REVIT filtering reference planes

How to simplify views with a lots of reference planes .... This arose from working on a project using phases for several options and locking objects within phases to ref planes in order easily modify design options (I don't use Revit Options - far too cumbersome and using phases to switch between options is far easier).


Ref planes do have a name parameter but I couldn't find a way getting a filter to work as a rule based on say a prefix in the name.

One solution is Worksets - just define Worksets that relate to phases and use the ref plane worksets parameter to. In this case I added a workset name "Ex ref planes". This then gives you a choice of just switching off visibility of that workset or defining a rule based filter. The latter is a bit more controllable as it can then be used in view templates. procedure is :

• Filters >Add New and define a name. Check category as ref plane
• Filter rules > Filter by Workset
• Use "begins with" and add "Ex" in the next box
• Then in VG or a view template just pick the Filters tab, Add that rule based filter. Visibility is selected in the Visibility check box. 

The disadvantage with this method is it can only be used with Worksets enabled   in a Worksharing project. One reason to always use worksharing from a central model in Dropbox or other cloud.

THERE IS ANOTHER WAY though by defining ref plane sub categories (Manage > Object Styles - pick RP category and add a sub category ). Visibility of RP's added to that sub cat. can be switched on and off using VG  overrides. This is a bit cumbersome as there are 4 steps including scrolling in drilling down to that sub cat whereas using Filters its 2 steps and no scrolling.