Friday, April 24, 2015

Revit 2016 - New Door Content

The What's New documentation for Revit 2016 doesn't mention this but if you look closely you'll find that it provides new door families separated into Residential (19 each) and Commercial (16 each) folders. The residential doors all use Type Catalogs except for the two garage doors (you can see them in the second image below). Revit 2015's Doors folder has 31 doors and Revit 2016 provides 35 (and another 12 you'll see below, for total of 47).


The Single-Flush family you can see in the image above is the same one we've had in past door content. Interestingly I don't see it in the library so I imagine it's a left-over from the stock template. This is what the residential doors look like in 3D with Detail Level: Medium.



The new doors feature nested hardware (visible with Detail Level: Fine) and new options, such as Swing Angle (doors that swing), Panel Open (pocket doors), Show Grill, Masonry Frame, Threshold and Masonry Inset. Those are just the ones I've noticed so far. They aren't available in every door, just those that the options make sense for. For example, in this image you can see a pocket door is selected and it has a Panel Open parameter, the image shows it is open.


This image shows a couple options for the single full glass door; Swing Angle and Show Grill.


When you switch Detail Level to Fine you can see the hardware and some families have additional trim. This image shows the hardware and a pair of separate sidelight families. I didn't take the time to see if I could make them fit the adjacent doors better.


These are the new Commercial door families, there are Type Catalogs for all but one of them (Door-Passage-Uneven-Flush).


This is what they look like in plan and 3D views. I've loaded and placed one type from each family.


There are door families (12 each) on their own within the Doors folder and several use Type Catalogs (6 each). You'll also find the three Curtain Panel Doors we are used to seeing in the library though they've been renamed a little. In fact all doors now include Door- as a prefix to declare their category. The curtain panel doors are always a source of confusion because they are doors in a door folder that can only be placed in the model by swapping them for a curtain panel.


They've also provided Hardware families in a separate folder, which are the families used on the doors that feature hardware.


I think they overlooked the Bi-fold (closet style) door families that are in the previous library, I don't see an equivalent version among the new doors.

I should also mention that these new doors don't resolve the Copy/Monitor issue with Walls and Openings. You can see in the upper wall at the right end that the pocket door has generated a much larger opening in the wall than it really should.


The only door families that create proper openings with C/M are those that use nested families for all the geometry and only the opening is defined in the host family. These new doors aren't built that way.

14 comments:

Dana D said...

The families are really nice, but do have one flaw. The doors have a parameter for a masonry frame depth, but do not have a height for the frame head. The way the door family is set up, is if you want to maintain masonry coursing, you have to have a 7'2" door. Not good if you have all 7'-0" doors and need a 4" frame head.

Aaron Maller said...

So they went to the trouble of building new Door COntent, and still didnt use Nested Panels or Frames for swapping? The Doubles probably still dont do uneven panel sizes either, eh? What a disappointment.

Steve said...

Well there is one unequal panel type door family... but no we can't just share panels between door families.

Dana D said...

I stand corrected. The masonry frame check box modifies the head condition. After digging into the family, they are not bad at all.

Jeff S. said...

So I see the swing angle is set as an instance parameter. Is this how firms have decided how to set this parameter? Also, are there two swing angle parameters for double doors? Below is an AUGI post asking the question about Instance vs Type.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?161511-Door-Swing-Angle-Parameter-Type-vs-Instance

Steve said...

In the doors I've looked at so far there is only one parameter for swing angle so it controls both panels in double doors.

It is an instance parameter because we'd need at least twice as many types to preset a swing value. Every door size would probably need to have a "partly closed" version and "90 degree open" version.

Swing is primarily used in a graphical role and primarily to make a plan less cluttered looking when swings cross over one another.

Some firms use a swing to designate an existing door, and usually a single line instead of a panel. I think the single line does the job while leaving the swing alone so it can be used to adjust how adjacent doors overlap, when they do.

Ultimately if you don't want it to be instance you can change it. I won't be surprised if you go back to instance. :)

Ric said...

I will be creating door families of the style that Aaron Maller refers to sometime this year, so at least now I finally have most if not all the door slabs and door hardware that I need. This is actually a pretty nice group of doors.

Does anyone know if there are any other new or enhanced families that come OOTB with Revit 2016 or is everything else just an upgraded version of what we had before?

Steve said...

Speaking for myself, as of right now I'm not aware of any other completely new content for 2016.

Steve said...

In chatting with a couple folks at Autodesk about this, I learned that the new content for 2016 breaks down like this.

US Doors
US AISC steel (for column and framing)
Canada CISC steel (for column and framing)
UK BS steel (for column and framing)
Structural Framing Annotation tags (also loaded into templates)
Template changes for Structural Data

2016 also incorporates a new Steel Profiles (Hot Rolled and Cold Formed) concept which is related to the new content above.

Unknown said...

does anyone know how to modify these new Revit door families to be able to adjust the door frame head? when we do tilt wall construction, we use a butt frame but with a 2" head - these doors won't allow that and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to modify them??

Steve said...

See today's post for my reply.

Unknown said...

I am in Revit 2016 and cannot find any of these new doors. There are only two types of doors Revit shows when I click on the commercial template. Is there a different template I should be using? Thanks

Steve said...

Jamie - The doors loaded into templates are not "all" the doors available...usually. The stock imperial template for example has one Single flush door with several sizes (types) loaded. It sounds like your office template has been set up with just two.

The stock content is installed here:

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ \Libraries

Your office may have stored them elsewhere on your own server. Then again your office may be expecting you to use your own doors instead of the stock content. If you are your office, working on your own, then the Autodesk Library shortcut on the left side of the Open dialog should take you to the stock content location, then open the door folder.

Hope that helps?

Steve said...

Jamie - the path I used earlier had "code characters" that altered the path I posted, it should be, for version 2017 as an example:

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\RVT 2017\Libraries\US Imperial (or US Metric for example)