Empty System Panel is missing (Revit 2017)

[tomek]

Hello,

In the past I have managed to create a curtain wall with Empty System Panels. This allowed me to attach the CW to a roof that was not parallel to any of the levels:

This is the state of the Family tree in the default template for Revit 2014:

As you can see above the Empty System Panel is available.

I have since upgraded to Revit 2017 and now the Empty System Panel is no longer available:

This makes my design work pretty hard and I don't know how to resolve this problem. If anyone know what's going on please help.

cheers,
-tomek

[Melina.Vlachousi]

It doesn't seem to be included in my standard templates either. The empty panel family should be in your Revit library and you can load this into your project. You could also edit your template and include the family there if it's an element you use often.

[tomek]

Hello,

I don’t think that we’re talking about the same thing. I got confused too
at first. Yes, there is an Empty Panel family available in the Revit
library but it is not the same as the Empty *System *Panel. It behaves
differently, in particular when attaching it roof lines which are not
parallel to the levels or when editing the wall profile, the Empty Panel
family fails and Revit replaces its instances with another panel System
panel which can work.

The Empty System Panel on the other hand behaves correctly.

Anyway, I have repaired my Revit installation as well as Revit Content
Library installation and now all new projects have the Empty System Panel
available once again.

cheers,
-tomek

[john.s]

Hi Tomek,

How were you able to repair your Revit 2017 install to bring back the empty system panel?

I've tried repairing from the install and still not there. I also installed the 2017.1 update and still nothing.

Too bad, we use the empty system panel a lot on complex projects, without it we'd have to find a whole new way to model.

Thanks,

John

[tomek · Accepted solution]

Hi John,

You know what, now that I think about it I don't actually remember the exact thing that fixed it. I was in a hurry and I did a bunch of stuff all at once instead of being methodical and doing it one by one. Now I'm not sure which action was responsible fro bringing it back.

However, I've been working recently with some projects where the Empty System Panel was missing and I used "Transfer Project Standards" function to transfer all standards from another project which I knew had all the required families loaded and that certainly works.

Hope that helps.

cheers,

-tomek

[momoli1526]

Hi John,

did you end up finding the empty system panel back to your revit ?

I have the same problem as well that my empty system panel is missing.

Thanks,

Mo

[ToanDN]

Use Transfer Project Standards from an Architectural Template.

Or, create a curtain wall with an empty panel from a Template, copyclip and pasteclip it to your Project.

[arjay.eco]

Hello @tomek

Create Empty Panel using architectural template from previous version. then save as project. Open the project on Revit 2017 and copy the Empty Panel to your current project.

[ysautodesklover]

Hi,

I haven't noticed this issue because I have been using the template which is updated from older versions

every time a new version came up which is also Japanese version.

I only realised that when my colleague had to use English version.

I didn't have old template in English version and so I transfered from old Japanese version....

How silly was I, when I tried the method suggested above

it comes as the system family but stayed as Japanese version.

Normally, if that is system and if it is written in English then it will be overwritten from Japanese to English but this is unlisted system family in template.

The family of course works correctly but ...looks stupid.

If someone able to give me older version of template which has empty SYSTEM panel in English, I will much appreciate that.

Thanks,

Yuki

[ToanDN]

2017 Metric English.

[ysautodesklover]

Thank you for your reply @ToanDN

I could find that template because when I installed, I only downloaded Japanese Library content.

As I look up for US Metric library then, as you posted, I could find the system family.

I finally could transfer it.

Thank you for your help!!

Yuki

[apadillami6]

You need to charge  the family. Is in the family libraries file, look trought the curtain wall panel file and you will find the  "empty panel.rfa" 😃

---

@tomek wrote:

Hello,

In the past I have managed to create a curtain wall with Empty System Panels. This allowed me to attach the CW to a roof that was not parallel to any of the levels:

This is the state of the Family tree in the default template for Revit 2014:

As you can see above the Empty System Panel is available.

I have since upgraded to Revit 2017 and now the Empty System Panel is no longer available:

This makes my design work pretty hard and I don't know how to resolve this problem. If anyone know what's going on please help.

cheers,
-tomek

---

[vincent6062]

Hi All, 

In the revit file I use there is no empty panel so I created a new type in the empty system panel category. But it does not appear to have created an empty panel at all as shown in file attached. 

Is there a way to create an empty panel from my Revit file directly or do I need to import it from a file that already has  one instead? 

Kind regards. 

Vincent

[tomek]

Hi Vincent,

I may be incorrect on this but as far as I know if your template is missing the systems empty panel you cannot create one. You need to transfer it from another template or project that has it.

The system empty panel should be available by default but as I found out sometimes it’s not. It’s usually because the Revit installation is incomplete, for whatever reason.

Also notice that I am referring to the system empty panel. It has some special properties that make it particularly useful for modelling things such as slat screens that attach to irregular floors and roofs/ceilings.

Hope this helps you.

cheers,
-tomek

[tomek]

@apadillami6 this is a bit confusing but there are two different 'empty" panels. There is the empty panel family, which can be found among the components installed with Revit. You load it as you would load any other component.

And then there is the Empty System Panel that cannot be loaded as it is a system family.

If the Empty System Panel is not available in your project then there is no way to make it or load it in. The only way, as far as I know, to get it into your project is to copy-and-paste it from another project that has this category of panel.

The two different types of the empty panel have quite different bahaviours.

cheers,

-tomek

[bautistaj]

Hi everyone, yeah seems like others confused the Empty System Panel to M_Empty Panel. Like Tomek mentioned, they behave differently, like for example, creating wall profile, attached to roof, etc. I found it odd in Revit 2016 onward, this system panel was removed from the Australia library and possibly from other OOTB libraries as well. Anyhow, if you want to load the empty system panel to you project, you can still find it from Revit 2015 version. Create a new project > curtain wall > change the panel into empty panel > upgrade the version > copy and then paste to your project.

I've already attached the Revit file in case you don't have Revit 2015.

Edit post:

After thorough investigation of the templates, the empty system panel is still loaded on Revit 2017 US Metric (DefaultMetric.rte) and US Imperial (default.rte) libraries.

[remyleblanc]

Thanks a lot!

and thank you the internet...

[alicia]

You're a life saver, thanks!!

[damo3]

Thanks to this thread I was able to prove I am not going crazy. Came across the same problem with a Revit 2019 Australia metric template.
We need to get this fixed. This is a major pain. I can't carry around an old template for the rest of my life so I can copy from it every time I come across this problem. If I am teaching and I need this panel what are my students (or anyone for that matter) supposed to do? Copy the file from this thread for the next 5 years.... How did it drop off in the first place?
I have logged this problem through Autodesk channels. See what the response is.

[bautistaj]

If you have included the US Metric and/or US Imperial Library during installation of Revit 2019, you can still find the empty curtain panel from DefaultMetric.rte and default.rte project templates.