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  • Grids, Levels, and Reference Planes

    • Manage Grids, Levels, and Reference Planes in Revit with Ideate Explorer

    Grids, Levels and Reference Planes are all considered datum elements within the Revit database, meaning that they can be used by other elements to drive geometry. For this reason they should be carefully reviewed as your project progresses using Ideate Explorer.

    Grids

    Grid lines can become duplicated, via Copy/Monitor or other methods such that there are two copies of a Grid line that exist in the same file and in the same location. Once this happens it will prevent that grid number from being able to be used and may also result in other unintended results. Use Ideate Explorer to quickly review the list of Grids. For any suspect Grid name, simply double-click on the Grid instance to open a view where it can be viewed. Once selected it can be moved or deleted using Revit methods.

    Levels

    Level lines, when deleted, will take certain hosted elements with them, without warning. This is the primary cause of mysteriously deleted Revit elements. For this reason the model manager needs to keep a very tight reign on Levels. Use Ideate Explorer to look for any newly created Level lines AND to carefully move elements that have been placed on an incorrect Level (before the level can be safely deleted).

    To move elements from one level to another using Ideate Explorer:

    1. Set the Display to "Entire Project".
    2. Set the Sort By to "Level"
    3. Set the filter to <Model>
    4. Select the elements you need to move.  
    5. Look at the Properties palette for the Level property.
    6. If Level is an editable property for all elements, switch the level to the proper Level name. This is easiest with non-hosted elements such as furniture, casework, equipment, etc.
    7. If the Level is not available then you may need to de-select some of the elements and do them in batches. For example, if the selection contains both Walls and Casework, you can move the Wall first, using the Base Level property and then separately move the Casework via the Level property.

    TIP:  In-place families will not have a Level.

    Reference Planes

    Unnamed reference planes are a visual distraction and make selection difficult. Use Ideate Explorer to quickly delete all unnamed reference planes.

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