Draw Order - Overlapping MEP

[vanboon_cei]

Hello,

I am working in Revit 2015 and we are doing the Electrical MEP for a project. Currently, we display our conduits in wireframe and fine model. This gives us real size outline of the conduits including the center line.

Our conduits are color coded for installation. This means, we may have say a two tier ductbank (2x10) for example, where the top conduits are for Feed#1, and the second bottom row conduits are for Feed#2. We have these feeds in different color for clarity. This would not be an issue in B&W.

The problem right now is how the draw order works in Revit. Basically we have an entire run of conduit where they overlap, and there may be some offsets, and there is no consistency of the color of just the one run. From what I expertimented with, the draw order is base on creation order. If we were to model just the bottom row first, and then the top row after, it should display correctly. We do not have the liberty to draw the bottom row first and then the second row ontop of it especially when it comes to coordination. We make adjustment to our run of conduit on a real time basis meaning we can't just draw everything in their correct order to display properly.

Is there a way to fix the draw order without deleting the work? Currently we cannot delete the work or we would have to fix/redo any annotation that is hard referencing the conduit runs specifically dimensions.

I hope this question make sense. I can post a screenshot of the problem if needed.

[chrisplyler · Accepted solution]

Oh wow, I've never noticed that behavior before. You're right, it definitely seems to be based on the order of creation.

I messed around and got the following display by setting the View Discipline to Electrical, changing the View Style to Hidden Line, and playing around with the Electrical Hidden Line settings. The tags show the Mark parameter (order created) and the offset height each has from the Level. It's displaying correctly despite having created them out of order. Maybe this can be useful to you?

[vanboon_cei]

Thank you for your response. We may consider using hidden lines mode.

Currently we need everything in wireframe so we can show our conduits + equipment "correctly". 

We may have to cheat and draw lines over the equipment (conduit stub up) windows.

[vanboon_cei]

Currently in Hidden Mode, the equipment mask out all the conduits below them. =(

[vanboon_cei]

I think we can work with this.

We just made the surface transparency 100% and it let us see our conduits.

[chrisplyler]

Make sure that you set up the transparancy by category, not by element. That way it will be part of the Visibility Graphics setting for the view. That way you can make a View Template from the view and apply it to others quickly and easily.

[chrisplyler · Accepted solution]

If you've switched the View Discipline to Electrical, all of your Electrical Equipment families should display as transparent anyway, without you having to override them.

[vanboon_cei]

Thank you for your help.

We used to set our views for Electrical but found out "generic models" were coming in too faint kind of like half-tone. We have a lot of custom families & even nested families that are set up as generic models and we need them to pop out. Setting our view to Coordination fixes the display issue with the generic models.

The 100% transparency override is not a big deal if all the work arounds meet our needs.

While you are being so kind and helpful, we also like to display conduits as one-line (either in coarse/medium view). The only problem is the conduit stub up/stub down are too huge. While we can size these smaller under MEP setting, they are all the same size regardless if they are 1", 2", 3", or 4". Is there a way to have the conduits stub up/down to be actual size?

Thanks again.

[chrisplyler]

I don't think there is any way to have single-line rise/drop symbol size vary according to conduit size. They're just an annotation symbol and as far as I know you can only define a single size that they will all display at.

[vanboon_cei]

Hehe no problem or worries. Thought I'd ask since you been so helpful. I wish it would work like the autocad mep one-line display view. Oh well.