Duplicate Views

[BRYANBRAUER1832]

My model is a 120,000 sq ft (single story) building which the architect is dividing into 8 sheets at 1/8" scale. I would like to make my sheet views look identical to the architectural drawings, but have found no way to do this without painstakingly duplicating each sheet with a grid as guidance.  No way to duplicate the architects sheet views from a linked model.  I guess I need to live with that but...

When I setup an HVAC view with the eight dependent views, one view per sheet, I can't duplicate the HVAC view, with dependent views for Plumbing and Fire Protection.  I need to go through the painstaking process for each discipline.  Am I missing something?

In AutoCAD I could simply duplicate a viewport, rename it and change the layer visibility.  Is there not a similar process for REVIT?  Is there a way to duplicate a view with dependent views and apply my templates for the different disciplines?

[BRYANBRAUER1832]

Okay.  I found a way to do it, by using apply dependent views, and it seems to work.  Now if I could only find a way to duplicate the views from the linked model, I would be a happyier camper.

[Sandleaz]

Caution about using dependent views: a lot of REVIT users that I have worked on projects with that wanted to use dependent views (for convenience? who knows) got burned.  Here's how they got burned: they always worked on parent views but the children views are the ones that get put on drawings.  So they never checked out how the children views look like and they couldn't tell that they were missing tags or notes were coming in from other children views ... their drawings were very messy along the edges!  I never used dependent views and never plan on using dependent views.  Good luck though.  I would prefer using view templates.

[CoreyDaun]

Prior to this release (2013), we used Dependent View extensively. This had its pros and cons but ultimately, the biggest problem we had is exactly what Sandleaz is describing - the edges of the Views showing/hiding annotations, creating a very sloppy appearance.

One of the biggest reasons that we used these Dependent Views was to maintain consistent Visibility Settings (i.e. V/G Overrides, View Range) between all of the Views for a given discipline. However, now that the View Templates can be linked to a View (new feature), this problem can be solved without the use of Dependent Views. Other issues will be in play, such as having to tag Room Names/Numbers on each View instead of just placing them on the Parent View of the Dependents.

[CoreyDaun · Accepted solution]

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BRYANBRAUER1832 wrote:

"When I setup an HVAC view with the eight dependent views, one view per sheet, I can't duplicate the HVAC view, with dependent views for Plumbing and Fire Protection.  I need to go through the painstaking process for each discipline.  Am I missing something?

In AutoCAD I could simply duplicate a viewport, rename it and change the layer visibility.  Is there not a similar process for REVIT?  Is there a way to duplicate a view with dependent views and apply my templates for the different disciplines?"

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No. It has been a Wishlist item of mine (as well as many others) to be able to duplicate a View WITH Dependents. However, this is not a large hurdle to overcome. Use Scope Boxes to define the extents of the partial areas and then you can set a View's Crop Region to match that Scope Box. It doesn't matter whether or not it is a Dependent View.

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On a side note, there is a way to maintain consistent placement of Viewports between Sheets of each discipline (since you cannot Duplicate a Sheet, either). My method is as follows:

1. Start with "Area A" (or whatever the Arch calls it) for any discipline. Click on Guide Grid located on the View tab.

2. Name it appropriate to the Area. This will likely be amended later to add additional information.

3. Select the Guide Grid and change the "Guide Spacing" value (under Properties) to something large, such as 24". This will leave two crossing Grid lines.

4. Use the Move command to move the Guide Grid so that these lines are aligned with predominant Column Lines and use the grips to readjust the boundaries. Note that while you can snap to the Guide Grid, you cannot snap to elements within the Viewport.

5. For convenience, note the names of the Column Lines and add those to the Guide Grid's name (under Properties).

6. In other Sheets for this Area, you can click Guide Grid and select the existing Guide Grid named for the Area and adjust the location of the Viewport to mach, using the Guide Grid lines. You don't have to turn them off as they don't print.

7. Repeat for each Area to create a very consistent Sheet appearance.