Spherical Family with Parameters in a Schedule

[yorabode]

I'm working on a public art project where 1500 orbs (sized 0.5" to 4" diameter) will be suspended roughly in a spherical shape. I've been tasked with modelling this in order to give instructions to the folks preparing and installing the work. I created a family for the orbs, attached. I'd like to add parameters to the family so I can control the diameter and then consequently report this and some other information in a schedule. Eventually I'd like to have the following in a schedule: 

• Size, diameter or radius would work
• Position X, Y, Z (X and Y could be corresponding to grids)
• Number

[hmunsell]

Adjusting the size is easy. just edit the revolve profile to add a radius dimension and assign it a parameter (see attached). For the coordinates... that's going to be an issue. You can get the elevation, but I don't think your going to be able to get the actual coordinates relative to other object. you would have to dimension it after there placed.  the Count, or Number of fixtures, is a default schedule parameter and something that can be added in the schedule. 

For any parameters you add to show in a schedule, they need to be Shared Parameters and that's a whole other topic :-). 

https://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2023/ENU/?guid=GUID-E7D12B71-C50D-46D8-886B-8E0C2B285988

[robert2JCCH]

• Control the Revolve's Arc size using a Diameter dimension, then create a [Length] instance parameter to assign to the dimension.
• X,Y,Z can also be length parameters
• Number can be any number, text, or integer parameter.

Make all of these parameters Shared Parameters and you'll be able to schedule them.

[ToanDN]

I would use the OOTB sphere mass. It gives you all (except X, Y coordinates) and easy to adjust.  Then use Spot coordinates to get the coordinates for each instance.

[robert2JCCH]

Depending on how you're assembling the 1500 orbs in the model (surely it's not manually?), you can take parts of that workflow to grab the point coordinate data.

For instance, if you're spacing the orbs out like the points of a geodesic polyhedron (https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/parametric-dome/2669/3), you can just pull the point data and push those values into their respective parameters.