Friday, August 30, 2013

A Doors Life

As I mentioned in an earlier post I presented a session called "A Door's Life" at the recent Central States Revit Workshop. It tackles creating a host door family that nests 2 panels, 2 frames and 2 handles. It also features a nested clearance form for clash detection and a variable plan swing angle. The host door permits rotating the 3D panel and hardware to any angle as well, though 0-180 is probably the range that's most useful.

If you are interested in more information this is the handout that attendees received (embedded here).



As the handout will tell you it isn't meant to be the perfect door. It's a demonstration of concepts and how to put them all together. If you're lucky you'll end up with something you can use right away or at the very least have a good idea how to get where you want to go.

Click to Download the completed files for each exercise.

5 comments:

Aaron Maller said...

Great handout Steve!

Dave Baldacchino said...

Very nice indeed, and I'll say it again...your door handout from AU2005 lab is how I learned the family editor =)

Peter Tranberg said...

Hi Steve,
In Denmark (Scandinavia) we are at bit confused from the terms Height vs Rough Height and Width vs Rough Width. First I found that the Built In parameter Head Height is using Height to Caculate the Head Height. I assume that the Head Height indicates the Constructed Opening Height of the Door Opening. Could you indicate in a sketch what these terms meseures to in the US. I see that you use Rough Height for the Constructed Opening Height of the Door. Is that the right Head Height in the US??

Regards Peter.

Steve said...

Peter - Generally by height "we" mean the panel height or the doors "size". Rough Height or width would attempt to take in account the extra space required for the frame and shims inside the rough framed opening in the wall assembly, prepared in advance by the frame.

Head height is also an attempt to define the "height" of the door panel, not the bottom of the header that support the load above the door opening.

It is probably a more meaningful concept for windows as residential design usually refers to head height as a priority for them versus commercial or public buildings often refer to sill height as the priority because of code requirements.

It's been applied to doors too, whether you happen to find it useful or not. You need to decide which parameters to pay attention to for your own needs of course.

Hope this helps!

Peter Tranberg said...

Tanks Steve,

That just makes it more simple for me to choose the defining parameter. We use Height for doors and windows to get Head Height indicating the Constructed opening Height.

Peter