Trouble associating family with preferred reference line in project

[adave]

I'm experimenting with creation of a solar panel with racking.  The family .rfa is attached.  I've created the model, but cannot figure out how to set it up so that I can place it on a chosen reference plane in the project and rotate it once it is placed.

Specifically, I created a reference plane in the family type model drawing called "Roof Mount Reference Plane" .  I created two "brackets" from extrusions, and located them on this reference plane (at the  base of the panel rack). I want to load this solar panel into my project, and then place it onto a  reference plane I created which is parallel to the roof surface.  I want to do this so that, when I rotate (or move) the reference plane in the project space, the panel will move with it.  There's probably another way of doing it, but this seems to be a simple way.

Basically, I want the "Roof Mounted Reference Plane", created in the type, to "snap onto" the reference plane I created in the project (the one parallel to the roof).  Why can't I do this? (Or is there a bettter way).

Thanks!

[Alfredo_Medina]

For a more efficient use of the forum, please keep the discussion in one single thread, otherwise, the information provided ends up splattered all over the place and then it's difficult to find and follow up. What is the reason to start a new thread (8th) if we are still talking about the same solar panel on a roof?

There is a suggested workflow in reply # 2 here:
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Revit-Architecture/I-want-to-set-a-simple-rectangular-box-on-...

There is an illustration about that solution in reply # 4 here::
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Revit-Architecture/I-want-to-set-a-simple-rectangular-box-on-...

There is a sample family file by me in reply # 8 here:
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Revit-Architecture/I-want-to-set-a-simple-rectangular-box-on-...

There is a sample family file by Jeff Hanson in reply # 6 here:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Revit-Architecture/revit-architecture-2012-reference-planes-l...

[adave]

My apology - I now understand how you want the discussions organized. I was under the assumption that older replies were "buried"  back in the message stack. I now see that any response is bumped to the top (I should have notice this earlier).

I will stick to this latest thread for any related questions (if you agree), or go to the thread you suggest.  Will also be more mindful of searchable subject line text.

I also found (by rereading Jeff's response), that  reference lines in the "family create space" do not transfer to project space.

That being said, I found that the panel he produced was not adequate to my needs, so I needed  to create my own panel, which needs to have racking, brackets, changeable dimensions for racking element lengths, etc. (In other words, lots of variable parameters within this new user-created family).

Since Jeff's panel was created as a "host based" unit that was associated with a roof, I found that I couldn't satisfactorily disassociate the panel from a roof and place it where I wanted (which is very often NOT on or near a roof, as, for instance, with a ground mounted array).

So...

After reading the Revit Families Guide, I started from a "generic model" template to try and create my own panel with the parameters I desired.  I was able to create the needed extrusions, but ran into the same recurring frustration of needing to associate the panel with an element (roof, level, etc) that I DID'NT  want it associated with.  That was the purpose of my latest question (which I realize now that I should have appended to the previous thread).

This morning, after going back over my methodology, I noticed some other "families" above the generic one, that I had missed, and perhaps should have tried instead.  In other words, I may have found the answer to my own question.  I will now try "Generic Model- line based", and "Generic Model - Adaptive", to see if they give me the capabilities I seek.

Will respond in this thread if I find out anything significant, or have further questions.

[Alfredo_Medina]

It's OK to continue in in this thread, if that is going to be permanent.

About the family: in Revit, it is important to plan ahead a certain workflow before starting to create a familiy. Otherwise, we end up realizing too late that we should have done something in the beginning of the process, but we did not.Then it is hard to go back to fix things.

This is an example. You want to place this family on a roof, but you have ignored the suggested workflows in the previous posts mentioned above. We were suggesting, first, to use nested families to handle the tilting of the panel, and at the end, to create the last host family as a generic-model roof-based template. I don't see any of these two suggestions implemented in this family that you have posted. Now, the tilting does not work, and the placement on the surface of the roof is not working properly, either.

My suggestion again, is to use one of the Revit files provided in the previous posts, and modify those files with the actual geometry of the panel. In both of those files, there was a panel that could be inserted on the face of a roof, and that could be tilted.

[adave]

Not sure if you read my message. I did play extensively with the example sent, and I appreciate the help that was given, but, once again, it did not suffice; neither in accomplishing what I needed, nor in pointing me in the directions needed to gain further knowledge on the subject.  Again, I don't want the panel associated with the roof.  I guess what I'm saying is, I need some more flexibility with the parameters, and need guidance on how to create them.   After reading the Guide, I have started from scratch.  Will continue along that path, and will figure it out eventually on my own.

