Pipe Accessory Annotation Scale & Model Lines

[JJRevitUser]

I've attached a family where I was modifying a plan symbol into it because it previously did not have one. For the life of me I CANNOT figure out why in the family the model lines show up where I want them but upon insertion into a project the entire symbol is shifted to the right almost the entire length of the family... Any suggestions on my problem would help please & thank you. I've attached the family below, it is in R17.

Reasoning & workarounds:

I am sifting through my company's library of "Content" cleaning it out & recreating/modifying families as needed to create some sort of drafting standards. I've made it to Pipe Accessories & valves specifically. Narrowed 250ish families down to 44 that will cover everything our modeling scope involves & I am implementing standard symbols into them based on the symbols in our cad mechanical block. 

I'm unsure of how others workarounds with these families are but we intended our 1/8" drawings to use single line pipe graphics for pipe, fittings, & accessories... So the idea is to use revit's default 'Use Annotation Scale' parameter associated to the model lines representing our symbol in plan & do the same with model lines in elevation (but set to medium view only) to cover us if we ever need elevations for single line piping while plan & iso/3D would use the ref/plan level model line symbol in coarse for those views. That is our workaround in order to see the "symbol" in plan/iso/elevation views along our single line piping, it also overcomes the sloped piping issue we see with symbolic lines or nested generic annotations. 

[ennujozlagam]

is this you wanted it to be? see screenshot. thanks

[Scott_D_]

If you lock the symbol linework to the workplanes in the family it should stop it moving around at different scales.

[JJRevitUser]

Unfortunately no, the dual handle thing with open/closed vis parameters was something the original builder thought was necessary maybe but I thought it was a cool thought so I left it after cleaning. My concern here isn't the geometry of the family really, except the model lines. I am using model lines within the family (located on the ref plane) exactly how the ootb (revit default) pipe accessories utilizes them but for some odd reason they shift completely to the right when loaded into a project. An easy way to see what I am talking about is to load it into a project on fine view & then change it to coarse.

But that bring up more questions like how exactly does the 'Use annotation scale' parameter work really? Does it scale the extents of items assigned to it from the origin or something else? 

[JJRevitUser]

That's the weird thing though, I originally had the model lines constrained in the typical way but it seemed that because they had been constrained the Annotation scale parameter would not work, so I unlocked them all and it seems to work now but I think there are some unknowns within the 'Use Annotation Scale' param. At least it escapes me at the moment

[RobDraw]

IME, the Revit OOTB valve families are hard to work with in this fashion. I've tried to make them work but was never really satisfied.

I found that nested annotation symbols for one line piping were much easier to implement and control. They do have some shortcomings, like for sloped pipe, but they are solvable. 

[JJRevitUser]

Thanks for the reply, what have you done to overcome the sloped, & I assume iso view, issues when it comes to the generic annotation symbols not showing? Our drafters/engineers like using locked iso views for one line diagrams to fixtures/equipment

[RobDraw]

One should not assume. I have not done ISO views as there were issues with them that seemed a bit daunting to overcome for what we wanted. That's something we will tackle at a later point when/if Revit gets a bit better in that aspect.

For the sloped pipe, I used something that was written up for lighting fixtures, not sure where it is at the moment but an internet search should turn it up for you. The strategy was to put the symbol on a reference plane and I added preset values for the slope, 1/4"/1' and 1/8"/1'. It's been a while since I made those families and am not working at that company anymore. I'm anticipating having to remake them again shortly at my new place.

[jkarben]

The family content was moved to the right of the original family origin. Moving the content back to the left scaled the symbol from the midpoint. Although you can assign any two ref planes as Defines Origin it appears as if model lines still scale from the original family origin.

One way find the original family origin is to open a out of box family and copy paste aligned to view the two main Center Ref Planes into your family.

[rathriftshopp]

What does it mean that annotation symbols cannot be locked?