If you use Revit in your work every day, you have no doubt discovered how important it is to have good family content at your disposal. When you do, things move quite smoothly and when you don’t, they can be quite the opposite. Inevitably, regardless of how good your library is, we all need to visit the family editor from time to time. In this session, I thought it would be fun to let you decide. Come to the session with ideas, we’ll take a vote at the start and if your idea is chosen, I’ll build your family content suggestion live in real-time as I discuss how and why I am performing each step and decision. If you have ever wanted to be a fly on the wall of someone else’s office as they work through a content creation problem, here is your chance. We’ll cover approach, design and strategy and many modeling, and parametric family creation techniques. The final file will be made available to all attendees following the conference.

• 2019 Dataset (ZIP - 37.3 MB)
• 2019 Handout (PDF - 26 Pages)

If you create Revit family content, there has been a slow trickle of new features that have crept into the family editor in recent releases. They just have not received much fanfare, so let’s play a little game of: “Is that new?” We’ll look at new features like: room aware location points, new family templates and let’s not forget reordering parameters! We’ll explore 3-point adaptive arcs and the newest new feature: “load into project and close”. But we won’t just focus on new stuff. Using some slightly obscure techniques we can make a parameter hidden in the project environment so you can use it to drive formulas without users inadvertently modifying it (because they won’t even know it’s there). We will explore using family types parameters to build drop-down lists and play some tricks with categories and shared vs. nonshared families. If you create family content even occasionally, there’s bound to be a topic in this session that will have you asking: “Is that new?”

• 2016 Dataset RTC (ZIP - 35.1 MB)
• 2016 Dataset BIMW (ZIP - 35.1 MB)
• 2016 Handout BIMW (PDF - 25 Pages)
• 2016 Dataset CADMW (ZIP - 35.1 MB)
• 2016 Handout RTC (PDF - 30 Pages)
• 2016 Handout CADMW (PDF - 29 Pages)

Just announced: This session was voted “Top-Rated” at Autodesk University 2022. Learn more here.

Have you ever tried to control the shape of a curved form parametrically in the Family Editor? If so, you’ve no doubt discovered that flexing them sometimes throws you a curveball. In this session we’ll explore several techniques to tame your unruly parametric curves. We’ll look at examples of circles, arcs, quarter round, half round, arches, and we’ll even check out some splines. We’ll look at both simple and compound curves. We’ll work primarily in the traditional Family Editor but most techniques apply to the massing Family Editor environment as well. We’ll explore curvature and rotation, and we’ll throw in some trigonometry for good measure. After this session, I cannot guarantee that you’ll never have another misbehaving curve in your family content, but what I can promise is that you’ll come away with several useful tools to help you tame them when curve-mischief strikes!

• 2023 Dataset (ZIP - 44 MB)
• 2023 Handout (PDF - 55 Pages)
• 2016 Extras (PDF - 8 Pages)
• 2014 Handout CSRW (PDF - 62 Pages)
• 2015 Handout (PDF - 73 Pages)
• 2015 Dataset (ZIP - 14.0 MB)
• 2015 Presentation (PPTX - 1.4 MB)
• 2016 Handout (PDF - 61 Pages)
• 2014 Dataset CSRW (ZIP - 18.5 MB)
• 2014 Handout MU (PDF - 15.3 MB)
• 2014 Dataset MU (ZIP - 54 Pages)
• 2016 Dataset (ZIP - 16.8 MB)