Beta Cycle for Acuity Brands Lighting Revit Families

From the new Acuity Brands Lighting BIM blog:

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve released version 1.0 of the ABL 3D Models. Visit the download page to select either the Revit family files or the DWG files.

The starter set contains about 50 models and covers a cross-section of our most popular products. We’ve provided the models as Revit family files and as generic 3D DWG models. Each model contains data about the product, including photometric data, links to spec sheets, and optical and electrical information.

We view this release as a beta version. Please let us know what you think of them, and how we can make our models even more useful to your efforts. We plan to regularly update this set and release additional models. To get the latest news, subscribe to our news feed.

You can leave general comments by filling out the comments form, or send comments, suggestions and improvement ideas to BIM@AcuityBrands.com.

Dept. of Quirky - Using Group Bar vs. Scrolling

If you like video I posted an example of this as well.

When you take a look at the properties of any element in Revit you are presented with parameters organized into Groups, the blue (at least in my Windows config) bar above parameters. This blue bar is one the "sneaky buttons" as I call them.


Clicking at any point along the blue bar will contract or expand the list of parameters. Okay you know that already...so here's the point.

You'll find that if you use a combination of the scroll bar AND the Groups that at times Revit will be unable to display all of the parameters toward the bottom of the list. This is particularly true of the Family Editor > Family Types dialog where I seem to spend a fair bit of time. In order to see them you'll have to expand all the Groups and then use the Scroll Bar.

I debated...is the Dept. of Subtle or Quirky?...Quirky won but it's a toss up!!

Duct Size Parameter - Inches - Revit MEP

If you used AutoCAD before using Revit you likely went through a bit of withdrawal from using inches as a base drawing unit. With Revit you had to get used to typing 0 space 6 for 0'-6" or 0 dash 6. Well in Revit MEP there is one instance at least where you get to enter relevant values when working through your design.

First if you are interested I posted a little video overview of this subject. Otherwise read on...

I am referring to the duct size parameters as the title suggests. In the Family Editor > Family Types dialog we can choose to Add Parameters to our family. Aside from providing a clever name we also can choose the Discipline > HVAC which in turn offers quite a few choices for "Type of Parameter".


When you choose Type of Parameter: Duct Size, Revit will require you to enter values in inches, which is easier since most duct sizes are referred to by their size in inches.

There's a catch though if you like to add parameters by using the Associate Family Parameter "sneaky button" in the properties of elements in the Family Editor.


This route precludes the use of the HVAC Discipline, Type of Parameter choices as it defaults to common and its subset of Types of Parameters. Not FAIR I say! I'm sure it is just an oversight!

To use it you need to start with Family Types > then Add Parameter. Then you can Associate the family parameter with the Element's parameter.

Pipe Materials

A fairly common comment from someone using the Piping/Plumbing features in Revit MEP is, "Where is Cast Iron?" Fair enough! Where is it? It ain't there! Getting it there is a matter of editing the Pipe Sizes.xml file (default location: C:\Program Files\Revit MEP 2008\Program). At least that's true for past versions. The information is now embedded in Revit MEP 2009 and accessible from a dialog found under Settings menu > Mechanical Settings. This is the dialog you get:


You click on "Sizes" at the bottom left of the dialog and you get the information displayed on the right side. You can now add Material, Connection, Schedule/Type as well as Sizes. Using the check boxes offered, you can filter the list of sizes so only appropriate ones will be offered to you when you use specific types of pipe. You also use this to allow RME to use the size when calculating "sizing" for you.

Keep in mind that the Project Units of your project will affect the pipe sizes displayed on the Options Bar too. You adjust this via Settings menu > Project Units and then choose Piping for Discipline. Like this:


Similarly Wires Sizes and Duct Sizes are embedded within RME.

Separate Checks Please - Off Topic "ish"

As a consultant I travel a bit. I have 150,000 miles on one airline alone...so perhaps more than a bit. I eat in a fair number of restaurants because I have to. I know, poor Steve...he HAS to eat in a restaurant all the time, poor baby. Well if you want to lose the 10 or so pounds that I gained a couple of years ago and they just won't go away no matter how hard I don't diet or exercise you'll understand.

Where am I going with this?

