“Creating a Revit Annotation Symbol for Exit Access”
Written by: Peter Gehring, Synergis Building Solutions Technical Director
This article will show how to create an annotation symbol for exit access in Autodesk
Revit Platform Products.
One of the issues you may run into when creating an annotation symbol with text and
graphics is that when you rotate the symbol in a plan view, the text also rotates with it.
We will see how to create an exit symbol that can show an arrow in the desired direction
without the need to rotate the symbol.
We’ll start by creating a new family using the generic annotation template Generic
Annotation.rft. This template is available in the default Annotations folder in the out of
the box Imperial Library. An easy get to this is to go File pulldown,>New>Annotation
Symbol.
This will open the Revit Family Editor. When you zoom in to the reference plane
intersection you’ll see an informative note telling you to set the appropriate Family
category for the annotation type. Since we started with a generic annotation symbol
template, this will be set for generic annotation and we do not need to change it. Erase the
note and with the text command type the required text centered on the reference plane
intersection. You can go into the element and type properties of the text object to set the
justification (Horiz Align), Text Font and Size, Line Weight, Background, etc.
To draw the geometry for the direction arrows you can use a filled region with a solid
fill of the desired color. You can set the region lines to invisible lines or create a new
subcategory in Object Styles if you do not want the default color and lineweight of the
Generic Annotation category. Then using the mirror command you can copy the arrows
in all desired directions (remember you can mirror around a 45 degree drawn axis).
The next step is to create a yes/no parameter for each arrow direction. This will allow us
to toggle on the visibility of the appropriate arrow when present in the project. To create
the parameter, Right Mouse Click (RMC) the geometry of one of the arrows and select
Element Properties. Under Graphics you’ll see a Visible parameter and a small browse
button on the right. Clicking this will let you create and associate the visibility parameter
to a yes/no parameter.
In the Associate Family parameter dialog, select Add parameter. Give it an appropriate
name, make it an Instance parameter and put it in the desired group. It will automatically
be set to a Yes/No Type. Repeat the same procedure for each arrow.
After completing this you can select Family Types on the Design Bar and see all the
parameters you created. Unfortunately if you try to flex the family to preview the
visibility parameter by unclicking on arrow and hitting Apply you will not see any change
in the family editor. To test it we will select Load into Projects on the Design Bar to
import it into a project that is already open in the background.
In the project use the Drafting tab on the Design Bar to launch the Symbol command and
look for the family you created in the type selector pull down. It should come in with all
arrows visible. To turn off the arrows you can select the symbol and access its element
properties to toggle off the inappropriate arrows:
To save some mouse clicks in the project you can create family types for each
arrow direction back in the family editor. Select one of the symbol instances in your
project and on the Options Bar select Edit Family to open up the family editor. Select
Family Types on the Design Bar. We’ll create a family type for each arrow direction.
This will allow us to add the appropriate one at the very beginning in the project instead
of having to toggle things off or on. In the family types dialog select New on the top right
to create a new type; name it, and then set the arrow visibility appropriately. Repeat the
process for each direction.
Load the family back into the project. Select one of the egress symbols in the project and
in the type selector modify it to another type direction. You can also set the appropriate
type when adding the symbol initially.