Monday, January 8, 2018

Changing the Revit Background Color - Use Caution

Be careful changing Revit's background color as it has some undesirable side effects. One example, I just helped someone with recently, is elements can appear to be missing in a view.

A little history: Revit originally only had white, or a toggle to black, as a background color. A few years ago they added the ability to pick any color you want.

The first image below shows a demo'ed wall - all is normal here.

In Options, Revit lets you change the background color - the default is White.


If you change the color to something specific, like this shade of gray... and I am not talking about Andrew's Revit blog Shades of Grey...



Now the problem; if any elements are set to use the same color as the background color, like demo'ed elements (see next image)...


Then those elements appear to be missing. They will still print, of course, as they are actually still there. Its just that YOU cannot see them. Everyone else, with the default Revit background color, can still see the walls.


I recommend you don't change the background. But if you do, you need to keep that in mind when any odd graphics thing happens.