Mr Spot's 5 Golden Rules for Revit

I had an anonymous user request my 5 golden rules which I thought was a great idea!

The hard part is trying to prioritise what I think are my top 5 rules, so hard in fact that I think I need to break it down into 2 categories. Project & Family:

PROJECTS

1. Work in multiple views. When you are working on your model make sure you completely understand the extents of what you are editing. I don't believe this can be done from any single orthogonal view. Working in 3D is great and should be done as much as possible as you can quickly see how the elements you are manipulating interact with elements around them (make use of section boxes to do this also). Too many times I see users trying to make changes only in a plan and then a week later discovering all the issues they have made for themselves in their sections...
2. Setup your template effectively and continually update it & customise templates at the beginning of new projects to suit that project. If you find you have to make graphical changes to your project everytime you want to print something or once it reaches a certain stage then there is a good chance your template file isn't setup appropriately. The earlier you do this and the quicker you update your templates the less redundant work you'll have to do updating the many revit files you end up with.
3. Plan your project! Sit down with pen and paper first, especially for large projects or projects of an unfamiliar type, and work out exactly how you are going to document it. Are you going to use groups or links or design options? If so what are the issues in doing this and how are you going to resolve these? How is the project team going to work? Important questions that need to be resolved as soon as possible, preferably before the model is started.
4. Develop a system of control for your Library. Family naming conventions, parameters (what do I want to show up in my schedule?), displays at various scales...
5. Make use of your model as much as possible for drafting and details. If you use your model as the basis for your details then you can identify issues before they get to site. Yes of course you should still draft over these for details, but using the model as the basis you know when your details need to be updated or re-looked at.

Hmm, most of these are standards based which shows my position as CAD/BIM Manager. But really having your standards and protocols in place is one of the MOST important tasks in maintaining an effective Revit working environment.

FAMILIES:

1. Setup Reference planes first! I can't stress this enough. It makes creating parametric families so much simpler. Place them in and give them names and appropriate strengths (ie: Centre Front/Back, Bottom or Weak)
2. Give your family an appropriate ORIGIN point. This is especially important when using arrays as I've spoken about previously.
3. Do all families as non-hosted (there are some exceptions) first. Then simply nest them into the hosted template. This way its very simple to constrain them to their host.
4. Fill out and add parameters & types for all your families. As a good friend of mine says, Wesley Benn, leverage as much data as possible. Info entered once here is info that doesn't need to be entered 10 times in your next 10 projects...
5. Minimise numbers of families by making them as flexible as possible. Less families means, smaller project sizes, quicker load times, less things to change and things are easier to find. Refer to some of my previous posts to see some methods of doing this.

Well that's my list. I'm sure I could easily have a top 100...

As always your comments are most welcomed.

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We're off to a running start this month, juggling multiple productions being coordinated from multiple continents. Soon-to-be-infamous Argentine directing team Doble Nelson just zoomed into town from Barcelona; they wrapped a car spot for us that involves the Santa Monica Pier, a girl coming out of a cake wearing a strategically placed Mexican serape and a lapdog getting zapped into the sky by an alien spaceship. None of which were in the original boards, but we can't help but love our directing team anyway.

New director Alfredo de Villa just landed a new feature film, and even though we can't mention the details or the cast it's destined to be a Latin-flavored hit with some serious mass market appeal (that's just a fancy way of saying there's a big studio behind it and the average American will like the movie, too).

We can now officially refer to commercial director Simón Bross as "noted Mexican film director Simón Bross," given that he's won or taken top honors in just about every international film festival he has entered. A small, random sampling of awards include CineVegas, the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, the Guadalajara Film Festival, the Bogotá Film Festival, the... Honestly, there are too many to mention. Trust us. Additionally, Simón was recently chosen to helm Panama's groundbreaking new tourism campaign. He just spent a stretch there filming Panamanian legends like salsa superstar (and Tourism Minister) Rubén Blades and former pro boxer Roberto Duran. He's in town this month shooting an additional two spots for American brand names and taking advantage of the lovely Santa Monica weather.

Finally, the Story Department has offered notes, analysis, treatments, feedback and/or unwavering moral support (and chocolate) on a few really impressive Latin film projects, including a biopic about a Mexican music superstar, a Cuban-flavored story set in Miami and a family-focused ensemble piece set in Chicago.

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Requests for Posts

Hi everyone!

Please post your comments on this thread as to any particular items you would like me to touch on.

I've finished uni now and have the internet on at home again so should be able to start posting more frequently...

I'll then try to add posts based on peoples requests...

Cheers!

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3D Engraved Model Text

I had someone request this the other day and the solution is really very simple.

Simply create your model text as you would normally and set the plane so the text is embedded on the face of the wall or system family that you want to engrave the text on.

Use your join geometry tool on the wall and the model text - This makes revit cutout the model text from the wall.

Now just set the material of your model text to have a 100% transparency...

Too Easy!!

