Family Feud

[Scott Hopkins]

Along the lines of the now famous words of Forest Gump – “downloading Revit families is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you are going to get”

You never know if or where materials are assigned. Sometimes materials are created and assigned directly to solids. Sometimes half a dozen new object styles are created and then all assigned separate materials. What I really hate is when the new materials or object styles are assigned in all capital letters. Aside from the object styles that come with Revit there is little uniformity in style naming. Often you can end up with 3 different categories for variations of the same item.

Parameters also lack any sort of convention. Most often, parameters are assigned in a strait foreword way and are visible directly on the plan or elevations. Sometimes however they are inextricably hidden deep within a sweep 2D profile. Although there are times when a parameter inside a sketch is the only way you can get a family to work, 99% of the time this is not necessary. Parameter naming conventions are often garbled as well. Width and depth are used interchangeably. One would hope that the families provided by Revit would be a shining example of family creation and organization, but we all know that this is not the case.

My point is not to rant but to suggest that the Revit users here develop a loose set of standards for those who wish to post their families. I think that most users would be happy to work within some set of standards if they only knew what they were. I know that a lot of work has been done on family naming conventions for the new AUGI site but these are items that didn't appear to have been touched on yet. I realize that no system is going to work for everyone but a little bit of organization wouldn’t hurt.


I propose, as a starting point, a few simple suggestions:

1) Don’t name items in all capital letters – stick with Revit’s lower case convention

2) Don’t apply material directly to solids unless you need to. I think materials should stay materials. The materials list is long enough without a bunch of extra items like SHELF_POLE & CHAIR_LEGS. With the exception of parametric materials, I think creating a new object style to assign a material may be the cleanest way to do it.

3) Limit the number of new object styles you create. Only create a new object style when a different material or line-type needs to be displayed for the object.

4) If possible don’t hide your parameters inside of sketches.

I am hoping that this list will serve as an entry point for further discussion. Please feel free to elaborate on or critic these items.

[gregcashen]

How about taking this a step further and forming a small group to coordinate and come up with some of these standards?

I have recently begun consolidating all of my material libraries because I had 5 or so that I had downloaded. They all had some unique materials, but some were full of copies of materials from revit.mlib, rugi.mlib, accustudio.mlib...it gets very confusing when you have multiple materials that are the same. I think any sort of standardizing around materials, parameters, family creation, naming, etc. would be a huge benefit to most users.

It seems like Zoog could basically set up an additional "invite-only" forum, where we could designate a few of the masters to spend some time fleshing out some ideas without too much outside distraction. Then we could basically post "Zoog Standards" on this site. Eventually, when AUGI gets back in shape, we can post stuff there I suppose.

Just a thought...maybe too ambitious? :?

[hand471037]

Heck no it's not too ambitious. I think it's a great idea. If it stuck, or turned into a more formal document recognized by AutoDesk, then we could sell families made with these standards to Manufactuers. For example, I just spent an hour making a few fancy furniture families. They came out great. However I'm not gonna share/upload them, because they are new and I don't want to step on any design patent/copywrite issues. However I would love to give out sell them to the company that makes these chairs, so that other people could use these families. A common family standard would make that an easyer thing to do!

[Jim Balding]

To All -

There is a “Manufacturing Content Certification” course that Autodesk is offering that I am sure would answer all of your question and concerns. I am not the one to give you any more information than that, but I am sure Mr. Conant could add some insight.

[gnl]

I agree completely with Scott's and Geg's ideas.
Setting up standards would allow to establish a common environment in which to develop and share families.
Here on my side, in Italy, I can take your guidelines and help them become a standard: I do a lot of consulting in the cad business and recently I started doing for Revit. I'll be able to suggest conventions for sharing and eventually selling families to the users here.
Is that “Manufacturing Content Certification” course available via web also?

Ciao

[gregcashen]

I agree completely with Scott's and Geg's ideas. Setting up standards would allow to establish a common environment in which to develop and share families.
Here on my side, in Italy, I can take your guidelines and help them become a standard: I do a lot of consulting in the cad business and recently I started doing for Revit. I'll be able to suggest conventions for sharing and eventually selling families to the users here.
Is that “Manufacturing Content Certification” course available via web also?

