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david.fannon
2007-04-13, 07:21 PM
I am creating the signage for a college campus (500+rooms) and I would like to have parametric signs with as much "intelligent" information as possible including links to the door they identify. I am looking for any and all suggestions for ways to do this.

We typically (historically) prepare signage packages with a sheet of details showing all the types of signs, and all the mounting conditions (in relation to a door, typically.) Then, rather than identify every sign on a plan, we have a schedule that lists a door number, and tells what the sign associated with it should say, what type it is and how it is mounted. Any signs not related to a door are called out with a tag on the floor plans. This is a pretty good system.

I need a method that accommodates a bunch of information, such as:
The room name on the sign may not be the room name as assigned in Revit (we don't have professor's names on offices)
The room number on the sign may not be the room number in Revit (the college is re-numbering the plans, but at this stage we do not want to make a change on the documents)
Most signs are associated with a door (and the mounting is described in relation to a door) not to a room, as rooms might have multiple doors, or none at all.
Some signs are independent of doors.

Right now I'm leaning towards placing every sign, scheduling them, and manually entering the door information. This is a lot of work, but seems the most straightforward. Other options are nesting the sign information into the doors and making a modified door schedule, or nesting it into rooms and making a modified room schedule. None of these seems ideal. I guess the best would be some way to "associate" one family with another, for example have a sign family "know" what door it is identifying, and pull the door number parameter from it. Please somebody have an amazing Revit way to do this better.

twiceroadsfool
2007-04-13, 07:35 PM
I havent tried this yet... But can you place a "Sign" family IN a door family, with a Shared Parameter for Door Number, and then in that families Properties, make the Parameter = to the Mark value of the door? Mark value is a text parameter....

I havent tried it, maybe it doesnt work...

david.fannon
2007-04-20, 03:48 PM
Just posting what I ended up doing.

I added a number of shared parameters to all the doors in our project. For the majority signs, the ones that are "door associated" we enter the sign info right into the door. I made a filtered door schedule that only includes the correct parameters, and filters to only those doors that have signs.

For the signs that are non-door associated, I made a lightweight family. It includes the same shared parameters as the door above. It is face-based not wall hosted, since it doesn't need to interact with the wall except to stick to it. Also we may want to stick it to other things than walls. I grouped this under "specialty equipment" and put everything on a "signage" subcategory.

Inside my project I made set up a view template for my signage plans. In addition to turning off a lot of stuff (like furniture and most tags etc) it half-tones all the categories except the signage and annotation ones. I also have a filter going to make sure that the only "specialty equipment" that's is visible in is the stuff that has the sign parameters mentioned above.

This is far from an ideal solution for a number of reasons, but it's getting us out the door, and it is easier than CAD, so I guess I shouldn't complain too loudly. I'm looking forward to 2008's ability to connect everything to a room... and hopeful that we might one day relate families to each other.

Justin Marchiel
2007-04-20, 04:18 PM
from some other posts recently it looks like you can get furniture to report what room it is in. it would be nice if other families would do the same, or related to other families.

Justin

david.fannon
2007-04-20, 04:23 PM
Yes, I understand that families understanding a room association is available in 2008. Like you here's hoping on more in the future.