Creating transparent/Semi-tranparent documents

[ArynBergman]

Currrently, we print floor plans to pdf's, open them in Photoshop and make them part transparent and part semi-transparent so that we can overlay them in various visual tools.  Is there a way to create pdf's or images where the background is completely transparent and and solid patterns within the floor plan that are semi-transparent?

[constantin.stroescu]

You can obtain it entirely in Revit.

For this:

• Make Duplicate of the Level Plane you desired to work on.
• On this view select with window or cross all the entities and from Modify > View > Override Graphics in View > Override by Element > Surface Transparency > move the slider to 50 percent or at what degree you want..
• then,  Insert >Import > Image...select an image as background...take care that the image has to be in background :Properties > Draw Layer > Background
• Print to pdf...take care from Setup > Hidden Lines Views > Raster Processing...in order to presever transparenci of the object in pdf (Vector processing does not preserve transparencie)

[constantin.stroescu]

an example - in Revit and the plot to pdf with the settings described in my first post..

[ArynBergman]

Thanks Constantin, that almost works.  We can't bring the background into Revit for the final image as it's actually a visual tool we're building for a database of equipment.  We would like to bring the image of the floor plan in as an overlay in the tool without having to manually touch it up in Photoshop.  It's not a big deal, we were just trying to streamline the workflow a bit more.

It looks like we could export to CAD then do it, but that takes longer than just touching it up in Photoshop.  Some other day perhaps.