View Templates

View Templates

As indicated in other posts (Lean Design with REVIT), sheets and views should be set up as early as possible, utilizing standard AEA view templates.  A series of standard view templates have been created and preloaded into our office template files.  These viewports cover the most common drawing types, other than plan views.  See below for a list of standard View Templates:

Since each project varies on the exact view templates required, additional view templates will need to be created by the project BIM Coordinator, including plan views.  Also, the standard view templates may need to be modified on a project by project basis, depending on your project.  For example, if you have linked consultant files, the view templates will need to be updated to control how these model display in our views.  Review with your project BIM Coordinator, or a member of the BIM team for assistance.


Once the view templates are in your file, they must be assigned to your views.  The easiest and most efficient way to do this, is through your properties window.  Double click on the view that you wish to update from the project browser.  Once in the view you wish to apply a template too, scroll down to the identity data section of the properties window.

When a view does not have a view template assigned, the Identity will indicate <None> as seen in the above image.  To apply a view template, click on the none button.  This will bring you to the view template dialog box where you can select the appropriate view template to apply, clicking on the view template and clicking the apply button, then hitting OK the exit the view template window.  Once this is completed, the Identity Data field will be updated to the selected view template and your view will be updated accordingly.

Using View Templates will not only ensure a consistent appearance of drawings throughout your set and our office, but will save you time previously spent on hiding elements, adjusting lineweights, etc. on a view by view basis.

Standard Titleblock Update

Standard Titleblock Update

As part of our Quality of Documents Team ongoing efforts to improve workflows and user experience, we have updated our standard Revit titleblocks, with an update to the grid used for locating drawings on sheets.

In the past, the grids were turned on or off via a check box in the Properties of the titleblock within your Revit file, labeled "Display Detail Grid".

While this was an acceptable way to toggle these grids, since this option was sheet specific, it was often the case that the grids were left on one or several drawing sheets when a set of documents was printed.  In response to this, the standard titleblock has been updated to utilize a series of invisible lines that will never print and are visible on demand to the user for placing views.  Let's look at an example in action.  Below is a look at a standard titleblock for State of CT projects:

No grid-lines visible when not requested by user.

If the user wants to see the grid-lines to place a view, simply hover over the titleblock, and the grid-lines appear.

Since the grid-lines only appear when the user requests them, placing a view in the correct spot requires a different approach then previous titleblocks.  Use the following steps:

• Drag the desired view onto the desired sheet.
• Left click on the view once placed on the sheet.
• Move your cursor and hover over the titleblock until the grid-lines are visible.
• Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to shift the heading and view to the correct location on the sheet.