Ciao

From an private message...


We are eager to help people become 3rd party content suppliers. We have just started offering a certification program here in Waltham. It involves coursework here, and a certification test. I believe the first session is scheduled for Oct. 15-17. You should contact Debra Pothier, or Amanda Welch for more info.
debra.pothier@autodesk.com
amanda.welch@autodesk.com

David Conant

If anyone is interested in forming a small sub-group to take some of these suggestions and formally draft them into proposed standards, let me know...I think user input would be very helpful to the Revit team.

[Yman]

I agree also, but I don't want to even think about going back and updating all the families I have made. I'm not perfect so I'm sure they would need to be updated to your standards and then to re-upload them, schew. It isn't like I have only about 30 families that I made.

Now that I think about it I kinda like the way I have them set up, by division and yes in CAPITOL letters. I did the cap letters because I wanted to see what materials I loaded/ made compared to what Revit already had in by default.

If your ambituous, I'll send you my library and you can update the hundreds of families. That's OK with me.

Actually, if I find a family I want to use I open the family and change the material assignment about 90% of the time. I do this because it takes a couple of minutes and I have time to do this because I didn't have to create the family from scrath and then I know the family works the way I'm used to working with families.

Aah, just my 2 cents.

Y

[bmadsen]

...no system is going to work for everyone but a little bit of organization wouldn’t hurt.


If anyone is interested in forming a small sub-group to take some of these suggestions and formally draft them into proposed standards, let me know...I think user input would be very helpful to the Revit team.

Agreed that this can help. Software is so much easier to use when you know where to find things, and they have the consistent names.

This IS a big task. The military is still working on naming conventions ("Meal, Ready to Eat") and CSI continues to work on "16 divisions".
I prefer to see it like a golf game -- you're not perfect until your score is 18, but you can get a lot closer than where you started (120).

I'm willing to work on this, with others. :roll: Let's focus this on "Revit Family Naming Guidelines" so we don't try to solve ALL the standards issues.

Here's a beginning list of items that need work.
Family Names
File names
Material names
Parameter names
Category names
Type names

[Scott Hopkins]

I'd be willing to work on this as well. However, I think we ought to wait until after Revit 6.0 is released. If Revit 6.0 does indeed move to VIZ then any materials naming convention we come up with might become instantly out of date. Also if Revit 6.0 incorporates a lot of the family improvements we asked for (such as conditional and on/off parameters) this may also drastically affect any naming convention we come up with now.

[beegee]

If Revit 6.0 does indeed move to VIZ then any materials naming convention we come up with might become instantly out of date.

Apparently, it won't happen just yet. - - -
Allow me to clarify this a bit...

The press release was intended to indicate that VIZ 4 will more closely support AutoCAD 2004 data.

There is no mention of Revit, and no implication to Revit should be implied, as Revit is not an AutoCAD "vertical".

In short, VIZ will not be embedded into Revit early 2004.

_________________
Regards,

Steve Burri
Autodesk, Inc.
Client Support Manager - Revit

[david.kingham]

So it's 2 years later....did anything ever come of this? If not let's bring it back to life

[hand471037]

So it's 2 years later....did anything ever come of this? If not let's bring it back to life

I agree. A place I used to work at (Tectonic) was trying to come up with a standard, and I wrote a ton of stuff for it. Don't know what happened to it, sadly. I know that others are interested, as well as Autodesk, in creating some kind of standard or guidelines for Family stuff. Maybe we should just set up a wiki somewhere for us all to begin working on a standard for our own use, and see what happens.

[Scott Davis]

We could start a new section on the Revit Wiki (http://wiki.tripleddesign.com/index.php/RB_Main)

I've Created a section in the Wiki, HERE (http://wiki.tripleddesign.com/index.php/RB_Building_Content). Jeffrey, maybe you can get things started with your knowledge from Tectonic?

[Scott Hopkins]

After a few more years of building families I have gleaned enough insight that I'd like to reevaluate my previous thoughts...



