Optimizing View Range and Placing HVAC Components in Revit

In the previous videos, we went ahead and finished up some of our supply systems here. We're going to go ahead and do a couple more, but there's a couple of things I want to talk about real quick with our view here. As we start to move into other parts of the building, you may start to see some items are showing up that maybe we don't want to see.

So I'm on my level one ceiling plan here. I'm zoomed all the way out, so you can go ahead and navigate to this view if you're not here currently. And I'm going to zoom in down on this bottom portion here.

And what you'll notice is that I'm seeing kind of some weird walls, and that's because I have wireframe on. So right now I have the visual style of wireframe, so I can see through the ceiling. If I set this to hidden line, you know, I can still see some stuff and it actually works out pretty well.

But sometimes I like to see it in wireframe. One thing that's happening here is my view range is kind of changing it. So I'm going to adjust my view range so I don't see level two information.

So in my view here over on ceiling plan, Mechanical, I'm going to go to my view range here, edit. I'm going to change my top to be at level two. So my view range is set to cut.

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I'm cutting at level one, four feet above level one. I'm looking up towards the ceiling because I'm in a reflected ceiling plan to level two. Now the top of my view range is set to level two or the level above.

And then I have one foot six. So it's going one foot six over that level two line. So I'm going to change this to zero.

I'm also going to change my view depth here. Level above (Level 2) is zero. I'm going to hit OK and apply hit OK.

And you can see that we removed some of that information. So as you're working, you may want to adjust your view range so that you can see maybe you're running a pipe up to the plumbing fixtures that were here or those kind of things. But, you know, we don't need them on for right now.

So in this next portion, let's look up here. We have a couple of other little spaces to go ahead and do. We're just going to go ahead and you can do these at your own pace.

But what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and first put in my air terminals that I'm going to put in my branch line coming off. I'll put in my mechanical equipment here and then I'll make my connections to that. So I'm going to first go to my systems.

I'm going to go to air terminal. We want to be doing our supply terminals to start. So I'm going to go supply, diffuser, rectangular face, round neck, hosted.

I'm going to choose that 24 × 24, eight inch neck. And pretty much I'm just going to go ahead. You see, I saw those black arrows.

They came up again. So I'm going to go ahead and uncheck those in my instance parameters here. And I'm going to kind of just match kind of what I got going on over here.

So you can see we have two in this room, two in this room. And there we go. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm just, again, going to kind of click wherever I'm just going to pick and pick.

And then the same thing down here. We'll come back and align them later. Pick and pick.

Here we go. So I have those. I'm going to go ahead and use AL to align.

I'm going to place these guys over here. Click off. I'm still in multiple align.

So I kind of have to click off of them. And what's kind of getting a little crazy here is that I'm seeing a floor edge. I'm pretty sure.

Or a floor pattern is what I'm seeing. And we'll investigate that in a second. But it's kind of making it hard to make sure I get the right lines.

But it got kind of messed up. Oh, I accidentally did not click off my multiple align there. So make sure you're clicking off your multiple align.

And there we go. So I think these horizontal lines I'm seeing are actually part of the floor. And this is another one of those view range things.

So what I'm going to go ahead and not view range per se, but just visual styles. So I'm going to type VV. I'm going to go to my floor.

My floor is here. And I'm going to change the patterns for projection and surface. I'm going to change these to not be visible.

Hit apply and hit OK. Now it makes it a lot easier to just see where I'm aligning to, right? It gets kind of confusing with all those other lines there.

We've gone ahead and done that. We've put our air terminals in. I'm going to go ahead and put in my return air terminals.

Now here's another quick tip that you can go ahead and use. I know I want to use this return diffuser for these other ones, right? So what you can go ahead and do is if you already have something populated in the model that you want to use, you can go up here to what is called "Create Similar." Now it's not highlighted right now because I don't have anything selected.

But I could select this. "Create Similar." And it's going to take me to immediately place in that family.

I'm going to make sure my elevation is nine feet. Nine feet is good. And these instance parameters are not checked because I'm creating the similar of this guy here.

I'm going to go ahead and put a return diffuser here. I'm going to go ahead and put a return diffuser here. Let's put it here.

And we'll shift the supply diffusers around a little bit. So I'm just going to align those. There we go.

We're going to go ahead and maybe move this guy down one. So again, I can use my align tool. And again, you're just making the system work as you need to.

And we'll align these for good measure like that. And maybe we'll actually move this guy down a little bit so that it's a little more evenly spaced between those two. Perfect.

Now I'm ready to go ahead and create my branch lines here. What size is this? This is a 14. Again, I can use that CS again or "Create Similar" to create similar, pick on this guy here.

I'm actually going to go ahead and 45 this off. I just take it down. And then I can 45 it back if I wanted to.

And there we go. We have that; we do need to place our VAV in there. But we'll place it in there in a second.

What we're going to go ahead and do now is create our little branch lines. So these are eight inch. I'm just going to use that "Create Similar" again. I can come to here, drag off, might come to here, drag off, come to here, drag off. Now these ones are maybe a little short, but we still have the flex.

So remember, we're working in 3D. So these are at nine feet, the center of this is at 11 foot six. We have plenty of space to get that flex down there.

And I'm just going to create the flex. If you recall creating the flex, draw flex duct, pick, and then I can keep going pick, pick, pick, and then here to there. Now one thing you'll notice, and we're going to discuss it here in a second, is this kind of tapers down.

And we're going to go through that with this entire system once we're all completed. So what I'm going to go ahead and do now is I'm going to put in my mechanical equipment. I'm going to use that CS again. So CS.

Now this is a little different. But what I can go ahead and do is I'm going to place it. Now, it's not going to pop into the duct immediately.

So what we need to go ahead and do is I'm going to split this. And I use the split command or SL. So what that was is here, under modify, there's the split element.

When I pick there, and then I'm going to drag this back, going to delete the little union that gets placed there. And there. Now I can just drag it to the connectors.

If it's at the correct elevation, it's going to put a small fitting there to make sure that fits. But now we have that there. Great.

So go ahead and complete that system. And when we come back, we've only got one little piece to do, which is going to be these smaller rooms and this office over here. But then we'll go ahead and finish it up and talk about sizing these down.

See you then.