interpreting lock symbols

[ccenergy]

working in family editor - very basic noob question about locking/aligning:

In the jpg below, there's a tilted extrusion that is locked to the bottom slab at the point of contact. THere's a lock symbol pointing to the intersection. When I remove the lock symbol, I can "slide" the extrusion along the slab. If i want to reattach the extrusion back to the same spot and lock it (i.e., re-align it), how can I do it? (note: not using UNDO). This is a basic alignment question; I know how to do it if the extrusion is orthogonal, but not when it's tilted wrt the two planes defining the origin.

[Alex Page]

it depends on a lot of variables! Can you upload the family so I can see how you're made it?

[ccenergy]

Sorry about delay; here it is...

[ccenergy]

I've come up with a little more detail on my problem, in hopes that someone can help me out:

I've been trying for 4 months to get a solar panel to tilt up from a rooftop (I kid you not, I've literally been trying it for that long!!!). I must have "flexed" this family in search of a solution several thousand times.

Since I can find only basic/sporadic guidance on the Family Editor, I have attached two files:

1. The panel "family" that I have created.
2. A doc with a list of questions on the Editor that I can't find adequate answers for (both relating to this problem, and also just in general).

I've received advice from well meaning helpers, but nothing has worked for the model I've built. I assume the reason I'm having so much trouble is that there are lots of elements in the panel (glass, void extrusions, solid extrusions), which, I assume, lead to lots of opportunities for constraint conflicts once I try to tilt it from the "horizontal". I've tried to group everythng, so it will all tilt at once. I can tilt (rotate) "manually", but not parametrically.

I really want to learn how to use the Editor in detail for complex objects. Lots of good videos on the subject from third parties, but they don't seem to help with this particular problem.

Because of the difficulties I'm having, I wonder whether the Family Editor is not yet a complete product, or whether it was just not made for creating complex objects. One thing is for certain - documentation on the family editor is inadequate (if, indeed, it exists at all!).

Thanks in advance!

[dkoch]

My apologies for not having time to look at the file you posted. One suggestion I would make is that if you have a lot of objects in your family that all want to rotate together, you would be better served by making those objects in one family and then inserting that family in another family, where you can set up the rotation and only have to deal with one object. You can control the parameters in the first family through the second family either by type or by linking parameters from the inner family to parameters in the outer family.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

As David suggested you want to nest your panel family into another family where you will control it's rotation.
I'd suggest you check out some of the AU Session files and handouts on creating families. You can download a number of these very useful handouts from http://au.autodesk.com/
Search for sessions on 'Revit' and 'family' and you'll come up with all sorts of valuable information.

[ccenergy]

David and Dmitri,
Thanks for your suggestions. I've actually made significant progress in the past few days after finding a couple of .pdfs on the subject:

http://aectechtalk.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/keys-to-rotating-items-inside-revit-families/
and
http://www.draftsperson.net/index.php?title=Rotation_parameter_to_a_component_family_with_fixed_geometry

I don't know why it took me so long to find these; I guess I wasn't really sure what I was looking for until recently. An observation on the above docs: They describe rotating in azimuth, not altitude. I found that rotating in altitude is a good bit harder. I think it may have to do with the fact that the object is tied to the "face-based slab". It seems easier to rotate between the planes l/r and f/b as they do in the examples given.

I also found out from the docs that when rotating, aligned dims need to be attached to ref planes, not edges of objects, and that BEFORE doing an EQ, the dims must be equal on either side of the center plane. I think that these reasons may have been the source of many of my constraint battles.

Anyway, I was able to create a tiltable object, though I still have a few details to work out.

One more Q that's puzzling me at the moment: I've attached another (simpler) object that I have made "tiltable", but the object tilts 180 degrees away from where I intended it to (I want 45 deg from horizontal, but when I enter 45 degrees in Properties, it's 180 degrees off from where I wanted it to go). I solve by making my entry 225 degrees, but this is a clunky solution. I tried "pulling" the reference line on the back of the bracket so that it's oriented in the other "direction", but that didn't do anything. I suspect that this is a common problem, but can't find anything on how to solve. Suggestions?

Once again, many thanks for your insights and help!
:)

[ccenergy]

For the benefit of others that are new to Revit, and may be following this thread, one more thing that finally dawned on me. Perhaps the most useful thing I've learned when working in family editor (actually for Revit in general):

1. Start building your new family by placing all of your reference planes/ lines, naming, and annotating them BEFORE drawing ANYTHING. Be generous in placing these ref planes, as dimensions should always be tied to reference planes (not object edges).

2. Flex these ref planes/lines thouroughly BEFORE placing any objects on them!

I know that experienced users are probably thinking to themselves "Duh!" , but the full value of this advice really only struck me yesterday after reading the referenced .pdfs.

Finally, I downloaded another doc from AU as you suggested, Dmitri. Very helpful:

http://au.autodesk.com/?nd=material&session_material_id=53211