ASCENT Blog

Schedules Inside and Out Using Autodesk Revit – Follow-up to the Webcast

by Martha Hollowell

Thank you everyone who joined us live for the Schedules Inside and Out using Autodesk Revit webcast based on Chapter 2 of Autodesk Revit BIM Management: Template and Family Creation. If you want to review the webcast again or didn’t have a chance to listen yet you can access it here.

There were not that many questions but here are a few things that came up that I hope will help.

Schedules through the Years

The last time I did a webcast on Schedules it was still bare bones. There were big changes in Revit 2014 and a variety of smaller but helpful changes since then. Here is a quick list of the updates through the years. I used Revit 2018 on the webcast.

2014 – Autodesk added a ribbon tab and lots of formatting tools in the schedule view.  Additional families that can now be scheduled include generic models, levels, grids, and various structural reinforcement elements as well as Phase properties. The schedule view and sheet instance size are coordinated.

2015 – Additional parameters are now available for walls. You can specify custom text for Grand Totals in the Sorting/Grouping tab. You can also Include images in schedules. Several people asked about this. I cover how to add images to schedules in the webcast starting at 25:46. You can use standard image files including BMP, JPG, JPEG, PNG, and TIF. The preview image of a component that displays in the Type Selector is not automatically available but you can take a screen capture of it and save it to be used in the schedule.

2016 – Insert Data Row tool is available directly on the Rows panel. (It isn’t a big change but it makes creating key schedules much easier.)

2017 – Enhanced features include: combining parameters into a single cell, setting up view templates for schedules, the Schedule Properties dialog box is updated to match similar dialog boxes, and additional calculate options in the Formatting tab are included.

2018 – You can now schedule Model Groups and RVT Links and add custom parameters for these elements that can be used in schedules.

Schedules in Revit LT

Most of the schedule tools covered in this webcast are available in Revit LT. The only thing you cannot do is embedded schedules for MEP. (Graphical Column Schedules are not available either.)

To find out more about the differences between Revit and Revit LT check out this page from Autodesk: Revit vs. Revit LT.

Key Schedules

We had one question about Key Schedules and MEP. Most of the time these are used for architectural projects such as Room Finish Schedules I showed in the webcast starting at 31:24. I did a little searching and found a good example on creating a Lighting Device Key that can be linked to an Occupancy Sensor Schedule.

Embedded Schedules

One participant pointed out that there are five categories of elements that you can use with Embedded Schedules: duct systems, piping, systems, electrical circuits, spaces, and rooms. So, you can create an architectural room schedule and embed a schedule for another category such as Casework, Columns, Doors, and Furniture.  I haven’t seen one of these in use and when I tried to create one there seemed to be some issues with the embedded content not showing up.  I will continue to research this and post more here when I find out.

Parameters Webcast

You may also want to watch an earlier webcast: Autodesk Revit Parameters Demystified that builds on the parameters parts of schedules (and more). So, check it out here.

Thank you again for joining us for the most recent Revit webcast. For all of you who asked about the recording here you go: Schedules Inside and Out using Autodesk Revit.

Revit for Landscape Architects Webcast and Q&A Follow-up

Thanks to everyone who was able to join the webcast about our latest training guide: Autodesk Revit 2017 for Landscape Architecture.

In the webcast (which you can view here) I talked about how we customized Revit to work for landscape architecture where the base elements were limited or, in one case, needed a new element, to show landscape specific information. The customization process we used is beyond the scope of the fundamentals level class but all the methods I used are covered in Autodesk Revit 2017 BIM Management: Template and Family Creation.

The subtitle of the webcast was “Planting Components, Planting Areas, and Planting Schedules” so, you can see where the customization was most needed – all around plants.

Follow-up Q & A

As always, we had a lot of good questions for follow-up. Here are a recap of the questions along with my answers:

Q. Will this info apply to REVIT LT 2017?

A. Much of what is covered in the training guide can be used with Revit LT. There are some limitations including Shaped Edited floors, which are used for creating hardscape and area plantings with multiple slopes.

Q. Are there exercises in the book on how to calculate the volume of dirt for the above ground planting areas?

A. We didn’t include exercises on this exact method but we do include how to create floor types that can include the dirt in planting areas. That information can then be gathered using a material takeoff schedule as taught in Autodesk Revit 2017 BIM Management: Template and Family Creation.