I'm sure that we're both getting frustrated with this thread.  Again, my apologies, but having falling for the advertising before buying the product, I was convinced that it would be easy to learn.  That not being the case, I now realize that I jumped onto the pool too soon.  

Best of luck to you.

[adave]

Sorry, I've been off on other projects. 

I finally came up with a method to create a panel that can be tilted in any orientation and can be placed anywhere (not just on a wall or roof). It is attached.  Lots of trial and error was necessary, as it appears that there is little in the way of rigorous documentation on the finer points of family creation when it comes to complex items.

The main points I learned in the process (apart from more basic documentation readily available elsewhere).  I may have some of the technicalities slightly wrong in my explanation (it's been a  week since I did it):

1. If you do not want the object to be constrained to a wall, roof, or other architectural feature, start with the "generic family" template, which will allow you to associate to a reference plane instead of an object.

2. When working with object composed of numerous parts, group them before trying to tilt (or otherwise manipulate) the object parametrically. This will minimize the inevitable "constraint battles".   In this case, be sure to include the tilt plane  in the group, but NOT the base plane (described next).

3. Do not try and tilt with respect to the "reference level".  Create another reference plane parallel to the reference level for that purpose (I called it the base plane).  Also, create a "tilt plane" on the object. The create your tilt instance parameter between these two planes.

4. Work constantly to minimize the number of contraints needed, as they often interfere with assigning instance parameters.

Feel free to point out any additional thoughts, or errors, in my above analysis.

[Alfredo_Medina]

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@adave wrote:

I finally came up with a method to create a panel that can be tilted in any orientation and can be placed anywhere (not just on a wall or roof).

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Not exactly. It can be tilted, but it cannot be placed anywhere. Placing is one thing and associating is another thing. You could place an object by moving it, but does the object adapt with the wall or roof where it was 'placed'? Does it change its slope if the roof where it was placed changes its slope? To do that, it needs to be associated with a host, not just placed.

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@adave wrote:
. Lots of trial and error was necessary, as it appears that there is little in the way of rigorous documentation on the finer points of family creation when it comes to complex items.

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There is abundant and outstanding documentation out there, splattered all over the place. Blogs, forums, videos, Wikihelp, etc. If you want all that information in an organized and logical sequence, you need to look for a book or for training.

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@adave wrote:

The main points I learned in the process (apart from more basic documentation readily available elsewhere).  I may have some of the technicalities slightly wrong in my explanation ...

1. If you do not want the object to be constrained to a wall, roof, or other architectural feature, start with the "generic family" template, which will allow you to associate to a reference plane instead of an object.

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Not true. It's not the category what determines where the object can be associated. It's the placement type of the template and the settings of the family.

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@adave wrote:
2. When working with object composed of numerous parts, group them before trying to tilt (or otherwise manipulate) the object parametrically. This will minimize the inevitable "constraint battles".   In this case, be sure to include the tilt plane  in the group, but NOT the base plane (described next).

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Not recommended. Groups don't work well with parameters in the family editor. And, instead of reference planes, rotations are created with reference lines, which do have a defined start point. Reference planes don't have start points, therefore your rotation will break. Try to assign a rotation value of 0, and then try any other angle again, such as 45, or 20, and see what happens. Now your panel will rotate from its own center, not from the 'origin point' because reference planes don't have endpoints. Therefore, it seems to work for certain angles, but if a user sets the angle to 0 and then to something else, the panel will be rotated in the wrong way.

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@adave wrote:
3. Do not try and tilt with respect to the "reference level".  Create another reference plane parallel to the reference level for that purpose (I called it the base plane).  Also, create a "tilt plane" on the object. The create your tilt instance parameter between these two planes.

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Same as above. Reference planes are not used to rotate objects because they don't have endpoints.

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@adave wrote:
4. Work constantly to minimize the number of contraints needed, as they often interfere with assigning instance parameters.

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The number of constraints needed is minimized by using nested families, because now you don't have to deal with the constraints of the object that you want to rotate. That will be taken care of in the objects' own file.

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@adave wrote:

Feel free to point out any additional thoughts, or errors, in my above analysis.

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Well, there you go. 🙂

[adave]

Thanks for pointing out where I went wrong.  I'll keep those pointers in mind as I move ahead with learning about family editor.  Development on the panel isn't yet complete, but it actually does what I wanted: I can place it anywhere in 3-D space, and tilt it as required.  And, yes, I can tilt the same panel to 0, 53, 90, and back again as many times as I want (at least in my drawing; see attached).  I even put a couple on treetops (though the branches are feeling the pain).

