Lighting Schedule Question

[Anonymous]

I have a client who is a lighting designer and would like to use a system of numbered symbols for a lighting plan.  An example would be to have a single symbol for all wall sconces but different numbers associated with this symbol to delineate different kinds of wall sconces in the plan.  Pendants and Ceiling Mount Fixtures would get the same treatment.  She doesn't, as yet, need any of the 3D capabilities of Revit.  I'm working off of an imported DWG plan she gave me. In the schedule, she would like to see the symbol along with its footnoted number in the first column.  Subsequent columns would be Type, Manufacturer, Lamp and Location.  I've dummied up an example below but I'm struggling with how to do this on a more ongoing basis.  I  don't think there is a way to feature an annotation family type in the schedule.  Do I just have to convert these symbols (with their footnote) into images and select them for  each family type?  Any help is greatly appreciated.

Mike

[ToanDN · Accepted solution]

You can either create image of the fixture symbols for the schedule, or create a Legend view of the fixture symbols and place it on top of the schedule.

[chrisplyler]

...and once you get it set up properly, put the schedule and the families into her template file.

[Anonymous]

Okay, one more question.  I'm not sure there is a clear answer here.  It probably depends on how long we are going to work in 3D. Should I just make these light fixture as annotation families for her 2D plan and do the schedules as note blocks or should I be making this with a more complex template that would allow her to use a 3D object in the future?Any help is appreciated.

[ToanDN · Accepted solution]

I would create true lighting fixtures using the proper family template.  You can nest the custom Annotation Symbols in and they look the same on drawings.  

Why?  Why not?

[chrisplyler · Accepted solution]

I would do real light fixture category families. You can have them DISPLAY the desired symbol in plan view instead of their actual geometry, if that's what is wanted. In fact, you can set them up to display actual geometry at the Fine detail level and symbolically at a lower detail level, or whatever you like. But they can still have light fixture data along with them, such as voltage, power, etc. They can still have type marks, schedule comments, etc. because they're real light fixtures. You can circuit them if you want, assign them to a panel, etc. You can't do any of that if you just use an annotation.

And really, there isn't any difficulty based reason not to do it like this anyway, unless it's just the hour difficulty of figuring it out if it's your first time.

[Anonymous]

Worked like a charm.  Thanks for the tip.  There is enough work associated with setting all these families up that I'm just leary of some minor misstep that finds me redoing everything.  For example :). :  I've set up all these lighting fixture families starting with a seed file that originated using a generic model template.  Now I'm wondering how much time will pass before I regret this decision. :).  I know she may want to add a parameter to all of them later and I'm not exactly sure how I can apply that parameter to all the families at once.  The woman I am doing this for is not going to be doing electric load calcs BUT I do imagine she will benefit from good 3D rendering performance down the line if these families someday get placed in an actual model.  Thanks again for your help.

Regards,

Mike