I have been unable to find a family or component already modeled for an aluminum window from an old industrial building so I decided to model it in place. The window repeats a lot so I will want to copy it. I set my work plan on the face of the building and the modeling went fine. I am now trying to move it into the wall and it does not behave like a window family (I selected window when I established the component) in terms of the wall acting like a host. Is there a way to make a component do this? If not, do I Edit Profile of the wall, create an opening and place the component in the opening? If so...
I am also having trouble detaching the windw component from the work plan it was created on. I can't move it around freely in th x,y,or z planes. The "detach from plane" icon does not reappear when editing the component so I don't know how to detach it? When creating the component, I didn't detach all the extrusions created after the first one beause I want them to stay together. Please advise how to approach this. Thanks!
The best practice is to create the window family separately using the Window Family Template, save-as, and the load it into the Project. ( creating lots of in-place families will cause problems with the project.)
However in your case, having special concerns about an existing building and window profile--modeling in-place may be a better way to generate the window family.
There is a way to then save the in-place family out as an external family, and then load it into the project.
http://whatrevitwants.blogspot.com/2011/07/save-in-place-family-as-rfa-for-use-in.html
Hope this helps.