Nested Families and the Case of Disappearing Connectors

When a family with connectors is nested into another family, the connectors get ‘lost’ in the host family. They have to be recreated in the host to appear in a project. This is the case even if you are nesting a shared family. This behaviour is akin to a project being linked into another one, where the connectors from the linked project won’t be available to the host project.

To give an example, let’s imagine there is a host family classified as specialty equipment. Within the specialty equipment family we have a sink that we created as its own family, set as a shared plumbing fixture, and then nested into the host family. The sink of course has plumbing connectors, but these won’t show up in our project because they are within a nested family. The first thing that comes to mind is to add a new set of connectors to the host family and use those instead, as shown in the image below.

This solves the immediate connector problem, but can create other problems depending on how you use schedules and systems in Revit. As a shared plumbing fixture family, the sink will appear in the project’s plumbing fixture schedule, and through the schedule you can update the FU (fixture units) values within the sink’s connectors, as shown in the image below.

Unfortunately the sink’s connectors aren’t actually active in the project; only the connectors in the specialty equipment host family are. When you select the specialty equipment family, you see the FU values for the connectors that you recreated in the specialty equipment family, not the ones of the nested plumbing fixture. And if you want to create a system, you will be connecting to the connectors in the specialty equipment family as well. At the very least there is strong potential for confusion and a disconnect (pun intended) between schedules and systems.

Another way to solve the problem would be to nest the specialty equipment family within the plumbing fixture. The issues with this approach are too many to cover here so I’ll leave that as an exercise for those interested.

A third approach could be to create a multi-category schedule and then have shared parameters that, for example, drive the diameters of the connectors in both the host and nested families. This schedule could list the plumbing fixture and specialty equipment families so you could manually make their diameter values match. There’s just one hitch. A plumbing fixture has built-in parameters for CWFU, HWFU, WFU (Chilled Water Fixture Units, Hot Water Fixture Units and Waste Fixture Units respectively). These parameters won’t appear on a multi-category schedule, and there is no way you can turn them into shared parameters (a trick I previously wrote about doesn’t work in this case).

As with almost anything, there is a workaround for this third approach that involves creating new shared parameters, but it isn’t worth discussing as it’s more work than it’s worth.

Then there is the right approach, which I nearly forgot about thinking of all the potential workarounds with nesting. Currently the right approach is to not nest families with connectors at all, but instead to create a group. The whole thing still comes up small (for delivery or storage purposes) and gives you the best results (when you bring the group into a project you will get two families, classified independently – file size increase being irrelevant as the extra weight will be shed on loading the group into a project). It’s also what Revit wants, currently.

Sink: 288K
Casework: 584K
Specialty equipment (all as one family and no nesting): 636K
Specialty equipment (nested sink): 716K
Group (casework and sink): 972K

When I say “currently” above, I mean from the point of view of systems within Revit and how they are best approached. The ability to nest families has to-date ignored the needs of families with connectors, or MEP families in general. The same issue applies at the project level. Allowing connectors to be seen when nested would have been great in so many of our family creation projects I don’t even want to count them. The fix would likely come hand in hand with connectors showing through linked files. The latter would solve workflow issues encountered in large projects on the mechanical side, where for performance reasons you might need to split up the project. In short, I would say the best future solution to lost connectors in nested families would be to never lose them in the first place. But for that, we’ll need a new version of Revit.

System Parameters Vegas Style – Type or Instance?

Since both Gary and I are here in Las Vegas at Autodesk University, I thought a post with a little bit of “now you see it, now you don’t” magic would be appropriate.

In an Electrical Equipment family there is a system parameter for Voltage. As a system parameter it cannot be modified in any way—when the parameter is selected, the “Modify…” button is greyed out. It’s set as a type parameter, but let’s say I need it to be an instance parameter in a particular situation. You can tell type and instance parameters apart in a Family Types dialog box by looking for the “(default)” text that follows all instance parameters.

This is where the magic comes in. Pay attention to the trick or you might miss it. Now you see it as a type…

And now you don’t!

There are many things you can do in Revit that are not standard. Last night I was talking with Steve Stafford here at AU and discussing with him how some of these non-standard ways to achieve a result are too much of a hack to rely on (e.g. having connectors appear and disappear at will — oh yes, you can do that!). Then there are others, like the one being shown here, that I feel more comfortable using when creating families. They are workarounds more than hacks, and as such I give them a longer shelf life.

I was doing some consulting in Kuwait a little over a year ago when I was asked about doing just this kind of workaround in a family, where the best workflow would be achieved by having the Voltage parameter as an instance rather than a type. I managed to pull it off as I was complaining to Gary Ross (then at Autodesk) about this particular limitation. I found it more of a user interface limitation rather than an intended feature of Revit.

