Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
15. Save the family to a location that you can access to test its usability in a
project.
Adding Parameters and Connectors
The device families you create can do more than just indicate device
locations on your drawings. Connectors can be added to device families
for use with systems. Connectors are the true
I
in
building information
modeling
(
BIM
) when it comes to electrical design in Revit. Without
connectors, we would have 2D symbols with 3D geometry representing an
electrical design. With connectors, we can connect conduits and cable trays,
assign devices to circuit numbers, generate panel loads, assign home runs
to wires, and much more. The parameters you add to a device family can
hold the engineering data required to connect devices to the appropriate
system and account for their effect on the entire system. Adding connectors
also allows you to use the wiring tools available in Revit MEP 2015. Revit
wire objects that are attached to devices will move and stretch with edits to
the device location, reducing the amount of work required to make a simple
change.
Using Parameters for Labels
Using labels in device families seems like the logical solution to provide the
information sometimes shown with devices. Although adding text labels to
the annotation families that are used in your device families works well,
at times the text needs to be moved for an instance of the device within a
project. The best way to have the freedom to move text associated with a
device is to create a parameter that holds the value and to use a tag in your
project that reads that parameter. This places the information directly in
your project, not embedded in the device family, allowing you to place the
tag wherever you want.
To use a project tag for device labels, you can use one of the coded
parameters that exist for the family type. The Description parameter is a
good candidate if you are not using it for other information. Keep in mind
that this is a type parameter, so whatever value you use will apply to all
instancesofthattype.Thiscanresultinhavingtocreateuniquefamilytypes
for each unique label. Using a shared parameter allows you to make it an
instanceparameterthatcanbeauniquevalueforeachinstanceofthedevice
in your project. If you want to use a custom parameter for the tag, it must be
