The Revit Clinic

2010 Families Guide

The 2010 Families Guide is now available  for all flavors of Revit.  They are available for download for each product here:

Revit Architecture 2010

Revit Structure 2010

Revit MEP 2010

The Families Guide is a great resource of information regarding how to create families in Revit products. Each of the products guides focus on differnt families that you can create that are more specific to that product.  For example, the Revit Architecture tutorials for the Families Guide includes tutorials on how to create a complex window, while in the Revit Structure Families Guide, it walks you though creating a Custom Beam Type.  The MEP Families Guide also has a destinct MEP feel, having you create a Elbow pipe fitting family. 

All of the Guides have PDF or Standard CHM files for the documentation and also include Datasets.  I highly recommend that you check out these new editions of the families guide to the Revit products.  Its a great place to start learning about creating families and you experts out there (I am talking to you as well) might just find something useful as well. 

Can you create the coolest Family?

Today I got a message from Turbosquid that I thought I would share.  They are holding a Revit Family Contest on their website. 

The contest will run from Dec. 2, 2008 to March 31, 2009.

Prizes will be awarded in three categories:

• Individual/Freelancer - Professionals submitting their personal creations
• Corporate - Submissions on behalf of a company or other entity
• Student - High school, university, or community college students

1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes will be awarded in each category:

• 1st prize: $2500
• 2nd prize: $1000
• 3rd prize: $500

Two things will be judged in the contest:

• Quality of design (aesthetics, structural)

Number of published Revit families used in scene

The idea is to take a original Revit family you have created and create a scene with as many of them as possible.  Sounds like it might be fun and you could win some money.  Plus you get to show off your family modeling skills.

Sticky Array

The other day, before I started teaching my class at the Boston Architectural College, a student from a previous class asked me a Revit question.  It took a few minutes and help from another professor (Jeff Hanson, one of my guest posters) to figure it out. 

The problem she was having was that while attempting to arrange geometry in a family, the geometry would not array vertically in the family but would only array in plan. 

Try creating a solid extrusion in a plan view in a family, and then switch to elevation view and create an array that copies the extrusion up.  You won’t be able to do it right away.  

The problem is cause because the solid extrusion is locked to the reference plane on the Ref. Level where you created it.  There is a quick fix to this problem.  You can disassociate the geometry from the work plane.  The trick here is that it is not totally clear where you do this. 

The key is the Edit Work Plane… button.

Once you click this button on the options bar (with the geometry selected) 

You can click the Dissociate button in the dialog box to remove the work plane from the geometry so to speak.  Once this is done just click Ok and now you can array the geometry in elevation.