Best Practice: Elevators

[ron.sanpedro]

I am trying to figure out the best way to address elevators, especially in very tall buildings.
One option is to pull some (cleaned up) DWG stuff into a Specialty Equipment family, and just repeat on every floor.
Another option might be to put that family on the lowest floor only, then on each floor do a Plan Region in the shaft opening, that looks all the way down to the shaft floor, and thus a single set of linework is used on every floor, and alighment is guaranteed.
Another thought is to do the family and place it on the bottom of the shaft, and use the invisible line trick, with a parameter, so get the elevator system as a single family to cross the cut plane of any given floor level, and thus show its graphics. This seems to be the best approach, at least theoretically.

So, anyone have any comments or suggestions?

Thanks,
Gordon

[Dimitri Harvalias]

If you create your elevator shaft using a shaft opening you can include symbolic lines as part of your opening sketch. I think for most purposes this can show enough detail for overall plans.

Details at the elevator door are part of a separate family that creates the door opening at each level. I do it this way so I can scedule the openings as doors to include fire rating information.

For detail plans I have been using detail components that I simply copy to each detail view.

[Calvn_Swing]

I've been itching to find a way to make a nice elevator family that would hit multiple floors, cut the shaft opening in multiple floors, and even populate doors per floor. However, I've been unable to find a good way to do so. Alas...

Right now we're just cutting a shaft opening, and placing detail lines in the opening.

Sigh....

[Mr Spot]

We include the elevator car as symbolic lines as part of the door family. This is plenty enough detail for us...

[lennonstefan]

Here is a variation on your discussion; i'm working in Poland, and the graphic standards here for any floor openings (mechanical shaft or otherwise) are labelled not with an X, but a solid filled tapering "L" shape if the hole goes down though the floor, and a dashed line "7" in the opposite corner if the shaft is above you in the ceiling. I'm currently using a Detail Item family that has symbolic lines with parameters for turning off and on the "L" and "7" symbols.

The problem is that I must align this to the 4 sides of every shaft opening, and then i have to copy it onto all the floors where the shaft occurs, and turn on and off the L and 7 on the top and bottom levels of the shaft...
Is there a way remove some steps or make the graphics automatically occur where on the floors where i need them? this whole thing starts to become a headache when a shaft changes and cuts fewer levels, then the detail items has to be manually deleted, or it appears in plan that the shaft is still there!

[patricks]

Our elevator family has the cab modeled and can be placed at any height (instance parameter), but it also has the guide rails modeled with a parameter for its height. So set the rails to be the correct height, and then the family will be cut on every floor plan, and the symbolic lines used for the cab in plan view will show up on every plan.

lennonstefan you should be able to do something similar with your required graphics. Model at least the rails and give them a height parameter, and then use symbolic lines for the L and 7 shape. Then those symbolic lines should show up on ever floor, always in the same place.

[lennonstefan]

"patricks
lennonstefan you should be able to do something similar with your required graphics. Model at least the rails and give them a height parameter, and then use symbolic lines for the L and 7 shape. Then those symbolic lines should show up on ever floor, always in the same place."

thank you, but i think i didn't state my question clearly.
(see attached image...)
the question is, can you make the symbolic lines in a shaft opening have automatically look like in the picture, depending on if the floor plan is the lowest level of the shaft, a middle floor, or the top floor of the shaft?

so far the best solution i have is to make a shaft, then add this Detail Item, with parametric symbolic lines and solid hatch. but this has to be manually added on each floor and aligned to the shaft, which seems to me like wasted time, and a place for errors.

[patricks]

You might be able to work something out with actual extrusions in the elevator family and careful visibility settings of those extrusions. Also make them have their own subcategory in case you need to hide them in RCP views or something.

[Scott Womack]

The elevator families can be create to do multiple floors, etc. I am in the process of finishing a set that I believe I'm going to try to peddle to one or more elevator manufacturers, or a pay content site. I know Kone already can provide either a Revit model or a Sketchup model on some types from their website.

Mine has the doors as part of the family, tied to the elevator capacity, and size or become center opening ,etc. The family can even adjust for the bottom two floor levels being a different floor to floor height than the remaining upper floors.

I have chosen to drive my families with a Type Catalog, based upon the published information from the various manufacturers.

As a teaser, I've attached a PDF of the instructions I've written for using one of the families.This is connected to the family with a URL parameter. This will give some hint of the complexity that you get into with something with as many variables as elevators. I could have kept all elevators within one family, but broke it up because the Catalog files got way too long. I'm in the process of trying to verify as much of this information as I can with the major elevator manufacturers, but all but one manufacturer acts like this is beneath them to provide any information.

Cheers!

[tomnewsom]

Bloody hell!

That's quite some family you have there, Scott :)

[Scott Womack]

Here is an exported image of one of the families, placed into a project. It has taken the better part of two months of work at home to get these into shape. One of the more painful parts was having to wade through the information from the major manufacturers, and try to make sense/compare the information from each in order to develop the catalog files to dive the families.

[Andre Carvalho]

What I like to do with elevators is to use a column family template instead of a specialty equipment template. Specialty equipment families only have one reference level, thus you have to play with an offset distance from that level to define which levels the elevator will show...

Starting from a column family, you have two reference levels, which allows you to set up exactly on which level you elevator starts and which level it stops, doesn't matter the floor to floor height. On top of that, it automatically adjusts itself if you change the level height. And you don't have to keep it as a column category, since you can go to Family Category and Parameters and change it to be a Specialty Equipment. It will still keep both reference levels where you can constrain your family. By doing this, the family will be cut on all levels that are between the lower and the top level they are constrained.

