Detail Group- Project to Family

[mmiles]

Hi all,

I made some detail lines and grouped them to make the elevation of a garage door look nicer. This was on-the-fly, and now I would like to use that detail group as a guide for making the garage door family. How do I get the detail lines, or group, into the family environment from the project environment?

Thanks.

[aretap]

:(From my understanding there is no way to cross file types. Project lines will not go into families and the other way around. I would love it if someone could say that i am wrong!!

[mmiles]

That is too bad. We often start out with some ootb families and develop the look, or the detailing while in the project. There must be a good way to transport linework back and forth.

I think I will export my detail group- now saved as a project- to AutoCAD, and then link that into my family. By the time I finish that, I will have spent more time on this than it would have taken to just start the linework over from scratch. Oh well....

anyone else have thoughts on this, please remark. Thanks again.

[rkitect]

The best practice for this would be to use the Edit Family button to edit the family while in the project, add your detail lines, then load back into the project. This will not only trickle all of your family changes throughout the project but allow you to keep those changes for future projects (even go as far as including that family in your template so that you don't have to load it next time!)

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Interesting, I had a client with the exact question last week. Here is my response.

You can't copy/paste a group from a project into a family but you can copy/paste model lines.

Depending on how your detail group was created you need to follow a number of steps.

Option 1
If the detail group was created using only model lines you can ungroup an instance of the group in your project file and then copy all the lines to your clipboard.
Open a new family using the furniture template. Remember that the object category you choose will be the category the units will schedule under.
You should be able to paste the model lines into the new family and then move them to an appropriate place relative to the origin.

Option 2
If the detail group was created using detail lines then you need to add another step to convert the detail lines to model lines.
In your project file, ungroup the detail group.
Select all the lines and copy them to the clipboard. Still in the project, select the floor tool. While in sketch mode paste the lines from the clipboard into your floor sketch. Still in sketch mode, select all the lines again and copy them to the clipboard again. Exit the sketch.
Go to the family file and paste the lines into the family. They should come in as model lines.

HTH

[aretap]

Didn't realize the detail vs model line diff. that is a nice trick to know, thanks,

[mmiles]

Thanks, Dmitri. I recall reading similar idea several weeks ago- perhaps it was your words I was reading. But, I really had no idea about that. I will test it right away.

BTW- the reason I used detail lines was for quickness of task - make the elevation look good; submit for permit to build small garage, and move on. Detail lines seem to provide more flexibility with line weights in that regard. But, developing the family and the project details simulataneously is a good idea.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

I must give credit where credit is due. Thanks to Scott Hopkins for pointing out the basic model to detail trick.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=15966&highlight=model+line+detail+convert