Navigate - Essential Skill

Learn how to open a view and navigate to different areas of the model.

A Revit file is a 3D model of your building. The 2D views are slices of the model showing a floor plan, elevation, section, or detail view. The Project Browser lists and provides navigation to the different views. To better understand the spatial relationships between the elements, work with multiple open views of the model by tiling the view windows.

Within a view, use the middle mouse button to zoom, pan, and orbit. The Navigation Bar at the right side of the drawing area, and the ViewCube in 3D views, offer alternate methods of navigating in the view.

Terms and Concepts

Term/Concept	Definition
View	Isolates a specific portion of the model so it can be more easily worked on. For example: A floor plan cuts a model a specified distance above a level datum. A section view cuts the model where the section line crosses model elements. An elevation view does not cut the model, but provides a plane where model elements are projected. A 3D view shows the model elements in an isometric or perspective view.
Project Browser	Lists all of the views contained in the model. Double-clicking a view title opens the view in the drawing area. The Project Browser also lists all of the family content currently loaded in the project.
Tiled Views	Displays multiple views at once, allowing you to see elements from different angles simultaneously. Using tiled views can help when designing in 3D space because the relationship can be more easily understood without the need to change from one view to another.
Navigation Bar	Provides access to navigation tools based on the currently active view (2D or 3D).
ViewCube	Provides a quick way to orient a 3D view to a particular viewing angle.

Video

This video demonstrates the following:

• Use the mouse wheel to navigate in a view.
• Use the ViewCube to navigate a 3D view.
• Open views from the Project Browser.
• Display open views in tiled windows.

Transcript

This video demonstrates how to open a view of the project and navigate the view to focus on different areas of the model.

When working in a view, use the middle mouse button to perform navigation tasks. Press the middle mouse button to pan the view. Scroll the mouse wheel to zoom the view in and out. The position of the mouse pointer establishes the center of the zoom.

In a 3D view, press shift and use the middle button to orbit the model. The center of rotation is the center of all model geometry. If you select an object and then orbit the view, the selected object is used as the center of rotation.

Use the ViewCube to orient the model to predefined positions. Click and drag the ViewCube to re-orient the model.

Use the Project Browser to open additional views of the model. Double-click the view name to open the view. To see all of the open views together, tile the views. On the View tab of the ribbon, click Tile or use the keyboard shortcut W T.

Navigating the different views in the project will help you better understand the spatial relationships between objects in the model.