Highlighting the Enscape Camera in Revit to Improve Live Design Review

Reviewing your Revit project side-by-side with Enscape in real-time is amazing. And turning on the Enscape camera in Revit helps easily track your location. A fast and simple edit to the Enscape camera improves your ability follow the camera location in Revit!

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Did you know it's possible to see the Enscape camera in your Revit project!? To begin, open up one of your Revit projects and start Enscape.

Open the Enscape Settings, select the Advanced tab and then select Enable Live Revit Camera. The Enscape Settings window will automatically close and you'll be able to see the location of your Enscape camera in Revit.

Here's the result in my project. You can see the camera is now displayed in the Revit project in the 3-D view.

Of course you can also see the Enscape camera in plan, section and elevation as illustrated below.

Being able to clearly see the Enscape camera in plan can be challenging on larger projects. You're only seeing a projection of the Enscape 3-D camera which may be too small in some situations. We're also seeing the actual geometry of the camera in a plan view which may not be as clear as necessary because of the size of the Enscape camera family in Revit

So let's edit the Enscape camera to make it easier to locate in plan during design review. Eventually we'll have Revit open on one screen in plan and Enscape open on another screen in a first person perspective view. As you navigate your project in a Enscape the camera will automatically update in your Revit plan view!

To begin, select the Enscape camera and select Edit Family.

Here's the Enscape camera in the default 3-D view. The view is also shaded.

This camera is pretty easy to follow in 3-D views. But I find it hard to follow in plan views as you navigate in Enscape. It doesn't stand out enough when you're sitting at the far end of a conference room table and trying to follow the camera in a hidden line plan view in Revit. So let's make it easier to follow the Enscape camera in a Revit plan view.

Switch to the plan view of the EnscapeCamera.rfa Family as shown. From the annotate tab select the Masking Region tool.

Let's sketch a masking region that obscures and represents the Enscape camera with a plan representation that is larger and easier to follow. In this example I've offset the boundary of the Enscape camera an additional 50mm so the masking region will be slightly larger than the actual 3-D camera.

In addition to a plan representation of the camera, let's draw a symbolic representation of the camera's field of view and direction. This will make it much easier to understand the direction the camera is pointing in the Revit plan view.

Select the green checkmark to complete the sketch of the Masking Region. Return to the 3-D View of the camera and select only the geometry of the camera. Select the Visibility/Graphics button under Graphics to open the Family Element Visibility Settings. Uncheck the Plan/RCP option to turn the camera off in plan views. As a result, only the masking region representing the camera and view direction will display.

Finally, select Load into Project and Close.

As you load the family back into your Revit project select Overwrite the existing version.

That's it! Instead of seeing the Enscape 3-D camera in plan views, you'll see the masking region representation of the camera and field of view direction in Revit. Much easier to follow!

Imagine you're in a conference room with two large screens and discussing the design live with your project team and client. Place the Revit plan view on the screen on the left and place the live Enscape view on the right. As you navigate in Enscape, the camera location in Revit moves in real-time as illustrated by the video below.

One more Thing?. If you'd like to download and open the Enscape camera that I modified as part of this tutorial to use in your project it can be found here (Revit 2018). Enjoy!

I sincerely hope this tips and tricks article helps you get the most your of Revit and Enscape. If you have any questions just send me a message on Linkedin or in the comments field below. Enjoy! :)

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