Reading a recent post about the behaviour of leaders in Revit over at Steve Stafford’s Blog, Revit OpEd, gave me all the motivation required to write this quick post (more of a rant really!). While Steve points out the inconsistency of leader placement between text and keynotes, I’m taking it one step further to consider the inconsistent customisation of arrowheads. At least there is consistency between text and keynotes here, but there isn’t when you look at other commands such as Spot Coordinate or Spot Elevation.

For many years there have been numerous feature requests to improve the customisation of Arrowheads within Revit. These have gone largely unanswered, I can only assume due to difficulty in the coding behind the scenes? Yes, you can do some customisation through the Manage tab/Additional Settings/Arrowheads, but something such as being able to control the line weight of the arrowhead separate from the leader is still not available, or is it?

Arrowhead Settings

There is no control over this in the arrowheads settings, ‘Heavy End Pen Weight’ is only available with the ‘Heavy end tick mark’ arrow style selected, although this appears to be the parameter we want to access. So looking at some of the other areas you may expect to find control, such as within Tag Type Properties, you can only select the Leader Arrowhead type.

Tag Settings

It’s not much different in the Keynote Type Properties either.

Keynote Settings

The Text Type Properties at least make the line weight settings available, but this affects both the leader and arrowhead. For tags and keynotes you have to control this via the Object Styles dialogue box.

Text Settings

But look closely at the Spot Coordinate or Spot Elevation Type Properties and you will see that you get control over both the Leader Line Weight and the Leader Arrowhead Line Weight!

Spot Settings

So it appears as though the ability to control these parameters is indeed there (and has been for years)! But why can’t they be controlled for text annotation and keynotes, where they would be of most use? And more importantly, why the inconsistency on where you access these settings and why you can’t change them for some annotation types?

I realise it may be a minor thing, but it is these little details that impact on presentation quality and would help reduce the old but inevitable “We used to be able to do this in AutoCAD!” comments. Improving consistency undoubtedly leads to a betterRevit for all!

 

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8 Responses to Leader Arrowheads

  1. Big W says:

    Hi All, IT CAN BE CHANGED, TRY SELECTING DIFFERENT ARROW TYPE & THE PEN SIZE OPTION BECOMES AVAILABLE. ONCE YOU CHANGE THE PEN SIZE, CHANGE IT BACK TO THE TYPE OF ARROW YOU WANT.

    • Mark Cronin says:

      Hi Big W,

      Thanks for your comment.

      If you are referring to the settings under Manage tab/Additional Settings/Arrowheads/Heavy End Pen Weight, then yes, you can change it by selecting an arrow type such as Heavy End. And the figure does change but unfortunately it doesn’t have any actual affect. Try it in a project, the arrow only reacts to the settings as discussed above, but I’d gladly be proven wrong?

  2. None says:

    has this been resolved yet and i’m just not seeing it, or am i not seeing it cause it’s still not fixed? lol

    thanks ahead of time

  3. Zero says:

    someday, ohhhh just someday well get the factory to fix this insanely simple oversight…

    until then, open arrow heads just look anemic!

  4. nigel1500 says:

    Another “insanely simple oversight” is the inability to specify an arrow angle greater than 90°. I’ve made my own leader family to do it. I’ve set the arrow head pen thicker than the arrow line. It looks pretty good. Many architects in Australia use a 120° or even 150° arrow and have done so long before the standard was written. Speaking of which, complying with AS1100-301, the relevant standard, is not mandatory … but it is in Revit !!!

  5. Have there been any improvements to this in Revit 2017? I still want to have a cross hair leader arrow available so I can use this in a spot elevation symbol with “symbol” set to “none”

    • Mark Cronin says:

      No changes that I’m aware of Richard. Spot Coordinate or Spot Elevation tools still provide the most flexible customisation!

  6. rolynz1970 says:

    Just ONE of the things I used to hope would get fixed each time I got an upgrade. I have given up hoping now, 10 years on. Alas when my subscription runs out at the end of this cycle I plan to not renew. I’m just going to plug away using 2018
    Revit, I don’t think I will be missing out on much.

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