Traveling and eating alone can be a bit like the movie trailer for "Getting Over Sarah Marshall". The one where the poor sap is dining alone and the waiter makes a big point of it, Dining ALONE!!??!! Table for ONE!! And in "P.S. I love You" a big scene of removing the extra flatware and dishes when the guy gets up and leaves the girl at the table. Yeah I see movies on the plane that I probably wouldn't see by myself normally. And yes...my eyes welled up a couple times during P.S. I Love You"...softy! But I was really careful to pretend there was something in my eye so I don't think I was busted.

Where am I going with this?

Tonight I was sitting in a nice pub in Chicago, Miller's Pub. They have a great chicken pot pie (thanks David! for the recommendation) that is only available during lunch unless they have a couple left over and the last two times I've been here...they did...which means I got one. You have to know to ask because the menu says only available for lunch. Kind of like the family editor! It's a secret!

Where am I going with this?

Sooo I overheard the waiter tell a table of two behind me that it is the policy of the restaurant to not split checks, sorry...then he caved and said that since he wasn't really that busy yet he'd do it. It made me think about the service industry in general and why a restaurant would make a customer care about what is inconvenient for the waiter. Seems to me a restaurant is all about making food and pleasure easy for its customers, not burdening them with well it isn't convenient for us to do "that"... I'm not blasting Miller's, they are entitled to make their policies and choose to enforce them or not. It just seems to me that it can be a negative experience, however slight, in what could be an otherwise excellent night out for people.

Where am I going with this?

So what kind of negative experiences are we casting out to our clients based on our choice of Revit as a software or platform? How are we marketing that to them? Are we burdening them with "Revitese" or "BIMese"? Do they care what software we use? Well some do and some don't.

As my friend Wayne used to say to me when we'd have the proverbial Rev/auto/station talk,(paraphrasing) "Steve, if you are cutting my grass I don't care whether you use scissors or a $10,000 tractor as long as you get it done in the time you promised and for the price you promised...so why do I care what software you use?" Now Wayne enjoys playing point - counter point and his firm is a full fledged Revit capable design firm with an office in NY and NC, so no worries there.

I suppose we have to gauge what our clients appetite might be for this sort of knowledge? Then tell the ones who care and don't burden those who don't. Bottom line? "We" sell knowledge and expertise. We know how to get them the building they need and we happen to use some really great software to do it too. Just try to make sure the experience your clients leave with is a positive one! Don't make them remember you for being inflexible about splitting the check.

So there was where I was going, glad I finally got there!

Btw, I wholeheartedly recommend the chicken pot pie at Miller's Pub, just don't expect them to split your check! Cheers!!

Spam Blogging

I've backed off blogging a bit lately because unfortunately my blog has been flagged as a spam blog by google. Apparently this can happen when a blog has a lot of links to other sites. If you visit Wikipedia (not going to post a link because that would be spam blogging) you can read all about blogging and spam.

In fact references to each other's blogs can be called a "mutual admiration" blog society. So my links to other bloggers and vice versa are being interpreted by Google's anti-spam robots as spamming. We are all writing about a pretty arcane subject, to the rest of the world at least. Articles about Revit stuff to most people is little more than gibberish unfortunately.

They (Google) don't make it impossible to blog but it is tedious because every time I want to post or just save I have to enter a nearly indiscernable series of text from a randomly generated image. I find some of them really hard to read and end up trying a few times before I get them correct. Very tedious and takes the "fun" out of trying to post an article pretty quickly. Which is why I posted this instead of the actual article I was working on.

To me this points out how hard it is for a computer to really evaluate content. The "robots" are too ignorant to be able to "see" that I've been blogging about this subject for over three years and have been doing nearly exactly the same thing the whole time. I suppose a spam blogger is consistent and patient too but I'm too ignorant or impatient to consider trying to make money by spamming. I don't even put adsense on this blog...it soooo isn't about the money....

Sooo...if you are a blogger too, be careful about the number of links you create that point to other sites else you'll get flagged too. Perhaps a reason to move my blog to another tool like Typepad or Wordpress and host it myself? I thought I'd explain my inactivity at least.

Dept. of Subtle - Filter Parameter in Tags (really subtle)

This item is very arcane and until recently just another little mystery to me. While working on the egress family and its tag family that I made and posted about in the past I noticed the following item.


