Family Management

[davepsanders]

Is anyone aware of a robust family manager for Revit? Any speculation that Autodesk may be working on this?

I am interested in something that is easy to update, searchable, has a preview of the family, and lists family parameters. Ideally it would allow for batch processing of parameters, indexing, etc.

My office is using a logical network setup and consistent naming conventions but users are feeling overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of families and there is no (good) way to leave comments on the files. We are beyond the point where creation is the problem it is more about how we can easily leverage the content we have for as many purposes as possible.

Products similar to what I am thinking of include Autodesk Seek and BIMLibrary but we would prefer not to put our families online and it's hard to pay for features that should be native to the program. Actually, for those familiar with Adobe products, Bridge is the closest thing to what we need but with Revit compatable features.

I have thought about developing something with the API or otherwise but I am concerned that if we invest too much time Revit will introduce a Family Manager to Revit (2011?, 2015??).

Thanks.

[Munkholm]

Would love to see a manager app... but what we´ve chosen to do is, to skip the .rfa folders on the network, and instead keep a list of .rte files, which contanins the different fammilies.

For instance: All our door fammilies is loaded into one .rte file, and an instance of each family and type is inserted into that project file - this allows us to use model text for commenting each family and type, AND display this in a 3D view with the acutally family.

So instead of loading a famlily, we simly open the door family project file, and copy/paste the needed door(s) into the current project we´re working on.

We´ve done this for doors, windows, furniture, detail componets, casework etc. etc.

This has been welcomed be each and everyone of my co-workers, because it gives an instant overview of the available content/fammilies

[Alex Page]

We do the same - anouther advantage is its really easy manager (update/new etc) therefore the users always 'see' new families created.