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Family Creation Tutorial

10 REPLIES 10
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Message 1 of 11
bschottke
655 Views, 10 Replies

Family Creation Tutorial

I am trying the Flange Family section of the from FamilyEditorTutorial.ENU, and am having problems setting the Lookup Table Name. I've typed the name "Generic 150 psi Slip Flang.csv" exactly as written in the tutorial.
I've verified that the file is named correctly in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\RME 2008\LookupTables.
I've also tried using other .csv files located in the same directory. It seems as though revit is not looking in this directory. I always get the error "The following is not a valid parameter:...."
I found other post about the same problem, but there are no replies.
Any ideas?
10 REPLIES 10
Message 2 of 11
vewright
in reply to: bschottke

Some months ago, I posted my experience with the table lookup function. I set up a table of pipe sizes to use with a butt-weld tee family. Revit would not read any sizes lower than 14", but read from 14" through 36". The same table worked with a BW elbow family. I gave up on CSV files and the lookup function.
Message 3 of 11
KyleB_Autodesk
in reply to: bschottke

I recommend that you contact your reseller or Autodesk Support to resolve this matter. Without the Lookup Table and Revit Family files, it's difficult to tell what the problem is.

Cheers,
Kyle B
Revit MEP Product Manager
http://inside-the-system.typepad.com


Kyle Bernhardt
Director
Building Design Strategy
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 4 of 11
Anonymous
in reply to: bschottke

Not sure if this is what you are trying to do, but it sounded similar enough. I'm just about done creating a pump family with an external csv file for all the lookup information, and all is working just fine (so far)....

Try renaming the .csv file to .txt. Otherwise, it must have the same name as the .rfa file and be located in the same folder.

Double check that the top line of the csv file is formatted correctly to tell Revit what all the stuff is in the rest of the file. I use MS Excel to produce the csv file (that I later rename to .txt), but I still need to edit the resulting file in notepad to tweak this top line (remove extra quotes, commas).

If you post the files to this group we may be of more help.


Michael
Message 5 of 11
vewright
in reply to: bschottke

I changed the file extension to txt--no joy.

Revit finds the file in the same directory as the other lookup files, with either extension.

I also created the file with Excel, and had to tweak it slightly. I have compared the result to the lookup files delivered with the product, and can find no difference in format.

In the case of this file, Revit either returns the default values, which I have set to non-zero to avoid the error box, or it returns values from a different line in the file. That is, if it is looking up parameters for 10" fittings, it returns values from the line beginning with 12. On some sizes, it returns values from a smaller size.

The txt file is attached. (Can't post a csv file) Revit does redraw the fitting--it just uses the wrong sizes.
Message 6 of 11
KyleB_Autodesk
in reply to: bschottke

Care to attach the RFA file as well (you can zip it)? That might be more helpful to troubleshoot.

Cheers,
Kyle B


Kyle Bernhardt
Director
Building Design Strategy
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 7 of 11
vewright
in reply to: bschottke

Here it is.
Message 8 of 11
Martin__Schmid
in reply to: bschottke

Refer to the attached.

I think there were a couple of issues.
1. Looking at the OOTB content, there is always a type called Standard, which yours did not have. I added that... not sure if that really mattered, I think it was more the second issue:
2. Looking at the OOTB CSV files, the second column in the .csv matches the values in the first column... I.e., for elbows, etc... yours did not have that, so I added that in.
3. Your lookup file name was to a .txt, this should be .csv

HTH,
MS


Martin Schmid
Product Line Manager
Mechanical Detailing and Electrical Design
Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 9 of 11
vewright
in reply to: bschottke

Thanks for the fix!

Actually, I generated this file with Excel in csv form, with the csv extension and did virtually all my troubleshooting with that file. I only changed it to a txt extension recently after reading a post suggesting that the file should be a txt file. However, the lookup function doesn't seem to care what the extension is--I made a copy of the fixed file, changed its extension to txt, and changed the lookup file name to match. It works.

After trying the corrected file, I examined several of the lookup files delivered with the product. Sure enough, they follow the format you described. I guess I was distracted by the explanation in the Family Editor Tutorial that notes the the lookup value is the value in the first column. I also noticed that some of the delivered lookup tables have the second column expressed in metric units.

At any rate, thanks again.
Message 10 of 11
Martin__Schmid
in reply to: bschottke

The .txt convention is in reference to using a 'Type Catalog'... type catalogs require the content file (rfa) and the catalog file (txt) to have the same file name, and be located in the same folder.

Generally, however, you need to use the methodology you have employed for this part (using the LookupTables) for pipe fittings due to the nature of how the auto-route functionality works in Revit; type catalog based pipe fittings wouldn't work as expected.

Sorry for the confusion.


Martin Schmid
Product Line Manager
Mechanical Detailing and Electrical Design
Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 11 of 11
KyleB_Autodesk
in reply to: bschottke

Just a note that I've flagged this issue for follow-up by our documentation team. This is indeed confusing given our available documentation on the subject.

Cheers,
Kyle B
Revit MEP Product Manager


Kyle Bernhardt
Director
Building Design Strategy
Autodesk, Inc.

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