Earlier this week I was reading a blog post by Steve Stafford on the state of Revit content, specifically content available from Autodesk Seek. The post is framed as a critique of Seek contents’ usability within a Revit project – bloated file size, incorrect category assignments, overly detailed visual modeling, etc. – and it ends with a statement that we’re still living in “the wild west” when it comes to Revit families.
Revit Families Mix for AU 2011
As part of our virtual booth at the upcoming Autodesk University conference, we had to create a 1-2 minute video giving an overview of our company and what we do. We decided there was no better way to communicate our story than by showing some of our Revit families. After submitting the video to the folks at AU, I thought it would be nice to share it here.
Updated Butterfly Valve Sample Family
Last week I announced some updates to our website, including a set of 5 new sample families available for download. In our excitement to share this new content with everyone, we accidentally posted a draft version of the Pratt Butterfly Valve on the sample downloads page. We weren’t aware of this oversight until a couple days ago, when someone who downloaded it followed up by email to ask about some errors they were seeing.
Transformer Revit Families – Getting More to Meet the Eye
We recently created a Revit family for a dry type power transformer by Powersmiths called the E-Saver-C3. The transformer comes in 10 different models based on apparent power (measured by kVA), and the case size of the transformer varies based on the kVA model being used. There are a number of potential spec configurations for each kVA model depending on the components used in the actual transformer, but for this order we only had to supply the C3L configuration with a primary/secondary voltage of 480/208 and a k-rating of 7.
New Sample Families
We’ve been working on some updates to our website over the last month, and late last week we finally pushed a few of them live. We brushed up our copy on various pages and tweaked a few layouts, including our Get a Quote page, all with the aim of making it easier for visitors to understand what we do and to get in touch with us.
Family File Naming Standards
A few days ago I gave a talk at the BIM Show Live in London. The title of my talk was Considerations on Family Creation. It was an update to a talk I gave this past summer at the LRUG (London Revit User Group) about key areas to review and define when creating or managing a Revit family library.
The Death of the Family Types
As most Revit users know, a family that has types can be created in one of two ways: you can create the types within the family (which I’ll call “built-in” here) or you can create the types in an external txt file called a type catalog. For quite some time now, I have been pondering over the use and future of built-in family types. The more families I do, the more built-in family types just don’t seem like the right way to go. They feel more like a shortcut.
Shared Parameter Standards Part 2 – What’s a Manufacturer to Do?
There are a number of standards offering a list of shared parameters for manufacturers to make use of when developing families for their products. But which standard should a manufacturer follow? I will argue that none should be followed, but that all should be taken into account.