Export Thin Lines

[ben]

We recently just purchased a shiny new Total Station, and the exporting the drawings so they could be loaded onto the tablet was all new to me. I had to export from Revit into a dwg (sounds like the tablet only uses dwg files. Revit files are too much for a tablet to handle). When we were on the jobsite getting trained on how to use the total station some the walls on the tablet had really fat lines and made it tough to tell if we were snapping to wall stud or the edge of the sheetrock; sometimes it worked if we zoomed in really close, other times it didn't. When I draw in Revit I always have thin lines mode turned on, so I didn't even think about it when I exported it. I've never really messed with line weights before, so how do I make it so my dwg export has thin lines? I drew in the underground plumbing, but I drew it on the architectural print. Does it make a difference that it was a dwg floor plan to begin with that I linked into Revit, then exported from Revit with the plumbing?

I don't export from Revit very much, usually I just print to pdf. Also, apparently, when exported, the linked dwg file didn't export with my plumbing drawing, it still needed to be x-referenced.

Is there a good method/process/workflow for exporting from Revit to dwg for a total station tablet?

[ToanDN]

Which software does the tablet use to view the drawings?  

[ben]

I'm not sure exactly what the name of the software is; it's something Hilti made themselves. It seems kind of like CAD. It works off of dwg's

[ToanDN]

There must be some settings in the software to disable the display of line weights similar in AutoCAD. If you can install Design Review in the tablet then it's better to export Revit to DWFx than to DWG.

[ben]

[ToanDN]

It looks not too bad from here. Have you tried the Settings gear icon?

[ben]

When we were doing the on-site training our tablet didn't have the latest app update, so I had to turn on the Wi-Fi hotspot on my phone, connected our tablet to my phone's Wi-Fi hotspot, and download the updates. So for training we used his tablet, and he did say that he had messed up some settings on his tablet, and he hadn't gone back and fixed them yet. Now scrolling around on our tablet, now after its be updated, you're right, it actually looks pretty good. The fat lines might have been one of the settings that was messed up on his tablet.

[ben]

@ToanDN I wanted to test to see if it was his tablet or the drawing I exported, so I setup out Total Station in the office. It looks like the drawing is good with thin lines when you go into the Draw Mode, but when you connect the tablet to the tool and go into Layout Mode (tablet needs to be connected to the tool to enter layout mode), then the lines are all fat.

 

[ToanDN]

Can you click on the Gears icon see if you can access any line weight display settings?  If not, a sure way to fix it is open the DWG in AutoCAD, select all Layers and change their line weights to a thin one.

[ben]

@ToanDN The gear settings is mostly things like connecting the tablet to the station, software version & info, calculations, angles, and stuff like that. I hated the guessing game of layers when I was using CAD, that's why I love the Visibility Graphics in Revit, so much easier and simpler to follow. I did go into the layers section, and I noticed there was an A-WALL and an I-WALL. I figured that A-WALL meant architectural walls, but I have no idea what I-WALL stands for; information, maybe? If I unchecked A-WALL then, yeah it hid all of the walls, I checked it again, but when I unchecked I-WALL it hid all of the fat lines on the interior walls, but kept the fat lines on the exterior walls. If the "I" in I-WALL stood for "interior" wouldn't it of hid the interior walls, and wouldn't there be an E-WALL for "exterior" wall also (but there isn't an E-WALL in the layers)?

I opened it in CAD and a lot of the layers shown in the CAD file don't even exist in the app on the tablet, but that could be because I sent the file to Hilti, and I think they use one of their own programs (a simplified version of CAD) to clean it up. *See link* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B9SAsEUWKc

But the 2 different wall layers are still in the layers list and are shown with the same line weight. The fattest lines are my pipes and A-WALL-PATT (partition?). Not sure what to make of this or how to clean it up better.

[ToanDN]

You don't have to guess the layer names. Just CTRL + A to select them all and click on the lineweight column to change all at once.

[ben]

I know how to select them all and change a property of them all at the same time (I used to do that all the time to change the color of everything except by piping to black before I sent it to the plotter), I just don't know what all of them do or what they mean/stand for without doing a guess & check method on each layer tying to hide them one by one.

[ToanDN]

Since you are not going to draw on the DWGs or use them for print, it doesn't matter what the layers are.  Everything you want to show or hide is already set in Revit.  Changing all layers to a thin lineweight serve the purpose of viewing the DWGs on the tablet properly.  Just don't turn off or freeze any layers and you will be fine.

[ben]

What is the line weight for "thin lines"? I've Googled and found nothing. I want to try and change all line weights in Revit to that line weight. Even when I try to change all line weights to 1 in Object Styles, its still not as thin as Thin Line Mode. If I have to make an additional line weight, that's fine.

Also, what's the difference between Projection & Cut line weights in the Object Styles?

Here's the difference still showing between walls and windows at line weight 1 vs walls and windows in thin line mode

Line Weight 1Thin Lines

[ToanDN]

Thin lines have no weight. They are just 1 pixel on your screen, I guess.

[ben]

So there's not really a way to replicate thin lines mode with line weights