^Came to say exactly this.

The BIM model itself is becoming the project deliverable. So the modeling needs to be correct. Fill and masking regions should typically be a last resort.

But in the scenario above, you're providing graphic clarity for printouts. The hatch pattern has no bearing on the model data.

Printed sheets take precedence over model.

Depends on the contract deliverables, but generally yeah.

I agree a transparent filled region could be added for graphic clarity. Just don't let someone start drawing filled regions to poche everything, I have seen it. Many potential solutions. None of them include the statement "Revit doesn't work that way" That's like saying my pencil doesn't draw straight lines.

In my experience, even when the model is a deliverable we never send it out prior to contract award - the bidding is still always based on the printed documents. I think we still have a long way to go in terms of A) BIM getting better and B) BIM users getting better before we ever see contractors bidding from the model.

For sure. Something to aspire to.

it's a balancing act really. In the ideal world you need the model to be as accurate as possible which means time and money. Fill region or 2D-quick fix are always the last resort as they are prone to human error when it comes to consultant coordination / collaboration.

An alternative to filled regions is to set up your view template to halftone (or otherwise lighten to desired level) the visibility of the material pattern.

We've had great luck with using halftone hatches as Medusa stated. Something we also do is to set up the model sot that hatch patters (surface and cut) do not appear at smaller scales ( typically under 1/8'). Overall showing hatch patterns at 1/8" scale or greater seems to create very legible, and clear drawings.

Who eats the overhead when the staff member either has to go back and edit all of the hatches when the lead designer whimsically changes all of the wall locations? Who eats the change order when it doesn't get updated and the drawings get sent out wrong?

That's why we don't use filled regions in elevations and sections unless there is no other options and there are typically other options.  Now in details filled regions are heavily used.  

Split face with material “paint” seems like a better option than mask

Good point.

As a PM, when a staff member says "revit doesn't work that way" add to it "to allow me to do what you want in the timeframe required to get the work done." All the options I've read here so far saying "see, revit can do this" requires a lot of extra manual tweaking each time you move one of your exterior walls. Also, the idea that you're going to have two wall families of the same properties except one has a final finish material with hatch pattern and one doesn't, and then splitting the walls in model at a diagonal, really bugs me at multiple levels.

It will also create issues with dimensions, alignment, cleanups, and the ability to quickly and accurately.

All of which points out fundamental problems with Revit being used to do CAD instead of virtual construction and the inane inefficiency of trying to figure out how to draw (input) something that you can do by hand in a few seconds.

I dunno. I do a lot of hand sketching but also use Revit a great deal as well. There are a lot of things I can do a hell of a lot faster in Revit than by hand and vice versa. In the end it's just a tool and only as proficient as it's user.  I do feel your pain though, with any computer interface sometimes it's just GRRRRR!

Clearly the correct revit answer is "pad your sheet count!" Have a few sheets of pretty pictures (hey, and it's in 3D now kids!) to satisfy the graphic gurus who really want to see that brick hatch, and then leave all hatching off of the dimensional elevations.

That seems like a recipe for disaster. Why are you not willing to put hatch patterns on elevations? In all the work I've done in Revit over the past ten years the hatch patterns always are clear and easy to read down to 1/8" scale.

Do you use realistic hatch patterns for materials or representational patterns, and if you use realistic ones, do your patterns take dimensional tolerances into account and do you rectify the hatches to where they lines "should be" every time you move a wall? Not on my project, but we had a contractor argue that the sliver of bricks he cut and put on a wall were correct because he was matching the hatch pattern, even though the wall coursed out and should have been laid fine without slivers. That was a new one I'd heard on that day. On lap siding, you can usually install the laps with some give and take to make sure laps line up with window sills and heads, etc as well... but the "6-inch horizontal line" pattern you applied isn't going to read that way.

Long story short, I don't think the hatches are doing anything for you when you have to keynote the thing anyway.

Sounds like you had a shit contractors, shit BIM drafters, and shit qc on your set. We use model hatches that are the correct size based on the material. In 15 years of work I've never had an issue. In fact the hatch patters applied to materials have actually helped identify alignment issues in various projects. To each their own though.

I used a hatch to lay out stone coursing on a project, then left the firm. The team that took over the next phase of the project completely fucked up the pattern (although it was pinned) and the change order was rather costly. Drawings are only as good as the of those who create them

Again, not "my" set. And while we can discuss the need for good drafting and QC process until the end of time, I think my question still wasn't addressed, why create the QC need? What's the hatch doing for you?

