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REVIT STRUCTURE TIPS

BUILDING A STRUCTURAL REVIT

TEMPLATE
July 12, 2016 Karl Tanner 3 Comments

I have been asked by a reader to explain how to createa structural revit

template for your o\ce. Creating a good template is essential to working
smarter & faster, becoming more productive and saving valuable time. It
is the best way to ensure consistency among your draing team and gets
your models anddrawings o on the right foot.Put simply, agood Revit
template is essential!
Creating a revit template is a big undertaking, and explaining the best
practices and tips is even bigger! It is my intention in this blog post to
give a brief outline of what to look out for and what to include in your
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structural revit template.I willfollow this up with a more in-depth guide

or tutorial that digs a bit deeper and provides more explanation. So lets
begin!

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN A STRUCTURAL REVIT

TEMPLATE
The point of your revit template is to save time and be consistent. Each
time you start a project you dont want to have to load the same elements
every time you want the elementsyou Always use to already be in
place so you can hit the ground running. With that in mind, think of all
the things you use consistently on every project and go from there. The

Hello! My name is Karl Tanner,

following list is what I have in my structural revit template, along with

welcome to revitIQ.com where

some tips for you tokeep in mind:

I share tips, tutorials and

opinions about Revit, BIM, and

Cover page & Titleblocks Every project has a cover page and at least

structural draing

one drawing sheet. Make sure you add your cover page and titleblock to
your template le. But not only that, create drawing sheets you always
have e.g Site plan, Ground /oor plan, elevations etc. Anddont stop there

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either, do you have a general note that goes on most drawings? Create it
and add it to the sheets. Create and add a sheet listif it goes on the cover
page etc. Do these things once in the template so you dont have to do

NEWSLETTER

them over and over again in each project.

Stay up to date with tips,

General Notes Sheet/ Standard details Following on from Cover pages
& Titleblocks, I have our General and Structural Notes sheets which

tricks and tutorials

delivered straight to your

contain reinforcement, steel work notes, lap tables,bend diagrams and

inbox!

other standard details. These actually took a while to get right but once
they are correct in the template I dont have to touch them again.

First name

Schedules I always have Column, Framing, Floor and Foundation

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schedules in my projects. These have been set-up and organised in my

template so as I model, my schedules update on the /y.

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Project and Shared parameters Following on from schedules, I have

custom shared parametersalready loaded into my template le which
are included inmy schedules and titleblocks/cover pages.
Search

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Views and View Templates This is a big one. Take the time to create
some really good view templates which you can use for a number of

BIM

situations. For example I have a Foundation plan view in my template

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already set-up with exactly how I want the foundations to look (Floor not

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visible, walls as hidden lines with foundations surface pattern set to light
grey etc.). I have a Floor plan template with my ideal view range, scale
and detail level already set-up. I have steelwork templates, concrete

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templates, stair plan and section templates.all these view templates

ready to go so that when I actually do create theseviews they will look
and behave exactly the way I want them too.Create these thingsonce in

F I N D U S O N FA C E B O O K

the template so you dont have to do them over and over again in each
project.
Text & Dimension Styles Have all the text size, font, leader head etc.

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set-up in the template. Limit the amount of variables and make it clear
which style should be used for each situation. Thats the other good thing
about a template, it eliminates other sta from guessing how your output

LikePage

should look and keeps everything consistent.

Tags Load all of your company specic tags into your template. Set-up

Bethefirstofyourfriendstolikethis

the default tags so users can just go ahead and automatically use the
correct one.
Fill & Line styles Create thestandard ll patterns and Line styles that
TA G S

you use. A good tip is to name them as their function not what they look
like e.g: Brick Cut Pattern instead of diagonal down 1.5mm.Or Rebar
instead of Medium +1 etc.
Object Styles Go over the object styles and ensure things look right.

3D model

2017

BIM Objects

Add in

curtain walls

Best to get it right in the template then changing it in every project.

Design Options

Detail components Load or create your typical detail components. E.g

I have my rebar repeating detail components ready to go such as
D16@200crs and D16 Fixed No. etc.

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Dimensions
Drawing Sheets

Filters
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Phases This is another one that oen gets overlooked, but if you work
with a lot of Existing structures then this is vitally important. Make sure
your Phase lters and Graphic overrides are set to how you want them so
that everything looks correct. For a long time I couldnt gure out why
the cut patterns werent visible in my Existing plans (Doh!)
System Families System families are predened in the templateand
are not loaded into the project. These include Walls, Floors, ceilings and
roofs. This is a good chance to set-up your most common types and
follow a naming convention. For instance, I have my common wall types
set up and named by<Wall type>_<Sub wall type if needed>_<wall
thickness> e.g Concrete_Precast_200mm.

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Schedules

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steel framing
Structural Connections
Structural Draing
Structural revit template

Model components Finally, insertrelevant model components for

Structure

tips

your structural revit template. There are certain components I always use
particularly steelbeamtypes such as UBs, PFCs, SHSs, EAs, some
steel connections,timber framingand also various concrete beams. I
choose to load most if not all of the types within these families. There

View reference

View Title

Weld symbols

is a theory that you should be prudent with the amount of families you
load into your template to avoid large le sizes. While that makes sense, I
feel its more worthwhile to load all of your most common families so
you can save time having to load them in each project. In my opinion its
much more benecial from a time perspective, and I have never had a
really slow model due to too many families loaded in the template. So its
up to you, its good to try and nd a nice balance (If you doexperience a
slow revit session read this to help speed things up).

There is no right or wrong, or one-size-ts-all template, it all depends

on your o\ce standards and work/ows. These are just some of the main
things I have included in my ownstructural revit template and hopefully
it has helped you to create or improve your own. A long with your
companys Revit standards manual, your revit template is the most
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important tool to producing quality, consistent models and drawings as

fast as possible.
If you have any questions, or have some more tips for creating
astructuralrevit templatethen please leave a comment below!

If you found this post helpful, please feel free to share it.
-Talk soon
P.S Id love to connect with you on Twitter: here
Join the tribe and Subscribe!
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Structural Revit Technician and BIM/Draing

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Roger King
August 29, 2016

Great Revit structure tips. Must follow for professionals.

Creating a revit template is a big task. Very helpful article.
Reply

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