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Setting Up the Project#

Before any seats can be placed, the project must be initialized. Initialization loads the seat and focus point families, registers the row reference linetypes, and stores the application's default settings inside the model.

Step 1 — Initialize the project#

  1. On the Performance Seating ribbon, locate the Settings panel.
  2. Click Initialize.
  3. Wait for Revit to finish loading the families and creating the linetypes. A confirmation appears when initialization is complete.

You know that initialization succeeded as the buttons in the Seat Placement, Tools, and Graphics tabs now become available for use.

For a complete description of what initialization does, see Initializing the Project.

Step 2 — Set up the venue and sections#

Initialization automatically creates a default venue named Venue-1. For the walkthrough you will rename it and pre-populate the three sections you will be working in.

Rename the venue#

  1. Open the Seat Properties pane by clicking Properties in the Seat Placement panel.
  2. Click Edit beside the Venue dropdown.
  3. Rename Venue-1 to Main Auditorium.
  4. Close the venue editor.

Create the sections#

The sample theater has three named seating areas — set them up now so that you can assign rows to them as you place seats.

  1. Click Edit beside the Section dropdown in the Seat Properties pane.
  2. Add the following three sections:
    • Orchestra Front
    • Orchestra Rear
    • Balcony
  3. Close the section editor.

For more on venues and sections, see Venues and Sections.

Step 3 — Review the active settings#

Take a moment to review the project defaults so you understand what the application will use during placement. The walkthrough assumes the out-of-the-box defaults; if you have changed them, set them back as follows for now:

  • Seat & Row Identifiers tab
    • Row identifier scheme: Traditional Letters
    • Seat numbering scheme: Odd-Sequential-Even
  • Project Defaults tab
    • Style Prefix: -SeatRef -
    • Style Name: Center | End
    • Venue Prefix: Venue
    • Seat Sections Prefix: Section
    • Focus Points Prefix: Focus Point
    • All Separators: -
    • 3D View Name: SeatingView3D

You can change these later for your own projects. For the walkthrough they keep the result predictable.

Step 4 — Open the seating-level plan view#

Make sure you are working in the FIRST FLOOR plan view that shows the seating level. All reference lines, focus points, and seats should be placed in the same plan view so the application can read their geometry consistently.

Tip

Re-running Initialize at any time is safe and will not affect existing seats. It is the recommended first step when troubleshooting unexpected behavior.

Next step#

Continue to Placing Your First Rows.