Forums >> Revit Building >> Technical Support >> Revit Family Editor

natxo

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Hi, I'm an ObjectARX developer that now has to deal with Revit Architecure 2008.

I've been asked to implement a very complicated group of families in Revit. And I don't know if all the features demanded could be achieved with the Family Editor or via the .NET API. I've searched across the minimal documentation, but I found nothing related. That's why I have quite a lot of questions related to the Revit Family Editor. 1) It's possible to define a new family and assign which is the host family? Even if the host family is also a new one? And could have more than one host family? 2) It's possible to define how a family instance interact when intersects another family instances? I mean, like the points where a beam intersects with other columns. 3) And here comes the most difficult one. One of the familys would have to be:     - would like to add some nested subcomponents previously defined.     - a linear family that allow to add a formula-added array to its subcomponents.     - those subcomponents won't be static, I mean that could be of diferent families depending on some situations. If any of these issues could not be achieve via the Revit Family Editor, could it be done with the .NET API? Thanks in advance. And I beg your pardon for so many questions.

Natxo 

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sdbrown

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Joined: Fri, Dec 12, 2003
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the host family is whichever one you want it to be, ie you create a door handle as a generic model family, then load it into a door panel family, then that into a door frame family, the door frame is the host of the panel, the panel the host of the handle.

You can tell the parameters of one family to = a parameter in the host parameter.  Ie you load a window family into a door assembly,  you can tell the window family to have its Width parameter = the Width of the Door or create a formula, like Width / 3 or whatever.

You can use Yes / no parameters to have diff. items turn off and on based on other parameters, so you could load multiple families into a host family and they all are in the same location but their visibility is controlled by various parameters.

 Without know your goal its hard to say if it can all be done.

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Mr Spot

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Agreed.  Without knowing what your are trying to achieve its difficult to say as there may be other ways to go about what you are trying to achieve.

Mind you, you don't need to be a programmer/developer in order to develop complex families in revit.

Yes you can add formulas to control arrays and have the array elements swappable with elements of the same family category that are loaded into the host family.

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natxo

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Hi all,

Thanks for your quick answers.

It's quite complicated to explain what I'm trying to achieve, but I'll try:

- I would have to create a bunch of structural beam families, of different length (e.g. 2,3,4 meters) and with different fitting positions.

- These families would be the nested subcomponents of another family, a linear one, that lets you dimesionate dinamically, I mean that lets the user drag dinamically its length.

- What it's desired, and I think is the most complicated part, is that last family depending on which elements intersects with, the subcomponents must change, and some pieces are to appear or not.

I'm quite a bit lost if all these issues could be achieve. My main goal i the last point, I'm don't know how to determine if intersects and hot to change the nested subcomponents.

Thanks in advance,

Natxo

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natxo

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Mr Spot

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I"m not convinced that a family is the best way to do this...

I think graphically so I still struggle a bit to understand what you are trying to achieve.  I can suggest that if you do go down the "family" path then don't use structural beams they tend to be difficult to control due to their nature of attaching themselves to other beams.

I believe you can use the Revit API to look for particular interfering instances.  Mainly because you have an interference tool in revit already that can be manually run.

It almost sounds like to me that its not worth automating.  From what i picture in my mind (simplified) is a structural beam system and then columns at certain points and some bracing...

All seems best achieved using the in built tools in revit.

Still, I'd suggest checking out the Revit API forums at AUGI.  I don't have any experience with the API as yet.

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Aiden

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Joined: Mon, Aug 31, 2009
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Mr. Spot,

Earlier in this post you mentioned, 

"Yes you can add formulas to control arrays and have the array elements swappable with elements of the same family category that are loaded into the host family."

I am trying to do this very thing - an array of identical drawers, but with a small set of differing subcomponents ( in this case a lock) that I can turn on or off within the array.  The idea is that "Lock 1" controls visiblity for the lock that goes on the top drawer, and "Lock 2" controls visibility of the lock for the second drawer, and so on. 

(So far the only way I can get something like this functionality is to make a bank of drawers populated by four different family types - but I'd prefer an array because then I could add or subtract drawers based on the height of the stack.)

Is it really true that it is possible to have an array of elements that are not strictly identical?  I've done a lot of searching and have not found anyone (but you) talking about this as a possibility.

Thanks,

Aiden

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