Activate the change of Elevation from Level Parameter within Revit project for face-based Families

[karolina_kordula]

It would be very useful to activate the possibility to change the Elevation from Level Parameter when working with face-based Families in the Revit project.

The current functionality is when loading a face-based family into the Revit project the parameter Elevation from Level is grey out. The only method for changing the elevation of the element is to pick another level/reference plane or face as a reference for the element. When it is necessary to place multiple elements on different elevations, it is required to create an additional reference for each element, because it is not possible to enter a different elevation value from the level for each element. This workflow is time-consuming and gives limited space to manipulate the placement of elements. 

The needed functionality will be the possibility to type/change the value for Elevation from Level Parameter in order to place multiple elements based on the same level but with a different offset.

[Martijn.Pater]

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@karolina_kordula wrote:

The only method for changing the elevation of the element is to pick another level/reference plane or face as a reference for the element. 

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Just some notes/thoughts (as far as methods concerns):

- place the family on a vertical face with schedule level...

- you could unconstrain/disjoin them, making those <not associated>...

- you could nest it in a work-plane based generic family...
- you could add additional offset reference within the family and/or;...
- nest it in a two-level based family...

[karolina_kordula]

@Martijn.Pater 

Thank you for your comment.

If the shape of the family requires it to be on a horizontal plane (it is e.g. a post) assigning it a vertical reference will not solve this topic. Nesting an existing family in a new one is a good solution if there are not too many custom parameters in the existing family. If there are a significant number of them, it requires extra time to recreate them in the new family and assign those from the nested one. An additional reference inside the family, similarly- works fine if the existing family is not too complex and the rework will not take significant time. 

From what I've noticed you can disconnect the family from the schedule level but it still doesn't give a full freedom to move the family up and down without having to point to a new plane. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Your observations are completely accurate when dealing with a small number of simple families, thanks 🙂

I created this idea with the thought that unlocking the ability to change elevation from level would be a nice and easy improvement when working with face-based families, not requiring significant editing of families or extra work when inserting them.

[Martijn.Pater]

I don't think it's a strange thought really and also wondered in the past why it was greyed out, don't know for sure but this is probably inherent to the family being "face-based"... Otherwise you could just use a generic model with Work Plane-Based checked which will give you an Elevation from Level/Offset from Host parameter. Or similar methods mentioned above. One more would be nesting it as shared face-based family to get the above mentioned functionality and also still having it available as face-based within the project environment.

[karolina_kordula]

Exactly, I think this functionality is inherent in how this type of family works. The methods you mention are helpful when creating new families, or editing existing families that aren't very extended though. My idea came out of a project need, where there are already a very large number of customized families which require a lot of time to edit or nest manually. Therefore, I think that in the future, including the possibility to edit this parameter would be very helpful 😉