So how do you do this trick? Luckily you don’t have to be a magician. Open your Revit Electrical Equipment family, with your Voltage parameter set to type. Make sure you initialize the parameter with some value if none is there. Change the family’s category to something else, where Voltage is not a system parameter, for example Electrical Devices. Now your Voltage parameter is no longer a system parameter, so you can change it from being a type parameter to a system parameter. Once this is done, set the family category back to Electrical Equipment and you are done!

There are a few more things regarding this workaround that I’ll write about in a follow up post. In the meantime, I hope you find this little trick to be of use, and if you are at AU and would like to have a chat or meet for a drink, drop me a line.

Family Feedback Mechanisms – Part 2

Wouldn’t it be nice if your manufacturer-specific fittings would highlight themselves if they are set outside of the product’s catalog specs? Wouldn’t it be even nicer if they were highlighted without stopping your workflow as you lay your pipe runs? Then your manufacturer-specific fittings could even be used as generic or custom fittings as well.

Well I’m happy to report that you can have your cake and eat it too. The above image shows a pipe fitting family (an elbow in this example) that, when used in a project, will get highlighted in red if the angle of the elbow is different than either 45 or 90 (the two angles provided by the manufacturer). Not only that, it will also show you a non-modal dialog warning as you draw. But wait, it gets better! There is no plugin, hack or workaround. This is a built-in feature in Revit. The below video shows this feature in action.

You can achieve this seamless highlighting by means of the IsCustom built-in parameter on the Pipe Fittings Revit family category. When in a project, changing this Yes/No parameter will display a modeless dialog warning like the one shown below. The parameter can be controlled via a formula that draws information from within the project. You can add the colored highlighting by means of additional geometry associated to the IsCustom parameter.

One of our customers has been enjoying a set of fittings created this way and his feedback couldn’t be better. Long pipe runs, where a mistake of a couple degrees on a fitting can end up causing coordination issues, are now easily reviewed and fixed. And if a custom fitting is actually needed, then this can be highlighted and reported.

We are working on a manufacturer-specific set of fittings that all have this feature built in. I’ll write more about it when we release these families and write a follow-up post with step by step instructions on how to create such a family. If you don’t want to wait for the follow-up post, I’ll be at Autodesk University this coming week and would welcome the opportunity to talk with anyone who is interested in implementing this feature in their Revit families.

The Revit Families Frontier

Earlier this week I was reading a blog post by Steve Stafford on the state of Revit content, specifically content available from Autodesk Seek. The post is framed as a critique of Seek contents’ usability within a Revit project – bloated file size, incorrect category assignments, overly detailed visual modeling, etc. – and it ends with a statement that we’re still living in “the wild west” when it comes to Revit families.

After several years in this business, I’d have to say that I agree with Steve’s general assessment. We’ve written before on this blog about the lack of clear and comprehensive standards for Revit families. Even among the standards that have been published, we have yet to see any significant adoption by Revit users or product manufacturers. For the most part, people seem to do whatever they think makes sense based on whatever experience and understanding they have of Revit.

So what is the role of content creators in this “wild west” of Revit families? You could argue that we should be playing the role of sheriff, riding into town on our trusty steeds and bringing law and order to the people. Yet even among content creators there isn’t broad agreement on what constitutes best practices for Revit families. You can see this in the comments on Steve Stafford’s post. One of the comments from a content creator talks about the need to include a schedule with manufacturer-specific content (which means including shared parameters in the families), whereas we have written before about how the best approach is for manufacturers not to include any shared parameters in their families. Another comment from a content creator talks about including model text within the family at the request of the designers for whom it was created, even though that text nearly doubles the family’s file size. While we think there are better approaches to including help text with Revit families (i.e. through a separate text file), we’ve been in the same situation of having a customer specifically request embedded text and having to comply. As a content creator, sometimes you have to abandon your own best practices in order to satisfy your customer.

Taking a step back, I would ask whether we should be surprised at this fuzzy state of affairs when it comes Revit families. After all, Revit is still in a relatively early phase of adoption throughout the AEC community; it is a completely new kind of platform relative to its predecessor; and “Revit families” itself is such a broad category (everything in Revit is a family!) with such broad applications that it would be another kind of mistake to think we can find a one-size-fits-all set of rules and standards for how a Revit family should be built.

