topic Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family? in Revit Architecture Forum

How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 18:11:34 GMT

Is there any possibility to create a wall family?

In other words, can I use a generic type of construction of a wall and use parameters?

For example, when I change the tickness of a wall the core changes but the finishes don't.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Sahay_R — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 18:29:11 GMT

Point A - why on earth would you want to do that? Revit walls are created per industry standards. They are schedulable, cuttable, and renderable. They create rooms and areas. If you need a custom wall, then create a wall type. But don't expect actual practical practice to follow whatever customization it is that you have written into the wall - unless it is actual practice.

Point B - if you do want to control wall components by parameter (you are the absolute first person I have heard of who wanted to do this) then try creating a line-based Generic Model. You can customize to your heart's delight here - and make your life and work very difficult - regardless of actual industry practice.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

ToanDN — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 18:39:35 GMT

You can create anything as a family, whether or not it is practical is up to debate.

For walls, you can create them as a parametric generic family to satisfy ONE aspect: flexing the wall thickness.

But you will face difficulties with almost all others: joining - among themselves and others such as floors/roofs; all wall based families become useless - they must be redone; no profile editing - must use void; no coarse scale fire tape; no area/room/space boundary; and not the correct category.

I am sure I still missed a bunch but that is probably enough for you to weight the pros vs cons.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

chrisplyler — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 21:59:04 GMT

Walls are System Families.

As such, the only thing you have control over are the Types. If you want Wall Type A to have a 3-5/8" stud cavity, then create its structure to reflect that. If you want Wall Type B to have the same finishes but a 5-3/4" stud cavity, create its structure to reflect that.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Corsten.Au — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 02:54:34 GMT

Hi..

Learn how to edit the wall,

keep in mind the function of layers..

core, finish etc..

hope this would help you

Cheers!

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 09:41:33 GMT

Maybe I explained my self wrong.

Practical Case:

I am doing rehabilitation in Portugal. In this particular building I may have 20 different wall thicknesses of the exact same type of wall. So, I duplicate that type 20 times. And now we decided that we want to change the exterior finish and the only way to do that is one by one.

That's the point of my question. Is there any way to make this easier and faster?

Kind regards

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 09:43:43 GMT

Maybe I explained my self wrong.

Practical Case:

That's the point of my question. Is there any way to make this easier and faster?

Kind regards

Bruno

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Kimtaurus — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 11:09:28 GMT

If it's only the exterior finish that needs to change, maybe you need to draw this as a seperate wall type. That way, when something in the finish changes, you'll only need to adapt one type.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Sahay_R — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 13:12:40 GMT

I'm with @Kimtaurus on this. Walls are system families and you can't create new families. Separate wall types for each finish thicknesses. I don't see any way to associate parameters of wall types, let us say, to a formula or to a global parameter. You don't want to experiment with generic models and suchlike because of the amount of fun you will have dealing with cleaning up intersections and cutting window and door openings. I would rather change 20 wall types instead of that.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 14:33:51 GMT

Ok. Thanks.

I was never thinking about creating generic models for walls (because all the reasons written) but as we do a lot of rehabilitation here I was seeking for a faster way to do that.

As you can imagine, when we have stone masonry walls with centuries in the building, you'll have to many types just because of thickness.

Anyway, I still feel that it's not that stupid that REVIT will give us the opportunity to create this "wall families" in the future so that you won't have to duplicate over and over the same type of wall.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

chrisplyler — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 18:17:58 GMT

Option 1: as already mentioned, model the exterior finish as a separate wall type.

Option 2: create a material called "Optional Wall Finish" or whatever. Use it in the many types. When you want to change material for all of them, just change the properties of that material.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 10:40:28 GMT

Not all walls conform to industry standards. Some of the more interesting buildings to date couldn't be designed using Revit's standard components or by conforming to industry standards (EG: see Zaha Hadid Architects, Santiago Calatrava and so on).

