Making existing sprinkler heads halftone

[Anonymous]

As the title state, I'm trying to make my existing sprinkler heads show up and print as half tone.  Currently the only way to get them to show up this way is to override the graphics.  My thought was to edit the family, create a new annotation family that's halftone, then set up a parameter in the family that chooses one of the two annotations based on phase.  But I'm having a hard time accomplishing this.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

[rudi.roux]

Hi @Anonymous, 

Welcome to the community! 

I'll be able to assist, instead of just showing you with a generic family, can you share your family with the current annotation which your using nested in that family. Then I'll do it for you. Then I'll reply with a video of the steps which I took to achieve this. 

[Anonymous]

You need to set up your phases and phase filters in Manage>Phases, then make sure you create the sprinkler heads on the existing phase and set up your views with the appropriate phase & phase filter assigned.

I recommend for all projects with existing & new phases:

- overall existing floor plans - these won't be on sheets, they're just a spot for you to place existing equipment so you don't have to constantly toggle phases/filters around as you work - set view phase to Existing and Filter to Show Complete

-demolition plans - these will go on sheets to document project demolition - set view phase to New Construction and Filter to Show Existing + Demo

-new work plan - these go on sheets to document all new construction - set view phase to New Construction and Filter to Show Existing + New

For projects with multiple phases, do as described above but for each project phase.

But before doing any of this , go to Manage>Phases and set up your filters and overrides exactly how you want them to look.

[rudi.roux · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous, 

As @Anonymous pointed out and explained what needs to happen, which is the correct and general workflow which you would want to mimic. Families get "placed" and inherite the Phase of the View, after placing it, you can change the Phase of the element e.g. - Select you Sprinkler/s >> Properties Palette >> Phasing >> Choose the Phase. Then the Overrides can be done under Manage >> Phases >> Graphic Overrides. 

I created a Screencast below and attached the sample project for you to play with. I go through a couple of options e.g. - filters, phasing and I created a sprinkler family with two nested annotation symbols with visibility Yes/No parameters assigned to them which can then be changed in your project as you desire. 

These are basically the various options which you have to achieve what your looking for. 

To get the two annotations with two different colors, I simply created a new Generic Annotation Object Style and Fill Region to change the colors. 

I also saved the two under two different names. "ANNO Halftone" and "ANNO Normal".

I hope this helps! 

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the late response, have been at a job site.  The solution described above and in the video worked great.  Thanks to everyone for their replies!