If you’re located in Australia or New Zealand, chances are you use these lovely hexagons or some other variation of them to annotate pipework dropping or rising.
But how do you create them in Revit? It’s quite simple actually. For this example I’ll assume you have not created an annotation family before and therefore is aimed at beginners.
First, start by creating a new annotation symbol using the generic annotation template.
In the Family Category and Parameters dialogue, change the family type to a Pipe Tag
You can either draw up the hexagon manually or you can temporarily insert a DWG file to trace over the top of. Once you’re done, you should have your trusty hexagon sorted.
To add the text to your symbol, you want to use labels. You can find the label tool on the create panel of the ribbon.
When creating the labels, you will need to select the parameters that you want to pull the data from in your model – we will be using Diameter and System Abbreviation. The reason why I use System Abbreviation is that it will automatically propagate to all pipework in the system where as other parameters do not. Don’t forget to adjust the text style of the label to suit your drafting standards.
The next step is to apply a visibility setting on the filled drop and rise indicators. Simply select the triangle and and in the properties window, look for the Visible parameter. Select the small square at the end of the line (marked at 1), you will now have an option to select parameters to apply, yours should be empty.
Select Add Parameter and then create a new parameter with the name RISE. Make it a Type parameter and sort it under Graphics.
Repeat the process for the drop indicator.
Finally open up the Family Types dialogue
Create a new family type called RISE and then check the RISE parameter and make sure that DROP is unchecked. Do the same again creating a family type named DROP and check the DROP parameter, making sure that RISE is unchecked.
If you want to get tricky, you could use a not( ) formula. Simply type in the forumula
not(RISE)
in the drop parameter. When RISE is checked, drop will be unchecked and when RISE is unchecked, DROP will be automatically checked.
And that’s it! Once you’re done, save your new family and add it to your template.
When tagging your pipework, you need to manually select if it is a dropper or riser by selecting the family type from the properties window, the size and the service however will be automatically filled out for you.
For the System Abbreviation parameter to be picked up, you will need to have this filled out in your pipe system settings for each service, note that it is simply listed as Abbreviation in the system settings.
If you don’t use systems (you should be using them!) and rather you use pipe types to define your service, the System Abbreviation parameter will not work and you can use a shared parameter instead to populate the label within the annotation.
