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pre-select things to dimension

pre-select things to dimension

In Revit 2023 you cannot select two (or more) elements, then hit dimension and end up with a dimension line dimensioning your selection.

The idea would be to allow that. Revit could even determine which dimension to use depending on whether the selected entities are parallel to one another or form an angle. If selected element were just a single element the dimension could be an xyz coordinate.

This would be similar to the tag-all feature - tag only selected elements.

4 Comments
mhiserZFHXS
Advisor

You don't usually just dimension to an element in general though. You dimension to the face of an element or a reference plane within an element, and you can't select those things on their own. How would that work?

BIMBenHL
Enthusiast

I'm not sure this idea has much merit, as expressed by mhiser.

 

However it did give me the idea to change the way the dimension tool works:

  1. Select any number of elements. 
  2. Start the dimension command.
  3. You are only able to choose references for witness lines that are in the families of the elements you had selected before beginning the command.

Does this seem beneficial or even make sense, or not really?

 

MichaelWolff
Advisor

Say you select one wall and one reference element such as a level or a reference plane. If the currently active dimension tool is set to wall axes the tool would pick that and otherwise pick the face closest to the second entity selected. That should be enough to determine which dimension would be useful. Also if pre-selection were possible, users could dimension everything belonging to a selection set without relying on addins like Glyph. In my opinion not allowing pre-selection in any command is letting go of easy enhancements.

As to dimensioning single elements, I know of no other way to tell an object's coordinates in Revit without getting into programming or dynamo-scripting. @mhiserZFHXS If not elements what do you generally dimension to then? 

mhiserZFHXS
Advisor

I'm not saying I don't dimension to elements. I'm saying when you dimension, you dimension to a specific face or line of an element. If you just select an element to dimension to, Revit has no idea what face or line of that element you are dimensioning to. If its a wall, are you dimensioning to one of the finish faces? One of the core faces? The centerline? How does Revit know? It can't read your mind. 

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