Hello, I am trying to get a linear family to flex incrementally to certain distances. I have written the equations and everything seems to flex fine in the family. But as soon as I load it into the project, It completely ignores my equation driven parameter? I have a feeling that it has something to do with the way a linear family is set up since I cannot delete the length parameter. Its really strange and illogical how it is behaving. I have attached the family. Please help!
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Solved by CoreyDaun. Go to Solution.
I put the family in and it looks like it stretches okay. Is it supposed to only expand in increments equal to the "Length of a Single Hole Cut".
Sorry, you won't be able to achieve what you are describing. It sounds like you are seeking the behavior of dynamic blocks in AutoCAD? The stretching action in Revit will always be arbitrary initially but if your formulas are well defined the family will adjust to be only an acceptable size afterward. You just won't get the notched or stepped sort of context you are looking for.
Steve Stafford
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To the OP :
Maybe you need to change your plan. My comments:
1) It is not a good practice to array an extrusion. You should array a nested element instead.
2) It is not a good practice to put so many voids in a family. (Is it really necessary that the elements are voids? They could be just a representation with model lines (nested).
3) If you want a family to have a certain length that is determined by a certain module, make it be driven by an integer parameter that controls the number of elements in the array.
Items # 1 and # 2 affect the performance of the family. Have you noticed how long it takes for this family to load and regenerate when you create one instance? Do you want your projects to have their performance affected, waiting for instances of this family to finish regenerating?
The family you are making is a structural framing family, that is created in the project by two clicks, endpoint and startpoint. How can you predict how many holes are going to be in each instance? You can't put all the possible numbers in that extremely long formula that you wrote.
Isn't it better to control the length and number of items with an integer parameter instead of writing a formula with 62 embedded IF statements?
What does aesthetics have to do with with controlling the length of an element and the number of items in the array with an integer parameter for the number of holes?
For a family to ignore the length you define during placement the geometry can't be directly dependent on that value, it must be derived from it. In essence you'd need your own length parameter that reacts to the length defined during placement.
Since you intend to limit it to 10 ft. sections like commonly available off the shelf (though we used to buy 20 ft. sections) it might make more sense to create Types based on preset lengths 1,2,3,4,5... and then allow for variations by creating new types when needed. I accept the notion that it ought to be Structural Framing but that incurs Revit's own notion of analysis for that category. You probably won't actually be doing structural analysis on unistrut? A better category might be Structural Connections, Structural Stiffeners, or Speciality Equipment. It would be easier to place the family at a desired elevation with those too.
As Alfredo wrote earlier your family takes a long time to load into a project as well as to interact with each time. It's annoying enough for one, let alone many. My laptop isn't brand new super duper but it holds its own on very large projects and I'd resent using this family if I had to work with it much. The holes are a subtlety that I could live without for most applications (real world Unistrut sections w/o holes are stronger too). I might use it for a specific location to create a rendered view but otherwise I'd just be burdening the model with detail that would not only slow performance but also look bad because a single piece of unistrut in most views would turn into a thick blob of a line.
Steve Stafford
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There is a Structural Stiffer template (as Steve suggested), that is line-based; it seems a good choice of template for this family. This illustration shows a simple way of making the family, so that it loads and regenerates quickly without affecting the performance of the project. The element that repeats is a nested family.
As I wrote in post # 4 above, it is not a good practice to put several voids in families. Revit has to "think" more to process a family with voids. Also, arrays should be made with nested families, for the same reasons of performance. But, nested voids cannot cut geometry. So, because of these rules of the game, we have to do it in another way.
Notice that your question is "how did you make the holes?" You don't even notice if those are voids or not. That proves the point the Steve and I are trying to make in this thread.
( I tried to attach the family to this post three times, but this forum gives me an error that says the "the contents of the attachment doesn't match its file type") I have no idea why. Sorry.
Then, you could do it as shown above, but with an array of void extrusions. That is against the recommendations for performance, but if you don't care, then do it like that. But, as you can see, it can be done in a very easy way without complicated formulas, but if you prefer the complicated formulas, too, then do it like that. I don't understand why you ask for advice and then ignore it completely.
Not that I dont sincerely appreciate your effort, I do, its just that all your advise hasnt coincided with what I was asking. Your advise centered around optimization. My question centered around fuctionality. Meaning, the order of operations were not being fully carried out. Youve never addressed this issue. The fact that the family performs perfectly in like I want in the family environment but differently in the project environment was never addressed. You got derailed because the way I made my family was different than the way you would make the same family and never focused on the real issue. Im not against doing it a different way, if I meet the same requirements, but none of your solutions meet those requirements. Namely asthetics, for one, realizm.
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