Explore a method to control line weights of imported CAD files in Revit, using the import line weights dialog box. Understand the role of a mapping file and how it assigns line weight values based on import colors, and learn how to manipulate these values for desired results.
Key Insights
- The import line weights dialog box in Revit aids in controlling line weights of imported CAD files, by referencing a mapping file which assigns a line weight value to each of the 255 possible import colors.
- This dialog box can be manipulated by changing the line weight values based on color, however, if the imported entities use line weight property rather than color, these settings will be ignored.
- Before importing CAD files, it's advisable to clean them in their original environment, ensuring each detail uses consistent colors and line weight settings, for predictable import results.
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In this video we're going to take a look at a way to control line weights of imported CAD files. In the insert tab of the ribbon on the right hand corner of the import panel there's something called the dialog launcher icon which is this little diagonal arrow at the bottom right corner. Click on that and it's going to open an import line weights dialog box.
This dialog box references a mapping file with it which is a txt file located somewhere on your local drive and what it does is basically map the 255 possible import colors and assigns it a line weight value. If you just scroll down this list you'll notice it goes all the way to 255 and each of those colors that are imported from the CAD file are assigned a line weight and there are several mapping files that are included with Revit and you can use those or you can create your own based on your office's CAD standards. Since many existing CAD drawings use colors to determine what their line weight is when plotted, Revit can assign its line weights to the imported elements based on the values inputted into this table.
Note that if your imported entities use the line weight property rather than color the settings in this dialog will be ignored and the assigned line weight will be used instead. If you have access to AutoCAD or other CAD program it's best to open the files and clean them up in their original environment first. Be sure that each detail uses consistent colors and line weight settings so that you get predictable import results.
Delete any unwanted geometry and purge unneeded layers and settings prior to importing. We're going to import another CAD file but before we do that let's change some of the line weight values here on this table and we'll see how it automatically updates the line weights in the file we are about to import. So let's change the color number 3 to the value 2. 4 will become 3 and the line weight for the number 5 color will become 5. Click OK and it's going to say that you can't write the import line weights file because it's read only so what we're going to have to do is click Save As and let's put this in the location where we have our project and click Save.
Now you can click OK. Be sure you've downloaded the file detail-gip-board-hanger.dwg and save it in the folder that your Revit project file is. So let's go to the View tab in the ribbon and under Create let's create a drafting view and name it gypsum board ceiling detail and the scale will be 3 inches equals 1 foot and click OK.
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Now go to the Insert tab, select Import CAD and let's browse to where we have our downloaded files and we're going to select detail-gip-board- ceiling. Select Open. It's going to take a minute to load.
It's done thinking so let's type in zx for zoom extents and you'll notice our gypsum board ceiling detail has been imported and if you zoom in a bit you'll see that there are varying line weights and that's based on the settings that we just established. If you select the imported file remember you can go to Query here in the ribbon and if you select any of these lines it will tell you the layer that that line was assigned to and the color that was assigned to that layer is what will inform the line weight that it is imported to. Let's select the text at the bottom and you'll notice that is on our depth points layer and if we select Hide in View that will hide the layer depth points.
In the next video we're going to look at manually assigning callouts to drafting views.