INTRODUCTION
Materials in Revit are used for a number of purposes including: visual appearance, tagging, legends & schedules, rendering, thermal and other analysis.
Materials are used to build up components like walls, roofs, floors and ceilings.
Although not all materials used may end up in legends & schedules it is important those that do are managed properly.
Revit doesn't make this easy because every time a family is imported that contains new materials those materials are added to the project. Materials can be deleted but there is no (easy) way to know if a material is being used or not. Purging unused materials is not a good practice because there may be materials that have been setup that although not yet used, may be used in the future (for example all the colorbond colours).
GENERAL NAMING RULES
The actual names for materials is not critical, what is important is the structure of the name.
If all names follow the same structure duplicate materials (same material, different name) should become obvious.
.
Description vs Used For
There are two ways of naming Materials. A name that:
describes the material literally (e.g. Corrugated Metal Cladding)
describes what the material is used for (e.g. Roller Door)
Both uses are valid.
If the Material is always used for a particular purpose, and you may want to globally change it later, then using a Material based on use is best. Otherwise it is helpful to everyone if the name describes what it is.
Materials Named by Use
Materials whose names are based on what they are used for just use ordinary words.
Materials named on what they are used for always begin with an asterisk (*). This ensures they list together and are distinguishable from rubbish brought in by families.
The names should generally follow these rules:
Must have an asterisk as prefix.
Put most important information to the left, with importance diminishing towards the right.
(e.g. use Stud-Steel, not Steel Stud)
Don't make the name too long. It is not helpful if the names is wider than the dialog box it appears in.
Be literal – the name should be understandable by anyone.
For example:
PREFIXES
To distinguish the status of materials use the following prefixes:
ORDER
Materials must always follow a major-medius-minor type structure:
e.g.
PUNCTUATION
Use commas to separate characteristics:
e.g.
plasterbd, brown, gloss
Use dash to separate descriptors:
e.g.
plasterbd, brown-dark, gloss-high