Create a Legend of Finish Materials

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I create materials that have patterns, let's say for this purpose, my floors. I have 7 floor types and they are 'floors' (not detail hatch areas). I have linked the material to the structure of the floor. On the floor plan i would like to have a legend of each floor type used as well as the material tag noting the material. How do I create a Legend with a floor material? Before i would have to create a detail hatch to match the floor pattern and then draft the legend from scratch. i want a smart legend as I switch colors/patterns that the legend would update as well.

[loboarch]

So the Legend tool in Revit can do floors, but it only does it in section. So the Legend tool will not get you where you want to be.

One way you might do it, would be to instead use the color fill tool and use the Floor Finish parameter of rooms to pattern and create the legend. This would manually have to be coordinated with the materials used fro the floor, but the legend would update automatically.

The other way you could consider doing this would be to create a "legend" of floors using phasing. You could create a view in a previous phase and make small floors that are used for your "legend". Since those floors are in a previous phase you can set up your views so they only show up in your "legend" view. This method takes a bit more effort, but does do "automatic" updating.

[Anonymous]

i NEED TO SHOW THE LEGEND NEXT TO THE FLOOR PATTERN FLOOR PLAN. NOT THE PATTERN FILLING ONE ROOM. PERHAPS THIS IS SOMETHING THAT CAN BEE ADDED INTO A SCHEDULE? WILL IT SHOW THE PATTERN THAT IS IN THE 'MATERIALS/ GRAPHICS/SURFACE PATTERN/ FOREGROUND' ? AS IT PULLS THE OTHER DATA?

[loboarch]

I guess I am not exactly clear what you need then. In your first post you were asking about the plan view. Legends do not show plan views of the floor, thy can show sections, which would show the materials used in section. That would be automatic and update when you made changes.

In plan you have to do something like i showed here with a "color fill" or a version of this using real floor elements in another phase in order to control visibility.

You would not be able to do this in a schedule. You can get images into a schedule to maybe do something like you want, but the images would need to be manually coordinated.

Maybe an image showing what you are attempting to do? 

[Anonymous]

SO THE FLOOR HAS A PATTERN USING FLOORS THAT ARE DIFFERENT COLORS. I NEED A 'LEGEND' FOR LACK OF A BETTER WORD THAT HAS ALL THE FLOORS BEING USED AND THE COLOR/HATCH THEY ARE AND THEN THE NOMENCLATURE THAT MATCHES A FINISH SCHEDULE. ATTACHED IS A CRUDE EXAMPLE: I ACTUALLY DREW FLOORS AND THEN WROTE THE WORD "LEGEND" ABOVE. MAYBE THIS IS MY WORKAROUND AND I CREATE FLOORS OFF TO THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING AND USE MODEL TEXT.

[loboarch · Accepted solution]

Ok yes this is what i was doing with the fill legend. With the floor broken up like that you would need to use the other suggestion of using a previous phase and actual floor elements placed in that phase to crate the "legend".

Here is an example of this setup. This is after the views have been placed on a sheet.  What you are seeing is the main floor plan with the 3 floor types. I then created a duplicate of this view and made 3 tiny floors of the 3 types off to the side of the building in the "existing" phase. Those are acting as the legend. in the main floor plan i am using phasing to NOT show the 3 little floors and in the "legend" view, the reset of the building is not visible because it is "new construction" so is not showing in this view set to "existing".  So in this setup, if you change the floor type (shading, and pattern) it will update in both views.