Detailing within Revit Family

[james5QGJE]

Hi guys, 

Whats the best way to create detailed views from within a family?

I am working within a furniture systems family in Revit 2016, (Detailing desktops and frames separately) and would like to know if there is a way to create separate floor plan views with different dimensions and components showing on different views. Kind of like temporary hide/isolate but something permanent??

[SteveKStafford]

A family is not a shop drawing environment. Every dimension you place is a rule/constraint. In fact attempting to do drawings there will usually confound having a working family, one that will accept parametric changes.

As such you need to place an instance of a family(ies) in a project file to do drawing/documentation work.

If you're involved in manufacturing it might be argued that the ideal software for that is Inventor (from Autodesk) or other similar minded applications.

[ToanDN]

Load them in a project and create Assembly to generate Assembly views.

[james5QGJE]

Thanks - Whats Frustrating about this is having to create endless amounts of individual families for all the seperate parts of a configuration, i.e. desktops, legs, cable trays, beams, etc just so that they can show as separate parts of an assembly and have each piece showing on a different detail sheet without all the other parts showing. If its a one-off I want to be able to create the configuration all in one family.. Or should I be creating an 'In-place' family in a project? 

[ToanDN]

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@james5QGJE wrote:

Thanks - Whats Frustrating about this is having to create endless amounts of individual families for all the seperate parts of a configuration, i.e. desktops, legs, cable trays, beams, etc just so that they can show as separate parts of an assembly and have each piece showing on a different detail sheet without all the other parts showing. If its a one-off I want to be able to create the configuration all in one family.. Or should I be creating an 'In-place' family in a project? 

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That is exactly what Assembly and Assembly views are for.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2019/EN...

[SteveKStafford · Accepted solution]

There is balance we have to seek between complete assemblies as a single family versus a family comprised of a kit of parts we can reuse in other families or projects. Systems Furniture is comprised of many parts and quite often they are built from several families because the family editor is motivated to minimize making the same forms over and over again. Contrast that with the end user placing components selected from a catalog assembly which is probably several families. They place one element but the family editor is dealing with several.

In-place families are not intended for content that is highly repetitive in nature as each IPF is unique. Modifying one does not alter another. They are meant to bridge between the family editor environment and project where the system family categories are not available to the family editor and the context of the building is inseparable from the family itself. Imagine a ceiling that must curve in section. A ceiling like that can't be described in the project using the available sketch process. The In-Place Family however can be assigned to the ceiling category and extrusion solids and voids can describe a much more complicated ceiling configuration than is possible with the built in ceiling feature.

[Corsten.Au · Accepted solution]

Hi

You need a combination of

1. Parts

2. Assembly. ( as @Anonymous mentioned )

Parts to manage and control what to show and Assembly will help

generate relative drawings ( Plan, Elevation, Section, etc )

This is probably the best solution if you want to have drawings within the project.

otherwise you can always have a separate Revit File with separate sheets and generate different pdfs and combine with the main project pdfs.

Cheers.