A. If I have a wildly curvi-linear element in 3 directions and I wish to define that element as a wall, then I should be allowed to do so. Generic modellling is required therefore a means for defining a model within a family is required.

B. The wall tool per-se is limiting, which is fine for a dull rectilinear box but Revit models complex forms very well. Therefore, one should have some means available to define a complex form as belonging to something. In revit everything has to belong to something, as far as I can tell.

C. I'll want a door in my compex 3d wall and I'd like to move that door about as I would in normally in Revit. In other words, the wall is cut when my door is moved or I decide to add another door. We might just as well go back to AutoCAD if all we're doing is sculpting in digital space.

D. I want my complex 3d wall to appear as a wall in my scheduling. I have seen (and specified) walls that are made of GRP precisely because they are defined by a complex geometry. They are still called walls.

Thank you.

Simon Blackburn RIBA

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

ToanDN — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 04:43:08 GMT

Build a mass and use Wall by Face.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Corsten.Au — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 05:27:38 GMT

Another food for thought

difference bet default walls and curtain walls and their associations...

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Sujan.Maharjan — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 13:47:51 GMT

Hi,

Know the difference between host family and model component family.
Start creating wall Types not families. Here's a tutorial on how to do that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaF6l-tMi8s

Cheers

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Anonymous — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 10:11:55 GMT

This is the worst response from an autodesk professional i have seen on a forum yet.

If some one is requesting how to do something offer a solution not a criticism. - not that i should have to tell you how to build customer confidence - and do your job.

I previously worked for a building company and we were constantly trailing new products which didn't exist in the Revit libraries.

In Australia you get a tax write off for trailing new technologies.

The best way we found to still get all the benefits of a built-in Revit family were to copy and modify an existing family and load it that way.

This can cause other issues but can be reasonably safe for walls. Additionally you can try using your product as a cladding instead and putting it on a wall frame.

Autodesk has plenty of tutorials on this just make sure you type in the right keywords in the search.

I find lots of the most practical tutorials come from youtube from users.

Hope this helps.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Anonymous — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 12:40:23 GMT

Thank you. 

My sentiments exactly. I was appalled at the attitude displayed. I did start to prepare a reply to it, but 
realised I had better things to do in life. Thankfully I retire in 6 years and won't have to spend my waking day grappling with whatever is the latest digital drawing fad that we're stupid enough to pay for. I gave up on the wall/family problem. Idiotic piece of software. Nothing more than work for the sake of work. I can (could) produce far more evocative imagery with pencil and water colours. 

in 23 years of using digital drawing I can honestly say that hand drafting is infinitely more efficient, is certainly fun 
and requires skill and talent. Ditto physical modelling.  I stopped being an architect and became a computer operator two decades ago. Had I realised when starting my studies that my future was to be chained to a piece of machinery all day, 
operating software designed by rude, arrogant people, who are nowhere as clever as they think they are (see original 
Autodesk response), then I would certainly have picked another occupation.

Sorry for the rant and thanks again for the reply.


##- Please type your reply above this line -##

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

ToanDN — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 13:47:28 GMT

Well, if you guys are so smart then you should have realised there was no "Autodesk response" in this thread. Sharing your decades of existance to strangers on the internet may be fun and all, but at the very least, offer something relevant to a solution to the original question.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

chrisplyler — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 14:43:51 GMT

@Corsten.Au wrote:

Another food for thought

difference bet default walls and curtain walls and their associations...

That's not a problem with doors. That's a problem with your architecture skills. You aren't going to build a door containing a hinged leaf that swings on an angle other than vertical. If you did, the door would hit the floor or something. Such a building would have an alcove that returned to the vertical frame of the door. So model the alcove and insert the door into that instead of into the slanted wall.

Re: How can i create a wall or a floor as a family?

Corsten.Au — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 15:17:15 GMT

Thanks for teaching that slant walls cannot have doors or windows.

and hinged door is not the only type of doors

1. Hinged

2. Sliding

3. Pocket

4. Rolling

and I can keep going on ..

but let’s leave it..
Some like this

Some like this..