Scope Boxes and Plan Regions
In this article we are going to look at two tools in Autodesk® Revit® Structure that help with consistency and visibility in your Revit Structure model. The first are scope boxes and how they relate to your datum elements in your model. The second one is a plan region and how it helps with plan view visibility.
Scope Box
Datum elements such as levels and grids associate themselves to scope boxes. This gives the user control over visibility and consistent placement of these elements.
Figure 1: Scope box tool
When you have a datum element such as a level or grid selected you can assign a scope box to those elements in the properties box as shown in Figure 2 below.
Figure 2: Assigning a scope box to a datum element
Once your Datum elements are associated to a scope box you can adjust the size of the scope box and the datum element follows along. The datum elements must cross the scope box, if the scope box is adjusted and does not cross the datum element you will get an error like the one shown in Figure 3 below.
Figure 3: Scope box error
Scope Boxes are created in a plan view and can be associated to any related views in the project. With a scope box selected you can name it appropriately and access the visibility control of other views to display the scope box and associated datum elements.
Figure 4: Scope box visibility access
Figure 5 shows the Scope Box Views Visible dialog box that allows the user to make the scope box visible in other associated views in the project. This is useful not only to display the datum elements, but also to keep them consistent from the associated scope box.
Figure 5: Visibility control of scope box
Plan Region
When working in the 3D modeling environment, you may need to display some framing that is located outside your view range for a particular plan. Instead of making another floor framing plan to show this you can use a plan region to have a custom view range for just one area in your plan.
Figure 6: Plan region tool
Figure 7 shows an area that has some beams connected to the columns shown. However, the beams are not being displayed because they are above the view range. If the view range is adjusted for the entire view to accommodate showing these beams, you may lose other structural members in the view. So in a case such as this where you need to display this framing to avoid creating an entire new floor framing plan, a plan region is ideal.
Figure 7: Columns shown but beams out of view range
Once you activate the plan region tool, your model is grayed out and you are in a sketch mode to outline the area for which you want to adjust the view range.
Figure 8: Sketch view range
Select your plan region after you complete the sketch. In the properties box you can adjust the view range. This adjustment will only affect the visibility of the area defined by the plan region and will leave the rest of your framing plan the same.
Figure 9: Plan region view range
Figure 10 shows the result—displaying the beams that were not visible with the standard view range assign the floor framing plan. This technique is ideal for showing mezzanine areas.
Figure 10: Plan region results
Summary
The scope box and plan region tools should be part of your everyday workflow when developing your construction documents.
