Best Practice for Door Family

[Doug]

I am creating a new door family and want to know best practices. With the advent of CNC machines & MDF panels, seem we have an unlimited number of door styles to choose from!!! GREAT NEWS!!! but the down side for modeling

Doors have a couple styles of Sticking (shaker, Cove, 1/4 Round)
3 types of panels (Flush, Single Hip & Double Hip Raised Panels)
Applied Molding
3 Different Textures (smooth, wood grain, & vee groove surfaces)
14 Different Panel Styles
14 different widths (12" - 36")
3 different heights (6-8, 7-0, 8-0)

Now if my math is correct that is 3528 different combinations for a single door panel.

Questions
Panels- Would it be better to have more panels (files) or one multi-purpose panel (file) with lots of options?
Casings - Would it be better to nest casings into door family?
I have concluded that nesting panels is the way to go... I have named it a generic "Panel" so I can just switch it out (all panels have their own directory with their name but the file name is panel. (make sense?)

[aaronrumple]

...or jut show the very basics graphically and do the rest with Schedule Keys.

It is easy to get carried away with the modeling. For the panel type, I often just use model lines on the surface of the door panel family to give a graphic representation of the panel style rather than model it all out. It keeps the file much smaller on large projects.

[cphubb]

Doug,

We are experimenting with the nested families option with our doors. Have not come to a final resolution yet but have found some interesting things that may help you out.


1. Create the panel(s) and frames(s) as separate families
2. Nest the families together using one as the base and adding the other. Make sure to use a parameter to control the nested family that matches one inside the nested family so the schedule will work
3. Add hardware or whatever else you want ie. casings
4. We successfully added hardware without even doing real modeling. Our hardware (except panic) is just a cube with a bunch of parameters attached. H-2 schedules, run a hardware set schedule and see what H-2 shows. Works so far.
We still need to test a little more to see if this is something that will really work, however the results are promising.

[patricks]

I would love to be able to nest a profile family to be used as a door frame so that I could have different frame types in one door family (i.e. hollow metal butt, hollow metal wrap-around, wood frame, etc), and then have the nested profiles show up as a pull-down box in the door family properties... but alas I haven't figured out how to do it yet, if there is a way.

[Doug]

Thanks Guys!
I haven't played with the Key Schedule, and I am looking for a tutorial on Key Schedules & how it works. Any suggestions on where to learn about this feature & how to apply it to a door schedule?

Arron - good idea on the door style - duh - line work for large project, I never thought of doing that to reduce the file size.

Chris- All of my door are now separate families - nesting is great! I am making a library of 14 different panel designs so it will be easy to switch them out.

Particks - There has to be away to do that... I am going to play with a cased opening this weekend I need the same thing

Thanks for the input!