From the course: Revit: Advanced Techniques for Importing CAD Drawings

Setting up colors - Revit Tutorial

From the course: Revit: Advanced Techniques for Importing CAD Drawings

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Setting up colors

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- [Instructor] We're starting another chapter now in our course, and what we're going to look at is linking our CAD file into our Revit model. Now what we did in the previous chapter was we looked at importing a CAD file. When you import a CAD file, you are purely bringing in a snapshot of that CAD drawing into your Revit model. It's not linked like an xref would be in an AutoCAD drawing, for example. It's there, and you use it for information. But it's just a snapshot. It's not actually paperclipped, in essence, to the Revit model. So we're going to look at linking CAD files this time around. So we've got a new Revit project for you. It's 03_Simple Building Project.rvt, so, similar name to the previous chapter, just with a different number at the front but it's got the 03 in front of it. You can download it from the website as usual to follow along with the videos in this chapter. And we'll also have a Ground Floor DWG file available to obviously link as our CAD file into the Revit model in the same way as we did in the last chapter. So, I've got the 03 Simple Building Project.rvt file sitting there ready to go as you can see, all blank, nothing in it. And in the project browser, we're in 00_Ground Floor Plan. So, I go to the Insert tab on the Revit ribbon. And this time though, I go Link CAD here in the link panel. So when I click on Link CAD, you can see there, there's our 00_GND Floor Plan.dwg file. Again, you can download that from the Exercise Files on the website to utilize. And this time, you'll notice the name of the dialog box at the top there is Link CAD Formats. Now, what we're going to look at is setting our colors when we link our CAD file this time. So again, we make sure that we select our DWG file like so. Don't click on it twice like I've done to try and rename it. Obviously, don't rename it. And what we're going to do here is go to Colors. Now, we've got the same three options. We can invert the colors. We can preserve the colors of the CAD file that we're linking. Or we can make it black and white. So, if I invert like so, I'll leave all the other settings as they are and just click on Open. When it comes in, can you see that it's inverted the colors? If I just pan there a little, you can see it's inverted those colors. So, in the same way in the previous chapter, you can see the grids have gone that cyan color instead of their regular red color. Now, the thing is, when you've got a linked CAD file, you can't just undo it, because it stays linked. You physically have to unload it from your Revit project. So, you go to Manage Links. You go to CAD Formats here. There's our Ground Floor Plan. And you remove it like so. Click on Remove. Click on OK, and it's gone. Double-click on the wheel to zoom to fit, and there's our elevation markers back on the screen. So, you'll notice in this chapter, we have to actually remove our linked CAD file. We could just undo when we were importing CAD files because they were just snapshots in time. These are actually linked CAD files that are linked into the model this time. So, that's inverting the colors. If I go back up to Link CAD again and I select our GND Floor Plan and I select preserve colors this time, click on Open again, and as you can see, all the colors are preserved this time. So the gridlines are red. The walls are yellow just like they are in the CAD file and also in the little thumbnail preview that you get as well in the Link CAD formats dialog box. Now again, I'm going to remove that, so I go to Manage Links, CAD Format tab, select the DWG, remove, and OK. And that removes it. Double-click on the wheel again to do a zoom fit, and there's our elevation markers back in place. Last but not least, when I do a Link CAD again, and this time I select the GND Floor Plan and we go for black and white which is my personal preference and I click on Open, you'll see that the linked CAD file now comes through just with black and white. So obviously, all the lines, the doors, the grids, etc. are all in black on the white background in the Revit model. So there's our color settings when we start linking a CAD file into our Revit model. So, just before we move onto the next video, we'll do the Manage Links thing, go to the CAD Formats there, hit the DWG file there, and just remove it and OK it, double-click on the wheel to zoom fit, and we're ready then to move into the next video of this particular chapter.

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