Existing Doors supplied by the factory?

[DaveP]

This has been discussed before, but I'd like to start the thread again.

Could we have the factory add a New/Existing parameter to the Revit-supplied Door families?
I'm about to embark on duplicating the Door families & drawing the leaf at 45 degrees instead of 90. I believe this is pretty much an industry standard, so it would be nice to be able to just change a parameter on a bunch of doors at once instead of having to load twice as many families and then swapping out all the 36" doors, then all the 42" door, then all the 48" doors.

As an alternative, rather than having a New/Existing check box, how about a parameter for Opening Angle? The default would be 90, but you could set the Angle to 45 (or 30, or 60) for Existing. That might take care of the 3D display showing closed doors, too.

Does this warrant a Poll?

[Haden]

I have built a series of doors (not all fixed & finished, but some are working) which have just that -- a swing angle parameter which is an instance (not a type) parameter. Unfortunately, it does not automatically correspond to the phase (new or existing) of the door, so I have to select all the existing doors and change that parameter to 45 degrees, etc. I do believe that the developers were querying us recently in order to incorporate these issues in an upcoming version, but I don't know how soon that is slated for release.

[Roger Evans]

As far as I am aware it is not an industry standard here in the UK ~ although desirable to show doors at 45 deg it is not essential

Can you clarify what you mean ? that Existing doors are shown at 45 & new doors at 90 ?

Generally I reckon its a good idea ~ I could live with that provided cupboard doors could be made 30 / 60

[DaveP]

Yes, we typically show New doors at 90 & Existing at 45.

My initial thought was that there's simply a New/Existing flag that shows one or the other. But the more I thought about it, you'd get much more flexibility if you could specify the angle. That way people could show it anyway they wanted - regardless of the Phasing.

The important concept, though, is that there is just one Family that can be toggled from New to Existing. I'm working on a Floor plan at the moment with a couple dozen Door Types. I have to pick one, Select All Instances, CAREFULLY select the matching Existing door Type, and update them. It's the CAREFULLY part I'm nervous about. I have to make sure I don't accidentally pick, say a 34" x 84" Existing door to replace a 36" x 84" New door.

[patricks]

I believe one of the tutorials shows how to modify one of the existing families to add a door opening angle parameter for the plan view representation. You can make the angle an instance parameter, a type parameter, or you could just set the angle in the family if you never would need to change it.

[Haden]

I believe one of the tutorials shows how to modify one of the existing families to add a door opening angle parameter for the plan view representation. You can make the angle an instance parameter,...

As I mentioned above, I have already built such doors, and the instance parameter does work fine. I think it is too redundant to build a separate family for each degree of swing, when all else is the same about a given door. What is needed, though, is a way to automatically show doors of the same family which are in the existing phase at 45 degree swing, and the same family doors in the new phase at 90 degrees, rather than having to pick each instance which is already at a certain phase, and change its instance parameter manually. I gather that we should also have this feature still allow an override to each condition if you want it. For example, there may occasionally be a new door which needs to be shown at 45 just to make the graphics of the drawing look ok. In this instance, the door schedule will obviously communicate to the contractor that it is indeed a new door.

[Alex Page]

Its not the Standard where I come from, We use arcs for door swings of new doors and a single line for door swings of existing doors. My method of doing this
1. In all my door families I have a new and existing symbolic door swing loaded as a component. I also have an existing yes/no parameter which these swings visabilities are tied to
2. I also use instance parameters for swing angle.

In the case of showing 45 degree for existing, couldnt you use the method I use but have the symbolic door swing of the existing door drawn at 45 degrees and not looking at the swing angle parameter? (ie: you could change the new doors swing angle, but not the existing). Then by changing the families type to existing, the correct symbolic door swing will show

[clarkitekt]

I have created a family that the swing angle is parametric. See attached.

It's a work in progress, but it is actually fairly detailed. You can adjust the plan swing and model swing. The pivot point is accurate also. There are some other features you'll have to play around with...I don't remember how much I had completed.

[LRaiz]

You can make a family where swing angle is a type parameter. Then if you want to replace ALL 90 degree doors with 45 degree ones you would not need to do it one by one. Just make a door schedule that shows door types and have doors grouped by type. By changing a value in schedule cell that shows type dropdown you will be changing all doors from one type to another.

[DaveP]

Thanks for all the suggestions and hints, everyone.

I realize I can modify/create a family to accomplish this, but the whole point of my original post was - doesn't EVERYONE Existing doors? As evidenced by this thread, EVERYONE is creating their own families.

I thought it would be nice if we could have something from the factory that would give us consistent Existing doors - rather than having everyone doing it differently.