Family Jewels - Creating Quality BIM Content

The Best of the Best Revit BIM Resources out there

So I have this good friend who was displaced from an architectural job, in this downturned economy, so I told him about MEP firms looking for people who know how to implement Revit MEP, and how manufacturers are looking to create BIM content for their MEP clients. I also told him about Autodesk's Assistance Program website where you can download free softawre if you're a displaced worker, student, or veteran. He downloaded several products, incluiding Revit MEP and Inventor, and told me this weekend he has an open offer from a reputable MEP firm that's starting down the Revit MEP road. Since he'll be starting there as a BIM manager to help implement, yesterday, to help him start off as best he can, I put together for him a list of the best of the best resources I have stumbled onto over the past 3+ years with Autodesk.

I have been trying for weeks now to break loose and free up some time to cut some videos and revive the vitality here, but I have been on the road since... I can't remember how long!!I So I thought I would share the  list with you guys - the rest of the world. So here they are - the juciest resources I know of on Revit MEP & BIM. These will certainly be useful if you are about to implement Revit MEP, but even if you've been doing Revit MEP for some time already, if you see something new on the list below, have a look and you probably won't be disappointed. None of the firms I have shared these resources so far with has been anything less than thrilled to have these. Note that to access some of these resources, you will have to be on Subscription and have those login credentials.

Revit MEP 2010 template file – zip file from David Butts’ AU 2009 class: MP314-1 – Autodesk® Revit® MEP 2010: Powerful Tips and Tricks.* This is the Revit MEP template file, already replete with all sorts of content typical to an MEP project.

Inside the System – Blog with great videos and blog postings about all the latest on Revit MEP, all from the Revit MEP team at Autodesk.

Revit Family Jewels – Blog on how to create Revit families (you're on it here :) )

Revit MEP Families Guide – How to make families (picks & clicks)

Revit® Model Content Style Guide – How to make your families consistent and standardized, industry wide. Ask a room full of people to write down what you call the relief mechanism on a water heater. You’ll get “relief valve, pressure relief valve, PRV, T&P, TPR, etc.” That’s just what you’ll get when people make water heater families too, and you’ll wind up with schedules that have five separate categories for the same item because each instance of that item in the project file has a different name.

Metadata Style Guide  – The purpose of the Autodesk Seek Metadata Style Guide is to define style and formatting rules that manufacturers, content service organizations and other content publishers can reference to assist in the creation of high quality content for Autodesk Seek. Providing rich content and following the rules of the Style Guide will ensure the end user‟s experience in finding data is seamless and efficient. This document is directly related to the Product Workbook Excel template. It defines how the fields in the Product Workbook should be populated.

AU 2008 ME500-1 – From Contract to Construction Documents with Revit® MEP* – has one of the best videos I have ever seen on how to go from “Okay, we’re an MEP firm who just got our first Revit Architecture background – what do we do now??” – to – “Here are your CD’s, ready to go out to bid.” This video is three hours long, so bring your note pad and a bag of popcorn, and be prepared to come back to it a few times.

Model Performance Technical Note (pdf - 1225Kb) – When you leave your desk for lunch, and leave work at the end of the day, did you know you’re supposed to delete your local Revit file each time? If you keep working in the local file day after day rather than creating a new local copy twice a day, you are going to realize a huge performance hit, and cause memory errors. Delete the local copy twice daily, and make sure it’s deleted in Windows Explorer. This is just one reason you’ll want to read the Model Performance Technical Note before you implement Revit or a BIM workflow. The Model Performance Technical Note was written by all three Revit platform PM’s and herein they’ve identified all the weakest links in the process of deploying Revit that companies typically run into, so you can avoid them. 

E202 (LOD) - 2008 – Level of (model) Development now being required of some firms. The complete set of documents is available on the AIA wbesite. For an excellent treatment of the subject, see James Van’s blog post about it on his All Things BIM blog. In contrast, see the Autodesk BIM Communication Specification, ff.

