Cut Plane Within Revit Families

When creating Revit families, it is important to easily see the entire family model in plan view while you are creating or modifying the family.  While this may seem obvious, by default Revit does not necessarily provide this ability.  You may add some information, such as an extrusion, to the family and have it “disappear”.  I have “been there, done that” when I added an extrusion based upon a higher reference plane and then had it disappear when I finished the extrusion.  If you don’t understand what just happened, it can alarm you and frustrate you.

The “Ref. Level” Floor Plan for families is considered the “plan view” in families and is generally the plan view for models (although with face-based families, this view may be viewed differently in a model). The “Ref. Level” Floor Plan has a default Cut Plane offset elevation of 4’-0”, so anything in the family above 4’-0” will not be seen in this view while you are working in the family.  This…