Thursday, October 18, 2012

Rendering and Revit MEP

I received an email the other day from a Revit MEP user that would like to render some equipment rooms. The wrinkle is that when systems are assigned to pipe and duct and their related equipment the relatively new feature called Pipe Systems (and Duct Systems) override the appearance of connected equipment.

If the equipment you use has material parameters to define what the equipment should look like then it is possible to show both the materials assigned to pipe and duct systems AND what the equipment should look like. Not all equipment has either materials or material parameters though. You like my 4" blue tile covered boiler??


Then you run into equipment that "Breaks Into", like a valve into pipe. The pump and valve in the image above look different but it's really just because I assigned a solid color override to the material. That works for shaded views but you end up with the system imposing the material on the equipment and accessories when you render.


Ideally it would be nice to have an option to tell Pipe and Duct Systems to respect the material assignments of connected equipment. Guess it's a candidate for future wish granting.

1 comment:

Adam Sheather said...

Steve this is already possible when you get into the sizing settings.

Then don't apply a material override to the systems and you can have all your system type ducts and pipes appear correctly.

It's just a little more hidden then other options.