1) Don’t name items in all capital letters – stick with Revit’s lower case convention.
I Ithink this still holds true. I would also add that you will be doing yourself and everyone else a big favor by being very discriptive in your choice of parameter names. 18 months after building a family the parameter name "Bottom Rail Height" is going to mean a lot more to you than "BRH" or "Botrailht".




2) Don’t apply material directly to solids unless you need to. I think materials should stay materials. The materials list is long enough without a bunch of extra items like SHELF_POLE & CHAIR_LEGS. With the exception of parametric materials, I think creating a new object style to assign a material may be the cleanest way to do it.

3) Limit the number of new object styles you create. Only create a new object style when a different material or line-type needs to be displayed for the object..
Unless you absolutely need to (for example, you are designing a clock factory),

Don't creat a new object sub catagory called "Clock"
Don't create a new material called "Clock"
Do create a parametric material in your new family called "Clock Material".




4) If possible don’t hide your parameters inside of sketches.
As the families I build get more and more complex I am finding that just the opposite is preferable. I now try to hide as many dimensions as I can within sketches, sweeps and loaded profiles. When there are a zillion dimensions all visible at once it becomes almost impossible to decipher what is going on.

Another convention I have started using is when I have a parameter that is not alterable and strictly used for calculation purposes, I add the words "Calc" to the end of it. Thus I might have a parameter called "Sash Width" that is user editable and a derivative parameter called "Sash Width Calc" that may calculate a length based on different sash styles. This makes it easy to trace what parameters are related.

One last item, be sure and use parameter subcategories to place your parameters into meaningful groups. It is also a good idea to put all of your non-editable and calculation parameters down at the bottom and out of the way under the "Other" group

[s.messing]

I have just discovered this old thread about naming conventions and wanted to see where this process is now. Do people have conventions for naming:
families
materials
parameters
categories
Etc?
I am in the process of cleaning up our project template and organizing the information on our server and I thought I would look around to see if anyone has some strong ideas about how to name things and why. For example, people in my office make outrageous names for families that end up forcing the user to stretch the project browser to infinity and beyond to choose the right family. Have people weighed in on this issue? Given up? Set standards?
Thanks,
Stephen

[bpayne]

We use a family naming convention like this....

Family Type - General - Specific (Modifier)

Example:

Casework - Base - Double Door

or...

Electrical - Outlet - 220v (FM)

Note: FM = Floor Mounted

Benefits include: Automatic organization in component list so your "Rubber Base" isn't after "Refridgerator"!

[dbaldacchino]

Scott's suggestions are spot on.

I've been using similar conventions. At first I was putting calculated values in the Constraints section, but when you have 15 calculated values and formulas in a family, it pushes everything else down and you have to scroll through a bunch of jargon to get to the editable parameters. So I've been putting these in Other. I have been prefixing parameters, ex: "CALC_parameter_name". Sometimes you need to keep parameter names short, especially when using these in formulas. So I try to use underscores to keep the name continuous. Sometimes I do this and abbreviate and then change the parameter name at the end when the family is finished, as Revit will replace that name when used in formulas. This way, parameters used for user input are as descriptive as possible.

When building complex families, I have found it essential to document my thought process. I get my roll of sketch paper and put my ideas down on it....geometry, trigonometry, formulas and parameter names. This way I have a trail of what I did when that family was built. Just as when you build a very complex spreadsheet, you keep building one tier at a time on the previous tier, you do the same when building families. When you're on the 30th tier, you barely remember what the 17th tier was, so documenting this as you go will be essential for making changes later on or to explain it to someone else. Or perhaps to borrow some of your techniques when building a similar family or a family requiring a similar approach.
I just create subcategories if necessary to control visibility. If visibility is not an issue, then I don't....but if I want to control lineweight, then I go ahead and create a sub. anyway. If I'm not rendering I don't bother with materials unless I need to control visibility in plan/section.

[robert.manna]

If a group or sub-committee were to be formed that were to develop guidelines or best practices regarding the creation of families, we would be more than happy to contribute. See this blog post (http://dorevit.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_dorevit_archive.html) (start at the bottom) with regards to our current efforts.

-R

[Scott Hopkins]

We had a group of Reviteers attempt to put some standards together, but then everyone got too busy and the project went nowhere.:shock: