Ok I thought I had it figured out but I give up. What is the trick to get the orient plane to work, so that you know which direction from the face it will orient when you click on it? Ive got a particularly stubborn one here and no matter which face I select, its always orienting me from the opposite (wrong) side, so that I cant see what I need to 😞
The 3D View should snap to the closest perpendicular direction, so if you want to set the View to the opposite side of the Work Plane, then manually adjust the View so it is viewing from that side prior to using "Orient to Plane".
Thats a fantastic explanation but thats not always whats happening. There has to be more to the story, what if you select a part of a fitting as your workplane, or insulation as your work plane, or the face of a group or assembly? There has to be more to the story, because I am not seeing the explaination you are describing work in all cases. It seems hap-hazaard at best.
I tested this (Revit 2014) with several methods, including using Work Planes and picking faces of various elements and Groups, and all of my results were as my previous post explained. Can you make this behave differently with any consistency? If so, could you post a small sample file for investigation?