Curtain Wall Door - Offset Problem

[lee.imbimbo86EM4]

So I'm hoping that one of you guys can help me get this fixed.  I spent a lot of time building this door, it it would appear that I screwed up the offset in the placement of the door as a panel.  When I drew the Door I left the Front/Center Line alone, and drew my door down the center, and basically built the entire family around the center line that way.  Downside is that now it is backset in the Curtain Wall, and doesn't look the way I want it too.

I've uploaded both the Door Family and the Curtain Wall Sample Project I'm trying to get working.  I'm hoping one of you can solve it for me.

I tried making a new Reference Plane, and placing it where it should be, calling it Center (Front/Back) and even set the Is Reference to the same.  I unchecked origin on the older one and rechecked it on the new one.  It didn't seem to do anything.The more detailed item is the Detial Item I added to the CW Frame Member. The other is a Profile that should overlap this in the Door Family

[ToanDN]

Try this:

Open a stock curtain wall door family, draw a drafting line at the center front/back ref plane, copy clip it. Then go back to your door family and paste aligned see if it matches your center front/back ref plane. If not, move your ref plane to match that line.

[lee.imbimbo86EM4]

I think I understand your logic, but let me repeat it back to you and see if we are on the same page.  The Door-Curtain Wall.rft file's predefined Reference Planes are hard-coded to think of themselves as the origin.  So you can't necessarily just uncheck Origin on one, and move it to another.

I'll try what you suggest tomorrow, but do I understand what you're getting at?

[Mark_Hesselgrave]

Did you ever find a solution for this? I've just encountered it, and it's driving me crazy.

[ToanDN]

@Mark_Hesselgrave 

Have you tried the suggestion above?

[barthbradley]

.

[Mark_Hesselgrave]

I think the problem lies in the way the curtain wall placement plane is defined. As opposed to regular walls, which can be placed in relation to a number of different references - inside face, outside face, etc - it seems the curtain wall only allows one reference plane. Since a curtain wall door is essentially a cw panel, it has to abide by those rules too. The offset is driven by the cw placement plane. That's all fine if you build a cw door family that only opens in one direction. The problem arises for me when I try to flip the door direction.

I put my cw reference plane at the exterior face of the curtain wall so that I can actually know where I'm putting the face (which is something you'd think an architect would care about). As a result, when I flip a door direction the door ends up outside of the curtain wall. I gave up on the poorly made built-in Revit cw door and made my own. I can get it in the right place by using absurdly big offsets. It just seems there should be a better way.Inswing 0" offsetOutswing 0" offsetOutswing 5" offset

What I'd like to do is center the door family on the mullion instead of in relation to the cw placement plane. That way I could flip the swing direction and the swing would align with the face of the mullion, either inside or outside. In other words, exactly the way a door works in a regular wall. Why is that so hard?? I can't seem to make it work.

[Mark_Hesselgrave]

Re-reading I think my complaint is different than the OP's ... oh well. It's related in that cw doors don't behave as typical doors do, and the hard-wired system of placing them in a curtain wall doesn't conform to how architects do their work.

[Mark_Hesselgrave]

A lateral work around I found elsewhere on the intertubes: replace the curtain wall panel with a regular wall of appropriate thickness. Insert a regular door family sized to fill the entire space between mullions. Then flipping the door swing works just as you'd expect it to.

It's a messy solution that goes against the flexibility of curtain walls (not counting doors), but it works.

[BDMackey]

As stated above you have to build in parameters that allow for the panel to move around, similar to curtain panels.

[ToanDN]

I have an instance Offset parameter built in the curtain wall door family to control the in-plane location of the door.  It is required for the door to adapt to different mullion depths.

[Mark_Hesselgrave]

Great suggestion. Thank you.