New Revit Forum

I´m happy to announce that a new Revit Forum is born ! Please have a look at http://www.revitforum.org/

In just 3 weeks, we are now more than 300 members, and still growing fast.

Void visibility with Yes/No ?

This is one of the questions that I get a lot - Most would say that the answer is no, since there´s no build-in "Visible" parameter for Voids, as the case is for solids.

But if you follow a few simple steps, the answer is actually YES - It CAN be done :-)

1. Create two extra ref. planes to control the void height (or depth, or whatever you´re after)
2. Lock one of those to a given distance from the solid (in this case 500 mm´s)
3. Dimension and label the distance between those two ref. planes (Length parameter names "Void Height"
4 Create the Void, and lock the top and bottom to the two ref. planes.
5. Create a new "Yes/No" parameter named "Void Visible" and assign this formula > if(Void Visible, Solid Height + 500 mm, 500 mm)

In the above example, I´m assuming that you need to cut all the way thru a solid with the height parameter "Solid Height"

Actually, a Revit family speaks more than a thousand words - so just grab this example.rfa , and make of it what you can.

Incremental Values

When building Revit families, it´s quite useful to be somewhat in control of the user inputs... for instance, doors come at certain width´s, it could be 810, 910 ,1010 mm´s or 3-0"´, 3-6", 4´-0" etc.

You´ll need a few parameters:

User Dim (Length) - What the end user is gonna use
Increment (Length) - 100 mm/6" - Not neccecary, it could be a fixed value in the comming parameters
Integer (Integer) Formula = User Dim / Increment
True Dim (Length) Formula = Integer * Increment

Now, just dimension your geometry/ref. planes with the True Dim parameter

Note 1: If needing the scandinavian standards of 810, 910 mm etc. ? just add + 10 to the True Dim parameter: = (Integer * Increment) + 10
Note 2: If you want to control how User Dim gets rounded up, or down just add either +0.49 or -0.49 to the True Dim parameter: (Integer * Increment) + 0.49 or (Integer * Increment) - 0.49

Childs cutting their Parrents...

Not really a nice topic, but quite usefull when speaking of Revit Families.
I´m repeating myself, from a post at the AUGI forums - But if you want a child/nested Revit family to cut a hole in the parrent/main family, like when placing a sink in a countertop, you´ll need to follow these instructions:

A: Sink family
1. New family, using the Generic FaceBased template....
2. Change the new family to the Plumbing Fixtures Category, (and share it)
3. Model the sink, and create a void, to representate the hole in the countertop.
4. Use "Cut Geometry" to cut the "Face" from the template, with the new void.
5. Save to library as desired.

B: Countertop family.
1. New family, using the Casework template...
2. Model the countertop as needed.
3. Load the above sink family, and place it on your new countertop face
4. Save again, and have fun :-)

And then again - we could take it one step further... when the sink is placed in the countertop family, pick it, and add a label to it, now you´ll be able to switch the sink famlily and/or type from within the countertop family, even when loaded into a project.