It was important for me to disassociate the panel from a host because panels almost always have associated racking, which not only offsets them from the roof, but also requires various degrees of tilt (both azimuth and altitude).  I couldn't care less if the panels move when I move a wall; I can just move them out of the way, do the wall changes, and then move them back or reload if needed.  Unfortunately, the pic shows building integrated panels, but, believe me, that arrangement is not the usual one in the real world. I placed them, and then tilted them to sit on the wall (not associated).

Will try again to work with reference lines (as opposed to planes) when tilting at solar panels and windmills in the future.  I had read about that, and understood the fact that planes don't have "starting point" but I couldn't get it to work in my model. It seemed to me that I needed to have a "backplane" to attach the numerous components of the panel and lock them in place.  Though perhaps clunky from the design standpoint, It seemed to work in the end. Perhaps I will embed  ref lines in the backplane and baseplane next time, and annotate from that.  Couldn't figure out how to apply "nesting" to this particular panel style.  I'm sure I'll also learn improved methods along the way (including your suggestions).

I have a lot more to learn about nesting and grouping (among other things), but this allows me to get some work done in the meantime. In my downtime, I'm working on  racking; will attempt to use your suggestions. The racks should lend themselves better to nesting, I think.

Lastly, I agree that the training materials are splashed all over the place.  Strange business plan:  Develop a great product, then put it out there for users to develop the bulk of the documentation.  Doesn't speak well for attracting new users (such as myself).  Books?  Don't believe in them for software, as they become obsolete before the book is broken in (however, if you know of a really good one, I'm all dog-ears).  Still looking for that "rank beginners" webpage. Maybe I'll find it after I've learned enough to not care anymore 😉

[adave]

I think that I've solved my dilemma at long last.   After long hours of frustration, and after finding many postings in various fora with many facing the same problem, I think I may have a method that works.

I will create a new thread that presents my solution, in hopes that it might be more easily searchable to others trying to tilt an object in an elevation view.  Look for "Revit Families - rotation in an elevation view"

Alfredo - Thanks for your help, and I hope that you'll forgive the frustrated tone of my previous postings.

[Alfredo_Medina]

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@adave wrote:

..., I found nothing but halfway solutions that didn't work for me.

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 The solutions posted here by Jeff and myself since the beginning of your threads did provide a solution for tilting objects from a horizontal plane. Those were not halway solutions, but complete workflows, including the Revit files. But as I said before, it takes time to understand the family editor, and some of the terms and workflows explained in those posts did not make sense to you at that moment. I am sure that if you read those posts some time in the future, after having worked for a long time with the family editor, then everything we said will start making sense for you.

[adave]

You're right, they make sense now, but that's not the point.  When faced with a task that is as complicated as this, someone with incomplete knowledge needs a step by step procedure.   It's obvious to me now that the many steps involved need to be performed in the proper order, with nothing left out in between.  This may not be apparent to someone who has a good understanding of Family Editor.  I tried each of the steps that you both provided, but you assumed (understandably) that I had more knowledge of FE.  

In retrospect, I can see now that, two weeks after installing Revit, and using it for the first time, I probably tackled about the hardest task I could have stumbled upon.  THe fact that I started with a defective installation disk (out of the box!), with links to help that didn't work, didn't help matters.

When I started using Revit, it didn't dawn on me that such a trivial operation could be so monumentally difficult to figure out. 

Not to belabor this, and I do appreciate all that you've done, but I just want to make the case for more detailed guidance in responses, and, once again, prehaps a NOOB thread, where a person could be directed to resources tailored to beginners.   BTW, I just installed ACAD 3D, and that's the first thing that came up! Guidance for beginners!

End of commentary; Thanks Again!

[Alfredo_Medina]

You seem to complain often about the lack of step by step instructions for noobs in these forums. But a forum is just a place where people contribute on a voluntary basis, with no obligation and no commitment. A forum is not a replacement for formal training, where you pay an instructor to teach you step by step procedures. Autodesk sells you the software, but they are not obligated to provide you with the training, that part is your responsibility.

[adave · Accepted solution]

You call it complaining, I call it feedback; however, I know that this conversation will never lead to anything concrete, so please, in the future, just ignore any postings that I may make.

Thanks, and have a good day!