I don't use 3D elements. I download the DWG from the manufacturer and explode it into a blank Revit family to convert the lines to native Revit lines. Then I copy and paste it into my final family (so I don't bring the trash from CAD) as symbolic lines. I have reference planes with a few parameters set up for cabin width, cabin depth, door width, etc. By pasting the Revit lines I just converted into my final family, Revit will use the Automatic Sketch dimensions to make that bunch of 2D lines parametric. Automatic dimensions will read dimensions from strong reference as reference planes, so you don't need to lock the 2D lines to the reference planes and they will still flex properly.

I do the same as described above to a section view in the family, by pasting the section view of the elevator, containing the cabin, rails, hydraulic pistons, etc. Again, by using a few reference planes which will flex the cabin height, pit depth, etc...
By doing this, you'll see the cabin in section, whenever you cut a section through the shaft. The level where the cabin will be in your section is controlled by an offset parameter.

Works great.

Andre Carvalho

[Scott Womack]

Andre,

Good tip on the column family, that might be a decent possibility if I every redo these families (fat chance on that happening soon). As always your answers spark some interesting thought. Glad to have finally met you face to face at AU!

To achieve some of the things I have in the family, it would then have had to be nested in to a wall hosted family, so the elevator doors could be placed into the wall to cut the hosting wall. Due to the doors, Id still have to be calculating some offsets, since I compensated for up to two floor levels that are different Floor to floor heights that the remainder of the floor levels.

[Andre Carvalho]

Thanks Scott. Great to meet you at AU as well. I hope we see each other at the end of the year in Vegas again.

This example is not as fancy as yours and it is just the start, but I'll post it here in case someone want to have a better understanding of what I mentioned in my post above.

Andre Carvalho

[twiceroadsfool]

Thats a nice family Scott. The only thing i would do is make it not wall hosted (i didnt open it but it looks to be wall hosted). IMHO what i would then do, is stick it in a model group thats saved somewhere, with different walls for each FTF, with doors in them. Really, theres two doors: the cab and the ones on the Floor (in the wall). But those walls may very well be different on every floor, in finish, anyway. Plus some elevators open only on certain sides, on certain floors. Either way, that issue is kind of "eh." I know the finish can be put on as a seperate wall, but more than likely we (at least here) say in the drawings to see the partition type for the throat depth of that frame, and this (i suppose) may hold true for the Door frames in the wall, too. Im not sure, as my experience with elevators is limited.

Nicely done!

[Scott Womack]

Thats a nice family Scott. The only thing i would do is make it not wall hosted
Aaron,

I understand you comment, and may make one that is not hosted. However, since the family can accommodate via check boxes 2 unevenly spaced floors, I thought it was better to have the primary doors a part of the elevator family.That way if the family is flipped, or center doors selected, ALL of the doors change/move together. As to the front-back doors, I'm still struggling with that one. We'll see later on. We don't do a lot with elevators that have doors on both ends of the cab. As to Wall thickness, the Jams are set to expand to the thickness of the wall. If it is a two wall situation, then there is an instance parameter that can be used to expand the frame outward to accommodate this. I tried to cover both contingencies.

Scott

[twiceroadsfool]

Understood. Its definetely a great looking family. Im just trying to deconstruct the building part of it, i guess. (Youre gonna laugh)... I stood in the lobby at the office the other day, and i just kept making the elevator open and close while i looked at it, HAHAHA.

i think its just a case of the purist in me wanting it modeled the way its built. IE, the Door on the CAB is certianly part of the elevator. The doors in the WALLS are "part" of the elevator, but not "a part" of the elevator, if that makes sense. I think i could see them appearing on a door schedule for the floors theyre on, but i guess that depends on the office and the elevator manufacturer, and the application.

Just my wheels spinning. Great fam nonetheless. :)

[patricks]

(Youre gonna laugh)... I stood in the lobby at the office the other day, and i just kept making the elevator open and close while i looked at it, HAHAHA.



LOL and other people passing by were like WTH is THAT guy doing???

[twiceroadsfool]

LOL and other people passing by were like WTH is THAT guy doing???

Theyre pretty used to dismissing behavior with a "Yup, thats Aaron," and moving on. LOL.

[DigiPara]

Hi there,

This is an interesting discussion, in particular for us as developer of elevator software for more than 15 years. By chance I came accross Revit 12 months ago and we are seeing the big need for better elevator tools inside Revit.
On June 6th, 2011 we will release Elevatorarchitect for Autodesk Revit. The project is sponsored by the elevator industry and the best information for you is:
--- IT IS FREE ---
http://www.digipara.com/elevatorarchitect.aspx
I encourage you to visit our website and to download the application (or register for the newsletter until it is available).
We are happy to get your comments, feedback and suggestions.

Best regards,

Andreas Fleischmann
CEO

DigiPara GmbH
Andreas.Fleischmann@digipara.com

[patricks]

hey that looks like it will be pretty cool. I didn't see how to get on the mailing list so I just liked your Facebook page. Will you announce its release on there?

[DigiPara]

Hernando,
Yes we will infrom on Facebook too. Btw, best is if you fill the form "Ask a question" at the bottom of the page to be added to our newsletter and to become informed when it is available immediately.
Andreas