Tag: in-place

Automatically Split Up a Family Into Solid Parts

Luke Johnson

Parts allow some extremely powerful workflows in Revit. Did you know that you can take an in-place family, and when you Divide Parts, Revit will make an individual Part for each geometric element?

For example, let’s say you have a big sweep that represents a large part of a Building, and that Sweep is inside an in-place Generic Model family in the project.

Firstly, use some Voids to cut the sweep into the sections or pieces that you want…

void-ext-7106677

and then select that Generic Model Family and click Create Parts. You will get a Part for each geometric piece, like this:

part-8430234

Then, if you edit the underlying Family and divide it with more Voids, Revit will automatically create and update the Part elements as needed. Very cool.

From here, you can export those Parts to Navisworks for animation or sequencing, if you so desire.

Fixing DWG Section Visibility and Setting DWG to a Phase in Revit

Luke Johnson

Ever had that annoying problem of your entire dwg showing up in Section Views, regardless of where it is cut? If so, check out this tip from Chad at Revit KB:
…if you link the DWG into an In-Place Mass instead, then when the section cuts through the Mass/DWG it will only show just the elements which are being cut by the section.
…
when placed inside a Mass, that Mass can then be Phased which also means the DWG inside it will too.

via
https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z12zslgqpmqedbufj22wxlrybve1xpb0i

Imported CAD file does not respect view depth and simply shows the whole element in Section views

Luke Johnson

There are two additional recommendations I would make to the Autodesk solution below: use a Generic Model inplace family, and the import can be placed on an additional Subcategory to allow for easier control over visibility in the project environment.

Here is the Autodesk solution:

Issue:

You want to display cut 3D drawing models in section views. Revit displays the entire drawing without regard to cutting plane, both in section and floor plan views. 

 

Causes:

Revit cannot currently display cut 3D drawing models in section views.

Solution:

  1. In AutoCAD, run EXPORTTOAUTOCAD to export a DWG file.
  2. Import or link the DWG file into an in-place family.

Support page:
3D drawing is not being cut in section or elevation in Revit | Revit Products | Autodesk Knowledge Network

You can break Revit by making Room families

Luke Johnson

Part of knowing What Revit Wants, is also knowing what it Does Not want.  Sometimes, you can push the hack (or workaround) that step or two too far… and the result is unpredictable, buggy and kinda useless.

In the past, I have used various methods to create inplace or component families that are not ‘officially’ or natively available.  In this particular instance, I used the IFC round trip method to force the creation of an Inplace family with Category set to Rooms.  I also pushed this into a Component (loadable) family.

Great!  I have Room families.  But guess what?   The result is unpredictable, buggy and kinda useless.

In fact, if you open these projects, make some Room Separation lines and then try to place a Room, I would estimate that in 95% of cases, your Revit has already crashed.  The families will not accept a tag, and they won’t schedule.  They seem to just sit there, destabilizing your Revit environment.  So why post about it?  Well, basically so that you can add this workaround to the aforementioned list of something that Revit (currently) does not want.

I have provided both 2013 and 2014 versions for your download and testing here:
RVTs that will crash Revit

How to determine if a Family is In-Place or not

Luke Johnson

Here is an easy way:

  1. Install Case Add-in Manager
  2. Using the Add-in Manager, install Batch Export Family RFA’s tool (I am running v2012.11.13.0)
  3. Open a Revit project and run the tool
  4. After families have been exported, you will be presented with an error message that tells you which families are in-place (see below).

NOTE:  The Case exporter also creates folders for each Category as it exports.  Nice.

This was in response to:

Component-based Stairs training resources

Luke Johnson

There is plenty of information available about Component Stairs in Revit 2013.  I thought I would collect some of the better resources and post them here.

This first link is a little bit outside-the-square, but it relates to teaching a class of people who don’t know how Revit 2013 stairs work.  Check it out:
Teaching the new Stair Assemblies in Autodesk Revit Architecture 2013 – ASCENT Blog

How do all the 2013 Stair families relate to each other?
Graphic Flowchart – new Stair Families in Revit 2013

How do the stair paths work?
Stair Path Annotations in Revit 2013

Now, some videos:


 via
Autodesk Revit Architecture 2013 — Component-based Stairs – YouTube

MasterGraphicsInc:

Case Inc:

Microdesk:

Index to AutodeskBuilding videos:
REVIT Structure Learning Curve: Revit 2013 Stair Video Tutorials

2013 Stairs and Railings – WikiHelp VIDEO INDEX

If you still can’t make a stair that you like, make one in-place 😉
In-place and Component families of Stair and Railing Category

In-place and Component families of Stair and Railing Category

Luke Johnson

Here is a little gift to all my readers.  The link below allows you to download a 2012 version RVT project that contains In-place and Component versions of families that are of the Category ‘Stairs’ and ‘Railings’.
Download link

Revit does not allow this to happen out-of-the-box, so you can be sure that this hack is not best practice, and it won’t be supported by Autodesk.  Use at your own risk!

Having said that, if you know what you are doing, these families could be quite useful to you.

Revit Family Stair Category

RFA Railing Category

Revit API Challenge: convert In-place Families to Component Families automatically

Luke Johnson

Here is what we want – you select an in-place family and click ‘Convert to Component Family‘ on the Ribbon.  Through API Wizardry, the following happens without any further user interaction:

  1. The family is edited in place
  2. All objects in the family (including reference planes etc) are selected
  3. A ‘group’ command is triggered
  4. The group is saved (as a file) to a temporary location (it will be an RFA)
  5. This family is loaded back into the project
  6. The family is placed in the correct location (XYZ) in the project
  7. The original in-place family is deleted from the project.

This can all be done manually of course, using the workflow described here.

I’m sure that many users would find this tool helpful, and for some of you advanced Revit API programmers, this utility should be a piece of cake!

Also: if you release this utility for free, just think of the Revit API street cred that would give you.

Finally, if you want to take it to the next level – make a Batch Convert option, that allows the user to ‘pick’ which In-place families (from the current project) that they would like converted, after which the Batch tool goes ahead and does steps 1 to 7 above on each and every in-place family you selected.