By Garry Stockton
Functional, well-constructed Revit families all share common guidelines. These families use consistent standards, are organised in an effective library and adhere to strict quality control guidelines. However, there are badly created families and these can cause issues.
Have you ever loaded a family into your project file and found the parameter names weren't in English? Searched through the family browser looking for a particular casework family only to realise, after a while of looking, that somebody has named it "My Chair Family"? Or how often have you loaded that appropriate looking family into your project, created many instances of it, then become frustrated that your model size increased up to 10x its original size?
In this blog, we'll describe the major steps for successfully managing your Revit content. These steps include:
Standardise your content
Some time ago, I was working on delivering a Revit family training course with Architects. One of the team members had created some custom window families that they had been using on a project. However, he was having difficulty locating his content. After spending 10 minutes going through the family browser in his project file, I gave up. I couldn't find the families.
We went through how he had created the family and I asked him what they were named. "Um. . . I think they're called 'exterior windows' or something like that." He spent another few minutes looking for the families until, finally, I heard him say " Found them!" He said the family is named 'WIN2023'. This was due to the pressure that day to finish that stage of the project and he had every intention of renaming it.
The couple of minutes spent properly naming this family would have saved him many minutes spent looking for the family. And this was just one instance. Imagine if several people were looking for that family over the course of a week.
The first step in standardising your Revit families is deciding on a naming convention. This naming convention should encompass the name of the .RFA file, at the most basic level, and should extend to the family types and parameter names as well. Let's review each of these items in more detail.
Family names
When it comes to Revit families, you're either using standard integrated Revit content, downloading content from an online or manufacturer's site, or you could be creating your own. In each case, you'll want to reconsider the name of the family so you can identify where it came from and easily locate it in your model's family browser.
Your naming convention should be clear and easily understood, create standards If you want it to be used, make it easy to use. Whilst it may make sense to you, check it out with your colleagues or Management before you implement it.
Families that you have created should have a prefix for your company or similar identifier (see image below) so they sort in the family browser. If it's a project specific family, it should have a project prefix. This will make the family easier to identify.
If you're intending to use the Level of Development (LOD) standard, you should consider adding the LOD to the family name as a suffix. This will make it easier to audit the model and swap out higher or lower LOD families as needed. It also tells the user how much detail they can expect in the family. Ever loaded a family into your project model only to find it includes all the screws, bolts, and washers? Identifying the LOD of the family helps in this situation.