Tutorial 29: Feature Strips & Reveals¶
A tilt-up panel does not have to read as a slab. Horizontal and vertical strips cast into the face break up the elevation, catch shadow, and hide the panel joints — and every one of them has to be formed, so every one has to be dimensioned.
This lesson covers three entries from the Tilt-Up Concrete Association’s panel feature catalog:
Feature |
What it is |
Standard |
|---|---|---|
Feature strip (horizontal) |
A horizontal cosmetic strip cast into the panel surface |
TCA |
Feature strip (vertical) |
A vertical cosmetic strip cast into the panel surface |
TCA |
Reveal / rustication |
A recessed architectural joint line scored into the face for shadow articulation |
TCA |
They are the same idea at different orientations: a strip of form material fixed to the casting bed so the concrete sets around it, leaving a recess. The architect draws them for shadow; you have to place them so the form crew can build them and the panel book can prove where they went.
Note
This lesson also exists in the browser. Work it in ConstructiVision on the web — same steps, same values, so you can follow either and end up with the same panel.
What you will build¶
A panel whose face is articulated rather than blank. By the end you will have:
a horizontal feature strip running across the panel at a set elevation;
a vertical strip crossing it;
both dimensioned automatically — position, width and thickness — on the panel drawing;
an understanding of why a reveal is a recess with a thickness, not a drawn line.
Before you start¶
A panel open in ConstructiVision — Tutorial 2: Panel Options gets you one.
Nothing else. Feature strips need no site drawing and no project data.
Tip
Feature strips are cosmetic, but they are not free geometry. Each one is a piece of form material someone cuts, fixes and strips. Placing four instead of forty is a cost decision as much as a design one.
One feature, two names
ConstructiVision calls these feature strips — the command is CV-FEAT-REVEAL and the dialog is titled Feature Strip Details. The industry catalog and most architects call the same thing a reveal or a rustication. They are the same feature; this lesson uses both names because you will meet both.
Watch the lesson¶
Warning
What this recording does and does not demonstrate. On TP08-12 it places two strips, each 4” wide and 3/4” deep. The first is horizontal, 2’-0” from the left, sloping from 14’-0” to 15’-0” over 21’-10”. The second is vertical, 8’-0” from the left, Elev Left 20’-0”, Length 20’-0”. The horizontal strip draws where it was entered. The vertical strip runs up from 20’-0”, which is correct – a vertical reveal’s Elev Left is its bottom (see Step 4) – but on that build it ran on past the top of the panel. Since release 12.20.179 it stops at the panel’s sloped top (CV-3306, checked on a published kit 2026-10-11). Snap To, Arch, Panel Edge, Inside and NoDim are described, not exercised.
The recording’s own gate requires the strips to be drawn, but it does not check where they are.
Lesson¶
Step 1 — Open the Feature Strip dialog¶
Run CV-FEAT-REVEAL from the ConstructiVision menu. Reveal Details opens as a grid: one row per strip, eight rows to a page, six pages — forty-eight strips. The page buttons and the range selectors (1-8, 9-16, … 41-48) run along the bottom.
That capacity is the point. A facade with a reveal every four feet is not an unusual facade, and it is not something to place one dialog trip at a time.
Step 2 — Place a horizontal strip¶
Enable row 1 with the Enable checkbox, then work across the row:
Column |
What it sets |
|---|---|
Horiz/Vert |
H or V — the strip’s direction |
Snap To |
which panel edge the strip is measured from |
Measure |
L or R — which end the measurement runs from |
Distance |
how far from that edge the strip starts |
Elev Left / Elev Right |
the strip’s elevation at each end |
Length |
how far it runs |
Strip Width |
how tall the strip is on the face |
Thickness |
how far it is recessed into the concrete |
Thickness is the one people forget. A strip with no thickness is a line on a drawing; a strip with a thickness is a void the concrete flows around. Set it from the list — it is a droplist, not a typed value, because form material comes in stock sizes.
