Working with View Filters in Autodesk Revit

Many of the most powerful tools in Autodesk Revit are related to the visibility of the model and changing the visual representation of the underlying geometry. One of the most powerful ways to change the visibility or graphic display of elements is by employing “View Filters” to accomplish that goal. In this blog post, we look at the View Filter tool and see an example of how to leverage embedded information to drive visual changes. Let’s start by talking about the Revit filters themselves.

There are two types of Revit View Filters that we can utilize in Revit.

1. “Rule-based” filters identify elements using parameter values for selected categories. For example, you can create a rule-based filter that identifies all walls that have a Fire Rating parameter of 2 hours. When you apply this filter to a view, you can specify that the identified walls display in solid red. You could take this idea and make all receptacles NOT connected to a circuit and turn them red as a visual design aid.
2. “Selection-based” filters identify elements that you select. Apply the selection filter to a view to isolate, hide, or apply graphic settings to the elements in the selection. For example, you could use a filter to show all unconnected receptacles in RED. See below.
   

Now that we know what type of filters we have to work with, let’s look at how to use them.

Revit Filters can be applied per view, or they can be applied by using a View Template to apply the filter to multiple views at once. Let’s walk through an example of how to create a view filter.

Example: We have a complex electrical system laid out for our building and we want to highlight our Emergency power distribution system by changing its color. In a similar way to the receptacle example above, we will use a rule-based View Filter.

1. Open the Visual Graphics dialog by typing ‘VG’.
2. Choose the ‘Filters’ tab.
3. Select the ‘Edit/New’ button to open the Filters dialog.
4. We’re going to create a new Filter by clicking the ‘New’ button on the bottom left and naming it “Emergency Conduit” (see below)
5. In the ‘Categories’ section, select the check box for conduit.
6. On the Right side, set the rule for the filter. The rule is “If the ‘Comment’ equals ‘Emergency'”. Then click OK. This sets the rule that will invoke the filter.
   
7. Apply the filter “Emergency conduit” to the view. Click the add button as shown below and select your new filter.

Once the filter is applied to the view, we can activate it by entering information into the conduit.

As shown in the picture below, select the bottom conduit and type “Emergency” into the comments field in its properties. And Boom! We now have an easy way to distinguish the Emergency conduit from other systems.