up the views to display the correct design option. Went to the design options tab to change the settings, click... (nothing), what?, click, click, click (because clicking on something that didn't work the first time always works by clicking multiple times :) ). What the heck!
 

 
Well since I had view templates assigned to my views... I looked at my view templates,

 
 
The V/G Overrides Design Options is now available and the check box is set to include.

 
With this set to include it won't allow the you to change this setting in your views. So I recommend changing all the view templates in your project (that have design options) to not include the V/G Overrides Design Options.
 
Is there a better way to change this??

New Instance Properties for Levels in 2013 !?!

I stumbled across these two check boxes in the level properties today and had never noticed them before...

So I hopped over to 2012 and they weren't there.. which made me go to wikihelp for more info...

Which only got me more curious...

Shouldn't Structural be checked on by default in Revit Structure? I mean, 90% of my levels are primarily structural.

Checking one or the other doesn't affect the look of the level any.. seems like it may be better if these were type parameters instead and you could change the symbol or something.

I like the building story and really hope that RAM works this in with their RAM/REVIT link because that would be super useful for not exporting the levels we don't want as stories in RAM.. especially the foundation 'story' .. I haven't gotten a chance to look into the new RAM link yet.. so.. does anyone know if this helps??

Besides the linking with analytical softwares thing, what else is logical day-to-day uses for this?

Heads Up! Analytical Model of Columns placed with "Multiple-At Grids"

In my company's template,  I have our columns to default to being Fixed on both Top and Bottom for the analytical model. This is preferred with exporting to Risa. You use the Properties Filter to switch to the analytical model before placing the column.. then it will remember...

However I noticed, when I place columns using the At Grids tool on the Multiple panel of the contextual ribbon, I cannot select analytical model in the Properties Filter....

Which makes my columns analytical model default to Pinned on each end...

Booooo... Hisssss...

Additional View Types upon Level creation - Fail/Bug

Have you ever used this button? 

Yeah, me neither! ;)

It lets you create multiple plan views, for different view types, as you create levels. Now this works great for architects with floor plans and reflected ceiling plans. But 'Out Of the Box' poor ole Structural Reviters only see Structural Plan when we click the button..

We all know that while working in Revit, yes you do have the typical Structural Plan views, but you probably also have coordination views, and views where you are adjusting your analtyical model (maybe, hopefully?).. And views where your coworker decides to turn all concrete elements to semi-transparent .. ugh.

Which got my wheels a turnin... So I created additional View Types for Analytical and Coordination ..

Now when I go to create a level and push the Plan View Types button, I see all three, in-which I can use the CTRL key to select all.

 

And then I created Level 3.. but the results were not as expected! Instead of Level 3 under each view type like I have seen in Architectural files for Floor Plans and Ceiling plans, I got Level 3 under Structural Plan (okay that's good) but then the views for Analytical and Coordination were name Level 4 and Level 5.. obviously still associated to Level 3 because I don't have a Level 4 or 5 But.. when I change the Level 3 name those views won't change to match, and... when I do create Level 4 and/or 5.. well that just becomes ultra confusing.

 

And here's what it would look like if I started over and created Level 1 first with all three view types, then Level 2 and Level 3. I mean, it does create all the views at once and I could easily select each one, hit F2 and rename them all in order.. so its still something to keep in mind for a quick view creation.. but just not the expected results!

Keep in mind that you'd need to Sort your browser by Family and Type or Type ...