Family building is not for everybody, but if you are the one that builds for your company then you should have your own templates. We have over 10 ourselves. There are some things you just do every time for a family and most of those can be preset.
Start a family with the out-of-the-box template you would usually use. Get your bounding box set up. Put in your reference planes for Left, Right, Front, Back, and Top. Set them to have there Is Reference value to equal their name. Add some equal dimensions to keep the Center (Left/Right) or the Center (Front/Back) in the middle of the ones on the outside. Add your Width, Depth, and Height dimensions. This alone saves that time for every family.
Here is a tip, if you don’t want the insertion point of your family to be the center as it is predefined by the original center reference planes but instead use the center and the back, rename the Center (Front/Back) to Back and then create a new Center (Front/Back) reference plane. This keeps from having a reference plane that has been unpinned. Since both of the original reference planes are pinned and both Defines Origin just work with that.
Most reference planes in a family can be Not Referenced so that you don’t see them as you try to dimension to or align to a family in the project. You can preset the reference plans in your new family template to be set for being Not Referenced by adding a reference plane and selecting Not Referenced to it before adding it. Then just delete that reference plane. The next reference plane added will be in the family being created and it will be Not Referenced. This makes it so you think more about setting Strong Reference for the reference planes you will be dimensioning or aligning to.
Add yourself some parameters and preset any that you have set for your families. Add any formulas that you use all the time. Focus on one type of family. You do not need all parameters for all families. If you are working on a family that will need plumbing for a sink you do not need to add electrical parameters. You make different family templates for each type.
Save the family as a rfa file. You cannot save as a rft for family template, that is not an option. After you save the rfa and close it you can rename it to an rft file to use as a family template.
Make it easy on yourself by keeping one family with your dimensioned reference planes with the basic width, depth, and height parameters, and just add the other parameters and save it out to start a new family template.
For more information on family templates check out the Community Conversations for Revit Family Types and Templates.
Donnia Tabor-Hanson aka CADMama
Revit Family Counselor
Twitter @DonniaTH
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