To a large degree, I think that developing and applying coherent standards will always be a slow and iterative process, and we need to be patient with it. At the same time, I do believe content creators have an important role to play in facilitating and accelerating that process. As a kind of nexus between end users, manufacturers, and Autodesk itself, and with a wider range of experience with Revit families than any of those parties, content creators are in a unique position to foster dialogue and debate on standards. The best thing we can do is publish our views on the subject and encourage public discussion on specific points. For example, let’s return to the question of whether manufacturers should include share parameters in their Revit families. To us, there is no doubt that it’s an exercise in futility for manufacturers to include shared parameters in their families. In fact, we believe it does more harm than good. If someone thinks we’re wrong about that, then let’s hear the reasons why and see if we can reach some consensus about what standard would make sense for this issue.

With only a few days left until AU 2011 begins, I’m excited to attend sessions and engage in personal conversations where I can hear the perspectives of other Revit practitioners and content providers on the subject of Revit family standards. I’m looking forward to a week of lively discussions and hopefully to making some measure of progress in settling the Revit families frontier.

Revit Families Mix for AU 2011

As part of our virtual booth at the upcoming Autodesk University conference, we had to create a 1-2 minute video giving an overview of our company and what we do. We decided there was no better way to communicate our story than by showing some of our Revit families. After submitting the video to the folks at AU, I thought it would be nice to share it here.

To spice things up a bit, I took out my not-so-exciting (but very informative) voiceover that I recorded for the AU virtual booth video, and replaced it with a soundtrack timed to the images in the video. So turn up the volume, hit the play button, and let our Revit families help you celebrate the end of the week. Happy Friday!

Updated Butterfly Valve Sample Family

Last week I announced some updates to our website, including a set of 5 new sample families available for download. In our excitement to share this new content with everyone, we accidentally posted a draft version of the Pratt Butterfly Valve on the sample downloads page. We weren’t aware of this oversight until a couple days ago, when someone who downloaded it followed up by email to ask about some errors they were seeing.

We’ve now posted the final and correct version of the butterfly valve to our sample downloads page. If you downloaded our Pratt butterfly valve and got errors when loading it or selecting certain types, then we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and frustration you experienced in trying to work with an incomplete Revit family never meant for distribution. We hope that you will consider downloading the family again and giving it another spin. In this case, the second time should be the charm.

On behalf of our entire team, thank you for your patience and understanding, and as always we welcome any questions or comments either here on the blog, by email at contact@andekan.com, or by phone at 415.366.7755.

Transformer Revit Families – Getting More to Meet the Eye

We recently created a Revit family for a dry type power transformer by Powersmiths called the E-Saver-C3. The transformer comes in 10 different models based on apparent power (measured by kVA), and the case size of the transformer varies based on the kVA model being used. There are a number of potential spec configurations for each kVA model depending on the components used in the actual transformer, but for this order we only had to supply the C3L configuration with a primary/secondary voltage of 480/208 and a k-rating of 7.

Because the transformer’s geometry was fairly simple and straightforward, we created the family to be driven entirely by a type catalog. This allows users to quickly select and load only the case geometry and parameters of the kVA model(s) they are using in their Revit project, thereby improving the family’s usability and performance. In the future, having the type catalog will also facilitate keeping the family updated with current products specs and dimensions, or using it as a template to create new families for similar products from the same manufacturer.

Below are few images of the family in 3D. The first shows the family at different levels of detail, while the second shows several different types in Fine, and the third shows a rendering.

The black box on top of the second case above represents an optional smart energy meter that can be turned on or off by the user.

In addition to giving us a good opportunity to brush up on our electrical equipment families, the project called for adding a couple custom visual features to the family in order to meet the needs of engineers working with this product in Revit. One of these features is an option to display the transformer’s center of gravity, which is important information for ensuring safe placement of the transformer, especially in areas with seismic activity (i.e. right here in California). Below are a couple images showing the family in different views with the center of gravity indication turned on.

The second custom visual feature we added to the family was contextual highlighting of the transformer’s conduit access areas. Each model’s case has two areas where the manufacturer recommends cutting a hole for hooking up an electrical conduit to the transformer. We built the family so that the conduit access areas appear highlighted when a user attempts to create a conduit connection to the family. While within Revit it’s currently not possible to restrict the actual placement of a conduit connection on a family (i.e. you can choose to connect a conduit anywhere on the surface of a family), this visualization feature at least gives the user an indication of where they ought to place their conduit connection for compliance with the manufacturer’s specifications. Below are a couple images showing the conduit access area highlighting in action.

Both we and our customer were excited to develop these custom features for the E-Saver-C3L family, and we’re eager to receive further feedback once the family has been put to thorough use in Revit projects. We’d also love to hear your questions or comments either about the features presented in this post or about any other aspects of working with transformer families in Revit.

