Add a Clearance Zone

Okay. So I've made a box. I've done the most fundamental unit of family creation, so that's good. I would like my Instance Magic box to have a clearance zone to it, like a a little dash box that I can use to represent clearances. Now on on the the full version, I've got them all around. For time's sake, I'm just gonna make one. So let's make a clearance zone. I'm gonna select the family, hop in, go to the reference level. And I want to use model lines for this. I for various reasons, I don't like using three d three d objects to represent clearance zones.

I prefer the two d lines. So I want two d lines at the bottom of this unit to go like that. And as I've you know, the reference planes are the they're the basis for all geometry. So I'm I'm thinking I'm gonna start with a reference plane. So RP to enter reference plane mode.

I'm just gonna snap one down here, and then I want to create model lines. So I just click the model line. And this is so, again, in these model lines, I'm going to want to have them locked to the reference planes that as I stretch this family, as I flex this family, the clearance zone does what I want it to do. And we need to we need to be careful about how we do that. So if you mouse over because we've got this extrusion, we've got this box here at this intersection, You've gotta be careful to try to get the right the intersection.

So this what it this what it's doing right now is what I want. It's intersecting just those two reference planes, not the extrusion. Like, if I click this, this is not how I would want it to go. And so it is possible that I can I can do this, but since it's kind of fussy to do that and on even more sophisticated families, it it can get really difficult to to nail that? My my hack is to just start sketching away.

So I'm just gonna sketch the clearance zone line, the model lines that I want, and then I'm gonna use the align tool to make the lines do exactly what I want them to, and I I'm not worried that I may be missed. So I'm gonna do a l is the out of the box align keyboard command. I have mine mapped to a a so that I don't have to move my hand from one side of the keyboard to the other. And I'm gonna select this reference plane, and then I gotta mouse over and get the endpoint of this model line. And then it's gonna give me that padlock, and I lock it.

So now I know that wherever this reference plane goes, so goes the end of this line, which is what I want. Then I can go around and align the rest of my clear zone. Okay. And then let's oops. I haven't added a parameter yet.

So I'm going to say d I, and I wanna create a parameter for what the length of this clearance is. So I'm going to I'm going to select this reference plane first and then this one. This order actually does matter. It's saying that this reference plane is gonna be however much distance from this reference plane, not the other way around. Revit does think about the order in which you put reference planes.

So then I'm gonna select this, and I'm gonna say create parameter, And I'm gonna call it clearance front dimension, and I'm gonna make it an instance parameter and say okay. And look in the view. There it is. That's what I expect it to look like. Gonna push it into the project, Existing version. And here we go. We have our clearance zones. And that's that's alright. But I would like this to be dashed, and I would like to be able to target toggle it on and off. I don't always want clearance zone to be shown.

So how can I do that? So these are two two more fundamental family creation skills that we're gonna cover. So I'm gonna go back into the family editor. And first, I'm gonna make these dashed. And so if we go to manage object styles, there are subcategories to mechanical equipment, and there's a corollary in the project environment.

You can go to object styles in your project, and it will have all the different categories listed and all their subcategories listed as well. And so in the this project is based off of the Rev X template, and so it already has so if I go to manage object styles in the project environment, see, it's got all of course, it's got all of the all of the categories. So I come to mechanical equipment, and I expand that, and it's already got a few it's already got a few subcategories. One, in fact, is a duplicate, which I'm still hunting down. But want my clearance zone subcategory to be called the clearance zones roof equipment because whatever I whatever subcategory I create in my family, it will push into the project.

And if it's if it is an exact match, it will simply adopt whatever properties are being set in here. So I want clearance zones dash roof equipment. So I'm gonna go back to my family, and I'm going to say object styles, create a new subcategory, clearance zones, roof equipment. K. And I'll make this dashed and say okay.

And then I'm gonna mouse over and tab select my model lines and set the subcategory to clearance zones roof equipment, and it makes them dashed. And then I load oh, and then so I've got them dashed, but I would like the visibility of these to be toggleable. So I'm also going to tab select those lines. And over here in the properties, I've got a checkbox that says visible or not, and it's got this button to get next to it so I can associate a family parameter with it. So I'm gonna click that and create a new parameter, which is called clearance clearance front.

And I'm also gonna make that an instance parameter. Okay. And I'm gonna push this into my project. Don't wanna save. Then it's asking me if I wanna overwrite.

And if I wanna overwrite existing version's parameter values, I don't really need to overwrite the parameter value. So here we go. I've got my I've got my dashed clearance zone, and I'm also able to toggle it on and off. I would also note this is just kind of an aside, but useful. If you ever find yourself mousing around in a project and, like, random families are highlighting in like, if you're trying to select this family, but you're going over and it's selecting that one up there, it's because there's hidden geometry that's in that space.

So there's a couple tricks you can use to make that go away. But just as a heads up, that can be that can be what's happening. It's still there. The geometry is still there. You just can't see it because the visibility is toggled off.