Creating a customized and optimized Revit project template is essential for streamlining your project workflow and saving time in both the initial stages of design development and the later stages of documentation. In this blog post, we'll explore the benefits of a well-designed template and how it can improve efficiency and consistency across all projects.   The Importance of a Consistent Starting Point Consider a scenario where a company is managing multiple projects simultaneously, each with its unique requirements and specifications. Without a well-designed template, the team wo ..read more

​Creating your own nested and shared families and using them within RevitHQ families is a simple process that requires only a basic understanding of the family creation environment. But, there are some important rules to follow to ensure the process is seamless. In this guide we will be using the RevitHQ door family as the example, however, the same principle and process applies to any category within Revit. Please note that this guide assumes you know the basics of correctly constraining geometry to reference planes, and creating parameters to control these reference ..read more

Using nested and shared families is quite a simple process, however, for new Revit users or even just users that haven’t explored the power of this process, it can initially be a little daunting. Once you understand these features of Revit you will wonder how you ever lived without them, and not only that, the possibility of endless customisations of many of the RevitHQ families’ opens up to you. To begin with, let’s break down the terms nested and shared, how they are different, and why you should utilize these powerful features. Nested Families: A term used for a family that is 'nested' in a ..read more

Based on the same nested and swappable families’ principal present in all of RevitHQ doors, these folding doors presented some new challenges. The initial attempt at their creation was a single completely parametric folding door system. It utilized arrayed panels such that the amount could have been unlimited, in theory. It even had the ability to dynamically change its opening position, flipping panels as needed, while also moving handles and locks, a task that was anything but simple.  ​ These two features were useful but required enormous lines of equations, ‘if’ statements, embedded ..read more

This was a family many people were asking for and as with all families on RevitHQ heavy consideration was given to its operation. Specifically, should it be face-based, wall-based or level-based. A wall-based family would seem like the obvious choice given downpipes go on walls. But that would make it very inconvenient when you decide you to have concealed downpipes. A face-based family would cause similar headaches, but not only that, wall hosted elements have a tendency to be deleted quite easily when changes to its hosting element are made. Ultimately a dual-level based family would allow t ..read more

​This was a new discovery for me recently and one that I think has been overlooked by a lot of people. The vertical shaft tool for creating voids and services shafts through multiple floors has a small feature that has suddenly made it far more appealing to use over simply editing the floor extents. ​​Of course, I should have been using this tool to begin with, but on residential jobs the need to cut through multiple floors with a continuous shaft is rare. However, with the discovery that symbolic lines can be drawn while in sketch mode, I will be using this tool far more often. I am al ..read more

Another small yet handy discovery....have you ever decided to right-click on the padlock icon of a dimension? Well, give it a try. ​Right-click the padlock, then click ’Show Related’, and up pops a dialogue box that lets you cycle through exactly what you have dimensioned. It has a lot of potential, and it would be great to see this updated with the ability to cycle continuously through the whole dimension string. But for now, it is a useful tool that could really help during those more complicated dimensioning jobs ..read more

As RevitHQ is starting to populate its library with more and more families I thought I might share a few mini-tutorials in some areas you need to consider when creating parametric families. Now, this is by no means an exhaustive list, this is a very large topic, and many people have their own opinions on some of the key points. But these are some of the processes you will find adopted in the families created here and I urge you to consider them when creating your own. 1. Dimension to Reference Places This is a big one! If you can, place a priority on dimensioning to reference planes and not th ..read more

There has been a lot of confusion as of late in my office over when is and isn't the right time to use a callout, and what exactly the difference is between a Detail Callout and a Floor Plan Callout. This was most obvious on one particular job where someone early in the project decided to use a callout to create their new floor plan, this floor plan didn't need a referencing callout cloud in the host view, but this was just a quick way of creating a lower scale floor plan at the time. Along the way this went unnoticed, and every time a new floor plan was created using the duplicate floor plan ..read more

After some confusion at work around drag controls and the different way reference planes can affect families, I quickly threw this together. I hope it helps anyone else that has been confused by the topic. ​   Drag controls will be automatically created when an ‘instance-based’ dimension is created between two reference planes. ​The process is: 1.    Create a reference place and create your ‘instance-based’ dimension. 2.    Check you are not dimensioning to a level or face, otherwise, the drag controls won’t appear. 3.    Check the ‘Is refe ..read more