Exploded View

Exploded View

Turns any 3D view into an exploded diagram — storeys lifted apart, facades slid out, labels and path lines added — without moving anything in your model.

How to use

1. Open a 3D view in Revit, then launch Exploded View from BimCode. It reads which view you have open. If it isn't a 3D view, the window says so — switch to one and click Refresh.
2. Under How it comes apart, choose the first split. Level is the usual one: each storey lifts off the one below. Set the Direction and the Step — the gap between one band and the next, in your project's units.
3. Click Add a split to pull each band apart again inside itself. Level, then Facade, then Hosted elements gives you each storey lifted clear, its faces slid out, and the windows and doors stepping out of those faces. Inner splits stay at their level's height by default, so each storey still reads as one thing.
4. Under Use, choose everything in the view or only what you have selected in Revit.
5. Check the table under What moves where. Every band is listed with exactly how far it will move and where it ends up. Type over any distance to pin it, change its direction, or untick a band to hold it still. Nothing has happened to the view yet.
6. Click any band to open it. Every element inside is listed, and each can have its own distance and direction — a lift core standing proud of its floor, one facade panel pulled clear. Untick an element and it stays home while its band moves. Show in Revit selects the band so you can see what you're editing.
7. Turn on Labels to name each band with leader-lined text, and Path lines to draw dashed lines back to where each band came from.
8. Click Explode. The view comes apart. Change anything and click it again — it rearranges rather than stacking a second explode on the first. Put back restores the view.
9. Name the arrangement under Saved setups to reuse it in the next project.

Good to know

• Your model never moves. The elements are only drawn somewhere else in this one 3D view — every other view, your schedules and your quantities are untouched. Put back clears it, and a single Undo takes back the whole explode. It uses Revit's own Displace Elements feature, so the result is a normal Revit view you can keep, print and place on a sheet.
• Four ways to split:
  • Level — one band per storey, lifted in order.
  • Facade — the building's skin sorted by which way it faces, with windows and doors kept on the wall they are cut into. Floors and roofs get a band of their own, and so does everything inside the building.
  • Hosted elements — walls stay put while windows, doors and anything else cut into them steps straight out of its opening.
  • Category — one band per category, each pushed outward from the middle of the model.
• Windows and doors travel with their wall is on by default, whichever way you split. Without it a window can land in a different band from its wall and leave a hole behind.
• Natural direction means whatever suits the band — up for a level, straight out along its own face for a facade. Pick a compass direction to force it.
• Two distance columns: Step is how far a band moves from its parent, and is the one you type. Ends up is where it lands once its parents have moved too. With a single split they are the same number.
• Labels can say anything you like. {group} becomes the band's name, {elevation} its height, {elements} how many things are in it and {distance} how far it moved; type \n for a second line. Use any text style in your project, or leave the plugin's own Exploded View Label style and edit that in Revit to restyle every label at once. Leaders run level with the band's floor, and the text lines up in one column beside the model.
• Revit only allows text in a locked 3D view, so turning labels on locks the view when you explode. You can unlock it again from the view control bar. Labels need an orthographic view, not a perspective one.
• Path lines are pinned to the building's real corners, read off the floor slabs — six on an L-shaped plan, four on a rectangle — so they stack into straight rules up the drawing. You can pin them to floor corners, wall corners, either, or whatever is nearest; draw one per element instead; make them straight or jogged; and keep only the up-and-down or only the sideways moves when both together get too busy.
• Levels and grids never move — they are the datums the diagram is read against. Anything inside a Revit group travels with its group.
• Saved setups keep your splits, steps, labels and hand-set distances, and follow you between projects.
• The How to use this button in the window opens a fuller guide.