TLDR: we created custom symbol families (taking "Metric Generic Annotation" template as the baseline) to be used on 2D views (floor plan, drafting view ...). When we use them in a Revit 2023 model, we cannot see the content properly. When the same family is upgraded and used in Revit 2024, everything is fine. I attached example files for the problem explained below.
Content of our symbol family files
The example symbol family file (Symbol_2023.rfa) consists of below items:
We used a masking region to act as background and placed some lines and filled regions (as arrow heads) on top of it. Intention for using the masked region was being able to hide whatever is placed behind the symbol. What we want is shown below: For a case like this, when there is a line behind the symbol, we don’t want it to be visible, so we thought masking the region can help here.
The problem
- We load these 2D symbol file (Symbol_2023.rfa) into a Revit 2023 model.
- Add it to a view (drafting view, floor plan ... etc).
- The lines and arrow heads are not visible, only when we hover over the symbol, we can see them. See below screenshots.
Even the hovered state is not showing what we really want to see there. The interesting thing is when we upgrade this exact symbol family file (that we created for Revit 2023) to Revit 2024 and load it into a Revit 2024 model, it works as expected. In the below image,
- all symbol parts are visible, whether or not we hover it
- It hides the background
This was what we needed exactly. How can we achieve the same in Revit 2023?
I tried several things:
- using filled region instead of masking region - not much difference
- drawing items in different orders - solves the problem for the arrow head (filled region over masking region) but does not help with the lines, lines are always placed behind everything else. Below image is an example to that:
