There is no difference, all refplanes are 3D's... (unless you found some feature I have no knowledge off).

at each end of a RP there is a little blue "3D" and if you hover your cursor over it is says "Switch to 2D extents" and if you click on it it changes to "2D". But it doesn't seem to do anything. I was hoping that I could control the visibility of RP's from one view to another by using 2D RP's

When in 2D extents, you are editing the graphic in that view without changing the actual extents of the ref plane, but in 3D extents you are editing the actual extents. I use this all the time on Grids and Levels. Never noticed that you can do the same with a Ref Plane!

EDIT: And once you have edited the 2D Extents, you can use the Propagate Extents button to push that 2D graphics only change to other views.

Gordon

It is essentially the same as grids & levels, Initially if you create a view the ref plane will do 1 of 2 things

1. Show its full 3D extents
2. Show a 2D extent if the crop cuts the 3D extent

You can then however, toggle the end to a 2D extent by clicking on the 3D text

A quicker way is also to move the crop to force a 2D extent, move the 2D extent, then put the crop back where you want it

I use this for grids & levels all the time :thumbsup:

Right, like that... lol... Never noticed this with refplanes. Well, it has been answered by now.

I didn't know this either until the other day I came across a CADclip video on youtube:

OK all, thanks for the "how to turn the extents on and off" for grids, levels, and RP's. Now I need to know what purpose does 2D extents have? What do you use this for?

I don´t see it very useful for reference planes, since they don´t print, so one tends to not worry about how they look on the screen. Reference planes are considered "infinite", so even though a reference plane looks shorter than another one, they are both considered "infinite" in theory. The issue takes some importance for levels and grids, since they do affect how your drawings look.

Alf, I was thinking the same thing, but today I ran into something where the ref plane edit would make sense. When I have a brick pattern with lots of banding and such, I use Ref Planes to set the coursing. Seeing the ref planes running through the elevations is a little frustrating, so pulling back the graphic, but leaving the scope of the ref plane building wide, is a decent compromise. Now I have a little stack of ref planes off to the side. Maybe leave them full length graphically in the brick coursing coordination elevations, but pulled back everywhere else? I suspect I would use the feature in Levels and Grids maybe 100 times more often, but the possibility got me to thinking. I know, bit of a stretch.

And Dave, as far as Grids and Levels go, are you aware that if a grid crosses a level you will see the grid in the plan of that level (and vice-versa as well)? I have worked in offices where the levels where shown as short little lines off to the side, not running all the way through the elevations as Revit shows OOTB. The 2D extents allows you to pull that graphic back out of the way, while leaving the extents full length so the grids still cross it. Slick.

I have also done presentations where the grids are pulled back, so they create a reference but don't actually muck up the plan. Just two lines of bubbles with little spurs about the same as the bubble diameter. Looks good in SD.

And, I suspect that this all gives an interesting little clue about how Revit works "under the hood", namely that Levels and Grids are sub-classes of the Ref Plane class. The fact that you can use any Level or Grid as a work plane the same way you can a named ref plane suggests the same.

Gordon