HELP!! Family not showing up in visibility list?!!

[Richard McCarthy]

G'day mates!
I just discovered I could not FIND the custom family I created in the visibility list. And then I discovered a lot of families are not showing up on the visibility list either. I found that you have to turn on/off the whole category (eg. Generic Model), to be able to control the visibility of the family, but at the cost of making other families in the same category also disappear.

My question is, Is there a way to control the visibility of a specific family in Revit? (Let's say "MODEL TEXT", and not just temporary hide and isolate... I want to control how they are print out too). Since I can't seem to find a way to isolate the family from visibility list because they are not showing up, I am stumped.....

HELP HELP!

[Andre Carvalho]

You can either use filters or worksets. Using filters, you can add something like "hide" under "comments" (under the family properties) and then create a filter that hides objects that contains the word "hide" under comments. To apply the filter to other views, you can create a view template.

Another option is through the use of worksets. You can have one workset set to be hidden in all views and then just move to that workset, all the objects you don't want to see. Working with worksets allows you to even close the entire workset and all elements belonging to the workset will disappear from your project, doesn't matter which view they are.

Andre Carvalho

[Richard McCarthy]

Thanks for the reply Andre,
But it still doesn't work, the problem is I have linked multiple Revit files into other files, basically, nesting on multiple levels. The family (model text) I want to filter out can't be filter out using the filtering method due to the fact it is linking to other file. (All filtering won't work on link-in files....it is ignored) The only way I found that could work is to pin-point exact family name in the visibility list and turn that off, but the problem is family does not show up in visibility list !! This is just plain bizzare, because it shows up on the Project Browser Family List. So is there a way to make family show up in visibility list? and What makes custom family show up on visibility list?

[Andre Carvalho]

I didn't know they were linked files... Unfortunately you can't apply filters to linked files when they are nested to the host file. Instead, you have to open the linked file, and apply the filter there. Then, in the host file, set the link under visibility graphics overrides to show as per linked view...

There's no way to make the family to show up in the visibility list. Visibility controls family categories. That said, if you turn off the category "Doors", all doors in that view will be turned off, independently of which families the different doors belong to.

Andre Carvalho

[Dimitri Harvalias]

When you create your family you can assign objects to sub-categories of the main categories. You will then have visibility control over these specific elements.
When you are in the family editor you can add sub-categories from the Settings > Object Styles menu. Any sub-cat you add will automatically be added to a project when the family is loaded.

[Andre Carvalho]

And adding to what Dimitri just explained, in your example "Model Texts" (because they are not families to be loaded into the project, but are just Generic Models) you just do it directly in the project, going to Settings > Object Styles > select generic models > click New under Modify Subcategories > Make sure Generic Models is selected and enter a new name (like Model text). Turning off Model text under Generic models, will turn off only the elements belonging to this subcategory.

Once it is done, it can be easy to control other views by creating a view template for it.

Andre Carvalho

[Richard McCarthy]

WOW, IT WORKS!!
THANKS SO MUCH Dimitri, Andre!!!


I owe you guys some beers!!
:D

Also, just adding to what you guys have explained, the Family/Object you want to have control over visibility needs to be set to that newly created subcategory. (So it is correlated to the same category)

To do so :
1. Select the object > Properties
2. Under "Identity Data" > "Subcategory" > Select the subcategory you have just created (eg. MODEL TEXT).

Now you can easily control how you want the family to be visible, regardless if it is nesting inside a host file or not.