Revit: Creating a New Tick Mark Size

The project on which I was working (in Revit^® Architecture 2012) only offered two tick sizes for dimension strings: 1/8", which was way too large, and 3/64", which I thought was bordering on too small. (I am not sure if those are out-of-the-box offerings or just what was in my firm's template at the time this project was started.)

I figured there had to be a way to set up a tick mark with a width somewhere in between those two sizes, and opened up the "WikiHelp" to find out how. After searching for "Tick Mark", I found a promising search result, Changing the Dimension Line Tick Mark.

That article, as it turns out, covers how to change the Tick Mark assigned to a dimension style, not how to create a new tick mark. Unfortunately, there is no link in that article to the section on how to create an Arrowhead Type, which is under an entirely different main heading in the Revit User's Guide section of the WikiHelp. (Revit User's Guide > Document and Present the Project > Annotating > Dimensions > Modifying Dimensions > Changing the Dimension Line Tick Mark is the article to which I first went. The article on how to create an Arrowhead Type is in Revit User's Guide > Customize Revit > Project Settings > Annotation Styles > Specifying Arrowhead Styles.) I have no problem with having the information related to getting a Dimension Style to look a specific way in two places, but it seems to me that an article about changing the tick mark in a Dimension Style, after explaining which property in a Dimension Style should be changed to change the tick mark (something so obvious even I figured that much out without even looking in the Help), should anticipate the possibility that the desired tick mark does not already exist and provide a link to the article that explains where and how that is done. Is not the beauty of an electronic reference its ability to provide direct links between related items, even when the overall organization dictates that those items are not located under the same heading?

I was about to go back to the search results, when I noticed a comment posted under this article, asking a similar question to the one I was trying to answer. Linette Pouwels had a problem with the 3 mm tick mark (the metric equivalent of the imperial 1/8" tick mark) and was looking for a way to make a 1.5 mm tick mark. My hopes were raised for a moment when I saw that someone from the Autodesk Revit User Experience Team had replied, but then dashed when the reply stated that the tick mark could not be edited, only selected from those on the list. A URL was provided for requesting an additional tick mark option. I could not believe that the only way to get a tick mark of a different length would be to submit Product Feedback on the Autodesk website, and then hope that some future release would include an additional tick mark size. With a deadline looming, I terminated my search and settled on the 3/64" tick marks for the project at hand.

While reading the AUGI Revit Architecture forum today, I came across a post that stated that the writer knew how to create a new tick mark type. While the post did not say how to do so, I took that as a sign that the reply I had read in the WikiHelp was incorrect, and after poking around I discovered the way to do so. (I only found the other WikiHelp topic noted above after discovering the method on my own, and using "Arrowhead" rather than "Tick Mark" when searching the WikiHelp.) Here is how to create your own tick mark or other Arrowhead Type:

1. On the Manage ribbon tab, select the Additional Settings tool.
   
2. Choose the Arrowheads option on the flyout.
3. In the Type Properties dialog, select a type that is similar to what you want.
   
4. Choose the Duplicate Button, and provide a name for the duplicated type.
   
5. Edit the new type's parameters as needed. For my new Diagonal Arrowhead Type, all I needed to change was the Tick Size, to 1/16".
   
6. Click OK to dismiss the dialog. The new Arrowhead Type is now available for use in a Dimension Style.

The choices for the Arrowhead Style property are limited to what is provided out-of-the-box, but you can customize each of those Arrowhead Styles by creating a new Type and changing the active parameter values for that Type. (Only parameters that apply to a given Arrowhead Style are active when selecting that Style; the Tick Size property applies to all of them.)

Postscript: I submitted a change to the Revit English 2012 WikiHelp Changing the Dimension Line Tick Mark page that adds a link to the Specifying Arrowhead Styles page. Perhaps it will be approved and published. Post-postscript: It was approved.