Creating Aligned Dimensions by Picking Points

Nine times out of 10, you will be picking two points to create the dimension. Usually in Revit this is quite simple—until you get into a situation where the walls are at an angle that is not 90 degrees. In a moment you will explore that issue, but for now, let’s add some straight dimensions:

1. 1. Zoom in on the northeast portion of the east wing, as shown in Figure 5.6.
   
2. 2. On the Annotate tab, click the Aligned button.
   
3. 3. On the Options bar, choose Individual References from the Pick menu, as shown in Figure 5.6, and do the following:
   
   
   
   1. a. Pick the north wall marked 1 in Figure 5.6.
      
   2. b. Pick the horizontal wall that ties into the radial wall, illustrated as 2 in Figure 5.6.
      
   3. c. Place the dimension about 8´ (2400mm) to the right of the vertical wall, marked as 3 as shown in Figure 5.6.
   
   
4. 4. With the Aligned Dimension command still running, pick the north wall again and do the following:
   
   
   
   1. a. Pick the outside face of the northern wall.
      
   2. b. Pick the centerline of the door, as shown in Figure 5.7, but do not press Esc or terminate the command.
      
   3. c. Pick the horizontal wall that ties into the radial wall, illustrated as 3 in Figure 5.7.
      
   4. d. Pick a point inside (to the left of) the first dimension illustrated as 4, as shown in Figure 5.7. This places the dimension string and finalizes the session.

   

   
   

   You will now see that the actual dimension values are blue. Also, you will see a blue EQ icon with a dash through it (refer to Figure 5.7).

   
   
5. 5. Click the blue EQ button, as shown in Figure 5.8. If the door was not exactly centered, this will force the door to move to an equal distance between the two walls.
   
6. 6. Press Esc twice or click Modify.

Sometimes you may want to display the dimensions rather than the EQ that Revit shows as a default. To do so, follow along:

1. 1. Select the dimension.
   
2. 2. Right-click.
   
3. 3. Choose EQ Display, as shown in Figure 5.9.

The dimensions will now show an increment.

Pretty cool. There is one last item involving Aligned dimensions that we should address: how do you dimension along an angle?

Dimensioning an Angle

No, not an angel, an angle. Adding this type of Aligned dimension is not the easiest thing to do in Revit. This is why we need to address the process as a separate item in this book. Here are the steps:

1. 1. Zoom in on the corridor area (the link area between the east and west wings).
   
2. 2. On the Annotate tab, click the Aligned button on the Dimension panel.
   
3. 3. On the Options bar, be sure Pick is set to Individual References.
   
4. 4. Zoom in close to the intersection of the two walls, shown in Figure 5.10.
   
5. 5. Hover your pointer over the core intersection, as shown in Figure 5.10.
   
6. 6. Tap the Tab key until you see the square grip appear.
   
7. 7. When the square grip appears, pick it (left-click), as shown in Figure 5.10.

   

   
   
8. 8. Move to the other intersection of the angled wall.
   
9. 9. Hover your cursor over this core intersection, as shown in Figure 5.11.
   
10. 10. Tap the Tab key until you see the same square grip.
    
11. 11. Pick the square grip.
    
12. 12. Now the dimension is following your pointer. Pick a third point about 8´ (2438mm) away from the angled wall, as shown in Figure 5.11.
    
13. 13. On the left end of the Ribbon, select the Modify button. This ends the command.

Unfortunately, you had to dimension to the core of the wall. This is the last place you would ever need to take a dimension from. At this point, the dimension needs to be “stretched” to the outside, finished face of the brick, as you’ll see next.

Editing the Witness Line

Every dimension in Revit Architecture has its own grip points when selected. This is similar to most CAD applications. Two of these grips control the witness line. The witness line is the line “attached” to the item being dimensioned. Because you had to take this dimension from the core of the wall, the witness lines need to be dragged to the outside face of the brick:

1. 1. Select the angled dimension. Notice the blue grips appear.
   
2. 2. On the left side of the dimension, pick and hold the grip in the middle of the dimension line, as shown in Figure 5.12.
   
3. 3. Drag the blue grip to the outside face of the brick. You will know you are in the right spot because you will see a small dot appear, as shown in the magnified segment of Figure 5.12.
   
4. 4. Repeat the procedure for the other side.

Trust me—this is worth practicing now, before you get into a live situation. If you have already run into this situation, you know exactly what I mean.

You need to look at one more procedure for tweaking an Aligned dimension: overriding a dimension’s precision.

