Referencing Wall parameters inside Window/Door family

[Anonymous]

Hi

I'm trying to create a new Window family which need to reference the CORE BOUNDARIES of the wall.

The default reference planes in the family are attached to to wall interior/exterior (and the default wall is just a single layered wall), but when a create a new reference plane and lock it onto either of the core boundaries (of course after creating a more complex wall with several interior / exterior layers...) I can't flip the direction of the wall. 

This in itself isn't a problem, but it creates problems when the window is used in a project.

Does anybody have any idea how to work around this?

I thought I could maybe reference the width of the wall's layers or something, but I can't find a way to do that either.

What I'm trying to do (the end result) is a window in which the "main" void only cuts the core+interior layers, and another void (different size) cuts only the exterior layers. The reason is that the "height" parameter, which can be automatically detected by the dimensions in the model, is actually just the height of the opening in the concrete wall, which is needed for the construction papers. But the size of the opening which is visible on the facade is of a different size (this is mostly for walls with stone cladding, which is very commonly used in Israel).

Could use any help I can get...

Thanks!

[Sahay_R]

Would creating dimensional parameters for Construction Opening, Finished Opening (for instance) do the job? It seems to me that you would need information for the schedule.

My concern is that this seems to be a somewhat complex approach. Simplicity works best wit Revit.

As far as referencing parameters goes, you can create custom shared parameters and assign them to multiple categories.

For further clarity, can you share the family? Without that, we are just guessing.

[ToanDN]

Something like this?  You would have to manually enter the value to match wall finish thickness.  Also, If you want the finish layers to wrap then you have to set the reference plane to Wall Closure inside the window family.

[Anonymous]

Hi, thanks for the suggestion -

It could of course work, but that would take the automation out of it, as you would have to change those parameters for each window, depending on the different walls in the building.

(which maybe not as bad, except for the fact that I would have to  explain all this to about 20-30 people in the office .. which is sometimes  harder than it sounds..)

Any way to extract the layers' thickness from the wall into the family?

[ToanDN]

You can look at Dynamo to extract the walls dimension and write it to the windows.