topic Re: Life Safety in Revit Architecture Forum

Life Safety

marshall.drennan — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 13:52:19 GMT

Good Morning,

I apologizxe if this is a very general question, but I was wondering if there are any plans to create Life Safety Functionality within in Revit, more than adding a Fire Rating Parameter. For example: a way to show fire ratings of walls with the option to cross windows and doors, or a built in solution for Travel Distance Measuring, scheduling etc, even designations to create smoke compartments and suites that we can tag, and schedule appropriately.

thank you for your time,

Re: Life Safety

sureshchotrani — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 14:01:08 GMT

Wellcome to the community & Answer day:)

You add as many parameter as required, while perparing families. Also you can add the project & shared parameters in Revit file if the properties are globally same for objects.

Re: Life Safety

BIMologist_ — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 14:12:13 GMT

We are frustrated with this process of creating Life Safety Plans in Revit. There are many workarounds for that. People have created families for Travel Distances, Filters with Hatch patters that represent the rating, etc. you have to be creative to use the tools. One option is to use the Areas for compartments and tag them appropriately. Use the Rooms for SQF etc.

For TD try this used to be a Generic Model Line based family, This one is using the new Adaptive functionality and works great.

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/screencast/Main/Details/e68d40f9-e622-492b-b6c3-decddb36758e.html

http://revitcat.blogspot.com/2012/04/escape-path-egress-travel-distance.html

http://revitcat.blogspot.com/2013/06/rtc-and-revit-egressescape-path-update.html

I am also including a Key Schedule base don IBC Table 1004.1.1 that will allow you to assign a Room type and it fills in the value for the Occupant. Please make sure that the values in there are CURRENT and updated based on your local Jurisdiction updates to the IBC.

Re: Life Safety

marshall.drennan — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 14:26:56 GMT

Thank you for responding,

I understand that I can create parameters as needed, but the fact of the matter is that code compliance is a large part of what everyone using Revit does and it seems to be a relatively misrepresented segment within Revit. There are countless discussions on the web of how to produce life safety drawings using Revit. For example: how to visibly represent fire ratings, we can use detail lines and make a group and copy that group across all views of that floor, but than it has to be updated along with the walls and they dont talk to each other, or translate to our consultants when they link in an architectural model. Another way is to change the core material of the wall or use Filters, while both of these also work to a degree, the major issue is that they do not cross doors or windows. I was thinking that maybe a separate view type with separate finctionalty such as an area plan could/should be developed to address life safety views. Another example would be travel distances, there are two generally accepted work-arounds right now. one is using a railing family and the other is to create an adaptive component family, both options have their limitations and are not fully capapble of performing the intent of a travel distance line.

these are just a drop in the bucket on items that could be incoorporated involving code compliance and review tools, but based on the way you answered my question I feel like the answer is that Autodesk is not pursuing this topic to develop.

thank you,

Re: Life Safety

marshall.drennan — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 14:28:06 GMT

thank you this helps alot

Re: Life Safety

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 14:37:27 GMT

If you want a tool that will automatically place and update Fire Rating tags and lines for you (which you can specify), over the walls. Check this out:

https://www.cadtechnologycenter.com/products/revit-expresstools/bim-project-suite.html#groupTab9

Re: Life Safety

JGAo1 — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 15:07:42 GMT

Could you alter the view range to be above the lintel height? This would help to hide the doors/windows etc.

Re: Life Safety

octavio2 — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 22:56:25 GMT

Tried to do the line for the Life Safety Path, and followed the steps but somehow it did not work. Just got one line and the arrow does not moves. Most likely was a misstep that I did, I am using Revit 2021 and do not use Revit all the time.

Is there any place where I can get that line family? Anybody wants to share? (Tried Revit City but it seems that that website is not longer available, also BIMbjects but these are for Revit and not for detail component families.

The Path of Travel of Revit begins to work, but it is difficult to make it straight and is tricky to manipulate once added to a plan, so that is why I am looking for a more straight P-line type of travel path line that is easier to work with.