2.2 Void family
I’ll not focus too much on the creation of void families (you can easily use my families in your project). The basic idea is to create two different void geometries: rectangular and round.
As a starting point we can choose “Metric Generic Model.rft”
Is the simplest template and is the most common starting point for families, any time is possible to change the family category to meet the correct.
Then just some Shared parameters for dimensions, numbering and elevation. Why shared parameters? Of course because we can use those parameters in schedules.
Now we can start with the normal procedure for families modeling. In personal experience I follow always the same rules:
- Create reference planes
- Create parameters attached to reference planes
- Create geometries attached to reference planes
In this way you can always be sure that geometries will follow planes guided from parameters.
With this assumption we can create a simple extrusion linked to reference planes and managed by 3 different parameters: W, L, H. Those parameters will be important to adapt the dimension of the void to the dimension of the system that is intersecting the wall or floor geometry. The Elevation parameter is useful to be able to read the elevation of the void in a schedule. I don’t know why but in Revit we are not able to see offset in a schedule so, we’ll copy (with Dynamo of course) the value of the offset directly into the Elevation parameter.
In the front view the family is created with equal distance from the reference level because with dynamo we’ll calculate the exact center point of the intersection. But we love details and in the section or elevation view we want to see a 2D detail of the opening, easy! We can easily create a nested detail item family with the same parameters of the 3D element, then place in the front view and in the plan view if needed.
I love details!
The first step is almost finished and with the same procedure we can create the round void, this time instead of 3 dimensions we have only Diameter, as main dimension, and W for the depth.
