Ceilings & Ceiling Plans

Bellow are some notes/instructions sent to our Revt Arch 2010 users. I thought I'd post for the benefit of others.

Ceilings:

Revit MEP is able to attach fixtures to our ceiling elements. They are hosted families so this means if the ceiling moves up or down the fixtures go with it. It also means if the ceiling moves enough that the tolerances in the settings for the duct work and any other attaching elements in Revit MEP, that the engineer would be warned that modifications to the system were needed. This underscores the importance of ensuring that the files we deliver maintain the same file name so it does not require re-linking or reloading on their end. It also means we should have ceilings in place even as placeholders before sharing the model so that engineers have something to which to attach. I would be concerned that if we deleted a ceiling that on their end the fixture may disappear if there is nothing to attach to (equivalent to our doors and windows disappearing if the hosted wall is removed). Although I have been informed that this has been fixed and the hosted elements simply become orphaned now in Revit MEP.  Best practice would be to edit ceilings whenever possible instead of deleting and creating new ones to maintain that relationship when linked into Revit MEP.  One thingto keep in mind, MEP's fixtures do not cut the ceilings, therefore there will be no "lights" when rendering.

Ceiling Plans:

When inserting a 2D CAD Link into ceiling plan (i.e. an electrical DWG to verify location of light fixtures), choosing the "current view only" checkbox will ensure the CAD file is visible in the ceiling plan. Otherwise it places it at a zero elevation on the current level (i.e. First Floor for First Floor Ceiling Plan) or of any level of your choosing below the current level (worthless for ceiling views unless of course the CAD file is 3D and the fixtures are at the correct location). The problem is that for ceiling plans the cut plane is typically up at 7'6 and looking in the other direction so you will get warnings notifying you that the element you have just created (the CAD link) is not visible. In order to see the CAD file you just linked into the project, you will have to go to another view, select the CAD link, and change its elevation (to something higher that the cut plane - e.g. 8'). Or you could tinker around with the view range to see it, move it and/or make verifications/modification, and then fix the view range back but this is more complex. Easiest to insert into "current view only" giving the CAD link no "Z" axis elevation but rather causing it to be visible in the view despite any changes to the view range.