Step 3 — Two things the grid gives you that a drawn line does not¶
Look at the row again and notice two columns that would be easy to skim past:
Elev Left and Elev Right are separate fields. Set them to the same value and the strip is level. Set them differently and the strip slopes — which is how a reveal follows a sloping roof line or a raking parapet, and it is a single value’s difference rather than a redraw. When you Tab out of Elev Left, its value is copied into Elev Right (release 12.20.179 and later), so a level strip is one entry; type Elev Right afterwards to slope it, and your Elev Right stands until you change Elev Left again.
Arch curves the strip. A reveal that follows an arched opening head is one field, not a construction.
Both are geometry the form crew has to build, and both are dimensioned automatically because they were entered as values rather than drawn.
Step 4 — Cross it with a vertical strip¶
Enable row 2 and set Horiz/Vert to V. The same columns apply, rotated: the distance now runs
across the panel rather than up it, and Elev Left is the bottom of the vertical reveal. Type
Elev Left 20'0 and Length 20'0 and the reveal runs from 20’-0” up. For a reveal that runs down to
the floor, type Elev Left 0 and Length 20'0.
Where a vertical strip crosses a horizontal one the recesses meet — the form material is cut and fitted at the intersection. The drawing shows both at full length; the crew resolves the junction.
Warning
Elev Left is the bottom of a vertical reveal, not its top. The manual’s “to the top of the Feature Strip” sentence is about horizontal reveals. The sample corpus settles it: REP002’s two vertical reveals store elevation 0 and length 330.5 and are drawn from the floor to the top of the panel. On the build in the video a vertical reveal could also run past a sloped panel top; since release 12.20.179 it stops on the sloped top (checked 2026-10-11: a vertical reveal from 20’-0” at 8’-0” on TP08-12 ends at the gable line, 23’-7”). On an older release, read the reveal off the redrawn panel before you issue the sheet.
Step 5 — Say which face, and which edge¶
Three column groups at the right of each row decide where the strip actually lands:
On Face — U or D, the up or down face in the casting bed. This is the column that ties reveals to Tutorial 28: Casting Orientation & Yard Layout: which face is “the outside” depends on how the panel is cast, so a strip on the wrong face is a strip on the inside of the building.
Panel Edge — L or R, for a strip that wraps a panel edge.
Inside / NoDim — whether the strip is dimensioned at all. Use NoDim sparingly: an undimensioned reveal is one the form crew has to scale off the drawing.
Step 6 — Read the dimensions¶
The panel redraws with both strips recessed into the face and dimensioned automatically. That is the point of placing them here rather than drawing lines by hand: a reveal you drew is a reveal nobody can build to, because it carries no position the form crew can measure from.
Check that each strip has a dimension to a panel edge or a datum. If a strip is dimensioned only to another strip, a single error moves everything downstream of it.
Feature strips and panel joints
Feature strips are often placed to line up with the panel joints, so the eye reads a regular rhythm across the building and the real joint disappears among the false ones. That alignment is a design decision made across panels, not within one — which is why the reveal positions on adjacent panels have to agree. The panel book is where that gets checked.
Check your result¶
You should now be able to:
Open CV-FEAT-REVEAL, recognise Feature Strip Details, and say how many strips it holds and how they are paged.
Place a horizontal strip with a Distance, an elevation, a Strip Width and a Thickness.
Say why a strip without a Thickness is not a reveal.
Make a strip slope using Elev Left and Elev Right, and say when you would.
Place a vertical strip crossing it.
Explain what On Face does, and why it depends on the casting orientation.
Point at the automatic dimensions and say what the form crew measures from.
Where next¶
The edge equivalent: Tutorial 4: Chamfer — chamfers bevel the panel and feature edges; reveals recess the face. Both are surface treatment; they are dimensioned differently.
Where the joints actually fall: Tutorial 23: Building Elevations with Corner Intelligence — corner conditions and joint widths, the rhythm reveals are usually aligned to.
The full catalog: the TCA panel feature inventory this lesson draws from lives in Tilt-Up Design Details → Panel Feature Catalog.