Project to Project Family coordination

[DoTheBIM]

What the least painful way to get all non-system family components (doors, windows, closet shelving, appliances, cabinets, etc. ) from one project to another? I can isolate a category in 3D view and Copy and Paste.... seems to be working ok, but was wondering if there was something like the "transfer project standards" to do in batch type mode. thanks.

[robert.manna]

Your best bet is to create a project template populated with the default families that you want every project to be populated with.

-R

[DoTheBIM]

Will definitely do that... when the time comes. That works for all future projects started from the template. But not existing. For example. Even say a year down the road we have say 100 standard plans developed and our windows and doors need to change to a new manufacturer/style. Right now (if we had those 100 models done we would have to still do what I'm doing with cut and past or loading into 100 models and making the swap. And in this case you would know what needs changed so it wouldn't be too bad.

But in my case we have a consultant developing some things (families in this case) for us and I'd like to build some models in parallel with the work that they are doing and then update them. Names will change... I'm working on those now. Consultant and Company do not have the same ideas on how something should be named. But if the name changes I don't have any record of knowing what to change in my parallel model. This probably sounds more painful to me than it really is, but just trying to think ahead before I create a boat load of work that could have been avoided.

Anyway it looks like I should stay away from this scenario as best I can until we get farther along in getting things ready to fly.

[robert.manna]

This is why, when working with consultants you need to clearly specify what you require and want, so that it works with your own in house standards. If you haven't documented your own in house standards yet, then I would do that first before worrying about sending out to consultants. This is why we have developed a "Family Spec" that we can fill out in order to have consultants develop families. See this blog post. (http://dorevit.blogspot.com/2006/05/revit-standardization-family-specs.html)

-R

[DoTheBIM]

Too late for that. We probably didn't really know what we wanted/required when the decision was made to move to Revit. We're only small and the system used was learned from on the job experience. No documentation of how things should be made. Not enough time for that.... blah... blah... It would have been handy for the consultant (they asked for it) but I'm not sure how much of it would have applied from Microstation 95 :shock: . Anyway we're looking to start fresh with Revit. We look to shock and awe our customers with our new efficiency and speed and abilities... but I digress. These documented things will probably happen with the new system as we move forward, but it will likely be a thing someone (probably myself) does in their spare time and never get done fully.