View References

In this article we are going to take a look at "View References" within Revit. View References are an annotation symbol that you can use to direct someone to a different view on another sheet- or the same sheet, if you wish.

View References are commonly used with Matchlines but (with a little immagination) they can be used for a variety of purpose- especially if you are prepared to edit the family.
Let's kick-off with a quick example of the use of View References in conjunction with Matchlines. Here is a plan I have split into two zones, using "Dependent Views". The image below is of the "Primary View" so that you can see the crop regions of the two Dependent Views.....

Now, I'm going to place each of the Dependent Vioews onto a seperate sheet. Here's the first sheet....

and here's the second sheet...........

Now what would be REALLY useful (to anyone trying to read our drawing set) would be a reference near the matchline to tell you what sheet to find the other part of the plan. This is where "View References" come into play. At this point you may be saying to yourself "why don't I just add a piece of dumb text with the sheet and detail number of the corresponding Dependent View?" I'll tell you why not- because this is BIM! And with BIM, we are trying to erradicate coorindation errors. If you go and add some text with displayes the Sheet and detail number- and then change your mind as to which sheet your place the other view on- will you remember to update the dumb text? On EVERY view it appears? EVERY time? Don't create the problem inh the first place- use a "View Reference"- the CORRECT tool for the job. Let's go and add a "View Reference" to each of the Dependent Views now.
You will view the "View Reference" tool on the "View" menu, in the "Sheet COmposition" tab.....

There is only two stages to using the View Reference tool:-
1) Select from the drop-down list (on the Option Bar) your "Target View". This is the view name that you with to reference. So in our example I am going to add a View Reference to "Dependent (2)" ON "Depedent". Let me try and clarify what I mean. I want to add an "intelligent" label (ie a "View Reference" onto the view named "Dependent"- which tell us WHERE (ie the sheet and detail numbers) to find the view named "Dependent (2)".
So I select "Dependent (2)" from the drop-down list.....

2) And all I do now is click on my view in order to place the View Reference. And here is the View Reference placed on my view....

Now depending on whether you have already placed your views onto sheet will effect what is displayed for the view reference. As we have already placed our views onto sheets, the view reference is displaying where to find the "target view" that we specified. In plain English: It is telling is that we will find view "Dependent (2)" on sheet number 110 and that it is detail number 1 on that sheet.
And here is the REAL point of using View References: If we go and change which sheet we place view "Dependent (2) on- the View Reference will be updated automatically. It is exactly the same principle as the View Referecne that are embedded into Call Outs, etc.
You can use View References for any scenario where (a) you need to tell someone where to find another view and (b) you woould like Revit to handle the coorindation of the reference.