Turn Existing Project to Underlay/Half Tone from within Revit

[YZhuang_Spectech]

I have no idea how to even word a search for what I am looking to do, but whatever I did search came up with nothing relating to my issue; thus, here I am posing the question to the community.

We have projects we have done and closed out now, and a year down the road, the clients are coming back asking for more work. Currently, we link all backgrounds so that they can be half toned, and then our work for that project is placed on those linked models so that its darker and stands out more (see picture below).

Now that we need to start a new project, I dont want to lose all the notes/views/tags and such already set up in the project, but I also cannot have the older work darker (I need it underlayed like a revit link). If I were to just link the model to a new project, I would lose a lot of work already done.

Which brings me to my question;

Can I somehow take a project and make everything in the project turn into underlay or a revit link from within Revit? As you can see below, my current project work pops out more than the Revit linked background, and I would need everything currently there to be the same color as a linked background (this way, I do not lose any views/sheets/notes/etc, and when I place the new work, it would be a darker tone than the rest of the previous work/existing revit background used in the last project). 

Current Project + Revit Link.JPG

Thanks in advance for any and all help/discussion on the matter. If you have any questions or need more information regarding the topic, please feel free to ask and I can usually respond within a couple minutes assuming I'm not on my lunch break. Would be really nice if there was a way to do this and would save me a lot of time when creating the new project (all my sheets/views would already be created).

[barthbradley]

Select Halftone for those Model Categories in the view's Visibility and Graphics. 

[YZhuang_Spectech]

But wouldnt that then change the color of all devices of that type?

Lets say I had a wall outlet previously placed that was part of the existing project. If I set it so that that model category is halftoned, wouldnt that half tone all wall outlets I then place in the future?

Was looking for a instanced based way to do this without affecting new devices that could be placed using the same family that was halftoned.

[barthbradley]

There are several ways you could approach this. One way would be to Override Graphic In View by Element...or by Filtered Elements. You can use a named filter to select all the elements you want to change, and add that Filter to View's Visibility and Graphics . 

[ToanDN]

---

@YZhuang_Spectech wrote:

Now that we need to start a new project, I dont want to lose all the notes/views/tags and such already set up in the project, but I also cannot have the older work darker (I need it underlayed like a revit link). If I were to just link the model to a new project, I would lose a lot of work already done.

---

What do you think you will lose?  If you are talking about the existing annotation, then No, you can still show them from the link and as Underlay.

Capture.PNG

[YZhuang_Spectech]

Ah wasnt sure if annotations showed up in a link view but I guess it does (I read else where that it didnt).

But if I went to create a new project to get everything in the half tone as a revit link, I would lose out on all my create views > notes in those created views > sheets that were created with all the views placed onto those sheets > etc.

[ToanDN]

---

@YZhuang_Spectech wrote:

Ah wasnt sure if annotations showed up in a link view but I guess it does (I read else where that it didnt).

But if I went to create a new project to get everything in the half tone as a revit link, I would lose out on all my create views > notes in those created views > sheets that were created with all the views placed onto those sheets > etc.

---

- You would not lose the Views or notes in them (see above).

- Do a save as the old project to a new one and delete the model content, then link the old project back in.  You would not lose sheets and views placed on sheets either.

[YZhuang_Spectech]

I just found out a simple work around that I believe would be better to use for now. Its essentially going around to my sheets, highlight the contents of the views, and over write graphics in view > by elements > half tone. This way all current objects are half toned, and all new stuff placed will be darker toned. I can also un-half tone an object should it need to be (for example: if a change is made to it).

But ya, your solution definitely works too in most every case 🙂 Thanks for that tip

[ToanDN]

That is what @barthbradley has suggested.

[cbcarch]

Unless I have missed something obvious here--

I think you could also explore using Phases. This way, everything on a previous Phase could be halftoned, and new work would be black ( dark.)

[RobDraw]

If the previous project is built and the new work is to change/add on to the previous work, then the proper way would be to make the old project existing, like you would any renovation project and create a new project. You could do a save as from the previous project to save what you need for the new project.

If the previous project is not built and these are changes to the original design documents then your proposed approach is not the way it should be done. The additional work should be treated as revisions.

[YZhuang_Spectech]

Previous project is built under the project code 14-023-00, new project has been created under 18-08-00. Think I will explore phases and see how well it half tones my stuff. I have a lot of custom built families that portray hidden lines in plan views (like WiFi coverage radius'), and by what I see with phases, I need to set a line-type for a phase. Will have to test and see, but I hope this doesnt change all lines to 1 line type.

If phases dont work for what I need, I will just go about and highlight all my views and half tone them by elements. This way I know for a fact its the exact project just half toned.

[loboarch]

---

@cbcarch wrote:

Unless I have missed something obvious here--

I think you could also explore using Phases. This way, everything on a previous Phase could be halftoned, and new work would be black ( dark.)

