Section Lighting

Scope Section boxes are pretty interesting functionality.  They allow you to create 3D section views of your model.  They basically allow you to limit the geometry that shows in the view.  This has the same effect in Renderings. 

Having a scope Section box applied to a view will limit the geometry that renders, but it has an interesting affect on the way lights cast light and shadows.  Any light outside the scope section box, even if is casts light and shadows on the geometry that is inside the scope section box, will not render.  This means that you can use Scope section boxes to limit the amount of lights that Revit uses in its rendering. 

If you have a project that has lights placed though out the model, switch to an interior view and render that scene using artificial light, Revit will calculate all the lights in the model in order to render the lighting conditions in the Rendering.  This can cause your rendering times to go through the roof.  This also can cause problems if you have the daylight portals setting turned on for the rendering as every daylight portal in the model will be used. 

You can limit the daylight portals and lights used by applying a scope section box to the view.  As long as you’re careful to not exclude any light or daylight portal that impacts the space you are rendering, your rendering will look the same, but will take less time to complete. 

Using scope section boxes this way can be helpful, but if you’re not careful, you could scope out lights that impact the view and your image could appear darker than it would be if your scope section box was bigger.

If you’re rendering is darker than you expect and you are rendering a interior scene using artificial light, check to see you have a scope section box applied the view.  This happens a lot when you use Orient to View to make a 3D view appear like a Section.   

Comments

[Matt Dillon]

Do you mean "Section Box" instead?

[Harlan Brumm]

Thanks Matt :) My bad. Corrected now.