Oh, that Options Bar

The Options Bar catches all of us by surprise. No matter how many times we glance at it, there's always something new to discover, regardless of the number of years or months you've been using Revit.

I've been slowly modeling our house in Revit. Slowly, because you know how it works: the last thing you want to do on your weekend is more Revit and Architecture haha. Plus you realize that what you'd like to do to your house is probably not something you can afford! But now I have other reasons for needing floor plans, so I have a good incentive to get it done. As I was working, I needed to edit a window, so away I go into the familiar family editor. Inadvertently, I selected the opening and something caught my eye. Now you might have been aware of this, but I have to confess that it was the first time I saw it! And no need to check whether it's a new feature...it was there in 2008 and 9.1! Sheesh.


You can set an opening cut in hosted families to be transparent in 3D and/or Elevation. Above you can see the default settings. The reason I wasn't aware of it was possibly because material transparency is not respected in elevations. A common technique to get window glazing to show transparent in elevation is to use a 3D view oriented to an elevation, and thus the opening shows transparent due to the setting above. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

So hopefully you'll learn two things from this post:

1. Opening transparency in hosted families can be controlled for 3D views and Elevations;


2. Keep an inquisitive eye on that Options Bar because you never know what could be hiding in plain sight!