Annotation​/Symbols not showing in plan

[Anonymous]

07-17-2009 04:21 AM

I have created new families as face based, as ceiling and wall based families don't work on linked architects' models. When creating these new families, the annotation symbols I used before, will no longer work on the vertical faces. Is there something I need to do to the symbol for it to show in plan when on a vertical wall?

I'm sure it can be done, as the default duplex socket families seem to work this way, so I've created all sockets with this symbol and adapted. There's nothing I can see in these families that I can see is different. It's getting extremely frustrating as I'm drawing these families over and over on different templates.

This was copied from a thread from back in 2009, which goes on to say there is no fix to the problem.

To reiterate, I can't get an annotative family to show up in plan view for any wall hosted light fixtures. Right now, I just have detail lines drawn in the light fixture family, but that does not adjust to different scales.

Is there still no fix to this problem?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Jordan

[Anonymous]

I have created new families as face based, as ceiling and wall based families don't work on linked architects' models. When creating these new families, the annotation symbols I used before, will no longer work on the vertical faces. Is there something I need to do to the symbol for it to show in plan when on a vertical wall?

I'm sure it can be done, as the default duplex socket families seem to work this way, so I've created all sockets with this symbol and adapted. There's nothing I can see in these families that I can see is different. It's getting extremely frustrating as I'm drawing these families over and over on different templates.

[Anonymous]

This was copied from a thread from back in 2009, which goes on to say there is no fix to the problem.

[Anonymous]

To reiterate, I can't get an annotative family to show up in plan view for any wall hosted light fixtures. Right now, I just have detail lines drawn in the light fixture family, but that does not adjust to different scales.

[Anonymous]

Is there still no fix to this problem?

[Anonymous]

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Anonymous]

Jordan

[CoreyDaun]

This is an issue that seems to persist even to the mighty Revit 2012. For [wall] face based light fixtures, annotation symbols do not display. And yes, specifically those in families from the Lighting Fixtures family. You can verify this by editing the family of one of those receptacles, changing it to a lighting fixture, reloading it and watching it vanish before your very eyes.

All of base fixtures I create employ an embedded Detail Item, as you mentioned - most of these are show at true size anyway. Now for devices that require a scalable annotation symbol, such as exit signs, I was forces to make them as floor or ceiling face based directionally.

[Chris.Aquino]

In some families (usually Wall Hosted Light Fixtures), the Symbol shows up in plan when placed in the "Front" view in the family.

I would try that if you have not already. 

[CoreyDaun]

I thought that might work when I was originally creating the families, but when I tried to insert the annotation symbol into the front view, I received a "Warning: Can't create this kind of element in this view in the current mode." message. Detail Items can be inserted into this view, but not generic annotations. Those can only be placed parallel to the Ref. Level, still true in 2012.

[Chris.Aquino]

Good catch. Forgot to specify the type of symbol (symbolic/model line vs.. Nested annotation symbol family)

[CoreyDaun]

Symbolic Lines placed in the front/back view will definitely show up on floor plans and ceiling plans. However, these symbols are not annotative and do not have a size based off of the scale of the current view.

Our company specifically needs certain fixtures (exit signs and battery EM lights) to be annotative in this manner. We often create small scale plans for life safety drawings and if we have a building at a smaller scale than 1/16th, there is no prayer of making out the symbol. I even tried changing the devices to Generic Models, but that category behaves the same way, so I faked them as Lighting Devices, which failed for scheduling.

We once created subcategories for common scales within the embedded Detail Item annotation so we could manually control their size. Worked, but it was cumbersome.

[Anonymous]

Have you got your families available to look at?

[CoreyDaun]

Sure. I have three families of exit signs (all based on our company standard), Top-Bracket (for ceilings), End-Bracket (walls), Rear-Bracket (walls). Attached is the Rear-Bracket family as an example, as it is populated with Shared Parameters. It's a bit over-detailed, but does the job well.

BTW - It has been converted to Revit 2012.

[Anonymous]

Thanks CADastrophe - llok forward to looking at them. Was actually meaning though for jpriester to upload as was just thinking of a things causing the problem but wanted to see the family before commenting.

