Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2013: No Experience Required

Chapter 17

Creating Families

As you’re probably becoming acutely aware, having the right content will make or break an Autodesk® Revit® project. I’m sure you’re also very aware that, other than the content Autodesk has provided and the content you downloaded from this book’s web page, you don’t have anywhere near the amount of content you need to start a project! That being said, it’s time to buckle down and dig into how Revit works and see how having adjustable, parametric families will turn you into a Revit fan for life.

In this chapter, you will learn about:

• Creating a basic family
• Using a complex family to create an arched door
• Creating an in-place family

Creating a Basic Family

The first item we’ll tackle is how to create a basic family. We’ll start with the creation of a wall sweep and then move on to creating an arched doorway. As you become fluent with these two basic family types, you will really start to be able to create families quite fast.

You have to start somewhere. To be honest, no good family is “basic,” but some are easier to create than others. The concept is the same, however.

Essentially, a family has three fundamental components:

Reference Planes Yes, reference planes drive the family. Look at these as the family’s skeleton.

Constraints Constraints are dimensions with a parameter associated with them to give the skeleton its flexibility.

3D Massing 3D massing is locked to the skeleton. We’ll call this the skin. Corny, I know, but it gets the point across. ...