Family Feedback Mechanisms – Part 1

Revit families are by nature pretty flexible. Even if you build a family to work with only a given range of sizes or in particular positions, a user can often find ways to use the family outside of those intended contexts. So sometimes it’s desirable to have a way of highlighting the fact that a family is outside of an acceptable range, or that it is positioned wrongly, e.g. a face-based family meant for walls that’s being placed on a ceiling. If you can’t stop a user from using a family “incorrectly” —and it may not be incorrect, just not recommended or optimal —then the next best thing is to provide some feedback to the user to indicate what is happening.

I recently saw one example of this at the BIM Show Live here in London, where Adam Ward – BIM and Technology Specialist at BIM.Technologies – showed in his presentation a truss family that would ‘glow’ red whenever its length extended past the size at which the manufacturer could build them. I consider this a good example of a warning, or if you want, instructions about the real-world product’s limitations or performance.

Another example would be the below toilet partitions by Bradley. A disclaimer first: I have created hundreds of families for Bradley and the toilet partitions in particular were all created by me. Each of these families has 3D text giving instructions on how to use the family. I have seen and been asked to do this type of built-in instructions in other situations as well. In this case, however, I feel this is the wrong approach for a number of reasons.

First, the text adds weight to the family, to the order of 300K to 600K in this case. While I generally agree with Steve Stafford that, as he so nicely put it, “file size is a red herring” and shouldn’t take priority when evaluating a family, it does certainly count for something, especially when added up across many families. If every manufacturer were to take the same approach that Bradley did for providing instructions to users, we’d have a systemic problem of bloated families that would have a noticeable impact for users.

The instructions text shown also has a visibility setting, and that is where the second problem lies. It’s turned on by default; everyone will see it and have to go and turn it off. The family, if I may say so, isn’t so hard to understand as to warrant constant instructions. Most users will figure it out just by looking at the instance parameters available when in a project. This is penalizing every user out there for the few that are so new to Revit as to need these instructions. Optionally, you can edit the family and delete the text if you don’t want it there. That’s just not user-friendly and definitely not something a new Revit user should be expected to do.

So how else could we go about providing instructions for these families? If the information were made available on the page where the family is downloaded, I believe that would cover almost everyone’s needs. If you still really wanted to have the instructions available from within the family, then you could put links within parameters that would take the user to specs and other bits of information that might be relevant to the family and its related product(s).

Having said this, the approach Bradley took is definitely better than no instructions at all, and I consider it a step in the right direction. They added their text with the best interests of users in mind, and a lot of users might find that the embedded text and visibility setting work perfectly fine for them.

My main concern in this post is to begin exploring the different ways that Revit families can incorporate feedback mechanisms that help guide users in using the families properly within a project. I think this is an important topic for improving the usability of Revit families, especially for manufacturer-specific content. I’ll be following up soon with another post illustrating a feedback mechanism I’ve been working on. In the meantime, I’d love to hear if anyone has other techniques they’ve used or opinions about feedback mechanisms they’ve found in other Revit families.

See You at AU?

The big show in Las Vegas is on the horizon! Autodesk University 2011 kicks off in less than three weeks, and I’m happy to report that Jose and I will both be attending this year’s event. We’re looking forward to taking the plunge into a sea of Revit sessions during the week, and I’m sure we’ll come up with plenty of riches to share with you through this blog.

But going to a conference is ultimately about being there with the other attendees, and we’re especially looking forward to having the chance to meet some of our customers, partners, and friends in person later this month. If you’re attending AU and would like to meet up or just say a quick hello, drop us a comment on this blog post, send an email to contact@andekan.com, @ us on Twitter, or just look out for these guys:

Look out, Jose Fandos has his eye on you! But the conference is just after Thanksgiving, Jose, not Halloween!

Am I drinking guacamole!? These were really just the best close ups I could find.

And while it is all about the human element, we clearly live in the digital age, so I’ll close by mentioning that Andekan will have a virtual booth at this year’s AU. I’m not sure when the virtual booths will go live, but when they do ours will include a video showing some new families, along with plenty of information for anyone looking to learn about us or get in touch.

Good luck to anyone making final preparations for a session or booth, and we hope to see you there.

New Sample Families

We’ve been working on some updates to our website over the last month, and late last week we finally pushed a few of them live. We brushed up our copy on various pages and tweaked a few layouts, including our Get a Quote page, all with the aim of making it easier for visitors to understand what we do and to get in touch with us.

If you’re reading our blog, then you might be most interested in the long-overdue update to our Sample Downloads page. We added 5 new sample families for you to download and check out, including the Clow reducing wye and Tyler Pipe roof drain shown below. You can see all of the new samples here.

We’re excited to begin offering this wider range of sample downloads, one that reflects both the breadth and depth of our experience creating Revit families. We hope to continue adding families to the page as the months go by, and we’ll be sure to continue announcing those new additions here.

Happy downloading!