Roof Based Families

[archlatham]

I have been unable to create a symbolic line representation of a roof hosted family that shows in my floor plan views.  I have been able to create the model geometry of a basketball goal suspended from the roof that shows up in my 3D views and elevation views and have created symbolic linework and masking regions that show up in my reflected ceiling plans but I have not been able to create linework to represent the goal in my plan views.

The generic model roof based template that I used has two floor plan views, "Lower Ref Level" & "Upper Ref Level".  I have constrained the Lower Ref Level to the floor level of my project model relative to my roof level and I have created my symbolic geometry on the Lower Ref Level view.  When I load the family into my project, the geometry shows fine in every view except the floor plan views.  I have coordinated my visibilty settings of my views.

What am I missing?

[Alfredo_Medina]

This is tricky in the family, because the symbolic lines, being 2d, are not paralel to the floor plan view, because the symbolic lines are parallel to the sloped roof. That is why they don't show in the floor plan. It might be possible to get it to work in the family, but not easily.

A simple solution, though, is this: from the floor plan view, use Underlay : (the upper level), then use Linework > Overhead, and select the edges of the roof based family. Even after you turn Underlay off, the dashed lines will remain associated with the roof family, moving along if the family is moved.

[archlatham]

Thanks for the response.

I have attached the family and as you can see, it is a flat roof, parallel to the floor.  I have created the masking regions that show on the reflected ceiling plan but the hidden symbolic lines on the lower ref level do not show up in the project floor plan. 

I have created a wall mounted (wall hosted) basketball goal family and used the same hidden symbolic lines and that works fine.

Regarding your suggestion for using underlay, are you suggesting doing it in the project environment.  If so, I guess I would need to turn on the model geometry in plan/rcp.

[Alfredo_Medina]

I see. Since we were talking about a roof based family, I thought it was on top of the roof, but it is under the roof. I wonder why this family had to be roof-based, then? How would you place this in a gym that has a flat truss and a sloped roof?

The problem is that the default cut plane of a floor plan view is located at 4 feet. But at 4 feet, your family does not "exist", because the basket is, of course, up high. The solution is to put "something" that crosses that plane at 4 feet so that Revit can cut your family and therefore display the symbolic lines. That "something" can be a vertical line, invisible.

[archlatham · Accepted solution]

Thanks again Alfredo,

I tried a face based family and tie it to the bottom of the structure but had problems attaching it to the bottom chord of a joist.  I figured since my roof (and joist) was flat, I could do an offset for the structure and do a roof based family - seems to work.

I had no used a roof based family before and was not thinking about nothing on the cut plain but I should have thought about it. I had used the invisible line on the wall based basketball goal (along with numerous other wall based families).Add the line and it works fine.

Thanks again.