Revit Shape Handles and Snapping

[Seychellian]

I am just trying to get my head around Revit's behaviour when it comes to handles and snapping. 

In the attached file is an example of a family with a width instance parameter that allows me to adjust it with shape handles in the project environment. In this case it is an extended window frame around an opening. This is convenient however to my frustration I find that I am unable to use the handles to snap to any object in the view (which pretty much renders it pointless). 

I have tried changing the reference lines in the family to all the different category options  (strong, weak, none) and I am still unable to get it to snap to anything.

Am I doing something wrong?

[Seychellian]

Below is a screengrab for those of you who cant open the revit file....

[martijn_pater · Accepted solution]

Use Align tool.

Other then that...
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/EN...

[Seychellian]

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@martijn_pater wrote:

Use Align tool.

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Aligning will work for one side but it will not adjust the width parameter in the family (even if it's an instance parameter) so all it will do is shift the entire family in line with the aligned surface. If you then try to align the other side it will move it back where it started.

If you lock the first alignment it will break the constraint when you try to align the second side. You can test that on the attached file. It seems really counter intuitive because the point of the grips is to avoid having to go into the parameters and make numeric adjustments however it won’t allow you to make accurate adjustments without numeric input.

This is an ongoing criticism levelled at Revit by architects who (from my experience at least) tend to prefer to design visually rather than numerically. The grips seemed to represent a welcome compromise from Autodesk until you realise you can’t really use them.

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Other then that...
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/EN...

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This is exactly how i built the family

[martijn_pater]

Seems to work here... you could add some invisible modellines to see where the refplanes are.when selected/to select when aligning.

[Seychellian · Accepted solution]

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@martijn_pater wrote:

Seems to work here... you could add some invisible modellines to see where the refplanes are.when selected/to select when aligning.

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Now it works for me. How embarrassing!

I wonder why it was shifting over in its entirety previously. As you say perhaps i was aligning to the wrong element in the family (the surface rather than the reference plane maybe). I am going to need to fiddle with it to see what I was doing wrong. This pretty much solves the issue for me although I maintain that it would be nice if the grip would find the surfaces when dragging like they do in the project environment.

[gsucci]

Besides using Align, though, the question has not really being "resolved", has it?

Why, dragging the family handle, Revit will not snap to any plane, or geometry, in the project? Even in orthographic view?

There are a number of other instances when Revit does automatically find those snaps, and I was sure that building a  family with instance parameters attached to ref. planes would indeed make REvit use snaps, but it seems not all the times.

thanks

regards

gio