3 Benefits of Using Revit view filters

You probably already know that there are several ways to control object appearance in Revit. We covered about it before, with controlling line thickness as example.

Have you tried using the Filters tab?

Using filter in visibility graphic can give you more control. It allows you to control many objects appearance faster and extend the capabilities. Let’s try to see what it can do here.

Group Different Types of Objects

To override different object types, you need to override them one by one. You change the appearance for walls, then columns, doors and other objects individually. This could take some time.

You can create a filter to include different types of objects. This will allow you to override their properties in a single action.

As you can see below, you can create a filter to override appearance of interior objects. That could includes doors, floors, ramps, stairs and walls.

It means that you can change the appearance of multiple objects immediately. You don’t need to change the appearance for each object.

Filter Object by Parameters

You can also filter objects by their parameters. It means that not only you can filter multiple types of objects, you can also override appearance for same objects differently.  For example, You want all wall with exterior function to be filled with red color.

In the example below, I created filter for wall with exterior function. I use red color for those walls.

As you can see in this example, the interior walls don’t have fill color.

Ability to Change Visibility when Overrides Graphics Doesn’t Allow You to

In Visibility/Graphics Override, you will find that there are visibility settings that you can’t override.

In this example below, you can see that you can’t change the room color fill. Yes, you can change it in color scheme. But in this case, I want to create a floor plan with same color fill. Only for this particular view.

This will be faster to create a filter then override the color fill.

After I define a filter, now I can change the fill color in filter tab.

Conclusion

Using filters in graphic overrides will give you more controls. If you want to create a compelling presentation, you will want to learn more about it.

I recommend you to read this AU Class: Autodesk Revit for Presentation – Graphic that Pop. The class was presented by Jason Grant and David Light at Autodesk University 2011, but still relevant to current version. It’s a great resource to get some ideas how you can make your drawing presentation looks compelling, without having to render the model. And many of those tricks are using filters!

How about you? Have you used filters to override your model appearance before? Can you share what more it can do? And what you have created with it?

About Edwin Prakoso

I work as an Application Engineer in Jakarta, Indonesia. I've been using AutoCAD since R14 and Revit since Revit Building 9. I occasionally write for AUGIWorld magazine and also active in Autodesk discussion forum.
I'm certified as Revit Architecture 2014 and AutoCAD 2014 certified professional. I'm also a member of Autodesk Expert Elite, appreciation for individuals who give contribution to Autodesk community.
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