Was thinking it may be way family was created as wall lights (sconces) should be built differently to normal fittings so that annotation symbols can be shown in plan.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for their input. Sorry I didn't respond sooner, but I was having issues logging in. Attached is a wall mounted exit light that just has detail lines drawn in the back elevation to represent our symbol for an exit light. Unfortunately, it is not annotative, and from what I read cannot be.

[Anonymous]

Oh CADastrophe, I even find you on the Googles.

I found this thread searching on Google for this exact same problem. Sucks that I still can't have Generic Annotations in Elevation Front/Back for my wall mounted Exit Signs, Emergency Battery Lights, as well as my Type III dist wall mount exterior fixtures.

I have resorted to Detail Items as well.

Here's what would do it:

But here's what we have:

Also, attached is one of my Detail Components. It comes in 3 flavors, 1/4", 1/8" and 1/16" with a visibility paramter for Emergency.

[Anonymous]

Would you be able to find an older version of the family. We have not yet upgraded to 12, but I do have 2011. I will have to resort to detail items as well, probably with a visibility parameter to toggle between 1/8", 1/4" & 1/16" scales.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Sorry buddy. I generated that Family in 2012. It's pretty straight forward though.

Here's a screenshot of the Detail Component's parameters:

And here's a screen shot of it placed in the elevation view, it's "Label" parameter, and which Yes/No parameters are tied back to the Host Family's parameters:

EDIT:
I would NOT name your parameters 1/8",1/4" etc. as this can cause confusion in formulas. Instead name them something like Quarter, Eighth and Sixteenth... Revit doesn't get confused that way. The only reason it worked in my case is because I cheated. I named the parameters Eigth at first, created the formula, then renamed it to 1/8" --- don't do that though, I just like living on the edge 😛

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the screen shots. That's what I had in mind, now I just need to find time to create it.

[CoreyDaun]

That's how ours looked until we needed to have them show up on two different scale plans. Hence, we control the visibility of the lines by Sub-Category. It's ridiculous that we have to do this...

[Anonymous]

Oh God. That is an enourmous pain.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I just came up with a work-around today.

It's going to blow your minds.

Remember how you have to create a visibility for your exterior fixtures under another sub-category?

Instead of making your family with the "Generic Model face based" template, use "Generic model wall based."

I know it's counter-intuitive, and will take an additional frustrating step, but trust me, it works.

Create your light fixture or exit sign as you normally would in the wall based family. Add your wall annotation to the reference level (not Front/Back), as we're creating a wall based family.

Then create two blank Revit projects. One called "linked" and one called "copy".

Under the Architect panel draw a wall inside the project named "linked" then host your new wall based family to that wall. Save and close.

Then open up the revit project called "copy". In this model, link in the project you created called "linked".

Go to the collaberate tab and hit "copy/monitor" and then pick the wall based light fixture in the linked file.

Boom. Revit converts the wall based family to a face based family, BUT RETAINS the reference planes orientation. You can now host your wall-based fixture on linked geometry and have your annotation you placed in the "ref level" now scale automatically based on your plan scale (as you're used to).

Some extrusions might have issues, and I've noticed that with this trick, void extrusions can lose associations with what they're cutting but it's usually pretty easy to clean up.

There might be easier ways to rotate all the extrusion face and planes in the Generic model face-based family, but I haven't experimented with doing that yet.

The attached family (2012) was originally created by Hubbell, but I used the copy monitor trick to bring it into my job. I then added my wall annotation.

**EDIT: Obviously this trick won't work for devices that can be placed on either the ceiling or the wall. But for exterior wall packs, which 99% of the time will be mounted to a wall --- this is a perfect solution.

[CoreyDaun]

So simple, yet so convoluted. I image this can be done once and then a template saved. I knew about the Copy/Monitor trick, but never thought of trying that. Well done!

[jacobf]

Awsome mate, was looking for a solution for weeks now, everything I tried I could not get to work.

Just tried your trick and worked perfectly!

Thanks again...

[Anonymous]

This is the first time that "help" has ever actually helped-thank you so much for posting with these screen shots-it works in 2015 also!