Door Design Options

This post will be a bit of an introduction to nested families, I think I will cover a more in depth look at this family in a future post but for now some pretty pictures with some added descriptions.



Two variations of a door touched up in Photoshop



My main goal for this Revit door family was to create one single family that can be the equivalent of multiple families, or in other words I wanted a simple "all in one" door family, that the user can choose what type of door and what type of hardware.

Now what I have created so far is still in its beta state (some of the parameters are a bit finiky) so it has yet to be used in an actual project.

Essentially what I needed to do in order to create this family was to individually model each variation, then load them into the main file and apply a label parameter so that the user can choose which model to use.

For the door panel imparticular I created the base model first with no openings, and applied the appropriate parameters and then did multiple "save as" versions in which i created the different openings, making sure that all the parameters were consistant so the panels would flex appropriatly in the main file.

When the model is finished I want the user to be able to choose the following:

• Door panels (as of now 11 variations)
• Door hardware (as of now 5 variations)
• Door jambs (as of now 1 variation)

Parameters are very important to keep consistant because I also want the user to be able to flex the following without the file instantly breaking:





My parameters so far (still misssing a bunch)


• Door width
• Door height
• Door, hardware, and jamb materials
• Open/close the door in 3D views
• Possibly alter the dimensions of the openings if necessary

Another thing I wanted to consider when making this component was accuracy in regards to sections. So instead of modeling a plain extrusion for the panel itself I decided to break it up as if it was actually constructed.

One of the down falls of making this "super family" is file size, this family is much larger than the average door family making the initial load time of loading in the project fairly lengthy, however manipulating the family once it is loaded isnt outrageous compared to that of a standard family.