The proper way to fix this issue is relatively simple: turn off visibility of the Ceilings category in Visibility/Graphic Overrides.Īs you can see now, our view range is properly set and I can see the ductwork within the ceiling space of this floor plan. Select the opaque object and look at your Properties pane.Īs you can see, it is in fact the ceiling that is blocking my ductwork from being visible in the view. Now that we’ve set the Cut Plane to 8’-0” above the Associated Level, we still aren’t seeing the ductwork and actually after adjusting our view range, the floor plan looks even further than goal than it did earlier.īefore you hit CTRL+Z on your keyboard, let’s have a look at what’s happening here. The rule of thumb is that you’ll need that plane to be set either to above your duct, or cutting though your duct. The Cut Plane offset in your View Range needs to be taken into account. In the left window (Level 1) in the image above, you can see my floor plan view with the Top of the Primary Range set to 10’-0” above the Associated Level (Level 1), but no ductwork is visible even though you can clearly see that the duct that I’ve modeled in the right window (Section 1) is well within the Primary Range. Some users feel that this is a more intuitive way to set the top of a view range because it is easy to relate to the offset parameter of duct and pipe, which is typically a positive offset (above the current level). Set the Top to Associated Level with a positive offset. For example, if the level above is at 13’-0” with a 8” thick slab, set your offset to -0’-8”.Ģ. When using this method to set the top of your view range, be sure to compensate for the thickness of the floor in your negative offset so you don’t include any pipes or conduit that is installed in the floor or cast in the slab. This ensures that if and when the floor-to-floor heights change, your view will still include the ceiling elements. Set the Top to Level Above, with a negative offset.
There are two main schools of thought when setting the Primary Range of the view range to include the elements that are in the ceiling space.ġ. The terms Top, Cut Plane, and Bottom all seem to make sense, so let’s adjust the view range in my floor plan view to include the duct within the ceiling space of my model. View Range for MEP Elements Above the Ceilingįor part one of this two-part blog series, we’ll walk through setting up a view range on a floor plan view and cover the view range terms as they apply to MEP elements within the ceiling space. Although these terms are clearly illustrated in the View Range window, adjusting these settings for MEP elements can still be a bit confusing. In recent versions of Revit, Autodesk has provided a handy little button on the view range dialog which displays a quick reference for what these terms mean. This opens the View Range dialog, where you can adjust values for Top, Cut Plan, Bottom, and View Depth… But what does all of this mean? To set the view range of a view, open your Properties pane and click the Edit button next to View Range (under the Extents group). When working with MEP disciplines, however, things get quite a bit more complicated, as there are typically several MEP elements that are designed in the ceiling space or even below the floor.
You would expect to see elements such as door swings, windows, furniture, or even receptacles on a floor plan that includes this 3-dimensional space in the view range. In the illustration above, the green area is what you would typically see on a floor plan view.
In this two-part blog series, I’ll cover some techniques one how to properly show/hide MEP elements that are typically above the ceiling or below the Level of a floor plan. When setting up your views for the MEP disciplines, configuring their view ranges in Revit can have somewhat of a steep learning curve.