Floors

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INSTRUCTOR: It's a good time for us

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to start adding some floor elements to our building model.

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Now, floor elements are what we call a sketch-based element.

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And all that means is that we will

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draw a two-dimensional sketch that

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represents the outline of the floor,

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and then from that sketch, Revit will create the 3D geometry.

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For floors, it's usually a good idea

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to work in a floor plan view.

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So I'll come over here to the project browser,

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and double click the level one floor

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plan to open up that view.

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On the Architecture tab, the Floor button

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is located right here, or if you're using the dropdown,

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you want Floor, Architectural.

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Now, when you click the tool, that puts you into sketch mode,

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and there are several clues that sketch mode has been enabled.

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The first is that the ribbon tab tints in a green color.

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Next, you can see that the drawing window itself has

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grayed out in a half tone gray.

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And then finally, we have the presence

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of this mode panel right here with the large red X to cancel

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or the big green checkbox to complete the operation.

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So if you see the mode panel, that's a pretty good clue

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that you're in sketch mode.

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Now, there are several defaults that are enabled here as well.

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The first default is the boundary line

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tool is already active, and that's

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because the most common thing for us to do in sketch mode

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is to draw the boundary line of our floor element.

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Now, next to that, we have several shapes.

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We could draw lines, or circles, or rectangles,

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but the default is the Pick Walls option.

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Now, Pick Walls is really handy because that

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allows you to come over into your model,

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and just simply click, and it will automatically trace over

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the extent of that wall.

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Now, we could continue clicking on any wall or curtain wall,

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and it will trace over those elements.

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So over here on the right, I will just

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keep clicking like so.

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There's also an Extend in wall core checkbox

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on the Options bar right here.

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Now, this I can explain to you best if we

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pick one of our brick walls.

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Now, this time, to speed things up,

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I'm going to highlight one of my brick walls,

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press Tab, and notice that that will

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highlight the entire perimeter, and then I'll click.

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And I can trace the entire remainder of the building

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with a single click.

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Now, let's come over here and do Zoom in Region,

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and I'll zoom in on the top right-hand portion of the plan

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here.

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And we're still on boundary line.

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So it's a pretty good idea to click the Modify tool to turn

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that off so that you can actually reach in and touch

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the individual sketch lines.

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Now, notice this individual sketch line

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right here, and this one right here,

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are actually at the face of the stud

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within the thickness of the brick wall

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rather than being at either the interior or exterior face.

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That's what we mean by extend into core.

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Right here, you'll see that this line goes right past this one.

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If I tried to click Finish, it would generate several errors.

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Notice that it highlights this point in orange.

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I get this error message right here.

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And I could quit, which would cancel the entire command,

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not a good idea.

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Or I could click Continue, and it highlighted

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the offending area, and then I could

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fix that before I move on.

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So the easiest way to fix issues like that is to use my trim

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and extend to corner command.

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That's right here, Trim and Extend to Corner.

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TR is the shortcut.

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And I'll select the horizontal line first,

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and then I will select the portion of the vertical line

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that I want to keep.

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So that's the upper portion right here.

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And notice that that trims off the lower portion,

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giving me a nice corner right there.

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There's several other places in this sketch

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that also have problems.

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So if we zoom to fit, and then zoom in in this area here,

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what you're going to see is there

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are other similar situations.

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This line goes across this line.

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So this time, I want to keep the vertical line,

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and I want to keep the portion to the left.

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Now, here, If I tried to continue with this one, and one

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of the verticals, the problem is,

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that would remove too much of the line,

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and I would lose it over here on this side.

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So I'll do Control-Z to undo that last operation,

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and what I want to do first is use my split element tool.

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SL is the shortcut.

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And I want to split this line into two.

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So I can just click anywhere on that line to do that.

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Then I can go back to Trim and Extend to Corner,

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pick the vertical line, and then what part do I want to keep?

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In this case, I want to keep the side to the left.

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Click the vertical line again.

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What part do I want to keep?

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The side to the right.

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Then I'll go back to my previous zoom,

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and let's see if we're able to complete the sketch now.

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So we'll try clicking the green Finish Edit Mode,

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and if we've closed in all the corners successfully,

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then we will get a floor element and no error message.

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Now we need another slab on the second floor,

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but it's only for a smaller portion of the building.

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And to help us build that, we're going to actually create

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a brand new view.

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We're going to make a section view.

