Ceilings

[kknox681430]

Good Morning,

I am an Inventor user who is responsible for learning, setting up and transitioning my department over to Revit. So far so good although it is a big task! I have really relied on these forums for help with all the things that were not included in my training program but I have run into an issue and I am hoping someone can help.

Our company offers construction services, along with the design portion. The idea is we would like to create our designs in Revit, using all of our recommended materials so that we can continue through and offer a reliable quote on construction services from the Schedule created in Revit. Due to the nature of Control rooms there are a number of restrictions on materials and furniture for Acoustical properties so I was thinking of creating families for all of our suggested materials so they can be loaded right into our company template to be used in the design. I am running into issues with Ceilings. We have particular Armstrong ceiling tiles we recommend (4 different types). I found similar tiles on SEEK so planned to just adjust them as necessary but they are project files, not family files. Through a separate thread in this forum I learned how to copy and paste it into my project for use but when I then place a ceiling using that type it does not show up in the schedule I created. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? I would like to be able to place it and then have it show in the schedule how many tiles I need for the area......

Also - I haven't tried it yet but can I copy and paste this directly into my template I am creating for the company?

Any and all help is appreciated

P.S. I know it is odd that we are just starting with Revit but are on 2012 but that is due to the Vault version the company uses with Inventor. We started with a new version of Revit, which is what my training was on, and then had to downgrade to 2012 so I could use Vault.

[Steve_Stafford]

Ceilings are what we call System Families, they exist inside project files only (inside the "system"), not as a separate component families like doors, windows or furniture. You can copy/paste a system family from one project to another. You can also use Transfer Project Standards.

Ideally the project template you create to start off a project should have all of the system families (walls, floors, ceilings, roofs etc) you are likely to use routinely.

I'll also mention that materials have change a lot since 2012 because you will face learning and relearning materials when you do get to upgrade. They changed them significantly in Revit 2013 and then fixed/tweaked them again in 2014. They are working toward more consistent material alignment/sharing between Autodesk software (AutoCAD,Inventor, Max, Revit, Navisworks). That isn't an easy task because there are material characteristics that Revit has that others don't and vice versa.

As I understand it, Vault doesn't really provide any real benefit (from a Revit software only bias) other than providing file level company control and tracking over file access and usage. It isn't really equivalent to part check in / check out like for Inventor, since for Revit the project file is the building (or clean room in your case).

[kknox681430]

Thank you Steve! Maybe I will discuss with my manager the use of Vault. To be honest, I haven't even looked at Collaboration yet as I am the only one in the company using Revit so far. I believe that they want to use Vault to keep all of the components of a project together for future reference. We are primarily a manufacturing company but as we have been in the industry for so long we've started to offer beginning to end type services for projects. Inventor is the program that is used to design all of our manufactured items for the project, Revit will be used for the initial design of the entire area.

Is there a way I can get this system family to show up on my schedule?

[Steve_Stafford]

Schedules are based on categories, so a Ceiling schedule will list all the ceilings you create. Ceilings won't start showing up in a schedule until you place at least one. A multi-category schedule can list elements that belong to "any" category but keep in mind that not very many category elements share a lot of parameters. The more categories listed the fewer useful values appear in the schedule fields.


The only elements that can be listed in a schedule without creating them first are rooms, areas, spaces and sheets.