I hadn't noticed it in the past and searched for any information that might be available in the help files. Truthfully I wasn't too surprised when nothing jumped out at me in a few tries at a search. Unfortunately the help files are bit too sparse when it comes to the family editor "secrets".

So I posted a question to the gallant folks at Autodesk and I received this explanation:

“It is used to control which elements are taggable by a multi-category tag family. You can select a shared parameter as the filter parameter, and then when placing a multi-category tag, the tag placement tool will only let you place the tag on elements that contain that parameter (either because the parameter was added to the element’s family or because it was added to the element’s category as a project parameter).”

(My thanks to Steven Campbell and the "unknown" developer who came to my aid!)

This applies to Multi-Category tags. As it applies to my Egress family, this means I can tell Revit to filter for a specific parameter so that my "Multi-Category" tag will only tag "my" family..or any other that I associate that parameter with.

AU 2008 Sessions

The selection of the next Revit classes to attend at Autodesk University 2008 is well under way. A recent post by David Baldacchino (Do U Revit?) pointed this out already and you can visit the BLAUG blog too. If you haven't voted already you can take a look at the list and see. Once you've voted you can't get back in to look over the list, or at least I couldn't.

I received an email asking why my name was not among the submissions. Simple, I didn't submit anything this year.

Last year I felt that I was unable to participate as much as I would have liked to, in my role as a board member with Autodesk User Group International (AUGI). This year I'm not going to have that conflict. Plus I hope to actually attend more classes this year!

Besides, there are so many more very capable users now, compared with a few years ago, that I doubt my absence will be noticeable. There are a great many classes to choose from and I wish the AU planning team all the best trying to pick from them. Hopefully the polling will help too!!

See you at AU 2008!

Off Topic - Amputee Has Advantage

Not the slightest bit about Revit...

This evening I read an article in USA Today about Oscar Pistorius, a 21 year old track athlete from South Africa who wants to compete at the Olympics in Beijing. He just happens to be lacking his lower legs and uses either prosthetic legs or blades to get around.

Briefly, a ruling was made that says that he has an unfair advantage over able-bodied runners when using his "blades" and therefore cannot compete. His lawyers are about to challenge that ruling in an upcoming court case.

This struck me as odd...first he's missing his bloody lower legs!!! Is that really an advantage if he uses the prosthetic blades? The scientist who determined that he has an advantage has tried this out for himself?? I suggest that the folks making the decision try it out for awhile and see what kind of real advantage he has. No matter how good they fit I can't imagine it is better than a real knee and lower leg for smooth and proper "operation". Second, if he wins his case and gets to compete and does so to a victory...I can't help but wonder if this means that other able-bodied runners will now have their legs cut off just so they have a similar advantage???

I suspect his real advantage will be a strong spirit and uncommon determination to be a successful track athlete despite his difference. I say bravo...and good luck!

Sorry to wander off the Revit focus I have usually...but I know some Revit users who live in South Africa AND I've mentioned Revit a couple times in the post too!!

Insert from File

This feature is intended to allow us to acquire information from another project file and add it to our current project. There are two methods, Views and 2D Elements. Both methods involve selecting a project file first. To get started you choose the File menu and then Insert from File.

The first option, Views, grants us access to views and sheets. The catch is the views are 2D views like drafting, detail and schedule views as well as sheets. The sheets must either be empty or contain only 2D views. In the past I posted an article describing using this to deal with dummy sheets to fill out a complete drawing list. This feature presents us with a dialog listing the eligible views.


It is a great way to transfer office standard detail sheets and schedules into a new project. When you select a sheet that includes just 2D views Revit will bring the sheet and all the views on it into your project as well as placing them on the sheet.

For campus projects that share details it allows you to place copies of the details in each building file so you can create intelligent view references to the details. If you only change them in the "master" file (a primary building model project) you only need to keep the sheet and detail numbers coordinated if you do all printing from the "master" project file.

The second option, 2D Elements is intended let us "steal" drafting annotation, detail lines and detail components from model views. Imagine a wall section that is the same or very similar to the one you are working on now. Using this tool you can grab the 2D embellishment in the other project and added it to your current model's view. This tool presents a dialog of eligible views too, all views that have any 2D information added to them.


Annotation that requires a reference like dimensions or tags will likely fail to insert for fairly obvious reasons, namely the reference isn't necessarily in the same location or even present.

