Using the Scale Parameter with-in a Family

I’m sure many of you have always wanted to get a Scale Parameter working in some Families. A good example would be a detail component family of a 2D tree (plan or elevation). You may want to insert several instances of the same tree but at slightly different sizes. You would think it should be easy to do.
If you have ever inserted a .dwg (Import Symbol) file, you will notice you have a scale parameter in its type properties. By adding a number parameter in the family file inputting the scale factor in the .dwg (Import symbol) you should be able to make the dwg import symbol whatever size you want. Flexing the parameter and dwg with-in the detail component family works perfectly. However when you load the family into a project it won’t work!
From a post on AUGI back in the start of 2007 this was a know bug with no workaround (i.e. Revit 9.1). We are now in Revit 2010 and we have 2011 coming out in 3 months. What’s the chance it will be fixed in the 2011 release?

Select by ID in Family files

It seems there is a deficiently in revit family files when selecting some items by ID number. If you try selecting a Line or detail component in a family file you will get the following message:

The select by ID of masking regions, model geometry and sketch lines seems to work fine. Working the other way around, i.e. “IDs of Selection” works correctly and is the only way finding the above items that you can’t find using “Select by ID”

The above bug happens in Revit 2010 SP1 as well as Revit 2009.

Openings in Walls. - Revit 2010

It’s quite surprising the amount of different ways you can put an opening in a wall, and they all have slightly different properties in regard to how they behave and how surrounding elements behave. This is my finding with Revit ARCH 2010 original release. Most opening now seems to behave well, but great care need to be taken on openings where copy / monitoring is planned.

Let’s look at all the opening tools and see how they behave differently.

Wall Opening Tool within a project file.

Can only be rectangular in shape.
Can put an opening in a Curtain Wall.
Can only cut one wall at a time.
Is not room bounding if the opening is at the computed height
Height is level based. – Move the level the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening is acceptable.
Can only be a perpendicular opening to the wall.
Copy / Monitors correctly but needs to be created in file the wall was originally created.

Opening using the Profile Tool

Can be any shape.
Can put an opening in Curtain Walls.
Can only cut one wall at a time.
Is not room bounding if the opening is at the computed height
Height is wall base offset based. – Move the wall base and the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening will cause the wall to be invalided and it will be deleted.
Can only be a perpendicular opening to the wall.
Copy / Monitors correctly – both ways

Opening using an In-place family opening tool.
Can be any shape
Cannot put an opening in Curtain Walls
Can only cut one wall at a time.
Is room bounding
Height is level based. – Move the level the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening is acceptable.
Can only be a perpendicular opening to the wall.
Copy / Monitors but needs to be created in file the wall was originally created in. In the copy file it simplifies the shape into a rectangle.

Opening using an In-place family void and cut geometry tool.

Can be any shape
Cannot put openings in Curtain Walls
Can cut multiple walls
Is room bounding
Height is level based. – Move the level the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening is acceptable.
Can be any shape or direction. Does not need to cut the entire wall.
Copy / Monitors but needs to be created in file the wall was originally created in. In the copy file it simplifies the shape into a rectangle and only cuts the first wall. Shapes that should be partly be cutting the wall will fully cut it.

Opening using an external rfa family file which is wall hosting using the family opening tool.

Can be any shape
Cannot put an opening in a Curtain Wall
Can only cut one wall at a time
Is room bounding
Height is level based. – Move the level the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening is acceptable.
Can only be a perpendicular opening to the wall.
Copy / Monitors correctly but needs to be created in file the wall was originally created in. In the copy file it simplifies the shape into a rectangle.

Opening using an external rfa family file which is wall hosting using the void and cut geometry tool.
Can be any shape
Cannot put an opening in a Curtain Wall
Can only cut one wall at a time
Is room bounding
Height is level based. – Move the level the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening is acceptable.
Can be any shape or direction. Does not need to cut entire wall.
Copy / Monitors but needs to be created in file the wall was originally created in. In the copy it file simplifies the shape into a rectangle. Shapes that should be partly cutting the wall will be fully cut it.

Flip Control tool missing in Revit 2010 Detail Component Families

I just saw this thread on AUGI. I think at this stage it’s just funny the amount of bugs that have been found in the Revit 2010 UI (User Interface). If you read the thread you will see the flip control arrow tools have been left out of the ribbon on the Detain Component Family editor.

