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Saturday, February 21, 2009

Family Names and Organization.

In my experience I found that the smooth workflow of Revit can be easily slowed down the further into a project I get. A main reason for this slow of work flow is searching through the growing list of families in a project.

A simple solution for organizing your familes is to use a two or three letter initial before every family, wall, material, etc...

For example, if your name or company is Jon Robert Macintosh:
Instead of: Foundation - 8" Concrete Wall
Use: JRM - Foundation - 8" Concrete Wall

Instead of: Cased Window 3040
Use: JRM - Casement Window (36"x48")

Do not be afraid to use alot of detail in the names as well. This is not DOS anymore or Windows 98... we can use much more detailed descriptions. For example:

Instead of: Basic Wall - Interior - Metal Stud 4.875"

Use: JRM - Interior - 3 5/8" Metal Stud w/5/8" Gyp. Each Side (4 7/8")

If your project has a wall schedule with wall types use:

JRM - Type 1 - Interior - 3 5/8" Metal Stud w/5/8" Gyp. Each Side (4 7/8")

This may seem like such a stupid little tip but I assure you it helps. Once you rename or name every new family, wall, and material using the format I provide you will have a much more pleasurable time working and managing your Revit file.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Use a suffix, not a prefix. That will allow you to use the keyboard to quickly access the needed family:-)

The Webmaster
www.bimworx.com

The Revit Kid said...

I have to disagree. Only because using prefix will group all of your families together in the all important revit dropdown. I guess it depends on how you name your stuff. If it is wall types and you say "Type 1 - ... - JRM" then the Type will group them together in the drop down.

David said...

If the family is an office standard you can start the name with JRM... if the family is just for one project start the name with a pre determined project prefix. That way if the family or other standard happens to migrate to another project you know where it came from.

The Revit Kid said...

I can't argue with that... Ultimately, I wanted to stress the idea of paying attention to when you name families. I see so many kids with the most unorganized naming systems. I especially cannot stand the "Concrete Wall 2" and "Concrete Wall 3".