Resize (symbol/annotation) family in view.

[Martin P]

This is a little hard to describe... But for example I have some door/window tags that look fine at 1:50 on floor plans, they look too big at 1:100, room tags are the same - at the moment I have to create a new family that is physically smaller. The same applies to symbols in Revit for certain things.

I would really like to be able to select theses types of families and resize them PER VIEW (not globally!!) in the properties box in the same sort of manner as we can with imported dwgs - ie they come in at a scale 1.0 (the scale they are drawn at in the family editor) - but I can decrease this to say 0.75 or whatever I want -and the family resizes (all from insertion point). It would save me having lots of duplicate families for different view scales.

Electrical components that use symbols dont work well either.

[dazza163968596]

Great Idea, I have symbols nested in all my electrical fixture families, they look good on 1:20 plans, OK on 1:50 plans and totally cluttered and unreadable at 1:100. To be able to click them in a view and set their percentage size (ie 50% when in 1:100 view) this would be great especially if it adjusted the text size on any labels in a symbol by the same amount.

[Martin P]

text and labels too, definitely!!

[aaronrumple]

This is just asking for the mess of AutoCAD symbology. No one knows how big anythings is or should be.

I have several family types within a single family. Similar to having several different families, but a little simpler to maintain since I can use a type catalog.

What would be a better approach is to allow the height of a label to be exposed to or as a parameter. I think this would solve the issue and be much more Revit like than a true size muddled with a scale factor.

As for the symbology of electrical symbols - use model lines within the family and not a symbol to represent the symbol. These model lines will autoscale with the view scale.

[Martin P]

This is just asking for the mess of AutoCAD symbology. No one knows how big anythings is or should be.

I have several family types within a single family. Similar to having several different families, but a little simpler to maintain since I can use a type catalog.

What would be a better approach is to allow the height of a label to be exposed to or as a parameter. I think this would solve the issue and be much more Revit like than a true size muddled with a scale factor.

As for the symbology of electrical symbols - use model lines within the family and not a symbol to represent the symbol. These model lines will autoscale with the view scale.

The problem with that solution is that I would have to edit every single family (annotation and symbol families) that come with Revit, and every single family I have ever made adding new parameters etc etc - seems a very long way to go about simply make something 50% smaller - would it not be easier to select it and say "make this 50% smaller in this view"?.. I do agree though that label sizes ought to be available as a paramater, but I dont see it as replacing the wish. I also agree that it would be more Revit like - but I disagree that it would always be a better and simpler solution

I really dont think it would be a mess/muddle or in any way complicated at all, personally I think it would prove far simpler in comparison to doing it with parameters. I really dont think Revit should just do things differently just because it can - the point is surely to make things as easy as possible?

[dazza163968596]

We are only talking about changing the symbol size not the components. Symbols are a set size ie 3mm across when printed, this has an actual size of 300mm when in a 1:100 view, 300mm can cover a lot. Symbols should have a display percentage per view so the same component can be shown on a 1:20 plan or 1:100 plan and then manually change the display size of the symbol ie. 100% in the 1:20 view but set the symbol size to 20% in the 1:100 view.

Using model lines wouldn't work as most of our symbols have filled regions in them and a text label. text appears the same size no matter what scale the view is at the ability to scale the symbol display size would shrink or grow the label as well.

[Martin P]

Phew, I'm glad you cleared that up - I was getting confused there about what I was actually asking for?!! it is labels and symbols I have the problem with too. Plans at 1: 50 are fine - 1 :100 are horrible as text etc covers thing as you say.

All my electrical components are formed with model lines - I see what Aaron was getting at there, by doing them as electrical components with model lines they scale up and down (apart from the labels) - its symbol families that dont do this - they stay the same size on paper. - I worked around the symbols long ago to do this - filled regions I had to do as lots of lines close together - so it is a workaround really with electrical families as symbols really ought to be the way its done - model lines work, but filled regions are a problem.

My particular trouble is really with Tags and symbols, the model line workaround I used for electrical symbology - but symbols with filled regions would be preferred....

[aaronrumple]

Here you go.
This only took a few minutes to set up. You can have as many different sizes as you like (types). The symbol is also scaling with the view.

The only thing difficult is labels as already noted. However getting basic symbology to scale or not to scale with view is quite simple as is making a "scale" parameter. From this basic example you can slice and dice the math any way you want.

As far as parameters, once you get into developing using nested components , you'll be able to reuse content much more flexibly. I make all my bits and pieces as unhosted and then insert then as hosted. This makes parameters a snap and lets me more quickly flip things around.

[Martin P]

Here you go.
.

Aaron, sorry I seem to have confused things a bit. I dont use symbols in my electrical families any more - due to the problems they caused I switched to using model lines etc, but you must admit this is a workaround really and filled regions etc ought to be availiable via using symbols. I think the Revit help suggest using symbols if I remember correctly? And the families that come with revit also use symbols - using model lines is a workaround to hide the failure of symbols to work in electrical components.

Using types wouldnt account for the fact I may have duplicate views at different scales, so it wont help me to change the type as things would then appear too small at 1:50 and look fine at 1:100 !!!!

Types would be fine for tags and other symbolic sort of families that are 1 view only, but I still think a "scale in view" option is going to be less hassle than editing loads and loads of families to have the required paramaters......

It is exactly the same arguement as the scale (resize) tool with Revit, it is used only to resize "symbolic" objects and is very very useful. It is possible to do everything via paramaters, but it just isnt as easy a simple scale option in the properties for symbolic families.

[DanielleAnderson]

...filled regions etc ought to be availiable via using symbols.

I agree with this part of the argument. We had to create a bunch of custom symbols that show up in the plan of a 3d object for a project with a lot of specialized components. A 3rd party had designed all these signs and we had to go with them, but they were very hard to create with no filled region option in the family creator. I don't remember what we ended up doing, I got taken off the project.