Revit 2009 Versions Released

As of 3pm today Autodesk officially released and announced that the new versions were available for download. Some were able to download it a bit earlier than intended by "reverse engineering" the web address for 2008 versions. While it technically worked I refrained because I wanted to hear it from the "horse's mouth" that it was released, on the off chance that a final build hadn't been posted yet.

So the good news is that for those with adequate broadband access you can download the version you use anytime you want now.

Here are the links to each version:

Revit Architecture 2009


Revit Structure 2009


Revit MEP 2009


Note: Only the English version is available for download at this time as they are preparing the other language version now.

Also take care to download the correct version if you own the "suite" that includes AutoCAD or AutoCAD MEP. As Greg noted in his blog this morning you won't be able to authorize AutoCAD properly because the "suite" version is not posted at the Autodesk site for download.

Revit MEP Air Terminal - Troubleshooting

I received an email from client asking for a little assistance with an air terminal family. Apparently the diagonal line they wanted to indicate that the terminal is a "return" wouldn't play along when the family changed size.

Recently I was in Houston and David Baldacchino (Do U Revit? blog) and I had a chance to hang out. He told me about a new (new to me) video capture tool called Jing Project by Techsmith (makers of my favorite screen capture tool SnagIT) that allows you to do screen capture to video or images as well as audio. Then you can easily post the video on Screencast. This post is as much a test as an example of troubleshooting a family.

The issue came down to this. Revit constrains elements orthogonally. The diagonal symbolic line is constrained to the reference planes, not the edges of the neck opening that they wanted it to "follow". The video describes the process of using the Automatic Sketch Dimensions (ASD's) that Revit applies when we do not explicitly add our own dimensions or lock padlocks, for example. The ASD's will do the job nicely as long as well "tell" them what is important to us.

Here's a link to the video: (embedded it is too big to view on the blogger screen)

Download it HERE. (3.75mb)

CAD Surveys and your Revit Project

This text was posted at AUGI by David Conant (Autodesk Revit Product Designer) in February this year. It is very important information.

This method should ALWAYS be followed. It is critical to follow when the survey coordinates of your building site have large values (> 2 miles/3km from site 0,0):

ALWAYS locate sites underneath buildings. Revit buildings like to stay near home and be oriented to project north. Sites can wander about and talk to the buildings later. DON'T try to pan your view 40 km northeast of 0,0 and try to build your building model there because your site coordinates have a remote origin. This will work in AutoCAD but in Revit you will be very unhappy.

NEVER import or link a site with large coordinate values Origin to Origin! This may seem correct based on AutoCAD experience, but here too you will be very unhappy in Revit. You will get the correct origin later in the process.

• Build your revit model at or near the position of the elevation marks in the default template with the building oriented orthagonal to your desired printing frame. i.e. use a Project North not True North for your working environment.

For one building on a site:

• Link in a site model or site dwg.
• Move and Rotate the SITE so that it is located correctly relative to the building.
• Acquire the site's coordinates. Now, the site's origin will be the origin of your shared coordinates. The site's Y axis will be True North. The site coordinate values can be arbitrarily large without disturbing Revit's internal calculations.
• You can later open the site model and link in the building using shared location and it will land in the exact position.

For multiple buildings on a site:

• Create a Site project, link in a site dwg, placing the center of the building site near the center of the default view.
• Acquire coordinates from the site.
• Build any site elements, topos, etc.
• Link in building rvts. Move and rotate them so that they are correctly located on the site.
• Publish coordinates to the rvts. Now all models will have the same Shared origin and True North orientations.
• You can now link the site into any of the buildings (the other buildings can be linked in as well) using shared location and it will be in the exact location.

Hostile Takeover - Google takes on Autodesk AND Bentley

Latherdon - 2008

In a surprise move, some say shocking, this morning Google announced its intent to take over Autodesk AND Bentley. Analysts say this is a strategic acquisition to take control of the "Information" in Building Information Modeling (BIM). No details were provided regarding how the combination of two major rivals for the computer aided design marketplace would be managed. Nor did the announcement discuss the likely lawsuit, from other cad vendors like Solid Works, ArchiCAD to name just two, claiming anti-trust violations. Google management stated that they intend to offer $12.50 per share for Autodesk shares and $6.50 per share for Bentley though Bentley remains a privately held company. Based on current market value this places the entire deal in the $2 gazillion range.

