Family Offered as Work Plane Choice

A question popped up at RFO the other day. A member found Revit offering him a family as a possible workplane to chose when using the Set workplane option. It's perfect for the Dept. of Subtle!

When you use a family as a host for a Face-Based family this new host status of that family causes it to be elevated in status, to being eligible as a workplane for selection now too. For example I've placed a desk and then decided to mount an electrical outlet on the inside face so I can plug in my little space heater (I'm making this up as I go...).

You can see the Desk is now offered to me in the Workplane dialog. So don't panic if you start seeing families in this dialog. It just means they are hosting a party.

Revit MEP - Copy to Clipboard and Paste Aligned

Face-Based families don't seem to like when we use Copy to Clipboard and Paste Aligned. Specifically they may go where we want but they don't report the correct elevation value. For example these two Air Terminals are reporting 18'-0" after I used Copy to Clipboard and then Paste Aligned to Selected Levels, choosing Level 2.

They ought to report 8'-0" since that's their actual elevation above the floor, their host ceiling's elevation. You can see they are reporting an elevation that is equal to the offset from Level 1, the host level of their original ceiling. Using the Edit Work Plane tool is little help unfortunately. I tried it but Revit doesn't change their elevation value, I assume because they are already hosted by the ceiling I picked. That made me think of trying to host them to something else temporarily. Then I used Edit Work Plane again to host them on the original ceiling, no joy.

I resorted to using the Pin Trick. I pinned them and then used the Pick New tool. When I picked the ceiling as the new host the terminals stay put, because they are pinned, and Revit now reports the correct elevation again.

Quirky is alive in Revit!

Pick New - Changing a Host

Shawn at RFO shared a cool tip to help deal with orphaned MEP families when their host goes missing in the linked file they were depending on. When a ceiling is deleted and new ceiling is placed in the same location instead of switching ceiling types MEP families will end up as orphaned elements.

If these orphans really need to stay in the same location but be associated with a new ceiling (or other host surface) the Pick New tool is biased toward moving them to another host. When you attempt to click on the same host they often end up changing their position.

Shawn offered a simple fix. Just use the Pin tool to put a stake in them first. Then when you use Pick New they won't move and you can select their new host. Nice!

Placing Based Content Tips

This happens very often, probably more often in RME than others though. Select a face-based component to put in the model, start clicking away and then realize that it isn't hosted like you hoped it would be. Face-based families cannot be preset to prefer a certain face. Revit will decide that a Vertical Face is what you want by default. You have to remember to change it to one of the other two choices, Face or Workplane. It would be GREAT if we could preset a preference, not yet however.

Regular content, like a desk or a chair, doesn't offer a choice unless they have been changed to be Work-plane based. If that's happened then you get a choice between a Face and Workplane, like below.

You need to be careful with those choices if you have linked Revit models. The Face that Revit finds may be something in the link instead of the Level of your host project. If you select a family and find the associated work plane shows a linked project file you've got some "fixin" to do. Not hard to fix, just click the Edit Workplane button and choose the intended workplane, such as the Level it is on.

Face-based families offer you three choices and Vertical is the default one you'll get.

Placing content you have to be vigilant and notice which kind you are dealing with. If you don't change it you might get something like this, where your air terminal is hosted on the Vertical Face, or in as in the image below on the "vertical face" of the ceiling grid, uh oh!