---

From my first read through it seems like phases would be the way to go in my mind as well. The needing the old annotation is the only thing that gives me pause on that.  I somewhat question the need for the old annotation in a "new" project. I did plenty of renovations in my time and never used the CDs from the old project. I started with just the "existing state" of the project. Walls windows, doors, all of that kind of stuff was all I cared about.

[YZhuang_Spectech]

Conventionally, yes your right, annotations and such would not be needed and a simple revit link of the previous project or using phases would suffice. But, I am not working at your conventional company, and we are probably one of the only players in the game (in Canada) who use Revit for 100% of our project work. Even multi-million/billion dollar companies in our space are not working in Revit, so we are basically setting the standards on how project work is done for our space when it comes to doing it in Revit (every other company is stuck in AutoCAD).

I work at a consulting firm where we design (in short) WiFi/Audio Visual/Security systems for all the major universities/student residences/malls/government buildings/etc across Canada. Our devices are usually so small that an annotation is the only way to know they are there. For example, a door contact on a door can barely be seen on a floor plan therefore we use annotations (DC in a box for this particular item) so that we know its there. Now you multiply this by A LOT of different devices, on A LOT of different floors, in A LOT of difference places, and you all the sudden got thousands of little devices across your project with no way to quickly identify where they are except by looking at previous drawings for reference or some other work around. We model everything right down to 1" in conduit, and we model EVERY single device we use (whether it be a camera/tv/projector/magnetic lock/card reader/etc) for clash detection purposes, and for placement purposes. Because of this our library is filled with one-of-a-kind families as they're isn't a ton of families when you get down to specific devices in my industry.

Which brings me to my need to have my EXACT project half toned before starting new my new work. I cannot lose all my annotations because then there is practically no work shown on the drawings, and no easy way of finding where the previous work was done. Annotations are the identifiers of A LOT of our small devices. The only work around I have found that keeps my project the exact same has been to highlight views in the project, and half tone them by elements. This way it is only view affected, and any new items placed will appear in the "darker tone".

I understand phases/linking and such work in most cases, but we are a different kind of company using Revit for different kinds of purposes than most 99% of the people out there (theres not even a Revit forum with like-minded industry people for me to post in because most-nobody is doing what we are doing in 100% Revit, if anybody). Which is why it might seem unconventional to most, but very much needed for me.

[RobDraw]

Maybe you didn't have this kind of workflow in mind when creating your library but manual overrides are NOT the way to do this. It MAY seem to be the only way but you should really explore other options. You really should be using phasing. No ifs, ands, or buts. What you will be accomplishing with your workaround is just making your project look good on paper without the intelligence that is available in Revit. Since you are breaking new ground, you should be setting a precedence for others to follow.

[ToanDN]

@YZhuang_Spectech

You can set the entire existing phase to halftone without affecting the line patterns and line weights.

[YZhuang_Spectech]

There is just a lot of things phasing cannot do for me (such as the fact that you cannot even phase some things that we use on a project basis, like detail groups/notes/annotations/etc). How can I adopt a workflow that doesnt do what I need it to do, just because its the right thing to do in other instances? Just doesnt make much of any sense.

I use the smarts within Revit whenever I can, heck, I even self taught myself Dynamo, and built/helped build many Dynamo scripts which months later still attract attention in the dynamo forums because I was the first to do it properly. But, I only do so when it completely makes sense to > and in this case, phasing doesnt seem to make much sense when it does not fully do what I need it to do.

Also ToanDN, as I said above, there is a lot of stuff which cannot be phased which I still need shown as half toned without affecting the tone of new items (ie: new items to be darker toned). Which would then mean I would have to phase what could be phased, then go around to my sheets again to half tone all un-phaseable items. Just doesnt make much sense to me for my application.

*** Edit ***

NOT EVEN TAGS CAN BE PHASED. Tags are a major part of what we do with our project. Every family has a tag associated to it (its annotation/device info such a Wireless access point name and port numbers on the switch) > this way, when I move a device/tag on 1 sheet, that same tag follows the device on all sheets in my project. All of which cannot be phased to be half toned. There is just WAYYY TO MANY THINGS that I need shown half toned that phasing doesnt get me. Im all for using the smarts of Revit, but not when it doesnt work for me,

[RobDraw]

No matter what you have to do to make your documents look the way you want there are certain things that should be done when doing renovation work. You need to have phases. Forget about the graphics for a second. A proper model for a renovation project should have, at the least, existing and new phases. What's going to happen when you need to get quantity take-offs? Someone might end up buying new stuff that duplicates the existing.

As to the graphics for existing to remain annotation type stuff. You might consider creating new styles and/or types for the different graphics required by the existing stuff that you need to show on the new work documents. A little extra work in the front end will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

There is nothing that special about what you are doing that requires you to ignore best practices.