Developing a detailed electrical model often requires proper organization of the information into schedules. This article explains how to create an organized light fixture schedule using the Revit software, including procedures for filtering and sorting data, renaming columns, and updating all light fixtures simultaneously.
Key Insights
- The article provides a step-by-step guide on creating a light fixture schedule in Revit, starting with filtering electrical items to selecting light fixtures and adding necessary data such as the type mark, family, type, count, wattage, apparent power, illuminance, initial color temperature, lamp type, and manufacturer data.
- Once all light fixtures are listed, the data can be distilled by sorting groupings, primarily by the type mark. The list can be further reduced to display only one of each light fixture type. The article also highlights how to rename columns for better clarity.
- A unique feature of Revit is the ability to update all light fixtures in the model simultaneously. An example given is changing the initial color temperature for all lights to a specific value. The change will affect all light fixtures in the model, demonstrating the efficiency and power of Revit.
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Now that we've completed our Revit electrical model, we can organize that information into schedules. Let's start by creating a Light Fixture Schedule. We'll do that by going to our View tab, selecting Schedules, and choosing Schedule/Quantities.
We can filter the list to include only electrical items, and then we can select Lighting Fixtures. With Lighting Fixtures selected, we click OK, and now we can begin adding data fields for our light fixtures. First, we want to add the Type Mark field.
This will serve as an ID column. Then we’ll add the Family field, which describes each light fixture, and then the Type field.
This will provide more specific details about the fixture. After the Type, we want to add the Count field to show how many of each fixture type we have in the project.
Next, we’ll include Wattage to reflect the bulb wattage, followed by Apparent Power. After that, we’ll add Illuminance, which indicates how much light each fixture emits.
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Then we want to include the Initial Color Temperature, which will indicate the color temperature of each light. After that, we’ll add the Lamp field, which represents the lamp type, and then include some manufacturer data. So, we’ll add Manufacturer, followed by a URL field, and then click OK.
Now Revit pulls up all of the light fixtures in our entire project—and we have quite a few. So let’s go ahead and distill this data down. On the left, in the Properties window, locate the Sorting/Grouping settings.
Click Sorting/Grouping, then Edit. We want to sort primarily by Type Mark, in ascending order. We can enable Grand Totals, and we don’t need to itemize every instance. Right now, it's showing every lighting device, and we don’t need that level of detail.
We’ll uncheck “Itemize every instance.” This way, we’ll just see one row for each unique light fixture. With Sorting/Grouping configured, we’ll click OK—and now the list shrinks down to show only the unique lighting fixtures in the project.
From here, we can begin to make updates.
First, we can rename the column headers. For example, change “Type Mark” to “ID, ” “Family” to “Lighting Fixture, ” and “Type” to “Fixture Type.” You can make similar changes to any column you’d like. You can also update the actual data—and the great thing is, when you update a field in this schedule, it updates every instance in the model.
For instance, the Initial Color Temperature values are currently inconsistent. Let’s say we want all of the lights in the project to be set to 3000K. Once we type in 3000K and press ENTER on the keyboard, Revit will notify us that this change will apply to all associated fixtures.
There are 120 of our 2x2 fixtures, and they’ll all update—and that’s what we want. I can repeat this step for the rest of my fixtures if needed, setting them all to a 3000K color temperature.
Quick note on color temperature: this refers to the color quality of light. A high value like 6000K results in a blue-colored, cool light. A lower value like 2000K yields a warm, yellow-colored light. A 3000K-colored light is somewhere in the middle—slightly toward the warm end of the spectrum.
6000K would be at the cool end of that spectrum. Over in the Lamp category, we can set all of these to LED—or choose any lamp type we prefer—but in our case, we’ll go with LED bulbs. For the Manufacturer, we can add a name. We’re not going to specify any particular manufacturer here, but we can add one if we’d like. So I’ll just call mine "West Coast Lighting Company, " which will apply it to all the fixtures.
We can also add a URL—for example, www.westcoastlights.com. For the next fixture, we could follow the same theme and use "East Coast Light Company" and www.eastcoastlights.com. You can continue this process for all the lights to complete the dataset.
If we expand the chart—let’s say by going back to Sorting/Grouping and checking “Itemize every instance”—we’ll see that these changes apply to every light. It’s a pretty powerful way to update all the lights at once.
Let’s go back and uncheck “Itemize every instance.” The data is looking pretty good. We could keep adding more fields, but now let’s adjust the appearance of the schedule.
In the Properties panel of the schedule, click Appearance > Edit. Right there under Appearance, we can change the graphics and text settings.
For example, we can increase the title size—let’s go with a 3/8" title. For the header text, let’s set it to 1/4". We’ll leave the body text at its default size.
For some added clarity, we can check the Striped Rows box under the Graphics section. We’ll leave the default gray color for the stripes—that looks fine. Click OK to apply the changes.
You’ll notice a couple of visual updates. The Lighting Fixture Schedule title is now larger, and the striped rows help improve readability. I think that’s looking really good.
We now have a clean and formatted Lighting Fixture Schedule. We'll come back in a moment to create more schedules.
