Placing Furniture

[brett12]

How do you place furniture in the floor plan by the back corner and not its centre? Especially when you are trying to place it to an angled wall. Would even be better if it snapped to the wall. Is this possible?

[brethomp]

Everything that you ask for is possible, but some of it requires editing the family.

Furniture will align to angled or curved walls when placing by hovering over the wall and hitting the space bar.

The insertion point of a family is defined in the family. In plan there will be 2 crossing reference planes that define this origin. Look in the element properties of the planes for the Defines Origin property to be checked. It's typically the center of the object but you could change it to be the back corner if you desire, but I don't recommend this. To do so check the Defines Origin for the two planes that cross at that corner. Assuming there are reference planes there, if not draw them.

Reference planes in the family will also help when placing to get the family to snap to walls or other objects. Make sure that you have front, back, left and right reference planes drawn in the family, then check the element properties of these planes, and set the "Is Reference" to the proper value for each. This will make those reference planes into alignment edges when placing the family.

[brett12]

Thank-you for the detailed answer Bret

[nancy.mcclure]

Another thing to bear in mind when adjusting the "defines origin" references in families - the origin point is what tags read as their attachment point. Tagging on placement will center a tag on the origin, and tag leaders will point to the origin.

[brethomp]

Another thing to bear in mind when adjusting the "defines origin" references in families - the origin point is what tags read as their attachment point. Tagging on placement will center a tag on the origin, and tag leaders will point to the origin.Another reason to keep it in the center.

[brett12]

Next problem, Was easy to change origin thanks, but when you have "rotate after placement" checked it still rotates from the original centre origin and not the new origin. Can I fix this to rotate from the new back left corner origin some how?

Also the temporary dimensions measure from the centre point as well. I see in the Temporary Dimension Property settings there are none for components. Any way for them to measure from the origin?

[nancy.mcclure]

I believe these are set to rotate around the center 'expansion' point - along with the geometry. Changing the Origin does not seem to automatically change the point around which size is adjusted (thankfully, or that could have some repercussions!).

To control your temporary dimensions, click on the blue box that appears at the end of the dim witness line - clicking will toggle it through other references in the family (whereas press/dragging it allows you to associate it to another element altogether).

Hope that helps.

[patricks]

I have to say that in over 5 years of Revit'ing, I have NEVER used "rotate after placement". I will either temporarily snap an object I'm placing to something nearby like a wall and hit the spacebar until it's rotated the way I want it, or I place it and then align and/or move it after the fact. Just seems more precise that way, to me.