Overriding the Precision

When you dimension a wall at an angle such as this, the dimension usually comes out at an uneven increment. In most cases, you do not want to override every dimension’s precision just for this one, lone dimension to read properly. In this situation, you want to turn to the dimension’s Type Properties:

1. 1. Select the angled dimension.
   
2. 2. In the Properties dialog, click the Edit Type button, as shown in Figure 5.13.
   
3. 3. Click the Duplicate button, as shown in Figure 5.14.
   
4. 4. In the Name dialog box that opens, name the new dimension style Linear – 3/32˝ Arial – 1/4˝ precision. For the metric users, it is Linear – 2mm Arial 10mm precision. Click OK.

   

   
   
5. 5. Scroll down to the Text category. There, near the bottom, you will see a row for Units Format. Next to the Units Format row is a button that displays a sample increment. Click it (see Figure 5.14).
   
6. 6. In the Format dialog box, deselect the Use Project Settings option.

   

   
   
7. 7. Choose To The Nearest 1/4˝ (To The Nearest 10) from the Rounding drop-down menu (see Figure 5.15).

   

   
   
8. 8. Click OK twice.
   
9. 9. Notice that the dimension is now rounded to the nearest 1/4˝ (10mm). In this case, it is rounded to a whole number.

Although Aligned dimensions will bear the brunt of your dimensioning, there are still plenty of other dimension types waiting for you to use.

Using Dimensions as a Layout Tool

1. 1. In the Project Browser, go the Level 1 floor plan (not a ceiling plan!).
   
2. 2. Zoom in to the west wing of the building.
   
3. 3. Draw two interior-partition (2 hr) corridor walls, as shown in Figure 5.25.

   

   
   
4. 4. Draw five walls, as shown in Figure 5.26. They do not have to be an equal distance from one another.

   

   
   
5. 5. On the Annotate tab, click the Aligned Dimension button.
   
6. 6. Also on the Options bar, be sure the justification is set to Center Of Core (see Figure 5.27).

   

   
   
7. 7. Zoom in on the left exterior wall, as shown in Figure 5.28.
   
8. 8. Hover your pointer over the wall. Do you notice that Revit is trying to locate the center of the wall? In this instance, you do not want this (even though you just told Revit to do that).
   
9. 9. You want Revit to start this dimension string by using the interior face of the finished wall. To do this, hover your pointer over the inside face of the wall, as shown in Figure 5.28.
   
10. 10. When your cursor is over the inside face of the wall, tap the Tab key on your keyboard until Revit highlights the inside face of the wall.
    
11. 11. Pick the inside face of the wall.

    

    
    
12. 12. Move your cursor to the right until you pass over the first interior wall. Notice that the core centerline of the interior is highlighted. When you see this, pick the wall, as shown in Figure 5.29.
    
13. 13. After you pick the first interior partition, move to the right and pick the center of the next wall.
    
14. 14. Repeat the procedure until you get to the last wall (see Figure 5.29).

When you get to the exterior wall to the right, you will encounter the same issue. You want this string of dimensions to go to the inside face, not the core of the exterior wall:

1. 1. Hover your cursor over the inside face of the wall and tap the Tab key on your keyboard until the inside face of the wall becomes highlighted, as shown in Figure 5.30.
   
2. 2. When you locate the inside face, pick it.
   
3. 3. Move your cursor up the view. Notice that the entire dimension string is following.
   
4. 4. Placing a dimension in Revit is a little awkward, but you will get the hang of it. You need to pick a point away from the last dimension in the string, as shown in Figure 5.31, almost as if you are trying to pick another item that is not there. When you do this, the dimension will be in place.

Now that the dimension string is in place, it is time to move these walls to be equal distances apart from one another. Notice that, after you placed the dimension string, the familiar blue icons appeared. You can use them as follows:

1. 1. Find the EQ icon in the middle of the dimension string and pick it. The slash through it is now gone, and the walls have moved, as shown in Figure 5.32.
   
2. 2. Press Esc twice to release the selection and exit the Aligned Dimension command.

Because these walls are not constrained to always be equal, if one exterior wall is moved, these five interior partitions will always maintain an equal relationship to one another—that is, as long as this dimension string is still associated with the walls.

In Revit Architecture, you can choose to keep the walls constrained or to use the dimension only as a tool to move the walls around.

Constraining the Model

Choices you make early in the design process, such as constraining a model, can either greatly benefit or greatly undermine the project’s flow. As you gain more experience using Revit Architecture, you will start hearing the term overconstrained. This is a term for a model that has been constrained in so many places that any movement of the model forces multiple warnings and, in many cases, errors that cannot be ignored.

Given that, how you choose to constrain your model is up to you. You will learn how to constrain (and of course unconstrain) your model in this section, but deciding when and where to constrain your model will vary from project to project.