The work around is to go to a previous detail component family with the desired flip arrows and copy and paste them into your new family.

2D Model Families and detail views

We regularly hear keeping families basic is the way to go with larger projects. An example would be loose office furniture. From a documentation point of view, you don’t need 3d office furniture and creating a furniture family using model lines in plan should suffice.

What you may not know is that when creating call outs of the floor plan, if you end up using a “detail view” rather than a “floor plan” call out, you won’t be able to see your 2d family in the detail view. On moving the mouse over the missing item, you will notice it ghosting. To solve the problem you will need to change the view dept (far clip offset) to plus 1mm or more from what it is set to.

This is actually correct behaviour. For a detail view to display an item, its “far clip offset” needs to physically cut the item and not just touch it (1mm cut is enough). Floor plan views however behave differently. The far clip just needs to touch an item to see it.

If you are creating 2D model families and don’t want to change the far clip offset draw your model lines on a reference plane 1 mm above the “0 Reference level” in the family.

Video Tutorials on DesignRefrom

There are some really great video tutorials on DesignRefrom (http://designreform.net/) on creating some quite interesting families. Make sure you sign up the the email subscription list to find out about the new videos as they come out. Look at the videos here.
Well done guys. There are some great tips on there.

Nested family creation tip.

If you have never created a nested family in Revit, it won’t be long before you will need to. A good example where nested families will allow you to easily create families that other wise may not be possible or very difficult, is a complex curtain panels.

Below is an example of a folding tilt up door, which is a nested family in a curtain panel family.

On starting this nested family you need to be very careful on what is being used as a reference. Every Revit family template you open up will have a Ref. Level line and a reference plane at the same location. The reference plane (not the level) is always what you want to be dimensioning and locking to for parametric nested families. In order to avoid confusion, one tip is to change the Ref. Level to 500mm above Zero on starting your family. This avoids locking and dimensioning to the wrong item.

System parameters revisited

My fellow blogger on “Revit Archcenter” commented on my instance parameter post yesterday. He has an alternative and much better way. See his post here. It’s amazing how many surprises you get when you are in the middle of a command and you look at the options bar.

Thanks Dwane.

Making system parameters work for you.

When you open some of the family templates, the system parameters may not always work in your favour. Let’s take the casework family. The 3 dimensional parameters are type based. You will notice if you go into the “Family Type” dialogue box, when you select one of the dimension parameters, you won’t be able to modify it. So what if you need one or more of them to be an instance parameter!

In its current format you can’t change the system parameter. So in order to get what you want out of it, you need to cheat it.

Go to Settings > Family Category and Parameters, select Generic Models and click OK.

Now go back to the Family Type Dialogue box, and you will be able to select the system parameter and hit modify. Change it to an instance parameter and select OK.

Now change the family back to a Casework family, and bingo.

Tips with Symbols / Generic Annotations

Symbols / Generic Annotations can be very handy when it comes to logos ect. When you open up a Generic Annotation, you won’t see any scale in the bottom of the view. Basically you are drawing at 1 to 1 in regard to how the symbol will read when printed.

One thing you will find, you can not draw a line in a family (rfa) file less than 0.8mm. For logos and symbols this can be big problem so here are some work-arounds:

Lines

If you just want to use lines, draw them 10 times the size they need to be. When finished, select the lines and use the Resize command to reduce them by point 1 (0.1).

Filled Regions

For some reason, the same trick does not work when scaling with-in the sketch mode of filled regions. When you resize it is likely you will get the following messag:

So how do you create solid items that require a line less than 0.8mm. Using an imported image unfortunately won’t work. When you bring it into the project file it scales totally incorrectly.

Surprisingly the solution is dwg (AutoCAD format). Open up a drafting view in Revit. Use a filled region to create the logo / symbol 10 times the required size. Use invisible lines around the parameter. On finishing it, export the view as a dwg (AutoCAD) file. Now open up the Generic Annotation template file.

Import the dwg file, and use the resize tool to reduce it by point 1 (0.1).

Save the symbol and import and place it into a blank project file. Now go to Settings > Object Styles and go to the imported objects tab. Select the individual AutoCAD layers and delete them individually.

