From the course: Revit: MEP Families

What is a Revit family?

From the course: Revit: MEP Families

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What is a Revit family?

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- [Instructor] Let's get started by explaining what a Revit Family actually is. For you AutoCAD users, it's a block that you insert into a drawing. Basically a group of objects that form a building component such as a desk, or a window, or a VAV. Oh but this is no ordinary block. See, in AutoCAD, we had to insert a block, explode it, stretch it, and put everything back on the correct layers, not a family. Revit families are the cornerstone of BIM. When you insert a family into a model, you get a fully parametric, data-rich 3D object that can adapt to whatever is actually hosting that family. For example, if I insert a window family into a wall, I don't have to tell the family what size the wall is, it just knows. Better yet, when I change the wall, the family automatically flexes with the wall. That being said, there are a few different types of families I'd like to explore. To get started, we'll look at some of the categories. The first category would be a system family. Now system families are going to consist of walls, floors, roofs, stairs, or ramps. If we look at another category type we can see that we have hosted families. Now hosted families need a system family to exist. Basically all MEP families need some kind of host to exist. When we create a hosted family in Revit MEP, we want them to be face-based. A face-based family is the only way to host to walls, ceilings, or floors. See, if we use a wall based, or a ceiling based, or a floor based, it won't host to a link model which is a hundred percent of what you're going to be doing. You're going to be hosting to a link architectural model. Also we can have work plane-based. A work plane-based family is basically hosted by a floor plan or a level. A few face-based families are wall sconces, light switches, receptacles, or maybe ceiling-mounted projectors and lighting fixtures. Also on the mechanical side, sidewall and ceiling-mounted air terminals can be considered face-based families. Now let's get a look at family types. If we take a look at the VAV unit we have over to the right, we'll see we have VAV unit parallel fan powered, but underneath that, we have multiple sizes of that family. We can have a six inch inlet, an eight inch, a 10 inch, or basically you can make your own. By duplicating the family type, what we're doing is we're just creating a new type within the family itself. Each family can have multiple types. And the last thing that we'll look at is the fact that they're parametric, they're not just 3D. Families in Revit are adjustable based on size. As we'll learn throughout this course, we're going to see that we have all kinds of different parameters that we can add to our families. We'll make our families be able to flex to any situation automatically or manually. They are parameter-driven and they are definable. You can redefine a well-made family by duplicating its type and they are data-rich. Building information modeling starts right here with families. Okay, now let's start making some families.

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