How to find all deeply nested components in the given family instance?

[Anonymous]

Hello!
I'm a beginner and I have a problem with retrieving nested families.
I have family instance that contains 7 subcomponents. I'm trying familyInstance.GetSubComponentsIds(), but as a result I have only 5 subcomponents. All "Shared" parameters in checked state.
What I'm doing wrong and how to find all components inside family instance? I will be grateful for any advice!

[RPTHOMAS108]

Are the two shared items you don't find subcomponents to a subcomponent and not the root?

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure, but in the given family for example I'm retrieving everything except Nord-Lock Rings.

[RPTHOMAS108]

Those family instances within the family have visibility assigned from instance parameters '1st Nord-Lock Ring' & '2nd Nord-Lock Ring' in turn those are driven by formulas with a default no value.

Invisible objects are not subcomponents I suspect.

If you need to find all seven then they are within the FamilyDocument as FamilyInstance objects, there is no nesting in this example (just visibility/scheduling project document functionality).

[jeremytammik]

https://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2009/05/nested-instance-geometry.html

[Kevin.Lawson.PE]

Post some code so we can see what you're doing.  It could be the elements you are missing are subcomponents of subcomponents.  If that's the case you'll need to create a queue to continue to search subcomponents for subcomponents until you find them all. 

[Anonymous]

It's my code. I just pick object and try to call GetSubComponentsIds().

public class Command : IExternalCommand
{
    public Result Execute(ExternalCommandData commandData, ref string 
        message, ElementSet elements)
    {
        UIApplication uiapp = commandData.Application;
        UIDocument uidoc = uiapp.ActiveUIDocument;
        Application app = uiapp.Application;
        Document doc = uidoc.Document;
        try
        {
            Reference pickedObj = 
  uidoc.Selection.PickObject(Autodesk.Revit.UI.Selection.ObjectType.Element);
            if (pickedObj != null)
            {
                ElementId elementId = pickedObj.ElementId;
                Element element = doc.GetElement(elementId);
                FamilyInstance familyInstance = element as FamilyInstance;
                ICollection<ElementId> subElementsSet = 
 familyInstance.GetSubComponentIds();

                using (Transaction tx = new Transaction(doc))
                { 
                    tx.Start("Get subcomponents name");
                    foreach (ElementId eId in subElementsSet)
                    {
                        Element elem = doc.GetElement(eId);
                        FamilyInstance f = 
 familyInstance.Document.GetElement(eId) as FamilyInstance;
                        TaskDialog.Show("Info", string.Format("{0} - name", 
 f.Name));
                    }
                    tx.Commit();
                }
           }
        }
        catch
        {
             TaskDialog.Show("Error!", "smth was wrong");
        }
        return Result.Succeeded;
    }
}

[Kevin.Lawson.PE]

Search for nested subcomponents using a queue like this:

Queue<FamilyInstance> fQueue = new Queue<FamilyInstance>();
while (fQueue.Count > 0)
{
    FamilyInstance currentQueueFamilyInstance = fQueue.Dequeue();
    ICollection<ElementId> subElementsSet = currentQueueFamilyInstance.GetSubComponentIds();
    foreach(ElementId elementId in subElementsSet)
    {
        fQueue.Enqueue(doc.GetElement(elementId) as FamilyInstance);
    }

    askDialog.Show("Info", string.Format("{0} - name", currentQueueFamilyInstance.Name));

}

[Anonymous]

Thank you for help, but it doesn't find all components anyway 😞 

[RPTHOMAS108 · Accepted solution]

You find the ones that are visible i.e. in the project the shared nested families only exist as subcomponents if they are visible. This is logical otherwise how could you rely on that method for determining how many of something you have?

If you want to find all seven as stated they exist as FamilyInstances in the family document, edit family and inspect (Document.EditFamily). Getting nested elements on the other hand (which these are not) is just a matter of forming a recursive function.

[Anonymous]

I've tested this sample. It returns 5 instances. 

Reference pickedObj = uidoc.Selection.PickObject(Autodesk.Revit.UI.Selection.ObjectType.Element);
                if (pickedObj != null)
                {
                    ElementId elementId = pickedObj.ElementId;
                    Element element = doc.GetElement(elementId);
                    FamilyInstance familyInstance = element as FamilyInstance;

                    IList<Element> nested = new List<Element>();

                    Family family = familyInstance.Symbol.Family;
                    Document familyDoc = doc.EditFamily(family);
                    if(familyDoc != null && familyDoc.IsFamilyDocument == true)
                    {
                        FilteredElementCollector coll = new FilteredElementCollector(doc);
                        ICollection<Element> collection = coll.OfClass(typeof(FamilyInstance)).ToElements();

                        //TaskDialog.Show("count", string.Format("{0}", collection.Count));
                        foreach (Element ele in collection)
                        {
                            FamilyInstance fi = ele as FamilyInstance;
                            if(fi.Name.Contains(familyInstance.Name))
                            {
                                nested.Add(ele);
                            }
                            //TaskDialog.Show("names", string.Format("{0}", fi.Name));
                        }
                    }
                    TaskDialog.Show("count", string.Format("{0}", nested.Count));
                }

[RPTHOMAS108]

Yes, that is because you are filtering the project document {FilteredElementCollector(doc)} not the family document {FilteredElementCollector(familyDoc)}.

You can review in RevitLookup, it's a quite useful add-in.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much! 

[Dronov.Dmitry]

So if family inside family is not shared we dont have any possibility to find it?

[jeremy_tammik]

I think you can retrieve all nested families by recursively opening their family definition using EditFamily and retrieving the nested families as embedded family definitions and instances within the upper-level family definition:

https://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2009/05/nested-instance-geometry.html