Q. Can you show us the syllabus?

A. Yes! You can download a copy of the Table of Contents and a Sample Chapter here: Autodesk Revit 2017 for Landscape Architecture

Q. I've seen in many projects that utilize the RPC trees (in a lot of quantity) becoming fairly heavy and hard to move around in... Is this still an issue, have you seen this in some of your larger projects?

A. Yes, RPC (Rich Photorealistic Content) components can become cumbersome. In this case you might want to place 2D elements where having 3D elements is not needed. For example, we used a 2D bamboo component in some areas in the practices. These components can hold all the same information as the 3D components and show up correctly in the schedules.

Q. Does Revit have any plans to further develop plant libraries that come 'out of the box' to help users avoid the daunting task of building up a complete plant library from scratch?  Seems like that would be a deal breaker for many.

A. I haven’t heard about anything yet and I do understand that this is a big issue. My recommendation as you are starting out is to create the plant libraries you need as you need them. This way you will build your library as you build the number of projects in Revit. Of course, if you have someone hanging around doing nothing…

Q. After planting areas have been placed, how do they appear on sheets? We've only seen them in views thus far, as color blocks.

A. For the webcast I was showing the color blocks because they look pretty:)  You can have patterns applied as shown below. These patterns are typically setup in the material.

If they are not showing it could be that the Fill Pattern Graphics for the view have been turned off. You can fix that in the Visibility/Graphics Overrides dialog box as shown below.

This turns on the patterns for all floors – not just the planting floors. You can turn off the Surface Patterns of individual floors by using Override Graphics in Views>By Element...

Q. If the LIM Project is merged with an Architects Revit Project, can the floors be filtered or will they all show up in the project browser?

(LIM= Landscape Information Modeling – this is a term I used in the webcast.)

A. When you link Revit projects with each other you can control the project categories separately.

I interpreted the term floors in this question to be levels (rather than hardscape or planting floors) because this is what shows in the Project Browser. In the Autodesk Revit 2017 for Landscape Architecture training guide we cover how to link Revit models and how to copy and monitor levels between the projects. A more advanced use of Visibility/Graphic Overrides is to control the visibility of categories of elements in the Revit Links tab. This is covered in the Autodesk Revit 2017 Collaboration Tools training guide where we go more in-depth of how to use linking in projects.

Q. Regarding the spacing on boxwood floor planting, she changed the on center from 6 to 9 – I’m a bit confused on subject.

A. Sorry about the confusion – I probably went a bit too fast! In one example I showed that we created a custom instance parameter that lists typical spacing (in inches) as shown below. When you select from the list it establishes the Analysis Results that are then used in the schedules to tell you how many plants are needed for a specific planting area based on the spacing.

Q. You mention the custom content created for the book, but the book does not cover how to create the custom content or schedules.

A. Yes, a lot of the custom content we created for the book (and covered in this webcast) is beyond the scope of a fundamentals level training guide. If you are going to be creating the content and setting up the schedules and custom parameters for your company, you will also need the information covered in Autodesk Revit 2017 BIM Management: Template and Family Creation. There are no practices in this book now that are geared specifically to Landscape design but the methods are the same no matter what schedule you are building.

Another resource you might want to check out is my webcast Autodesk Revit Parameters Demystified found on the ASCENTctk YouTube channel.

Q. Another workflow for planting areas would be to create an area plan and create a color scheme for planting.

A. Yes, this was one of the possibilities we looked at when we were creating planting areas. We decided to use floors for several reasons:

1. Floor are easy to create and don’t require any additional training. Area plans require specific types of views and color schemes that would need to be setup.
2. Schedules for floors are similar to those needed for planting components.
3. You can slope the floors to follow contours.

That said, some people may prefer to use area plans and color schemes. You can discover more about those in Autodesk Revit 2017 Architecture: Conceptual Design & Visualization.

Thank You

Thanks for watching the webcast (either in person or on YouTube). We hope you enjoy learning and teaching from the new Autodesk Revit 2017 for Landscape Architecture training guide and any of the other ASCENT Revit titles that might help.