How to Use Scope Boxes?

MeyerFire University | TL203.15

By Joe Meyer, PE

RESOURCES

• Notes Page

---

TRANSCRIPT

So, what is a scope box and how do I use them? 

Well, a scope box is basically a designation that's put on a zone for the building. 

So, let's say we've got like a very large expansive hospital and there's a bunch of different areas or wings for the building and we can't fit the entire building on one sheet. 

We use scope boxes so that we can put different areas on different sheets. And the scope box is the Revit way of designating what those need to be. 

So here, each of these, this is straight outta my template and how I like to have it set up. This is what I've designated as scope box area A, the next one is area B, the next one is area C. Now every project doesn't just lay out where you have six areas or whatnot, but I've pre-set these scope boxes so that at a quarter inch scale, this is the size that will fit on a sheet. 

So once I import a new project and it overlaps a few different areas, I can take these scope boxes and put them wherever they need to be to show the project effectively. Now with that, like I've got A, B, C, D, E, F and then I've got an overall scope box for the entire building. But what a scope box does rather than just cropping each individual view to get it to match just right. A scope box will carry that zone vertically throughout a building. 

So, if I want an area on level one, say level one area B to match up exactly with level five area B, then the scope box would be the way to do that. If I want to create a new scope box, I believe it's under here on view and here is scope box. So, I can click that. And then I can draw where I want the scope box to be. 

Then with that, I give it a designation. So I go to the properties, I give it a name. I'm gonna call this area G and now that's area G and that's gonna go throughout all my floors. So then if I want to create a new floor plan, that's area G, for in this case, I want maybe do a dependent view.

​I can rename this area G, now it doesn't have any relation to area G yet. In fact, if I click on this, you can see while it's showing the entire project. But now if I go to the properties for this view, for this floor plan, and I select the scope box, and I go down to area G, which I just created.  

Now, boom, it applies. It's clipping it only to area G. Now if I go back to the properties and I go back and select None, so that I can put groups on this. I just wanna show you that here's what we got. We're only on area G and if I even drag this out, you'll see the edges of the area G box. This is the portion of the project that I just designated with that scope box. 

And usually, what I like to do is get a scope box that works for different areas of a project, set those in, and then match each different level with those sub areas to that scope box so that I get consistent the floor plans throughout the building. If I need to adjust an area because I left off a overhang or something like that, I can adjust that one time globally and have everything line up and match up really nice. 

So, that's how we use scope boxes. If your project's so small that everything fits on one sheet, you really don't have a need for scope boxes at all. But certainly, on big expansive projects, arenas, stadiums, hospitals, warehouses, things like that using scope boxes and these dependent views becomes really, really handy.  

Here's an example from a larger project, you can see for this school, there's quite a few things going on with two interior courtyards, a new wing. And so, what I was able to do is use scope boxes that's a overall scope box at area A right here. You can see that it's designated area A, area B. This area, area C, area D, and just went through the remaining portions, covering each little spot each with a scope box. 

And then for each of the individual views, I could break this out into each of these individual areas on the plans themselves. I could use key plans to show which portion of the building was being shown but the scope boxes are a huge help in setting that up and setting that up relatively quickly. 

I'm Joe Meyer, This is MeyerFire University.