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As fall kicks in one of the newest members of our Cortez, Jr. roster gets a whole heap of airtime on Showtime. . . Writer/director Carlos V. Gutierrez's film ESCONDIDO will play on the cable channel throughout the entire month (and OnDemand as well). Mexican Director Simón Bross' BAD HABITS is stateside again, playing at the 11th Annual Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival at the Arclight in Hollywood. Director Fernando Arrioja is shooting an AT&T spot for Bravo Miami, featuring more than a few superstars from Latin TV. Finally, we welcome Buenos Aires-based directing team Plástico to the Cortez Brothers family. Alejandro Ruax y Ramiro Martínez, respectively, bring sleek production skills and graphic design/sound design/intricate shooting experience to the table, all of which can be seen in their award-winning work for clients like Peugeot, Miller, Nike and Mazda.

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A "Family Type" Parameter for swappable subcomponents

I'm sure a lot of you have seen this before and its a really powerful tool. I'm referring of course to the ability to have "Family Type" parameters in a family for nested sub components.

What does that mean?

It means you have a single door where you can swap out the panel, or handles or frame. This avoids you having many different door families to achieve the same thing. It also means you don't have to load in 15 different families into your project, instead you may only need 2 or 3 and thus its better for file size.

Flexibility is a great thing.

So how do you make one of these parameters?

Well the key thing to having this work correctly is that all the sub-components that you wish to swap out must have the same insertion/origin point and be constrained by that point.

Begin with a template:

Start with a "non-hosted" generic model family template (remember you can always change the family category later).

Now we need to set the "defines origin" reference planes in the X, Y and Z planes.

My template for door panels is setup as follows:

So my defining origin points are the Bottom Reference Plane (note I set it to be "Is Reference = Bottom), Centre Left/Right & Centre Front/Back.

Make note of this as when you load this panel into your project you need to define it by these points.

These are the parameters I include in the door. Note I have parameters to control vision panels if they exist. This way I have even more flexibility...

So once you've finished you need to load your panels into the host door family.

NOTE: This is personal preference, but I leave my door panels as generic models and set my door hardware to Furniture category.

DO NOT load lots and lots of door types into the one family. If you load too many your family will become too large and take ages every time you want to make a change to it. Load your standard door panels (most commonly used) only. I then have a subfolder that has an extensive library of door panels & hardware that I only load in on a per project basis...

Now we need to setup the host family.

Start with the Door Template. As a general rule I always delete the existing trim extrusions and remove their associated parameters. The other change I make is to the Width & Height parameters. In the template the height and width parameters are actually associated to the opening... I don't like this, I prefer to use the "Rough Height & Rough Width" parmeters for the opening sizes and then use the Width and Height Parameters for the panel sizes. So change this if you agree with my logic (just select the Width dimension and change it to Rough Width in your options bar pull down)

The next thing I'll do is load the panels that I want in the door family.

Upon doing this I immediately link through the parameters for every door type I loaded...

This is the labourious part. Go to each type you loaded in the project browser, go to the element properties for each one, then link through all the parameters by clicking the "link" column for each parameter. For the first one you will need to use "Add Parameter..." for the ones that don't exist yet. Then after this you can just pick them. Note I link Panel Width & Panel Height to Width & Height respectively. (note for double doors I don't do this because I have extra parameters for each door panel, left/right).

I then go to plan view and place one of the door panels randomly. I then constrain its left/right location using its centre left/right origin point (use the align tool and then lock it). I then constrain its front back location using its Centre front/Back origin point.

I generally have an undercut parameter so to constrain the Door in the Z axis I go to element properties and in the instance parameters I'll link the level offset parameter to my undercut parameter...

So we've now constrained the panel in the X, Y & Z axes which was the insertion point of the panel.

Now we need to add the Family Type parameter to enable us to swap out the panel for the other loaded panels...

Select the panel you placed. Look at your options bar

You see there is drop down called label and its currently set to "None". Select "Add Parameter", give it a name and your done.

If you load this door into a project you now have a parameter that enables you to swap out the panels as needed.

Now this quick tutorial didn't really go into the depth of creating a door it was more to concentrate on the parts that are required to successfully create a working "Family Type" parameter.

I hope someone finds this useful.

Post if you have queries, as I'll add more detailed info if it proves people still have trouble.

Cheers.

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Curtain Wall - Corner Cutouts

If you've ever tried using embedded curtain walls for strip glazing then I'm sure you've seen this situation at the corners...

That's right, the corner doesn't get cutout correctly...

Now, there are a few different ways to resolve this. My preference is to create a wall hosted generic model. Then I just create a void in that family, give it instance parameters for width, height, thickness etc... And finally use the cut geometry tool to tell the void to cut the host.

Now I can just load that family into my project place it in the offending wall, use the grips to adjust its size to fit the situation and then move it into place.

Too easy. Advantages? Well its a family so they can easily be filtered, they don't have a huge effect to your file size and its easy to adjust. Plus you can always select them and change them as needed.

For one I prepared earlier use this link:

http://www.cadway.com.au/Signatures/CLP/Corner_Cutout.rfa

I hope you find this helpful :)

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