Making a new Family need help on parametric binds.

[Anonymous]

Hello dear Revit community. I have a question on building a new Family. I am currently stuck on a the problem on how to bind an element that is grouped by an array. ( it has to be there is no way around it. ) And the problem is if I bind it on both ends it says its invalid and has to lose those ends.

One of the problems is that the element itself isn't touching the main Right plain that moves and which other elements are bound to it. The element itself should not only move with the plane but it should stretch when changing the width.

[barthbradley]

Not sure I understand what you mean by "Bind".  But it sounds like you what to dynamically control the size of a Family in the Project environment.  To do this, the parameters that control the family's dimensions (e.g. Length, Width, Height) need to be INSTANCE Parameters.  For instance, say you want to be able to physically stretch the geometry in length.  To do this, you would Align and Lock both ends of the geometry to a Ref. Line or Plane in the Family, and pull a dimension between the start Ref Plane/Line and the end Ref Plane/Line, and then Label the Dimension with an Instance Parameter, such as "Length".  When loaded into Project the Family will have Shape Handles (blue triangles) at both ends which you can grab and drag to change the "Length" dynamically.   

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your answer first.

Yes that is what I mean to lock em on different Planes. I understand and that is what I am trying to do. The problem is it doesn't work when I Array the items because they change themselves from a simple element to a group. And due to unknown reasons it does not want to have groups locked into a plane and stretch them. I had the same situation with another element but they had to be simply moved which worked just the stretching doesn't want to work. 

I attached the Revit file its in german but try it yourself and tell me if you got better results. 

If I do it the way you described it works when its a only element. It stops working when I either group it or use Array on it.

[barthbradley · Accepted solution]

I'm still not understanding your situation fully, but I did examine your file and have a strong suggestion to make.  Model the components that you are arraying as separate families and nest them into the Host Family. In the Host Family, associate the Nested Families Parameters (must be Instance Parameters in Nested Family) to Host Family Parameters and then Array them.  

[Anonymous]

I see but I guess you get the rough idea of my problem. And I guess that can work I will have to do it that way and it should work. 

Thanks for help!