Elevator Family Category

[Wish List System]

Summary: It would be great to have a family category specifically for elevators.

Description: I would love to have an elevator family category that would map to the levels in a project. For example, if I have a 20 story building with differing floor-to-floor heights, it would be amazing to be able to insert an elevator family at the lowest level and have it automatically place doors at each level. Also, it would be great to have the option to exclude doors or add a rear entry on specific floors.

I have been able to arrive close to this with a generic adaptive family, but it's still very clunky, and I feel that it would work much better if there was a specific family category designed to accommodate these features.

Product and Feature: Revit Architecture - Architectural Family Contents/Components

Submitted By: Christopher Anderson on 03/25/2015

[Steve_Stafford]

I don't think that the problem is solved just by providing a new category. It is more the behavior of an elevator, its relationship to the building that you've described as an issue. I create elevators as Specialty Equipment. There is a new Two Level based family template, think column, which can allow the user to create a family that requires a relationship to two levels to define it's height. Before that it was easy enough to just specify the total height required of the elevator.

Elevators are not a simple object. They are also not one element, they are comprised of many parts and door assemblies at each floor as well as pits, shaft caissons etc. Like I wrote, just having a category for them doesn't really solve "anything" important.

[CBrightwood]

Last time I touched elevators was in college but this looks like something worth looking into I would suggest the family be broken down more simply not adding in doors. just having shaft size adjustments and floor start and stop capabilities from there as a start. This would allow the user to decided which side the door would be on what size the shaft would be which would have to do with weight requirements, class and occupancy ect. Imagine trying to deal with an elevator like the Luxors in Vegas... yeah glad I didn't go that route in life. Elevators are so unionized and standardized for the most part at this point I would search for the control factors that don't change and those that govern one being different than another. Heck of an idea I would love to see this implemented as part of Revit. Maybe a dialog box that asked what levels you wanted a door at with check boxes for north east west and south facing or duel. hmm this actually feels more possible the more I think about it. If you could get it to parse out the levels and choose which ones to have a door at and which direction it would have to face. For instance if you may have a main elevator that will skip a few levels and a maintenance elevator for other non public levels. Anyone else have ideas on how we could make this work I would love to keep reading a thread like this.

[Ric Weber]

I agree, I think that Christopher is asking for a new type of family template for elevators (multi level) not just two levels. I would suggest that what he is asking for is a new Specialty Equipment or Generic Model family template that can be linked to several levels. With that template you could then incorporate the doors per level as required. It would be quite the extensive template that is for sure, but it could definitely be useful for elevators and possibly other items as well.

[Chuckyd67]

Why re-invent the elevator? Digipara already provides a free add-in to create elevators that punch through floors and establish wall openings,etc. The tallest building I have used it on so far is five stops, and it works like a dream. It includes most passenger elevators out there, actual models, not just generic models.

[Wish List System]

This wish has been reported as granted and already in the software.