Extracing volumes

[Anonymous]

Here is a part of my project (bridge abutment). I have imported and placed the family into the project.

The family consists of several nested families (front wall, wing walls, footing, etc.)

For the purpose of scheduling, how do I extract the different volumes of the nested family components?

[barthbradley]

What do you mean by "imported" the families into the project? Do you mean "loaded"? There is a big distinction. But, if you have nested families that you want to schedule; make them "shared". 

Sorry: didn't notice attachment. Yes, make the nested families "Shared" and reload into parent family and reload that parent into project. 

[Anonymous]

Yes, I know the different between "Import" and "load". I just typed that in a rush and made a mistake.

Ok, thanks. I think I know what you mean.

Does this at all require me to set-up some shared parameters? I don't think it does, but I'd rather ask than get lost in doing something irrelevant (has happened before)

[barthbradley]

I figured it was a typo. Regarding your question: Sorry, I don't have your drawing to reference presently, but no, you shouldn't need a shared parameter if your pulling "Volume" info. 

[Anonymous]

Ok... I got it to "work". It now shows the volumes of the individual nested families in the schedules and quantities.

But making the nested families "shared" (the way you recommended), dissociates all the parameters of the nested families from those in the host family, and disables the association feature.

This kind of creates more problems than it solves.

Might I be doing something wrong? I've attached the file again. You can see what I mean if you go into the family editor and select the individual nested families. They're all dissociated.

[barthbradley]

I don’t have Revit here to be able to open your file, but if you have dissociated parameters, it’s probably because you have Type Parameters in the nested family that were associated to Host Parameters. In that case, change the nested family’s Type Parameters to Instance Parameters, and then re-associate them in the host. If you got a lot of Type Parameters with formulas, I agree that this will require some work – but unfortunately, that’s what you need to do.