Nesting Components within Casement Families - Best Practice???

[scott.v]

Hi there, 

I've been using revit for a very long time but never managed to master this concept.  In a scenario like a Drawer or a cupboard, my understanding is that it's preferable to make a cupboard door or a drawer a nest family/component.

Using the example of a wardrobe door, my understanding is to use a Generic component to create a door panel.  Using the generic model, I then set up the Reference Planes to control the model, and add height and width parameters as Instance Parameters.

This has never worked 100%, I'm wondering if there's a best practice someone has mastered previously mentioned on these boards, or blogs or videos.  

Panel Example - Generic family Front View

Issue: The height parameters break constraints when I align and lock to the parent family.

This component is drawing to the right of the centre line rather then centred over the centre line as I found when I referenced the centreline left and right locked constraints break.

Thanks for any references you have, I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question so I will continue with my searching in the mean time.

Scott

[ToanDN]

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2021/ENU/Revit-C....

[scott.v]

Thank you for the prompt response but the issue I am trying to solve it not that.  I want a nested family to be controlled by the parent family's reference lines.  That way I can apply all my parameters to the reference lines and the nested component/family acts in alignment. 

[ToanDN]

The issue is that it doesn't work properly as you said it yourself.  Associating parameters is a more reliable approach to control nested family dimensions.

[scott.v]

I just checked "Advanced Revit Family Tutorial (with Brenton)" from The Revit Kid channel and he's explaining a similar process as you posted above Toan.  Still I'm certain there's a way to control nested families with reference planes because it worked 90% for me, not 100%.

[mhiserZFHXS]

Are you talking about being able to drag handles on the nested family and locking them to the reference planes? If so, you need to make the parameters controlling width, height, and depth as instance parameters.

But just note, as Toan said, locking a nested family to a single reference plane in each direction (x, y, z) and then controlling the various parameters by associating them to family parameters is far more stable.

[barthbradley]

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@scott.v wrote:

Hi there, 

I've been using revit for a very long time but never managed to master this concept.

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Why don't you post the Family that's breaking so we can see what's going on.  If you have been using Revit a "very long time", I'm guessing the solution is not so straight forward.   

[ToanDN]

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@scott.v wrote:

I just checked "Advanced Revit Family Tutorial (with Brenton)" from The Revit Kid channel and he's explaining a similar process as you posted above Toan.  Still I'm certain there's a way to control nested families with reference planes because it worked 90% for me, not 100%.

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You were asking about "best practice" so I provided you the approach that I deem the best practice.  But if you just want to fix your family so that it works using your approach then sure do share the file.

[scott.v]

This is exactly what I'm trying to do and yep I'm using instance parameters for the height and width so the family instance can be locked to a reference plane.

[scott.v]

Thanks, Toan and Bradley for your suggestion.  I've uploaded a cabinet family I'm currently playing with.

Toan it's quite possible the reason I haven't been able to figure this out in the past is that it's never worked 100% in the first place.  

Thanks

[ToanDN]

Try this.

[barthbradley]

It's all about constraints.   

They say a picture paints a thousand words, so here's 7000 for you:  

[scott.v]

The same issue, if you lock the base constraint of the panel to where the kickboard height is located then the height changes until you change the size of your kickboard, the place where the base is constrained to. Changing the kickboard height removed the locked base constraint for the panel.

[barthbradley]

[scott.v]

So it appeared you've disassociated the template reference plane from the references level. I tried this. For the two smaller panels this worked, even when I change the kick panel height the top constraint doesn't disassociate, but on the single large panel it still errors and disassociates at the top. I'll keep playing. I'm thinking the key to mastering this method is to mastering the nested reference planes and associating the corrected nested reference planes.

Thank you for your help Bradley and Toan

[barthbradley]

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@scott.v wrote:
but on the single large panel it still errors and disassociates at the top. 

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Obviously then, it isn't constrained properly.  How else can I say it?  It's all about constraints.  

As you can see from my screenshot above - my 8000 words in pictures - the panels are flexing correctly.  

[barthbradley]

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@scott.v wrote:
So it appeared you've disassociated the template reference plane from the references level. I tried this. For the two smaller panels this worked, even when I change the kick panel height the top constraint doesn't disassociate, but on the single large panel it still errors and disassociates at the top. 

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Read what you wrote above. "Two smaller panels worked...but on the single large panel it still errors and disassociates at the top."  Now think about that statement for a moment.  All the panels are the exact same nested family, yet two of them flex correctly and one does not. What does that tell you? It tells you that you did real good constraining two of them, but not so well with one of them. Right?  

[stefan_gokstorp]

Editet since i noticed my comment i irrelevant since its adressed already