View Templates

Are you using View Templates? 

View templates are NOT new to Revit 2011... however, if you are not familiar with them, here is a primer.

First, you may ask, what is a View Template?

A View Template is essentially a collection of settings that define how to display a view.... in the world of MEP, we have lots of different types of views... duct views, piping views, plumbing views, lighting views, power views, low voltage system views, the list could go on.  If you are tediously manually setting up each individual view, you should realize that much of that work could be simplified by using View Templates.  Just about all the settings in the view's Visibility/Graphics (V/G) may be applied using a view template. 

View Templates are found on the View ribbon, Graphics Panel, View Templates > View Template settings.  Refer to the product documentation for more info... however, this should be fairly straight forward... the settings here are very similar to those found in View Properties.

Alternatively, when you have a view defined as you need, you can right-click the view name in the Project Browser, and select Create View Template From View... This will take the settings of the view, and create a template for you.

You'll note that on the right click menu on a view in the Project Browser is Apply View Template...this lets you select a view template and apply its settings to the selected view(s).

Another item is Apply Default View Template.  The Default View Template is a property of each view (under the Identity Data group).  This allows you to set a view template that may be used to 'reset' the settings of the view, without having to explicitly select the view template.  For example, as you're working on your duct, pipe, plumbing, electrical, etc, views, you may change the Detail Level to Coarse and the Visual Style to Wireframe to speed things up... however, when you go to plot, you need to revert these back to the default settings as per the Default View Template associated with each view.  So, before plotting, just select all the views, and select Apply Default View Template, and each view will be re-configured to your 'standard' settings.

As you work on your initial/pilot projects, you will likely be tweaking your views/view templates as you go (it's hard to discern if your view template is 'correct' at the start of a project since you don't have any model geometry defined to see the effect).  However, once you have settled on the necessary settings within a project, you can then use that project as a basis for future or other ongoing projects.  You can use Transfer Project Standards (Manage ribbon, Settings panel) to copy your View Templates to other projects.  If you make use of Filters (many MEP views do) just make sure you also transfer the Filters, otherwise the V/G Override Filters settings in your View Templates may not work as expected.

Happy templating!

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