Tile Patterns in Revit

[lee.imbimbo86EM4]

I'm hoping that there is a better way of doing what I'm currently doing in Revit, because right now what I'm doing is insanely tedious to get it done right.  What this comes down to is Tile, and getting it done right, and looking correct in Revit.

In particular, I've got a relatively detailed master bathroom, tile tub surround, and getting elements to line up and join correctly and look correct.  And above all doing so easily seems almost impossible in Revit.  In CAD it would just be a matter of me adjust line work, and a few hatch patterns, but in Revit it's a whole thing and a lot of mess.

So here are the issues I'm having:
(1) Hatch Pattterns and quality material finish are insanely tedious to get done.  For most manufacturer's you can get a decent quality image of the tile, and with a little bit of photoshop work you're off to the races.  But the linework for your working drawings is another issue.  In CAD I used to just take complicated mosaics draw up the linework and either just make it a block or a superhatch.  But in Revit the only option they seem to give me is to take the insanely tedious amount of time to actually create a usable hatch pattern for that product.  Which would be fine if I used this tile all the time, but when it changes on a job by job basis, that's a lot of time for just one little thing.  Also it makes exploring concept options a very tedious task.

(2) Material product change.  So let's take something simple like a switch from a wall field tile to a tile cove base option.  While I get that this can be done with a sweep, sweeps are often not very conducive to a sloping floor situation, such as a tile shower floor.

(3) Minor changes to layout.  Another common issue I have are minor changes to the layout.  So for example.  you want to take a standard 1/2 staggered tile patter for the main area the floor, but at the doors you'd like to just center the tile grid in the doorway and make it with a piece of tile.  In CAD I would've just moved some lines around.  But in REVIT the best I've come up with is to break the floor, and just draw one grid lined up one way and another another.

But in general, the biggest thing I'm hoping to do with this discussion is see if anyone else has developed better ways to work with Revit to do this kind of intricate detailing that would reduce the amount of time I'm spending actually implementing my designs.

[ToanDN]

---

@lee.imbimbo86EM4 wrote:

I'm hoping that there is a better way of doing what I'm currently doing in Revit, because right now what I'm doing is insanely tedious to get it done right.  What this comes down to is Tile, and getting it done right, and looking correct in Revit.

In particular, I've got a relatively detailed master bathroom, tile tub surround, and getting elements to line up and join correctly and look correct.  And above all doing so easily seems almost impossible in Revit.  In CAD it would just be a matter of me adjust line work, and a few hatch patterns, but in Revit it's a whole thing and a lot of mess.

So here are the issues I'm having:
(1) Hatch Pattterns and quality material finish are insanely tedious to get done.  For most manufacturer's you can get a decent quality image of the tile, and with a little bit of photoshop work you're off to the races.  But the linework for your working drawings is another issue.  In CAD I used to just take complicated mosaics draw up the linework and either just make it a block or a superhatch.  But in Revit the only option they seem to give me is to take the insanely tedious amount of time to actually create a usable hatch pattern for that product.  Which would be fine if I used this tile all the time, but when it changes on a job by job basis, that's a lot of time for just one little thing.  Also it makes exploring concept options a very tedious task.

- Download pyRevit and you can create fill patterns easily

- Use Pattycake online hatch creator tool

(2) Material product change.  So let's take something simple like a switch from a wall field tile to a tile cove base option.  While I get that this can be done with a sweep, sweeps are often not very conducive to a sloping floor situation, such as a tile shower floor.

Yes it can.  Use pick 3D path instead of sketch path.

(3) Minor changes to layout.  Another common issue I have are minor changes to the layout.  So for example.  you want to take a standard 1/2 staggered tile patter for the main area the floor, but at the doors you'd like to just center the tile grid in the doorway and make it with a piece of tile.  In CAD I would've just moved some lines around.  But in REVIT the best I've come up with is to break the floor, and just draw one grid lined up one way and another another.

- Split face, paint, re-align the pattern of the painted area

- Create parts, override parts material, re-align similar to above

But in general, the biggest thing I'm hoping to do with this discussion is see if anyone else has developed better ways to work with Revit to do this kind of intricate detailing that would reduce the amount of time I'm spending actually implementing my designs.

---

[lee.imbimbo86EM4]

The other big issue I'm having is transitions.  So let's just take something like a Tile Niche in a shower.  You have the walls, then the niche bottom (which is a floor), then the niche top (Which is a ceiling).  they still haven't make joining of the wall, floor, and ceiling elements as a quality unification.  So it's basically just a lot of work to make these elements work and look correct.

Pattycake is a great resource, and has definitely helped, but it is still tedious to make the patterns.  I'll have to look into pyREVIT

[Pattycake_Kyle]

Hi @lee.imbimbo86EM4,!

Happy you were able to give Pattycake a try 😁 If you have some notes on improvement or workflow pain points we'd love to hear some suggestions or thoughts! You can reach us DM here, or [hi] at pattycake.io.

Many of our users are able to make their custom patterns using draw-in-web, one of the calculators, or finding it in our library. But the ones that are a bit more complicated use the DWG to DXF generator (since they make the pattern in CAD anyway). 

To answer your question about the shower wall niche, while I suppose you are correct that the niche bottom is maybe a 'floor' --- I've never seen it modeled this way and wouldn't recommend. An easier way would be to make a family (either wall or face hosted) and have it cut the call/void it out and you can then have modeled layers inside of it represent the sides/top/bottom. This allows you to get into specifics of reveals, slopes, etc.

If you go to File > Open > Family and navigate to the Hose Rack Cabinets, you can see Autodesk families that would do similar things and behave similarly as an example. 

[ToanDN]

---

@lee.imbimbo86EM4 wrote:

The other big issue I'm having is transitions.  So let's just take something like a Tile Niche in a shower.  You have the walls, then the niche bottom (which is a floor), then the niche top (Which is a ceiling).  they still haven't make joining of the wall, floor, and ceiling elements as a quality unification.  So it's basically just a lot of work to make these elements work and look correct.

---

So the issue is joining elements?  Below is a niche using walls, floor, and ceiling as you described.

[lee.imbimbo86EM4]

I'll have to recreate it to show you what I was getting.  But in effect, I would see the edge of the floor or ceiling element, not the tile pattern.  that being said, it isn't like your picture is technically accurate, well not unless the tiler was miter cutting the edge of the tile. 

[ToanDN]

---

@lee.imbimbo86EM4 wrote:

I'll have to recreate it to show you what I was getting.  But in effect, I would see the edge of the floor or ceiling element, not the tile pattern.  that being said, it isn't like your picture is technically accurate, well not unless the tiler was miter cutting the edge of the tile. 

---

If you want bullnosed edges then you will have to model bull nosed edges.