Views & Visualization

In this lesson, students explore the tools available in the Autodesk® Revit® software to create several types of common project views and specify the information that appears in them. Students will learn how to:

When you create a new project, the Revit software automatically creates two types of plan views for each of the levels defined in the project template:

While this initial set of views is typically sufficient to get started with your modeling, your views can get crowded and confusing as you add more elements and detail to the building model. Rather than trying to view all of the model information in a single view, it is typically a better practice to create many views of your model, each focusing on the types of information needed for a particular aspect of the design process.

You add new plan views by:

Creating additional views and customizing the information displayed does not change the underlying building model. All of the elements are still available in the model (regardless of visibility) and will be affected by changes made in any view.

You can set the properties of any view to precisely control how the elements in your building model will be displayed. You choose these settings by selecting a view in the Project Browser, then adjusting the view properties in the Properties palette.

The view properties vary slightly depending on the type of view, but the options available typically allow you to set:

You can use plan regions to adjust the view range settings used for specific areas in a plan view. This is useful when elements are not being displayed, because they are located outside the view range (for example, clerestory windows, which are located high on a wall above the cutting plane of a view) or on slightly offset levels (for example, floors in a split-level house).

When you create a new project, the Revit software creates four elevation views named North, East, South, and West. These names describe the orientation of the elevation view relative to project north.

As you progress with your design and modeling, you will typically need to create additional elevation views and section views to focus on specific aspects of the project. You do this by:

Like plan view, you can set visibility graphics overrides and adjust the view properties to set the crop boundaries, view scale, level of detail, and visibility of model elements.

You can create two types of 3D views in Revit:

You create new 3D views in three ways:

You can also add section boxes to your 3D views to cut away portions of the building model so that you can see inside. Each face of the section box acts as a cutting plane, so you can use the section box to create a wide variety of views to share your design and show the details of how it will be constructed—for example, 3D plans, 3D sections, and 3D detail views.

You can change the appearance of the elements that appear in any view by adjusting the View Properties that control how objects are displayed.

You can specify the level of detail to display:

You can also change the visual style for displaying the elements in this view. Your options include:

These display properties are set independently for each view. So you can create new views or duplicate existing views as needed, then assign different display properties to each view to achieve the desired visual effects.

You can further enhance your views using Revit software’s Graphic Display Options to:

Displaying shadows can slow down the display of your views. If you are making many changes to your model and you find that your computer’s performance is feeling sluggish, try temporarily turning off the shadows in the open views. It is often helpful to keep two versions of a view—one with the shadows turned on for enhanced display, and another with the shadows turned off for quick editing.

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Duplicating a view without detailing leaves out certain elements such as annotations, dimensions, door tags, and window tags. These elements are included when duplicating with detailing.

In both cases, the visibility and graphics settings are carried over. For example, if the furniture lines are set to red in a view that is being copied, they will still be red whether or not the view is duplicated with detailing.

Detailing is best used when preparing structural or construction documents. When considering these applications, details like dimensions and door tags are important for designing, planning, and scheduling.

Duplicating without detailing is more useful to convey architectural ideas. This reduces clutter and allows you to focus more clearly on the space being designed.

By editing the view range of a plan view and setting the cut plane to 6 feet, we would be able to make the high clerestory windows visible. However, this change may hide lower windows. To fix this, we can create a plan region around the clerestory windows and set the view properties in this region independently of the rest of the view.

Exterior elevation views are useful for showing the architectural details and materials of the building facade and are often used to illustrate the exterior architectural appearance and features.

Interior elevation views are useful for showing the details of elements placed on interior walls, such as moldings, cabinetry, and fixtures.

Building sections are typically used to explain the vertical relationships between building elements and their connection details. They are also useful for displaying the details of vertical shafts and circulation elements, such as stair wells and elevators.

Interior elevations are typically not needed unless it is necessary to display a specific aspect of the design that cannot be explained well in a plan view. These features often include moldings, cabinetry, fixtures, appliances, and other interior details where the placement height is best explained in a vertical view.

Elevation and sections views are similar in many ways. The key difference is typically that elevations display an external projection of the elements that appear in the view, where sections are used to display a cut through the key elements.

When expanding the crop region of a perspective view, the objects near the edges appear to be stretched out. To prevent this, it is important for the focus of the image to be located in the center of the image.

If the view has already been created, you can use the Autodesk SteeringWheels widget walk option to back up and see a broader view. You can also show the camera in a plan view, and then move it farther away from the target object.

Yes. In a 3D perspective view, the section box can be displayed and its edges can be moved in much the same way as in the default 3D view.

Hidden line. This visual style minimizes the visual clutter by obscuring hidden lines and keeps the image simple for printing on noncolor printers.

Realistic. This visual style gives the truest representation of selected colors and material appearances.

Wireframe. This visual style enables you to clear see how elements interact and join, even if the edges would be hidden by the surfaces. Wireframe views are similar to X-ray vision.

The latitude of the project location determines where the sun will be located in the sky at different times of the day and the year. This is reflected in the position of the shadows cast in model views.

The time of day also affects the position of the sun in the sky—rising from the east in the morning and setting to the west in the afternoon. As the day progresses, the shadows cast in model views change to reflect this position.

The month of the year also affects the path of the sun in sky. During the summer months, the sun’s path is relatively high in the sky and shadows cast at midday are typically short. During the winter months, the sun’s path is relatively low in the sky, and the shadows cast at midday are much longer.