Attempts to reach competing software vendors for comment were not possible before releasing this news.

About the Author: Freddy Latherdon
Freddy has been on hiatus since undergoing knee surgery after a unexplained billards accident. He returned to work just in time to capture the essence of what will turn out the be the biggest BIM story yet, assuming the deal goes through.

Yes...this is nonsense...please don't panic...!!!

In separate announcement Google introduced its latest feature for Gmail, Custom Time. Now you can never be late with your response, you could even be early, earlier than the request in the first place!

Tale of a Round Trip - Revit MEP Family and RAC

Attended a local user group recently and an attendee asked if it was possible, and/or useful, to use a Revit MEP (RME) family in a Revit Architecture (RAC) model, for example a toilet. The answer given was yes, but we would lose plumbing engineering functionality of the toilet while working with it in RAC.

First the greatest advantage to using a RME toilet in a RAC project is if the RME team is going to actually work on the same project file. While this is certainly possible it might not be very likely for at least two reasons, separate firms doing the work and model/Revit performance (based on project size).

A second possible advantage is that RME users can Copy/Paste elements in a linked RAC file into their project. If it is already a RME toilet, using the same example, then it is now ready for pipe. The RAC user can decide if they want to keep their toilet or let the RME version stand in now, much like Revit Structure (RST) columns ultimately replace the ones the RAC user placed originally.

It was suggested that Revit might change the family if it was used in RAC and then returned to RME. I didn't think that would be the case so tonight, just for grins, I did two different tests:

1 - RME Toilet round trip between RME and RAC in the project environment to see if Revit did anything unkind to the family. Answer - no!

2 - RME Toilet round trip between RME and RAC in the family editor environment to see if Revit did anything unkind to the family. Answer - no!

The primary difference in both cases was that most of the RME specific features were visible but inaccessible to the RAC user. Here's the dialog box captures for each sequence, starting with the project environment.

RAC Project - Properties

RME Project - Properties

RAC Family Editor - Connector Properties

RAC Family Editor - Family Types

RME Family Editor - Connector Properties

RME Family Editor - Family Types

You can see that the family survived being opened and saved in both RAC and RME without harming the usability of the family in either version. In fact in RAC a few of the parameters, like Flow Pressure is still editable, while other engineering criteria are simply inaccessible.

So the question remains, what benefit is there to use RME families in RAC if you are not working within the same project file? Well apart from the Copy/Paste tool letting your RME consultant use your fixtures, I suppose not much!

Well that was fun!

Revit MEP - Family Connector - Arrow Direction

When you create a Revit MEP family that requires a connector (most will) you need to pay attention to the direction of the arrow that appears on the connector. In the following image the arrow points down, out of a water closet fitting.

Yes the arrow is also different than the Flow Direction parameter in the properties of the connector.


If it were to point up then Revit would think that a pipe should connect from within the bowl of the water closet (toilet)...which would be wrong. You'd also likely get a message like this one.

This is trying to tell you that Revit just couldn't figure out how to get your fixture connected to the pipe you selected. Usually this message is related to the elevation of the pipe and the fixture or they are too close together for specified fittings to actually connect properly. When it comes to the pictured connector it means that the pipe is running the opposite direction AND that the elevation I used for the related pipe is too close to the same elevation.

Yes, you'll have to put on your detective hat, light your pipe and seek out the "elementary" explanation my "Dear Watson".

If you are curious the water closet fitting pictured above is part of a "rough-in" connector for a floor mounted toilet. The issue at present is that the basic plumbing fixtures that the architect uses in Revit Architecture has no connectors and that even if it did when their model is linked into RMEP they wouldn't be usable to connect pipe. Thus the notion of just the rough-in components instead of putting another toilet in the same place.

Turns out what we thought was "clever" is what Autodesk's RMEP team was thinking too and you'll find some basic connector families in the content with the release of Revit MEP 2009. Here's a screen capture of the mockup example.

Release Date Released - April 15th, 2008

A couple of resellers have announced the expected ship date for Revit 2009 software and it is April 15th, 2008. An auspicious date...tax day! I trust there isn't nearly the sense of foreboding associated with that however!