Unconstraining the Walls

The string of equal dimensions you now have in place has created a constraint with these walls. To unconstrain them, follow along:

1. 1. Select the dimension string.
   
2. 2. Press the Delete key on your keyboard.
   
3. 3. Revit gives you a warning, as shown in Figure 5.33. You must then choose whether to unconstrain the elements.

   

   
   

   If you click the Unconstrain button, the EQ dimension will disappear as well as any constraint on the walls. If you move the exterior wall, the newly spaced walls will not reposition themselves.

   
   
4. 4. Click OK. You will learn how to unconstrain these walls via a different method.
   
5. 5. Select one of the interior walls that were part of the EQ dimension string.
   
6. 6. You will now see the EQ icon buried in the middle wall. Click this icon, and it will release the constraint set for the walls (see Figure 5.34). You are now free to move around the building. (Note that the EQ icon may be hiding behind a wall in the middle of the array. Zooming in will make the icon larger and easier to pick.)

Now that you have experience with dimension equality constraints, it is time to learn about a different type of constraint that involves locking items together at a distance.

Locking a Dimension

At times you may want to always hold a dimension, no matter what else is going on around it. You can do this by physically adding a dimension to an item and then locking that dimension in place. For example, if you want to lock the middle space to a specific dimension, you simply add a dimension and lock it down. Sound easy? It is!

1. 1. On the Annotate tab, click the Aligned Dimension button.
   
2. 2. On the Options bar, change the alignment to Wall Faces.
   
3. 3. Pick the inside faces of the two middle partitions, as shown in the upper-left corner of Figure 5.35.

   

   
   
4. 4. After you place the dimension, a blue padlock icon will appear. When it does, pick it. It should then change to an unlocked padlock icon. When you see this, press Esc twice or click Modify to terminate the command.
   
5. 5. Select the left wall that has been dimensioned.
   
6. 6. Move the wall to the right 2´–0˝ (600mm). Notice that the right wall moves as well. Note that if you get a “constraints are not satisfied” message, you need to go back and “un-EQ” the five walls.
   
7. 7. Click the Undo button, as shown in Figure 5.36.

   

   
   
8. 8. Delete the dimension.
   
9. 9. When you get the warning, click the Unconstrain button.
   
10. 10. Save the model.
    
11. 11. Add doors and windows to the plan, as shown in Figure 5.37. They can be any type of door or window you choose—just try to keep them similar to the ones in Figure 5.37. Also, placement does not matter. You will adjust this in the next procedure.

In the next section, you will start using dimensions as a tool to physically move elements around. Although this one might seem like an exercise in futility, the practice is quite relevant to what you will encounter in future projects.

Using Dimensions to Move Objects

As I have mentioned before, you cannot type over a dimension and cause the value in that dimension to be inaccurate. Revit does provide tools to get around this. When you add a dimension and select the object being dimensioned, your dimension will turn blue. This is a temporary dimension, which can be edited. Consequently, the object being dimensioned will move.

The objective of this procedure is to select an item and modify the temporary dimension, in effect moving the object:

1. 1. Zoom in on the left side of the west wing, as shown in Figure 5.38.
   
2. 2. Select the door, as shown in Figure 5.38. Notice that there is a blue dimension on both sides of the door. These are temporary dimensions.
   
3. 3. Pick the blue text in the lower temporary dimension, as shown in Figure 5.38. (The text might be obscured by the wall, but if you hover over it, it will activate and then you can select it.)

   

   
   
4. 4. Type 1. (300mm). For imperial users, this is the equivalent of 1´–0˝. The door moves.
   
5. 5. Press the Esc key to release the door.

This procedure used a temporary dimension that appeared when you selected the item. After you edited the dimension, it went away. In the next procedure, you will add a permanent dimension and do the same thing:

1. 1. On the Annotate tab, select the Aligned Dimension button.
   
2. 2. Place a dimension between the door and the wall, as shown in Figure 5.39.

   

   
   
3. 3. Press the Esc key twice.
   
4. 4. Select the door shown in Figure 5.40. Notice that the dimension turns small and blue. It is now ready to be modified.

   

   
   
5. 5. When you see the dimension turn blue, select the text and type 1 (1´–0˝) (300mm). The door adjusts to the 1´–0˝ (300mm) increment.
   
6. 6. Press the Esc key or click anywhere in open space to clear the selection.
   
7. 7. Select the dimension.
   
8. 8. Notice that there is a blue grip just underneath the text. Pick the grip and move the text out from between the extension lines, as shown in Figure 5.41. Notice that Revit will place a leader (an arrow line extending from the model to your text) in the text.

