2D Material Mapping - Apply material to 2D Region

[Anonymous]

My background is in family creation and one issue I run into time and time again is the juggling act between 3D geometry and 2D linework when creating window/door families. It is not always ideal to represent much of the 3D geometry in a plan/section view as these are often constructed using a sweep with a sometimes complex profile. Therefore we like to use 2D symbology in these views to give an accurate representation of these framing members without actually presenting the often heavy 3D elements.

My issue is that my 2 options for setting up this 2D version of certain elements are:

1. Turn off 3D geometry visibility in plan/section views and draw in symbolic linework

2. Turn off 3D geometry visibility in plan/section views and draw in masking/filled regions

The second of these 2 options tends to be my preference as this ensures that any linework/materials beyond the window element are not displayed through the symbolic linework I may have used in the first option, making it a bit of mess and very clustered with elements that should in fact be concealed.

The issue then becomes that when we want to display our plan/section in any other than Wireframe or Hidden Line the 2D representation of the various elements we chose to not represent in 3D remains as a solid color which can look strange when there is a combination of 2D and 3D elements visible in the view (see attached screenshot). This is going to be the case most times as we would typically only use the 2D representation for the more complex objects to avoid having to model every single piece in both 3D and 2D which would be hugely time consuming.

What would be ideal is if we had the ability to assign a material to a filled region (or perhaps something of another name) and can in turn map this within the family to an existing material parameter so the 2D regions are always consistent with the 3D geometry across all visual styles. As Revit materials have the surface/cut patterns built in by default this could still virtually act exactly as our 'Filled Region' until such time a the visual style changes to be realistic/shaded at which time it will adopt the appropriate RGB and texture image.

[Steve_Th]

I would definitely like to see the last thing you mentioned implemented. Assign materials to filled regions in families.   

[Steve_Th]

I would like to add materials to filled regions within families. This could help maintain consistency with the 3D model.

It is also mentioned at the end of this post: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/2d-material-mapping-apply-material-to-2d-region/idc-p/110...

[ks2_wmb]

In the family editor, I would like to:

• assign a category to filled regions
• assign a material to filled regions (which is "<By Category>" as a default)

I have a casework family.  The casework family has three different materials:  The casework, the resilient base beneath, and the handle.  I modeled the family in 3D, but then I hid the 3D elements in elevation and drew over them using regions.  When I use a material keynote on the resilient base, it... tags it as the casework body material instead.

Additionally, I would like a button to convert masking regions to filled regions.  I have a lot of parameter connections, visibility controls, and constraints applied to my masking regions, and a "convert" button would save me the work of redoing those parameter assignments.