Now go to the Revit project browser, and navigate to families > Annotation Symbols. Right click on your symbol family and click save. Save this out to your Revit Library. This symbol now will work not perfectly when inserted into your project without any of the AutoCAD visibility headaches.

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Additional note added 30 July 08

Colour in your Symbols

In the event you want colour in the symbols you will need to leave the old AutoCAD layers in the family. When you delete an AutoCAD layer it bumps the items on to the default Revit imported object layer which is black. So in the case of using colours you, can just leave the AutoCAD layers in the family. It will mean that you have the possible problem of the imported objects being turned off accidentally. It’s definitely not ideal by any means.

If you can get away with back and white go with that first. If you have to use colour, first see if you can draw it in the Generic Annotation Family using the Revit fill region. If all that fails you will need to bring it in from AutoCAD and leave the associated layers there.

In regard to the AutoCAD layers, if you need to export your finished drawing back to AutoCAD for consultants, and you want to make sure your generic annotation symbols export correctly, put the different colours on different layers. Alternatively in the export options for “Layers and properties” change it to “Category properties BYLAYER, overrides BYENTITY” or “All properties BYLAYER, new layers for overrides.”

Thanks for the questions.

Circulation diagrams made easy

This is my addition to the Revit world in regard to assisting in creating very fast circulation plan diagrams. It is a line based detail component dashed line with arrow head that has nine different colours. There is an additional arrow head also in nine colours to assist in the diagram.

The width and spacing of the line are fully adjustable. As its line based you can draw it as a chain and it will trim.

This neat little tool will allow you to use Revit to very quickly create circulation flow diagrams with out the need for other programmes.

Circulation Line
Circulation Arrow

Have fun

Fire Egress Distances

This is a great little help from Revit OpEd on assisting you with your fire egress distances. Nice little family Steve. Thanks.

Revit OpEd

Some differences between “Columns” & “Structural Columns”

It can be taken that “Columns” in Revit Architecture are Architectural Columns. The below will give you where this comes from.

For an examples I have created a 600x600mm concrete (Architectural) Column and a 600x600mm concrete Structural Column. The wall they adjoin is a 200mm Block wall, with a stud lining and plaster board finish.

The walls have just been inserted in the shown location. They look fairly normal.

Now let’s hit join geometry on hitting the column first and the wall second. I bet you didn’t expect the architectural column to do this!

A few things should be noted.

1- The architectural column takes on the hatch properties of the core of the wall.

2- The architectural column also takes on the wall make up properties, ie stud and plaster board.

Now there are some circumstances where you will want this to happen. Hover there is more incidences where you won’t. What’s more with “Architectural Columns” they seem to have an uncanny knack of joining geometry with elements intersecting it, even if in the family the “Automatically joins geometry” is un-ticked in the column family parameters, thus its cut pattern does not view correctly in plan.

Structural columns.

The out of the box Revit Architectural columns do have their flaws but they are fixable. First the material type is set to a “Instance Parameter” in stead of a “Type Parameter” (easy to change). The next issue is that the “Show Family pre-cut in plan views” is automatically turned on in the Family Parameters. By switching this off, you can set the column to appear in grey or black in course scale plan views.

After the above fix, generally I recommend people use structural columns for structural usage, and if you have a no-load bearing column us an (architectural) column.

Managing materials in “In-place families”.

While I was on the below topic, I though I would bring up a better way of managing materials of in-place families. Especially a quick way of change them. We all know we should keep in-place families to a minimum. If you can make it an external family it really is a better method. One of the larger projects we are doing we are even doing the massing in a RFA file.

Anyway, back to in-place families. While in the edit mode of creating the family select the elements within the family, and go to the properties dialog box. To the right of the Material section click on the grey box.

The Associate Family Parameter dialog box will open up. Select “Add parameter”.

The Parameter Properties dialog box will open up.

Enter the name – Material. Select “Materials and Finishes” in the group parameter box, and select the "Type" button. You will see the type of Parameter is default set to Material. Click OK and finish the family.

Now when you want to change the material of the in-place family you don’t have to go into edit mode. You can treat the in-place family just like a standard family and change the material from the properties dialog box, in the family section of the project browser. The new parameter you just created is only related to the family you created it in. Next time you create a new in-place family you will need to repeat the exercise.

It may be a few more clicks of the mouse at the start, but it allows you to change materials very quickly.