Linking the architecture

- [Instructor] It's always good to start from the beginning. Linking an architectural model is certainly first in that list. Unlike AutoCAD MEP, in Revit, we're not gonna get very far until we do this step. Why? Well, because Revit is heavily dependent on the architectural elements such as walls, ceilings, and floors, to host our elements. Without it, we'd simply be floating in space. So to get started, let's jump into Revit. Now I'm gonna start a new project using the mechanical template. So where you see projects, here, notice at the very bottom, there is a mechanical template. Go ahead and click that. This starts a brand-new Revit project. Notice that we're in one hyphen Mech, and it's in the HVAC subcategory, under Mechanical. Don't worry, we'll change this allocation later. To bring in an architectural or structural underlay, there's a couple ways we can do it. If you go to the Insert tab, you can link Revit, right here. Or in the Project Browser, if you scroll down to the very bottom, notice there's Revit Links, down here. You can simply right-click on that and go to New Link. So let's click on Link Revit, either way. Browse to where you're keeping your exercise files, and select your architectural model. Under positioning, let's keep this at Auto - Origin to Origin, and click Open. Beautiful. Now, the next thing I'd like to do is select your architectural underlay, and let's make sure we pin it. This is an important step. You don't want someone to inadvertently move that underlay. With the underlay still selected, under Properties, let's go to the Edit Type button, right here. In this dialog, we'll find Room Bounding. If we click that, what we're telling Revit is to recognize the walls as room bounding. In the future, we're gonna put in mechanical spaces, which will read in the room information. In combination with turning on Room Bounding, we can coordinate our MEP model with our architectural model. Click OK. Now that that link is in there, let's go down to Revit Links, and let's right-click on it. Let's go to Manage Links. We can see now, we have the architectural model loaded in. I like to set my reference type as Overlay, that way any embedded references into this won't show up. Saved Path, this is where we're keeping our exercise files. And for the Path Type, I always like to keep it Relative. Also, this is where we can keep our CAD underlays, too. We'll look at that, later. You can even go as far as to add another one from the Manage Links dialog, which is pretty cool. If you go back to Revit, though, and click Architectural, sometimes I like to unload it in this dialog, or reload it in this dialog, or we can actually Reload From, if we wanna pull it from another location. Click OK. Now, Revit will automatically consider something an underlay element, when it's brought in in this fashion. Now, I'd like to thicken that line weight up just a little bit. If we go to the Manage tab, then we go to Additional Settings, let's go down to Halftone/Underlay, right here. Override the Weight to one. So we'll just click this dropdown, here, and go to one. I don't wanna override the pattern, and I do wanna apply a halftone, but for the brightness, I wanna bump it up to 80. This works inside of AutoCAD, putting it on a layer from 250 and up. Click OK. Perfect. Now, we've got this exactly the way I wanna see it. So, now let's click Save, if you wanna keep using this model and keep going. We're off to a great start, for sure. So this is how you properly link and manage a Revit model.