I don't think anyone is to blame when Anderson and nichiha was basis of design, pella and hardi won the bid, and your perfectly aligned hatch graphics are no longer dimensionally correct.  We require mockups on all these items for this reason and on "mock-up day" the field report documents all the decisions.  At that point, why create extra work for your design team back in the office?

Speaking only to my situation, the hatch was integral to the way I laid out the stone, which was a specific material that had maximum dimensions, so we were staying within them. Had the material changed during VE or bidding and the constraints changed, ideally the client would factor in our time to change the drawings as part of the VE maths. Not everything is generic, and buildings which rely on specific dimensional constraints are not inherently bad. It's (as usual) a case of knowing which weapon to use to hunt which game.

joseffischer - how much do you know about Revit? I ask because assigning a model pattern to a material doesn't create extra work. Please note I'm not talking about filled regions. Note the material once per drawing then don't note it again. If not using model patterns then you have to keynote each wall for each material instance, that seems like a lot of extra work. You align and lock the model pattern then when the wall moves the pattern keeps it's alignment (aka bricks don't get weird coursing). The material pattern stays readable in most scales down to 1/8", if smaller than that just set the material to not show patterns under that scale and boom, all drawings comply. The material hatch pattern can also a useful design and presentation tool. In my experience I've never had issues created by using a material assigned hatch pattern.

Incorrect.

I often compare reading crappy drawings to trying to read more than a page or so of "ransom note" font - the information might technically be there, but you're going to have a harder time finding it than with a clean set of drawings.

Clearly the other half of my reply was lost to the depths of the inter webs. Imagine I had something along the line that quality graphic presentation equals discipline, which in turns equal quality drawings.

I was reading an article about Construction drawings and it mentioned that whatever's in all caps, will almost never be read - it'll be passed over as a generic note or disclaimer, or the reader will get tired of being "yelled at.". I think that makes a lot of sense.

Well, as an architect, I can tell you contractors do pay attention to hatch. Had a project where someone hatched the block on the entire elevation. The hatch wasn't to scale. Contractor counted the blocks. Broken hatch is now used, in both directions to stop that stupidity. Also, hatches should be to scale if they're an actual representation of the appearance of the material.

senjohn, how did that situation get resolved (who paid for the block)? Sometimes I wonder if the whole reason we can't make a decent profit is because we constantly try to anticipate the contractor's stupidity instead of calling them out on it and holding their feet to the fire.

Don't really know how it got resolved financially. Giant pain in the ass in meetings though. Lots of arguing. Luckily it was block and not brick. If they'd shorted brick we'd have never gotten the new brick to match the old. 90% of my job feels like it's trying to figure out how someone might misinterpret documents. So many CYA notes and little piddly things have to be included because, at some point, a contract has screwed something up.

+++++

That’s a nice idea curt, but we’ve not found a client willing to pay fees that would generate such a model. That level of detail needs more and more senior bim staff. Big step from giving the model to the revit kids.

Yeah, not sure what market you're in, Curt, but that's not reality where I am. Printing 24x36 drawings in colour? Idiocy. Even using colour at all is dumb, because at some point, somebody's going to print in black and white, and now your info isn't clear.

It's not like they're laying out conduit from the model. This is just staking and slab edges and such. the contractor is telling the owner they can cut weeks if not months off the project if they can get the architects cad file. We're not going to be that owner's architect if we're costing them that much time and money. So an a accurate model trumps nice looking dimensions. It's happened on a couple projects. Pretty sure this is going to be the new normal.

Bowling ball, I think most us are seeing coordination on site or bid documents through PDFs instead of hard copies anyway. For whatever reason, cost of plotting 30x42 with our printer is getting competitive with black and white.

good line weights DO make drawings easier to read.

There, fixed it for you.

or... perhaps you just need to work with better people. We don't do any of this shit you describe and the we really make an effort with the graphics.

Honestly, I wished contractors would spend time reading ALL of the specs and construction documents, as architectural drawings are in the same set as the structural drawings.

A (good) picture is worth 1,000 words.

A good picture without words is worth a 1,000 RFI’s.

Except we don't do pictures.

Picture, Image, Rendering, Visualization, we do them all.

I disagree. This horse requiers a constant perpetual beating. Eventually Elon will learn to harness energy out of this and we'll have single-handily saved the world.

He already has. What you think powers the Dragon X, rocket fuel, pffft, please!

that is this whole forum all the time

Naw, it's just Non Sequiturs' trademarked snark.

^patent pending snark.

Sneaky, you're right of course. What is actually clarified in the drawing from the original post? Not a damn thing.

Actually I did mention you can align and lock a material model pattern.