How can I place multiple views of the same view in the same project?

[Anonymous]

I work for a concrete precast company. We often (every project) have to use the same detail on multiple sheets. For example we might have a project with 20 columns in a parking deck. They all might have the same section views because they all have the same rebar location configuration but some columns are shorter than others, block-outs for spandrels located in different vertical positions, or the corbels are positioned at different heights. We do this by making a section view, exporting it to cad, then make a legend view and import the cad view into the legend. Then the craziness happens. We then unpin the view, then explode the view down to single lines, and trace over it to make dumb lines and text. If we need a view that is very similar like making a recess or stretching a bit then we just duplicate the legend, rename, and make the changes. PLEASE tell me there is someone out there that knows a better way! Any help would be very very much appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

Have you tried duplicating the section view as dependent? That makes an exact copy of the original section, but any changes (including annotations) are updated on both.

Only drawback would be that you have to have multiple duplicates for each instance of the view on a sheet (but you can collapse the menu and hide them in the project browser)

[barthbradley]

I get why you NEED multiple views -- because you have multiple column designs/builds.  I don't get your workflow though. Exporting, Importing and Exploding DWGs? That's not a good way to go. I would strongly advise against it, and urge you to do everything from within Revit.

As far as for having a more streamlined process for you, I might suggest exploring Assembly Views as an option.  If you want to post an example typical sheet from your CDs, perhaps we can come up with some other ideas on how to get there using Revit.