Reference Planes – Exercise

Reference planes work very well as a replacement for structural grids, especially when it comes to massing.

To add reference planes to a model, follow these steps:

1. Open Revit.  
2. Open your architectural model. 
3. Open the Roof Floor Plan. 
4. Duplicate the Roof Floor Plan using the right-click menu. 
5. Rename the Roof Copy 1 Floor Plan to Garden using the right-click menu.
   
   
   
   
6. Adjust the crop area to reduce the plan to just around the garden roof area. 
7. On the Architecture tab>Work Plane panel, click the Ref Plane button.
   
   
   
   
8. In the Modify | Place Reference Plane tab, under Subcategory, click the drop-down list and select <Create New Subcategory>.
   
   
   
   
9. In the New Subcategory dialog box, enter Garden Roof for the Name and click OK.
   
   
   
   
10. In the Object Styles dialog box, change the Line Color to Red and change the Line Pattern to Dash Dot 3/16.
    
    
11. Click Apply, then click OK. 
12. Type VG to open the Visibility/Graphic Overrides dialog box. 
13. Select the Annotation Categories tab and check the checkboxes next to Reference Planes and Sections, then click OK. 
14. Draw a reference plane as shown below.
    
    
15. Set the Subcategory to Garden Roof. 
16. Select the reference plane and label it Garden-01, as shown below. 
    • When an object in Revit is named with a numeric suffix, Revit will automatically increase the value of the suffix when the object is copied.
      
      
      
      
17. Drag the right end of the reference plane to the right using the circular grip. 
18. Copy the reference plane five times as shown below.
    
    
    
    
19. Hover over one of the copied reference planes and note the value of the suffix has increased in the name. 
20. Create a section using the Section tool from the Quick Access toolbar. 
21. Go to the newly created section view. 
22. In the Visibility/Graphic Overrides dialog box (type VG), in the Revit Links tab, uncheck STRUCTURAL.rvt and click OK.
    
    
    
    
23. Create two more reference planes on either side of the roof structure, as shown below. Ensure they belong to the Garden Roof subcategory.
    
    
    
    
24. Save the model.