Detail Lines. Revit> To Autocad> Family Editor with least amount of drama

[payingtoomuch]

Looking for some "consensus" as to the most direct approach to get some random detail lines brought into a family that I'm creating.

My understanding is that you cannot simply copy/ paste into the family OR into cad.

So that would mean that I need to export to cad and then load that file into the family.

Which actually means that I need to create a drafting view that contains only the linework I need> Export to Cad> Locate the File> Drag and drop into the Revit family (or import).

Just want to make sure I'm not missing something here. Seems like there should be a more direct way to do this.

[SteveKStafford · Accepted solution]

In some cases, in a project file, the lines in a filled region sketch can be copied to clipboard and then pasted into a family as lines.

[RLY_15 · Accepted solution]

Depends on the original source of the Revit detail lines.

From a drafting view? Shouldn't be an issue, and you can readily test this method yourself.

From a modelling view? You get this error (I don't understand the applicability of that error message, but it is what you get)

I'm hesitant to recommend a Dynamo method because it will be based on the source of the detail lines - you'd have to translate/scale the coordinates of the detail lines towards 0,0,0 to avoid some crazy stuff happening in the family editor environment (think of a site plan measured in hundreds of feet versus a family annotation that might be measured in inches).

If it truly is just Drafting View -> Family File View, copy+paste is probably the least drama you can have. 

[mari.shimode]

Hi @payingtoomuch, did the information provided answer your question? If so, please use Accept Solution so that others may find this in the future. Thank you.

[payingtoomuch]

Apologies for the late reply.... took some time off.

Assuming you're thinking of this as a work around of sorts. If I have some known 2d/ detail linework I would like to copy/ paste into a family, then I could create a filled region with the the lines I need then copy paste that into the family.

Well, I did a quick test and it's not working for me. Don't want to get bogged down in this if I'm missing something here. What I did was create a random rectangular filled region> copied that to the clipboard> opened a random 3D family> opened a sketch in the 3D family for an extrusion> tried pasting the filled region into that. I get the error message "can't copy 2d elements into a 3D family". TBH I gave up quickly on this..... in the hopes of some more insight.

[payingtoomuch]

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@RLY_15 wrote:

Depends on the original source of the Revit detail lines.

From a drafting view? Shouldn't be an issue, and you can readily test this method yourself.

"Which actually means that I need to create a drafting view that contains only the linework I need> Export to Cad> Locate the File> Drag and drop into the Revit family (or import)".... from my original post. So sounds like you're saying if I have the linework in a drafting view then I should be able to bypass the cad component here.....

I'm able to get this to work when copy/ pasting from a drafting view to a new family. Specifically a new "detail" family. However. if I want to copy that 2d linework into a 3D family to use as an extrusion (etc), I'm not getting anywhere.

As example, If I open a generic model line based family template and try to paste in some random 2d linework I get this 

Kind of like your below example the way this is worded makes no sense to me.... I'm attempting to copy between drafting view and a family....

Likewise, if I open a 3D family template> create extrusion> try to copy paste random 2d linework from a drafting view into the sketch, I get this.....

So, for the most part, it seems like I can't copy any 2d linework directly from revit that I would like to use and if I can't copy 2d linework into a 3D family then seems like I still would need to go through autocad.

As mentioned before (I retested), I can take a drafting view> export it to cad> then drag/ drop it into any of the family types (2d or 3d)..... at least that's what I'm experiencing at the moment. I can also drag and drop it into a sketch (say extrusion profile sketch) within a family template, and that works as well.

Would like to get to the bottom of this. Is this really the solution to moving 2d linework in a revit project into a revit family to use the linework for creating extrusions and such or am I still missing something?

From a modelling view? You get this error (I don't understand the applicability of that error message, but it is what you get)

I'm hesitant to recommend a Dynamo method because it will be based on the source of the detail lines - you'd have to translate/scale the coordinates of the detail lines towards 0,0,0 to avoid some crazy stuff happening in the family editor environment (think of a site plan measured in hundreds of feet versus a family annotation that might be measured in inches). I wouldn't have a clue where to begin with this potential solution any way har har.

If it truly is just Drafting View -> Family File View, copy+paste is probably the least drama you can have. Not exactly following here. Are you saying simply copy +paste from drafting view to a family? If so, then I guess I really am missing something above. UNLESS we're just talking 2d families.

Thanks for the interest/ help.

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[RLY_15]

The copy + paste I was referring to unfortunately was specific to model/symbol line elements, not extrusion curves. So 2D to symbolic/2D, not 2D to geometry definition.

You should be able to use 2D lines as the 'pick line' selection for 3D definitions, but this will mean a bunch of clicks.