Model In-Place: Prefabricated Non-Planar Building Modules

A Component Model in-Place workflow is typically touted as a one-off solution for when you have a custom situation in a project, not addressed by system or loadable families, such as a curved roof or ceiling or a serpentine wall – but what if the built-in solution repeats?

The scenario covered here is for a repeatable prefabricated, modular unit, as initially explored by Eileen Gray in her Maison Elliptique (1936), where three or four prefabricated modules are combined to make a home. 

Revit lets you create an in-place family for the required categories (Roof with Ceiling) but editing them can be problematic because each copied in-place family – unlike normal Revit families – is unique. Objects created belong to the datum objects (reference plane) they are created on. This makes it difficult to edit a copied in-place family. 

A solution is to create a Group from the in-place family for copying and then to ungroup them for unique editing. 

Two Modules With Opening

The in-place families can be grouped, copied, ungrouped and edited to add more modules. 

Four Modules With Opening

For more detail on how to group and upgroup families for editing, watch my video Model In-Place: Prefabricated non-planar building modules.

For information on training and consulting for the various products Ideate services, visit our website. Also check our blog for continued solutions as we encounter them.

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Jim Cowan

AEC Senior Application Specialist

Jim Cowan’s extensive AEC design industry experience, Autodesk design solutions expertise and status as an Autodesk Certified Instructor have made him a sought after University Curriculum developer, instructor and presenter. Jim’s areas of expertise include eLearning, interoperability between solutions and overcoming barriers to the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM). Educated in Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot–Watt University and in Landscape Architecture at the University of Manitoba, Jim has a special focus on sustainability issues: daylight analysis, sun studies, lighting analysis, modeling buildings and conceptual energy modeling (models with shading devices). You can learn more from Jim on his YouTube Channel.

View Templates: Shortcut to Productivity

Rendering, if done in a working project, can be time-consuming. The shortcut offered here, removes rendering from the documentation model and uses a separate project with linked views, managed with the View Template* feature in Revit. 

The scenario I'm think of is: you might have 25 project models needing daily review of rendered images, in order to validate the design. The 'View Templates' option offers one way of managing exactly which linked file is visible within a view – so one Revit project can act as a central location for copies of all the active projects.

If working on a collection of historic buildings, say, which are all currently being modeled, this workflow technique will allow production of multiple 3D views, from multiple projects; offering you a chance to increase your productivity on the job. 

Watch this video workflow to better understand how to use View Templates to increase productivity

Multiple projects linked to one "Rendering Scene" project.

Simultaneously render a variety of 3D views in the Cloud

Thank you for reading. For more information on Revit and other Autodesk products, and information on training and consulting for the various products Ideate services, visit our website.

*Worksets and Design Options are alternative approaches. 

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Jim Cowan

AEC Senior Application Specialist

Jim Cowan’s extensive AEC design industry experience, Autodesk design solutions expertise and status as an Autodesk Certified Instructor have made him a sought after University Curriculum developer, instructor and presenter. Jim’s areas of expertise include eLearning, interoperability between solutions and overcoming barriers to the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM). Educated in Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot–Watt University and in Landscape Architecture at the University of Manitoba, Jim has a special focus on sustainability issues: daylight analysis, sun studies, lighting analysis, modeling buildings and conceptual energy modeling (models with shading devices). You can learn more from Jim on his YouTube Channel.