From the course: Revit 2019: Essential Training for Architecture (Metric)

Refining a layout with temporary dimensions - Revit Architecture Tutorial

From the course: Revit 2019: Essential Training for Architecture (Metric)

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Refining a layout with temporary dimensions

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- [Instructor] Often the quickest way to get started with the layout of elements in your project is just sort of place them in approximate locations first, and then come back and modify their positions. I like to call this, sketch then modify. So with the grid lines that we have here in this project, I just sort of sketched them in in approximate locations relative to the surrounding building geometry. Now what I'd like to do is move those grid lines more precisely, and designate exactly how far they are away from the surrounding walls and/or each other. Now we could do that in a couple ways, but in this video we're going to focus on the concept of temporary dimensions. Now what a temporary dimension is, is simply a dimension that appears temporarily onscreen while something is selected. So if I select grid line A, notice that in addition to the other grips and controls that appear at the ends, we get this dimension string right here with a dimension on the left, and another one on the right. Those temporary dimensions are editable. So you could click right on the number, and input any value that you like. So if I wanted grid line A to be 50 millimeters off of the inside face of this wall, all I have to do is type in 50 here and press enter. And it will move grid line A over to establish that relationship to the wall that I asked for. Now I could do the same thing with grid line B. Notice that when I select it, I'll get a different set of temporary dimensions, and this time I want to click in the dimension that's on the right hand side, input 50, and press enter. And that moves grid line B over. So you can repeat this process to move as many grid lines as you like. Here's grid line C. And here's grid line E. So that establishes the location of most of my lettered grid lines, but what about grid line D? Notice that the temporary dimensions for grid line D are measuring to the inside face of this wall here, but it's going to the outside face of that wall there. Now, you don't always have control over this. With temporary dimensions Revit just looks for the nearest object that it can reference to, and it's not always the one that you had in mind. There's a couple ways you can manipulate what the temporary dimensions are referenced to. We call those the witness lines. So, notice that there's a small little dot right here, and if I hover over it, it says move witness line. Now I could move the witness line in one of two ways. If I click it, it will actually jump to another point in the wall, in this case the center line of the wall. If I click it again, it'll go to the inside face. Click it one more time, it'll cycle back around to the outside face. So you've always got inside face, outside face, and center to choose from just by clicking the dot to cycle through those each time. Another option is to actually grab hold of that grip and begin dragging it. Then you can highlight some other piece of geometry, like grid line C for example, and let go. So now the dimension is between C and D, rather than referencing the wall at all. And now I can click right on this value and input the value that I want it to be. So let's say that that was 6800 millimeters. So I'll just type in 6800 and press enter, and that will move grid line D to that new location. Let's say that grid E is not 50 millimeters off the outside wall, let's say that it's at 9200 millimeters from grid line D. Here's a common mistake that a lot of folks make when they're first using temporary dimensions. They see this value right here, and they just simply click on it and begin typing in the new value. The trouble is, I still have grid line D selected, so when I press enter, it's going to move grid line D again, not grid line E. So what I'm going to do is do Control+Z to undo that, and you always have to remind yourself that with temporary dimensions you always want to start by selecting the element that you want to move and then you make the modification. So I'll select grid E, I'll drag the witness line grip over to grid D, click on 9400, make it 9200, and press enter. And that will move the grid line. So always remember to select the object, edit the witness lines if necessary, and then input the value you want and that will move the element based on the new value. So temporary dimensions provide a quick, easy, and efficient way for you to manipulate existing geometry that you've sort of roughed in or sketched in, and make it much more precise. It's like working on a live napkin sketch.

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