door family

[paul.meco]

Greetings all,

I am fully engaged in the swamp that is Revit Families trying to make my way through. I am attempting to make a door slab to nest into a sliding door family. The door slab I am making in a Generic Model Template, so pretty much from scratch. I am hoping to then nest that panel into my door family via components. I am having a couple of problems at this point -

1. I am making the door slab in elevation, and then extruding its thickness (1-3/4" for arguments sake). I would very much like to be able to control that via parameters, but can not figure out how to do this. Since it is an extrusion, and the "depth" of that extrusion is controlled via a dialog box, instead of graphically, I can not set a reference plane and add a label to a dimension like I am everywhere else. Does anyone know how to do this, since I have scene it done?

2. Once I have my slab how I want it, how do I go about nesting that piece into a "door" family. I tried initially to make the slab in a "mass" family template, and when I brought it in as a component, I had no ability to control its visibility ("The component you just created is not visible in this view..."). When I checked visibility graphics, there was no option to turn "mass" on or off. When I tried to convert the "mass" family into a "door" family, it told me that "mass" families can not be converted to or from any other family type. So now I am starting from generic model so as not to have any pre-existing parameters. Will I be able to load this into the "door" family or will I encounter similar problems. Does anyone have a technique for nesting door slabs into door families?

Thanks for any and all help!

[iru69]

Regarding the panel thickness: Actually, you can add reference planes and add a dimension label - it will "override" the dialog box. You indicate that you can not set it - have you tried it?

Regarding the nesting: Forget about the mass families. Using a generic family or a generic family that's been changed to a door family is the way to go. You simply load the panel family into the host door family and place it. If you have more than one panel family nested, you can create a family type parameter and assign it to the nested panel to control which one you see.

There's quite a bit of info here (I also posted a working example of a nested door towards the end of that thread):
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=15740

p.s. posting the family you're having trouble with is often helpful to those trying to offer help.

[paul.meco]

I have figured out my previous questions - but have a new ones. If you use a nested door panel, and in the project you decide to update the size of the door, how do you ensure that that door panel updates as well. I have attached the file I am working with, if anyone has any advice, i would appreciate it. Also, I got the door thickness to work by picking the extrusion, and then selecting the dimension for the depth, making it visible, then tagging it with a label. Sadly, I tried the same technique for the piece of glass in the door, and did not seem to find the same control I did with the door panel? Once again, I appreciate all the help.

[iru69]

Linking the door size of the panel to parameters in the host family is explained in great detail by Steve Stafford in the link I posted above. Did you try following that?

You're on the right track with the door thickness, but you didn't lock them to the reference planes. If you're using reference planes to control the extrusion (which I generally recommend for extrusions), you need to dimension to the reference planes, not the extrusion. I didn't see anything for the glass, but the same technique will work for that as well - draw reference planes, lock them to the extrusion, add dimension labels.

That's about all I can do for now. Keep working at it!

[paul.meco]

If someone can give me some help in figuring out how to control where and how the parameters will "spring" from, that would be very helpful. Right now, if you look at the files I posted, and try to "flex" all the different parameters, some of them conflict. How do I ensure that if I have a string of parameters, that they move in concert with one another? How do I know which direction they will move. How do I make a reference line that will stay vs one that will move. Also, how do I make a reference line be the origin of a nested family. I have tried to choose "defines origin" on the properties box, but it doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions? Thanks all.

[paul.meco]

I am still looking for some help on family creation - specifically, can someone explain the way ref planes work in terms of labels (ie left, right, strong, weak, etc.) and why you would use one as apposed to another. Thanks