Thanks to Greg Arkin with Cadd Centers of Florida, Revit 3D blog, and Dwane Lindsey with MasterGraphics of the Revit Arch Center blog for announcing it.

Dept. of Subtle - Beam Joins RAC 2009

In past releases when Revit Structure touted the ability to miter steel beams and Revit Architecture couldn't lots of Architecture users were mighty annoyed. Revit Structure 2009 has enhanced the join process and options AND Revit Architecture get them TOO! The Beam Join tool will be found on the "Tools" Tool Bar next door to the Edit Wall Joins button.

Here's what some beams look like after playing with them.



Since the video doesn't seem to be working in this post you can see it HERE

Proposal - Camera View Annotation

When a Camera view is created there is no built-in intentional way to show our readers where the camera is located. With Revit (and 3D design in general) more and more camera views are used to explain/document our work.

I believe there should be something like we have for sections,elevations & call-outs. and I know I'm not alone. Camera views should have annotation generated in the same way that other views in Revit do. They should appear in plan views in my opinion but an argument could be made for them showing up in elevation and section views too.

In the meantime we CAN continue to create an Annotation Symbol family that we can place and then enter detail and sheet location information...yeah, "old school"...

It could be sooo much better...

Shared Parameter File - A Little Clarification

Over the last few years I've posted several times about shared parameters (SP) so I thought I'd add this bit too. The context of this concerns the protection and/or management of the office SP file.

The SP file does NOT have an active relationship with your families or projects so there is no risk to your existing families or project(s) if someone gets cranky with your SP file and deletes it. Obviously making new stuff will be a bit harder but it is possible to recover them from existing family and project files. I've provided several links later in this post to other SP posts.

The SP file is used by Revit like a "dictionary", a place to store definitions/meaning. Revit uses it to define a parameter when it is applied to a Family and/or Project. Thereafter when Revit encounters it in the project it knows what it means. Thus NO active connection to the parameter in the file or the file itself.

What IS important is that your users are not creating shared parameters for the same things without communicating with each other. Why? Here is an example:

I create a parameter called "undercut" and you create one called "UNDERCUT" and someone else creates yet another called "Undercut". If we each create these in our own SP file and apply them to tags, projects and schedules we are fine as long as nobody else tries to use the content we made that use them.

As soon as we attempt to share things we will find that your undercut is different from ours because each shared parameter gets a unique GUID (global unique ID) number applied by Revit. So the name isn't the really important part to Revit. The name is important to us because it is what we see and besides we don't read numbers like those very well.

A little trivia, for most people more than four digits or things are difficult if not impossible to count without deliberately doing so. Four **** are easy to "count" at a glance but ***** is a bit harder at a glance. I picked that up from a book called Perfect Figures.

Here's what a typical Shared Parameter file looks like(with 3 parameters):

# This is a Revit shared parameter file.
# Do not edit manually.
*GROUP ID NAME
GROUP 1 Steel
GROUP 2 Exported Parameters
GROUP 3 Projects
*PARAM GUID NAME DATATYPE DATACATEGORY GROUP VISIBLE
PARAM 29321d2c-b02c-49c1-ab8b-c41c18fcac00 Building Letter TEXT 3 1
PARAM c17fad8a-7479-4572-9f62-8da94b702446 Weight NUMBER 1 1
PARAM 0d7b92f5-b62e-49f5-9167-263cebac962b OLF NUMBER 2 1

The portion in red is the GUID.

The best strategy is to make everyone well aware that Shared Parameters are to be managed and by whom. If they are created from a copy of the office SP file it is possible to export the parameter to the original so it isn't completely unacceptable to let people make them on their own. It IS unacceptable to do so without properly communicating it to the person in charge of them and their team(s).

That said, placing the office standard as a read only file will allow people to use them without being able to add them. They will need to get them added by the responsible party and that person better be ready to "jump" because this stuff always gets figured out at the last minute.

Finally, if someone loses the SP file it is possible to export shared parameters from projects that have them into a another or new SP file.

Here's links to the previous Shared Parameter posts:
What are Parameters and Why Should I Care?
Sharing Parameters Overview (Part 1)
Walking on Thin Ice
Making a Shared Parameter File (Part 2)
Shared Parameters Part 3
Shared Parameters Part 4
Ignore Good Advice
Home for Unwanted Doors