Stretchable Mechanical Family

[Beancud]

Hi I am trying to create a stretchable mechanical family.

I am trying to apply the same concept of stretchable beam with linked parameters to a... say my piece of rectangular duct.

I believe I have made the correct parameters, alignment, dimentioning and reference plane.

When I load this family in, it doesn't seem to want to stretch? what am doing wrong?! I feel like I missed something vital!

Any help would be appreciated!

[Simon.Whitbread]

When I load this family in, it doesn't seem to want to stretch? what am doing wrong?! I feel like I missed something vital!


This is a guess - an educated one though (I'm WR [in transit, no workstation - Without Revit])

Two ways to create a stretchable family...


Use a 'line based' template
The dimension you want as Stretchable needs to be an 'Instance parameter'


I'm guessing you should be going with option 2 as you already have created the family.

Go to Family Types, in the family editor, click on the offending parameter and modify. In the next dialog, you get the option to chose whether this is a 'type' or instance parameter.

cheers

[Simon.Whitbread]

I'm off the plane, and tested the family, heres the result...


HTH

simon

[Michael.c]

Hi I am trying to create a stretchable mechanical family.

I am trying to apply the same concept of stretchable beam with linked parameters to a... say my piece of rectangular duct.

I believe I have made the correct parameters, alignment, dimentioning and reference plane.

When I load this family in, it doesn't seem to want to stretch? what am doing wrong?! I feel like I missed something vital!

Any help would be appreciated!

This is an interesting one...
There is a fairly basic item that is absent from the duct component of Revit MEP, that perhaps a "stretchable" family would work well for....I'm talking about an infinately variable duct transition piece.

The out-of-the-box transition appears to be limited to having an equal taper on both sides to reduce / increase the duct width, and similarly an equal taper top and bottom to reduce / increase the duct height. Also, the transition length seems to be governed by minimum taper angles, so that when there is only a small change in width, the piece is ridiculously short!
What is needed is a piece that can be flat on one side and tapered on the other, flat on top / tapered on the bottom and vise versa, tapered on both sides with varying angles etc etc etc. And the user should be able to stipulate the length.

Beancud....would the family you're trying to create cater for all this??

[Beancud]

Simon, Thanks for that!

I thought it might be the template, although I was thinking in the line of stretchable piece both ways. Width and Depth. I know that can be done in properites dialogue box but....... *sigh* the company wants me to make something more easy for dummies..

I was also thinking of using this family as one of those bits in between. The adjustable piece that gets you out of sticky situation. It could be the plenum box, mixing box, AHU body. Something like AHU or VAV has fixed mechanical parts on 1 end and adjustable tail on the other.



This is an interesting one...
There is a fairly basic item that is absent from the duct component of Revit MEP, that perhaps a "stretchable" family would work well for....I'm talking about an infinately variable duct transition piece.

The out-of-the-box transition appears to be limited to having an equal taper on both sides to reduce / increase the duct width, and similarly an equal taper top and bottom to reduce / increase the duct height. Also, the transition length seems to be governed by minimum taper angles, so that when there is only a small change in width, the piece is ridiculously short!
What is needed is a piece that can be flat on one side and tapered on the other, flat on top / tapered on the bottom and vise versa, tapered on both sides with varying angles etc etc etc. And the user should be able to stipulate the length.

Beancud....would the family you're trying to create cater for all this??

I use this tranistion. It is basically the same as any transition but has a adjustable length tab. The key is to put in the right offset amount and use the anchor button. This transition want let you pu in crazy amount, like 50000.

[Michael.c]

I use this tranistion. It is basically the same as any transition but has a adjustable length tab. The key is to put in the right offset amount and use the anchor button. This transition want let you pu in crazy amount, like 50000.

Thanks....I'll give it a go.

This is the one we have developed if you want to try it out.
It's a bit cumbersome and will involve trial and error till you end up adjusting the right bits...but once you get used to it you'll find it does what you want it to do...

[Beancud]

Thanks....I'll give it a go.

This is the one we have developed if you want to try it out.
It's a bit cumbersome and will involve trial and error till you end up adjusting the right bits...but once you get used to it you'll find it does what you want it to do...

Cool thanks, more to play with! >=0D

So you've used the line based family with couple of paramters? I still doesn't anchor nicely to 1 side or 1 corner. But I supose mines the same... Still need a bit more thought and tweaking.,,,,

Some issues and how to solve it:

-If you change the size of your duct and still want the anchor to 1 corner you need to adjust the offset on the transition piece.

The way this work is that if your large duct is 2400x2400 and small duct is 800x800

- Half of the larger duct side than subtruct the size of smaller duct, which is 400 in this case than add 100 to either width/height offset to make it 500 by 400 or vice versa. The smaller duct will instantly look disjointed, but do not warry - hit the spinning arrow on the transition piece and it should automatcially anchor to the corner you want. Each time you hit the spinning arrow it will anchor to each of the 4 corners.

Not sure about the formula of this since I haven't tried odd sizes....

[Michael.c]

Cool thanks, more to play with! ....

No prob....

Beancurd, where are you located??

[Beancud]

No prob....

Beancurd, where are you located??


I'm currently located in Brisbane