The process of using dimensions to move objects takes some getting used to. The next procedure delves into making further modifications to dimensions, and provides a nice fail-safe procedure embedded within the dimension properties.

Using Dimension Text Overrides

Although I just told you that you can’t override a dimension, the following steps get around that problem. In many cases, you may want text or, more commonly, a prefix or a suffix within a dimension. You can do all three in Revit Architecture:

1. 1. Select the 1´–0˝ (300mm) dimension.
   
2. 2. Notice that the text turns blue. As you know, blue means that this item is editable in Revit. Pick the text. You should see a dialog box like the one in Figure 5.42.
   
3. 3. Under Dimension Value, click Replace With Text.

   

   
   
4. 4. Type 1´–1˝ (325mm) and press Enter.
   
5. 5. You will get an Invalid Dimension Value message, as shown in Figure 5.43. Revit will not allow you to do such a foolish thing. Click Close.

   

   
   
6. 6. In the Dimension Text dialog box, click Use Actual Value.
   
7. 7. Under Suffix, type TYP., as shown in Figure 5.44.
   
8. 8. Click OK.

As a closing practice for dimensioning, move the rest of the doors along this wall to a 1´–0˝ (300mm) increment from the finished, inside face of the wall to the door opening. Also, dimension the floor plan as shown in Figure 5.45 and Figure 5.46.

Adding Leader Text

You can add text to a model by placing a leader first and then adding the text within the same command. Although in Revit you can add leaders to all text, you can choose to add text to a model with or without a leader.

The objective of the following steps is to place text with a leader:

1. 1. On the Text panel of the Annotate tab, select the Text button.
   
2. 2. On the Format panel, click the Two Segments button, as shown in Figure 5.51.
   
3. 3. Pick a point near the radial wall, shown as 1 in Figure 5.51.
   
4. 4. Pick a second point similar to 2, shown in Figure 5.51.
   
5. 5. Pick a third point just to the right of the second point.
   
6. 6. Type FULL HEIGHT RADIAL WALL.
   
7. 7. Click an area outside the text.

Now that you can add text to a model, it is time to investigate how to modify the text after you add it. You can start with that arrowhead on the end of the leader.

Changing the Leader Type

It almost seems as though Revit uses the ugliest leader as a default, forcing you to change it immediately. The large arrowhead you saw in the previous figure is not the only arrowhead Revit provides—had that been the case, Revit may have never have even gotten off the ground!

To change the arrowhead that Revit uses with a text item, follow this procedure:

1. 1. On the Text panel of the Annotate tab, you will see a small arrow pointing down and to the right, as shown in Figure 5.52. Click it.

   

   
   
2. 2. Change the Leader Arrowhead parameter to Arrow Filled 15 Degree, as shown in Figure 5.53.

   

   
   
3. 3. Click OK. You have changed a Type parameter.

Now that’s a handsome-looking arrowhead. The next item to address is how to modify the placement of text after you add it to the model.

Modifying the Text Placement

With any text item in Revit, you can select the text in your model, and you will see grips for adjusting text: two grips on the text box, two on the leader, and a rotate icon.

Your next objective is to modify the text placement and to make the necessary adjustments:

1. 1. Select the text you just added to the model.
   
2. 2. Pick the right blue grip.
   
3. 3. Stretch the text window to the left until it forces the text to wrap, as shown in Figure 5.54.

Observe the rotate icon. You don’t need to rotate the text here, but notice that it is there, for future reference.

Modifying the placement of text is a straightforward process. Changing the actual font and size of the text in a model is another story, and involves further investigation.

Changing Text Properties

Of course, you can change the font for text. You can also change the height and the width. Keep in mind, however, that the text height you specify is the actual text height you want to see on the sheet. You no longer have to multiply the desired text height to a line type scale. Revit understands that text is scaled based on the view’s scale.

To modify the text appearance, run through the following procedure:

1. 1. Pick the Text Types arrow in the corner of the Text panel, as you did when you changed the leader type.
   
2. 2. Click the Duplicate button.
   
3. 3. Call the new text 3/16˝ Tahoma (3.5mm Tahoma).
   
4. 4. Click OK.
   
5. 5. Change the Text Font setting to Tahoma.
   
6. 6. Change the Text Size setting to 3/16˝ (3.5mm), as shown in Figure 5.55.

   

   
   
7. 7. Change the Width Factor setting to 0.8.
   
8. 8. Click OK twice.

You have now successfully created a text style. Of course, this large, nonuniform text is not proper in this context. You can use that new type easily:

1. 1. Start the Text command.
   
2. 2. In the Type Selector, verify that your new text is in the list.