Adding Control Joints to Walls in Revit: Vertical and Horizontal Reveals Tutorial

Adding Vertical Control Joints to Walls in Revit: Customizing and Placing Control Joints

Discover how to load a project profile and add vertical control joints in a project using a 3D view or elevation. Learn how to navigate the architecture tab, edit control joint profiles, and position the joints accurately relative to windows and doors.

Key Insights

  • The process of loading a profile into a project in a BIM201 file involves saving the profile and adding it to the project. It is recommended to save the project frequently throughout the process.
  • Vertical control joints can be added in either 3D or elevation views. After adding a joint, it's necessary to restart the reveal process to add the next one. This process can be repeated as needed.
  • It's crucial to position the control joints accurately, particularly in relation to windows and doors. You may need to adjust the profile size, and a snapping feature can help align the joints correctly. Using dimensions can also be helpful for precise placement.

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Now with the profile ready to go, let's go ahead and load it into our project. Make sure you have saved it first. If you haven't done so, please go ahead and watch the end of the last video and get this saved before we load it in because we'll need it to have the name Control Joint so we can find it later.

I'm going to click 'Load into Project.' Since we still have the tapered mullion open from our last exercise, it might show on here if you left it there, but we want to make sure we go to our 'BIM201' file. Click okay.

Remember every time we see this, it's never a bad idea just to hit 'Save the Project' because saving is almost always a good thing. I'm going to jump back to our Default 3D view and we're going to start by adding in some of these control joints. It's going to be to this wall here.

We're going to have two different processes for adding in our horizontal and our vertical joints. I'm going to start with our verticals. This can be done both in 3D or in elevation, whichever you find to be the easiest.

We're going to go ahead and do it from the 3D view. I'm going to go to the Architecture tab and we're going to be dealing with walls. On the bottom side of 'Wall, ' I'm going to go to 'Wall Reveal' and you can see the reveal option pops in right away.

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We have a couple of things we want to look at. We have the option to create horizontal reveals, which you'll see the preview is now a horizontal, or verticals. The preview will switch to verticals.

As you can tell by the profile that's shown in the preview, that is much larger than half inch by one inch. We're going to want to adjust that. I'll say 'Edit Type, ' then 'Duplicate.' I'm going to call this 1Control Joint. Then I'll just set the profile to be the Control Joint profile that we already created and hit okay.

From here, I can go ahead and I can add them as I see fit for the project. In this case, what I'm going to want to do is I'm going to put them all so that they're on the right side of these windows here. I'll add one and you'll notice that I'll get the international nose symbol here.

That's because it's going to want to continuously apply these reveals. After you add one vertical, you need to go ahead and select 'Restart Reveal.' That'll allow you to add the next one.

Just repeat this process as we go through. What you could do is in elevation, it's a lot easier, but you could place one and then copy it, or you can go through the process we're doing right now. Once I've got them all on the east side, I can go ahead and I can jump over to the south side of the building here.

I'll add one on the side of the door. Then I'll add another one to split the difference here. This is something that you can go in and dimension, but it will try to put them in the middle.

You can feel it snap into place there. I can add that one. As we move to the west side of the building, we're going to try and use these mullions as our guide.

We'll put one on either side of the window openings here. You'll notice every time I'm hitting 'Restart Reveal.' I'll also put one down the middle.

Then we'll put them on the sides of this window. Then we'll put one more to split the difference between these two here. You can feel it snapping into place when you hit that.

This will be a lot easier to do from elevation if you're trying to hit it with a precise number because then you can actually use the dimensions to hit those locations. On the north side, we'll do the same thing we did on the south side. I'm going to hit 'Restart Reveal' to get it going again.

Then I'll put one on the side of the door. You see it's snapping to that opening there. Then we'll put one more and then just split that difference there.

Once you're done, that's all of our verticals there. We can hit Escape. Then we'll just take a look.

It's a completely different look here than what we had before because we've now segmented the elevations with those vertical reveals. In the next video, we're going to take a look at how we can add horizontal reveals.

photo of Michael Wilson

Michael Wilson

Revit Instructor

Bachelor of Architecture, Registered Architect

Mike is recognized by Autodesk as one of North America’s leading Revit Certified Instructors. He has significant experience integrating Revit, 3ds Max, and Rhino and uses Revit Architecture on medium and large-scale bio and nano-tech projects. Mike has been an integral member of the VDCI team for over 15 years, offering his hard-charging, “get it done right” approach and close attention to detail. In his spare time, Mike enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife, children, and dog.

  • Autodesk Certified Instructor (ACI GOLD – 1 of 20 Awarded Globally)
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