Forums >> Revit Building >> Technical Support >> Any ideas on modifiying lineweights

Hence

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Hello,

The firm i am working in is using revit 2008.  The standard line weights in revit do not look like what we want from our drawings.  We are debating in our office how to go about changing the line styles.  We are devided on how to manage the Line Weights table; some feel we should set sizes accross the tabel for all scales and label them pen06 pen13 pen 18... and so on.  Others feel that we should keep the revit method of having line weights adjust to scale and label lines with xthin thin med large xlarge... and such.  What i would like to know is what other offices have done to control the line weights and other ideas for changing the line weights chart and object styles to make the drawings read appropriatly.

Thanks for any ideas

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WWHub

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Hence

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"One of the great things about REVIT vs AutoCAD is the lineweight issue.  Why would you want to muck this up?  Let REVIT control the weights according to the drafting scale AND the coarse - fine settings.  This works GREAT!"

Revit dose not work well when you have picky architects that are use to their set style of how drawings should look.  Cut lines on detail componets are to thick, cut lines on walls are to thin.  We have a ton of proboblems with the line weights inperticular with wall sections and elevations.  The thin lines are either too thin or to thick depending on the situation the medium line is mostly ok and the thick line is not thick enough.  So i would say that the revit defult setting work far from great and are ok at best.  The are good if you do not care that muck about line weight and just want to see the drawing.  But if there is a set standard already in place from cad, and the owners of the firm want to see that standard applied to revit, then it becomes a problem.

so if anybody else has suggestions that will help us solve our problem they would be much appriciated

Thank you

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WWHub

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I still don't see the issue.  I too care about lineweights.  That's why we set our standards so they work but they work within the REVIT framework.  If you don't like the thin lines at the out of box weight - change it!  That may mean that you have to modify some families so they will use the correct lines but once you set up your templates, it will all work and work well.

If all else fails, you can always set up templates for views that will even over-ride the VG for those components that you want to be different. 

But - I suggest you work at understanding the advantages of the way REVIT works.   This is especially hard for long time AutoCAD users who had to set everything in that program.   When you start using REVIT, you feel you don't have the control but you actually do!  It is just different and easier if you learn to use it.  You need to give yourself some time to adjust and don't try to make REVIT work like AutoCAD.

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Hence

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lorne17

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Joined: Wed, Aug 29, 2007
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Hence,

I'm fairly new at Revit and our firm is having the same issue.  What we found out was the best option rather than going into each family we use and editing the lineweights accordingly.  We set up our Line Types in our template file.  We use: Thin, Thin-Medium, Medium, Medium-Wide, and Wide.  We haven't really run into an issue with that.  When we need special line and line types for instance Ground Lines in elevations we just created another Line Type with a really heavy lineweight.

 Once we have those set up and we're ready to edit our elevation lineweights we found the linework tool to be the best fit.  But REVIT tends to have all the lines in windows, trim, doors, different familys differnent line thicknesses and when we would try to use the linework tool to turn ALLLLL those lines back to thin.  It would take ages to do since the elevations have so many overlapping lines.  Our solution:  Simple, go to your visibility graphics in your elevation and select all the categories.  Then change all projection lines to over ride graphics to lineweight 1 (or your thinnest lineweight).  Then you can use your linework tool for just the lines you want to change.  Since most of the lines that are in the wall (i.e. windows etc) are going to be the same lineweight.  Then you can use your Thin, Thin-Medium, Medium, Medium-Wide, and Wide lines in your linework tool to start bringing out those walls that are closest and the objects that are closest to start adding some depth to your drawings.

 Again, we are just starting to do this, but for now this is our method to fix the issue Revit has with lineweights.  It's a lot less work to start from scratch with lineweights rather than work backwards with all the overlapping lines inthe drawings.  I hope that helps and it didn't confuse anyone.    Also as far as the Plan goes...Revits defaults work great!  Only issue we have is in elevations and sections.

HTH

Lorne

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Denver, CO

Revit Architecture

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WWHub

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Hence & lorne17,

Don't forget that most of the linework in REVIT should be set from your object styles.  This is the master control for lineweights by element.  The second control is the adjustment of these lineweights If you set that up in your project template, you should not have to use your lineweight tool most of the time and you should not have to over-ride these in views.    Settings - Objects Styles

Most of your families will be controlled from this. 

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lorne17

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Thanks for the advice.  I will have to try this out.  Also what about the idea in elevations when one wall is closer to view than the other?  If walls are set at the same object style then there will be no depth?  Is that when I'd use the linework tool?

Thanks,

Lorne

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Denver, CO

Revit Architecture

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WWHub

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Hence

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Have you found a way to controll detail components in object styles.  For exeample, the "heavy line" in the componet, I haven't found a way to change that with out going into every component a changing it.  Have you found a way to change it with out changeing pen 5 in the lineweight table?

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WWHub

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I don't think I've found the best answer for this. 

You could approch this at a nomenclature level - leave the lines heavy in the detail - then turn the heavy setting down in your projects and not use "heavy" but instead use wide or ???

Or you can modify each detail element as you run across the problem.  I guess I've kind of taken this approach but this is a real pain.

With the understanding that detail components are usually never stand alone components but are usually part of a building assembly, REVIT's detail elements should never have been built using the standard "heavy", "medium", "light" lineweights.  

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