Create type catalog

[MikeJarosz]

I have a collection of very specialized doors that were modeled by different people at different times. Each one was saved as a family. Most of them did not create a type. I would like to collect them into a family named Secure Doors and assign each separate door as type 1, type 2 and so on.

I am having a hard time. I have created the family "Secure Doors" and added type 1, type 2 etc. What I cannot figure out is how to get the existing graphics from the stand-alone files into each of the types.

Is this one of those things that the family editor won't allow, or am I missing something? :banghead:

[Alfredo Medina]

I think that is a different usage of the term "catalog". I don't think you can "collect" different families into one in this way; even worse, if those families are very different, and modeled by different people, they surely have different parameters, etc.

[jsteinhauer]

Mike,
I think you need to do a rebuild of these doors in one family, taking the best of both and leaving out the rest. A Type Catalog is a simple .txt file that goes along with a family, and when loaded into a project, will allow a user to select the Types they want to load in. As Alfredo mentioned, you're going to have a hard time taking two separate families and combining them into one. I'm not saying it can't be done, its just going to take a lot of time, and it might just be easier to build it from scratch.

Sorry,
Jeff S.

[LP Design]

Although I do agree with Alfredo and Jeff that there are probably easier solutions, there is in fact a way to combine multiple door families into one. You can load all of the disparate families into a host family, then insert one of the doors and assign it a type parameter. After that, go through the family types dialog and create types, where each type selects a different sub-door using the family type parameter.

The big downside to this (as Alfredo alluded to) is that all of the controlability of the sub doors is lost unless EVERY sub door contains exactly the same parameters. For instance, you can't change the width of the host family if ANY of the sub-doors use "width" or "door width" or "panel width" instead of "Width".

The whole process sounds a lot like creating a "super door" so, yes it can be done. However, you may have to make so many changes to the sub families that the whole process would take longer than starting from scratch.

-LP

[Alfredo Medina]

Actually, parameters of different families can have different names, and still be able to be nested and controlled by the same family type parameter. The set of parameters in the host must be EQUIVALENT, not IDENTICAL.

What is most critical is that:

1) the number of parameters that are required to make the the family is the same, and
2) the parameters do the same, or equivalent functions

But the name can be different, because we need to tie parameters, anyway. For example,

Door "A" is made with "height", "width", "thickness".
Door "B" is made with "Height", "Width", "Thickness"
Door "C" is made with "door_h", "door_w", "door_t"

All these 3 doors, could be combined into a single family type parameter, in a host family that has an EQUIVALENT set of length parameters such as: "H", "W", "T". For this to work, you have to select each nested door, "A", "B", "C", and tie their 3 parameters to the correspondent 3 parameters H,W, and T in the host family. So, Revit understands these 3 parameters like the arguments in a function, something like: "do this door with 'a','b', and 'c'" ; then Revit can do that. But, if one of the door needs 4 or 5 parameters to be created, those 2 extra parameters are not going to be tied to anything; now, imagine if the same discrepancy happens with the other doors, then Revit will get :confused: and then all we get is that error message: "Can't make family..."

[LP Design]

That is really fascinating Alfredo. I have never been able to get it to work unless all the perameters are exactly equal. Looking back on it now, it is possible that this was concurrent with not having the right number of parameters since I have run into that one as well. I will have to do some playing around in the families I previously created.

That being said I think it even reinforces the point that it is, in fact, possible to take a collection of specialized families and combine them into one super-family. I would be curious to know just how many families Mike is trying to combine, and how many types exist within each.

-LP

[jsteinhauer]

This sounds like a job for CTC's Family Processor. Its a free app. See the link below for more information.

Cheers,
Jeff S.

http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RVT/2013/en/Detail/Index?id=appstore.exchange.autodesk.com%3aRevit-Family-Tools%3aen

[MikeJarosz]

Actually, all of them were created from the default Revit door template. As BIM manager, I only allow one consistent set of parameter names for length, width and height. I do have problems with joint ventures, especially when we are not the lead architect.

I'll give the host family a try.