Working in one model with many views

- So what's so special about Revit anyhow? Well there are many possible answers to that question, but in this movie I'd like to focus on one of the easiest and most immediate benefits of using Revit. Whether you're an architect, interior designer, draftsman, or contractor you spend a lotta time looking at and working in floor plans, sections, and elevations. In Revit work that you do in plan is immediately reflected in the elevations and sections and vice versa. In this movie I'll show you how easy Revit makes it for us to keep our changes coordinated with a first hand look at what I think is one of the fundamental benefits of building information modeling: the fully coordinated building model.

So to illustrate this I have several windows tiled on my screen. I've got a floor plan, an elevation, a 3D view, and even a schedule. Now what I'm gonna do is click over here onto my floor plan and make that the active view and then I'll use this little magnifying glass over here to zoom in on the right hand side of the plan. Now you'll notice I have a few doors shown over here and I'm gonna select this exterior door right here and I want you to watch the 3D view and the elevation as I select this door. Notice how it highlights in blue here in the plan, but it also highlights in blue in the other two locations as well.

That's because these are not three separate, disconnected drawings. These are in fact just three different views of the same model. Now that's true of not just selecting. It also is true if I take this door and I click and hold down and I just sorta drag it a little bit. Now when I do that notice how it moves in both the elevation and in the 3D. Let me do that again so you can watch it more carefully. Watch the 3D view and watch the elevation as I drag this door. Now if I click an empty space it deselects the door and it deselects it in all views.

It's no longer selected. Now what about this door schedule here? Well, notice that I've got door 12 here, door nine here, door 10, door 11. I can actually click on the entries in the schedule. There's door nine, door 10, door 11 and they highlight not only in the schedule, but they actually highlight there in the plan as well. Now back up here I've got door number five. Now that's not shown in my plan because I'm currently zoomed in too close to see it. So what I'm gonna do is just take my wheel on my mouse and just roll it back a few clicks so that I can zoom out and then drag my wheel over here and there's door number five right there.

It's sitting over here in this conference room area. Let me roll the wheel in again to zoom in on that location. Now in addition to being able to just sort of drag the object around, there's other changes we can make as well and sometimes we can make those changes directly in a schedule view. Doesn't really matter to Revit whether we make it in plan, elevation, section, or even schedule. So for example, if I click on door number five here and then come over to this drop-down field right here you can see I have some other options available and I can choose a different sized door and you'll see that door shrink slightly and become a little bit smaller.

You'll also see the numbers here reflect that change immediately. Maybe I wanna get a better look at that door from another vantage point. I'd like to actually look right at it. Well, I don't actually have a view that currently shows me that so that's another great benefit of Revit is that we can create views on the fly anytime we need to, to look at and study different aspects of the model. So what I'm gonna do is click back over here in the floor plan and then up here I'm gonna choose this little section tool and this is one of my favorite Revit tools. I'll click a point here outside the conference room and then I'll just sorta drag to the right and click again.

That's gonna create a new section view for me. Now I'm gonna click away from it and then double click the blue section head to open up that view. Now let me just resize this a little bit just so I can continue to see the door there in the background and then roll my wheel so that I can continue to see the door here in the section view. Now if I select it here, of course, it selects in the floor plan as well and maybe I decide I wanna change that to a double door. It's as easy as coming over here and making that selection. It turns into a double door here.

It turns into a double door there in the floor plan and once again the schedule stays up-to-date as well by reflecting that new size and the changes that I indicated there. Now when I was focusing on this conference room I notice here with this section that there's actually another door that needs attention. This door right here seems to be in the wrong spot. Well, if I verify that by opening up a second-floor plan I can see in fact that that door is in fact in the wrong spot. Again just dragging it right here you're gonna see it change immediately in both views.

One of the easily the best benefits of working in Revit is that changes that you make in one view are immediately applied in all other views. You won't spend your days constantly tracking down changes and repeating the same edit over and over again. A single change in the model is a single change in the model and it will immediately be reflected in all views and that's the power of building information modeling paradigm and using the Revit software to do it.