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I'm going to come up here to the Quick Access toolbar,

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and click the Section tool.

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And I'll click here between grid 7 and 8 somewhere,

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click my first point, pull it straight down, and click again.

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Now, notice that we get this dashed box here.

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And it automatically sends to where

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the furthest point in the building was,

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and it made that box big enough to see all the way back

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into that portion of the building.

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With that section selected, I'm going

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to right click it, and choose Go to View.

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The floor that I want to create is up here at level 2.

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If you look down here at level one,

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you can see the existing one that we just

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created, and actually notice that it's

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right below level one.

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So when you build a floor, the thickness of that floor

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goes down, rather than up.

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So let's get rid of the views I don't need anymore.

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So let's take level

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Let's take the 3D view and X it out.

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That leaves us with just the section view.

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And now let's double click the level 2 floor plan.

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And then finally, let's come over here to the View tab

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and click the Tile Views button, or type WT,

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and that will tile those two windows side by side.

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Now, I'm going to take the section view,

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use my wheel to zoom and pan so that I'm

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focusing in on the middle portion of the building,

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and then I'll click over here in the level 2 floor plan

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and do something similar.

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Go back to Architecture, and then

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click your Floor button again.

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That takes us back to sketch mode

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with all of the same defaults that we saw before.

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This time, I want to pick each of these exterior walls,

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but notice that there's actually two on this side

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and two along the top.

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So there's actually six separate walls

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that you need to click there.

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I'm going to pan slightly here, and roll the wheel to zoom in.

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So this space off to the right is an atrium.

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That's a double volume space, and we

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want to have this little bridge projecting out into that space.

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To do that, instead of pick walls,

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since there are no walls over here to pick,

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I'll just switch to the line tool,

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and then I can just draw in the shape that I'm interested in.

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Now, I'm going to just sort of eyeball

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a little rectangular shape like so,

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click my Modify tool to cancel.

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That turns off all the buttons here.

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Now, you have two options of what to do next.

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You can select one of these existing lines.

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What I'm going to do is take this little Move witness line

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grip, click and hold down to start to drag it,

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and then highlight grid F and let go.

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Then I can activate the dimension,

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and I'll make that 10 feet.

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Alternatively, you could go to your aligned dimension tool

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or type DI, and you could start at grid F,

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and then dimension to that sketch line

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and click anywhere to place it.

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Go from the face of this wall to this sketch line,

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and click anywhere to place it.

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Click the Modify tool to cancel.

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Select this line.

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Edit that dimension.

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Make it 2 feet.

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Select this line.

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Edit that dimension, and make it 24 feet.

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I'll click anywhere to deselect.

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Now if you click Finish right now,

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you'll get an error because we still

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have one continuous sketch line across here.

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So let's go back to our split element.

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Let's break that into two pieces.

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Then we'll go to our trim and extend to a corner.

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And we're going to keep this line and the lower

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portion, this line and the upper portion.

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Click the Modify tool to finish.

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Zoom back out so that we can see the entire sketch,

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and now we'll click Finish.

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Now, when you do, it will highlight

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all of the interior walls on the first floor.

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And you see how it highlights them and ghosts them in

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in a light blue color.

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It also highlights these two exterior walls here and here.

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All of the interior walls, it's saying, go up to this level,

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and they pass right through the floor's slab thickness.

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So would we rather attach them to the underside of the floor

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instead?

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Watch that right here in section when I answer yes.

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And notice that all of the tops of those walls

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have now been chopped down to attach

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to the underside of the floor.

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Now, we're getting a second question

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that's highlighting the perimeter wall

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and asking us if we want to join geometry.

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Let's say yes there as well.

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And what that does, if I click over

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here in the section and kind of deselect,

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is it creates a nice, clean joint right there.

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Now, the only problem with answering yes

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in the first question was that if you go back to your 3D view,

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and take a look at this wall and this wall,

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notice that both of those are attached to the floor when

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they shouldn't be.

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So select one of them.

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Hold the Control key.

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Select the other one.

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And you can reverse that operation

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by using the detach top and base command right here.

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So I'll click that, and then I'll just click anywhere

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on the second floor slab.

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And those walls will detach themselves

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from the second floor, and pop back up

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to their original location.

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So if you want to study the result, you can orbit around.

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And notice that we now have this nice floor

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slab on the second floor complete with a balcony looking

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down into the first floor, and then we have this second slab

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down below that on the first floor

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underneath the entire building.