Closing the Revit/Construction Gap using Parts

Improving the Design to Construction process is a concept that should always be kept in mind when working on a project.

In this blog entry, we will investigate how the Parts functionality in Revit can assist in this streamlining this process.

Parts can be created from the following Revit 2015 categories (Categories containing layered structures):

• Walls (Excluding stacked walls and curtain walls)
• Foundation Walls
• Floors (Excluding shape-edited floors of more than one layer)
• Roofs
• Ceilings
• Structural slab foundations
• Slab Edges
• Fascias
• Gutters

 Parts can also be generated from the following categories of loaded or in-place families:

• Structural Framing
• Columns
• Structural Columns

More information about the Parts functionality can be found in the Revit help files:

We will use the example of walls and floors in this entry. 

The Parts command can be found in two locations, namely the Modify tab>Create panel>Parts icon, or via the Create panel>Parts icon when selecting an element.



Once we create parts from one of the corner walls, you will notice that the wall layers appears as per the wall join condition.



                                Butt Join                                Miter Join

                              

After Parts have been created, one will now be able to Divide the parts. Remember to set your active workplane to the face of the element you want to divide. You will be taken into a sketch-based mode. Also notice the Exclude Parts command.



The form below will be used to create parts. This form will be replicated on all of the wall layers, but scale itself down as one divides the different wall layers.

                  

The same concept as explained above has now been applied to the floor.

When we Exclude the Divided Parts, and lock the orientation of our 3D view, we will be able to tag the wall and floor layers with a material tag.

Every view in Revit will allow you to control the visibility of parts that have been created. The Parts Visibility will be found in the Graphics area

Parts Visibility set to Show Original - No Parts will show

Parts Visibility set to Show Parts - Parts will show

Parts Visibility set to Show Both - Both the original wall and floor, as well as its divided parts will show. When this option is selected, your material tags will lose its relationship to the wall and floor.

However, you can re-tag the materials, but you will have the same material tagging capability as you would have had for a wall before parts were created (Indicated in Red).

So, how far can we take the Parts functionality? Well, you can Displace your Parts 

You can schedule your Parts too

The scheduling of Parts is extremely powerful, because when parts gets Excluded, the schedule dynamically adapts. You do not need to select a Part graphically, you will also be able to Exclude the Part via the Excluded checkbox in the schedule itself. From the last two images you will see that both the Area and Volume amounts change when parts are excluded