Batt insulation pattern

[ChrisGamble]

How can I get a batt insulation pattern? I need to show batt insulation in my walls and It would be nice to apply it to a material and not have to draw it separately. Is this possible?

[barthbradley]

no. it's been requested for years.  There are batt patterns out there, but Revit cut pattern are drafting patterns, not model patterns which, at minimum, the batt pattern would need to be for bulge and width to "look right" in section views.  That being said,  I have always thought of batt insulation as more of a component than a symbolic hatch pattern because it needs to be sized to the cavity. 

[ChrisGamble]

Alright, I know it would take some tweaking to make it look graphically correct, but it was a request made to see if we could do it. I heard of taking the cad pat file and putting the text from that text file into the revit pat text file to create the pattern. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Pattycake_Kyle]

This comes up in our office a couple times a year. I recommend you use the insulation tool Revit has built in to it. The main downside tho is that it can't be part of components (R2018 & earlier, haven't tested 2019).

Our office developed a detail component insulation piece that is parametric for the different widths (i think there is a similar one floating around on revit city), so it at least can be made into a component and then used easier without needing to be a group. The other option just using groups with the normal insulation tool but then you end up with tons of groups. And I also think the detail component is a bit 'heavy' for the model but *shrug*. Its kinda lose/lose.

If you do want to go the PAT route, we have 2 part of our free library at the moment, here for example: https://pattycake.io/official/pat/8GQbRO7wW7b 

I wouldn't go the PAT route tho (and why we only really have 2 sizes in our library) since any material you assign it to will only work well in that specific view scale (being a drafting pattern). And you'd have to do some heavy filtering to get it to show up correctly elsewhere. You could make it a model pattern and test that out I suppose, but you probably will end up with some sort of alignment issues there. If you do that, please let me know how it goes - i'd be interested to hear.

[barthbradley · Accepted solution]

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@ChrisGamble wrote:

I heard of taking the cad pat file and putting the text from that text file into the revit pat text file to create the pattern. Do you have any thoughts on that?

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Yes, that's exactly how you create a Revit pattern.  But, that's not the issue. The issue is with scaling. Revit Cut Patterns are Drafting type, not Model type.   My suggestion -- based on being down this road before -- is to learn to love Revit's Batt Insulation tool and forget trying to incorporate it into a Material's symbolic Cut Pattern.  But, if you want to experiment, here's 2 batt insulation pattern file definitions you can use; one Drafting type and one Model type:

;%VERSION=3.0
;%UNITS=INCH

*battd,batt insulation
;%TYPE=DRAFTING
161.57,-53.001,18.995,7.59,2.53,6.32,-56.92
18.43,53.001,18.995,7.59,-2.53,6.32,-56.92
108.43,1,1,43,2.53,18.97,-44.27
71.57,-1,1,20.24,2.53,18.97,-44.27

----------------------------------------------------------

;%VERSION=3.0
;%UNITS=INCH
*battm,batt insulation
;%TYPE=MODEL
161.57,-53.001,18.995,7.59,2.53,6.32,-56.92
18.43,53.001,18.995,7.59,-2.53,6.32,-56.92
108.43,1,1,43,2.53,18.97,-44.27
71.57,-1,1,20.24,2.53,18.97,-44.27

[ToanDN]

Making the pattern is not a problem - you can draft atypical module it in pyRevit and it will generate the fill pattern for you to assign to a material cut pattern.  The issue is it is a drafting pattern so it does not care about the scale of your drawing or the with of the wall.  It always show with a static size relative to the paper dimension (same as text).  Meaning, it may look okay in a 200 mm wall at 1:50 scale but look like crap in a 100 mm wall at 1:100 scale.

[ChrisGamble]

Yea, I tried working with it. It sucks, I don't like the idea of the insulation in the wall material anyways, it was just a request that was made. I just like to pretend we can do anything in Revit. 

[jfjacques]

Trying to find a solution to this again in 2021.  Yay Revit 2022...maybe! Lol...**** you autodesk. 

[ToriwSETR6]

Nice to see you here Kyle.