Autodesk BIM Communication Specification – The BIM Comm Spec outlines practices and provides a framework for using building information modeling (BIM) technology and practices to deliver projects faster and more cost-effectively. Here is the BimForum thread regarding electronic communications protocols. In the BimForum thread, the author is clearly of the opinion that Autodesk’s Comm Spec is the more “excellent and thorough” document.

Revit Server – If you need to more easily collaborate on projects with geographically dispersed teams, this is an application service you’ll want to implement that will help keep teams coordinated as they work on a single project from separate locations. As of this writing, the Revit Server application is available only via the MEP Subscription Advantage Pack on Subscription Center.* See also the Revit Server Administration Guide, and the Revit Server Installation Guide before you implement this app.

*Must be a Subscription customer to access and download this resource from AU Online.

Video: Troubleshooting Revit Families

In this video, learn the process to troubleshooting a family issue in Revit products. Understand the best practices of Family creation and the methods to prevent problems before they occur.

 

 

 

Creating Family Parameter Links

You can load instances of families in other families to create new families. By nesting existing families inside other families, you can save modeling time.

By linking family parameters, you can control the parameters of families nested inside host families from within a project view. You can control either instance parameters, or type parameters. In the Air Dryer family, I created a type parameter to control the nested ball valve family inside of it.

In order to link parameters, they must be the same type. For example, link a text parameter in the host family to a text parameter in the nested family. In the Air Dryer family I created, they both share the same Family Type Parameter.  So when I change the family type of the Air Dryer, it changes the family type of the ball valve.

You can link a host-family parameter to more than one nested family parameter of the same type. Also, you can link this parameter to multiple nested families. In this example, there are two nested ball valve families that are linked and sized by one parameter.

The following is an outline for how I created a family with Parameter Links.  For detailed information about loadable families, see The Families Guide.

In my air dryer family,  I first created some reference planes, (as all new families should be created.) Make sure to label the reference planes. 

Next, I created various solid extrusions, dimensioned them, and then labeled the dimensions to type parameters.  Later I can enter various dimensions that I want to use for the multiple sizes of air dryers I want to create.  In this case, I wanted six air dryers.  I flexed the reference planes and extrusions by putting in a couple values into the type parameters I created and made sure the reference planes and extrusions all moved correctly.

For this family, I also needed to create a sweep to represent the pipe connecting the tanks.  The pipe size would vary with the size of the host family, so I created a connection radius parameter which would control the pipe profile diameter of the sweep, and diameter of the pipe connector.

Now for the Parameter Link, which is what this article is about.  I loaded the ball valve family as a nested family into my air dryer family, and inserted the two ball valves on my sweep representing my pipe using reference planes.  There are six different air dryer sizes that I was creating, and as the air dryer gets larger, so do the pipes and the two ball valves.  The pipes already were flexing from the connection radius parameter I created, but the ball valves had to be tied to a family type parameter.  The result would be with each different air dryer type, a different ball valve type would be used. This is done by selecting the nested ball valve family, and click on "Add Parameter".

In this case, I made the family type parameter a type parameter, and put it in the Dimensions Group.  Then just add a couple pipe connectors and one electrical connector, changed the parameters on the connectors, and we're almost done.

 

With my six air dryer family types I created, I now just had to enter data.  To make the parameter link complete, I assigned the smallest air dryer family to the 3/4" ball valve family; the next air dryer family size to the 1" ball valve family; the next family size to the 2" ball valve family; the next family size to the 3" ball valve family; and so on...

As you can see, you can build some complex families by reusing some existing families and nesting them.  This can save you a lot of time.  But the point is that nested family types can be controlled by creating the correct parameter. 

Just remember not to over model as well.  This family could be replaced with just a box with some connectors.  But we are using these 3D views to also generate our details by connecting to the system equipment and using the subscription Freeze Tool, and create a drafting view.  Then we add text and annotation to it, and put the drafting view in our Revit Details project, which is a project file that only contains all of our drafting view details that can be inserted into our main Revit MEP projects.

Download Compressed Air Dryer

by Scott Brisk

Engineering BIM Solutions