13 Tips to Understand and Organize Revit Families

Creating and managing Revit content is among the hardest tasks to learn and master. This guide aims to provide an overview of everything you need to know about families in Revit.

You will learn about the 3 different kinds of families. You will learn where you can find decent families on the internet and how to manage all your content.

1- Differentiate Category, Family, Type and Instance

Before even talking about families, it is imperative that you understand the difference between category, family, type and instances. The image above should help you understand.

Categories are built-in Revit and can include either building components (columns, walls, ducts) or symbolic elements (tags, dimensions, regions).

In the image below, you can see an example from the Doors category. We have a loadable .rfa Simple Door family that was created by a user. This family has two different types, each with different dimensions and materials.

Then, each type has multiple unique instances placed in a project.

In this example, a door is selected. You can edit the family, which will affect all types and all instances.

You can also edit the type properties, which will affect all instances of this specific type.

Or you can edit the instance properties, which will only affect this specific door.

2- Find Families in the Project Browser

In the project browser, you can find all families in the project. In the image below, you can see the first level represent categories. The second level shows the families and the 3rd level shows the types.

Although the instances never appear in the project browser, it is possible to select all the instances in the view or in the project by right-clicking a type:

3- Differentiate 3 Kind of Families

When most users think of a family, then think of a loadable .rfa file they can create or download. There are actually 3 different kinds of families in Revit:

In-Place Families:

• These families are modeled directly in a Revit project.

• They are difficult to reuse, they are slow and they can cause performance issues.

• Avoid this feature and use loadable families instead.

Loadable Families:

• These are the families that you most commonly create and modify in Revit.

• They are created in a .rfa file and then loaded in a model or template.

• Categories can include windows, furniture, tags and plumbing fixtures.

System Families:

• System families are predefined in Revit.

• You do not load them into your projects from external files. They are embedded inside a model or template.

• Categories can include walls, roofs, ducts and dimensions.

4- Understand Which Families Are Loadable or System

In the image below, you can see a list of Revit categories, classified by either System of Loadable families. This list is not complete, but it can give you an overview.

For example, the wall category has 3 system families: Basic Walls, Stacked Walls and Curtain Walls. These system families are built-in and can’t be modified or deleted. You can create types for each of these system families.

All system families have their own icon in the ribbon. However, not all loadable families have their own icons. That’s why you can use the Component tool in the Architecture, Systems or Structure tabs. This will contain all additional loadable families like furniture, entourage, parking, casework and many others.

5- System Families Can Include Embedded Loadable Families

Here is a concept that might seem contradictory: system families can include loadable families inside of them.

Let’s take the example of the railing. The railing is a system family. However, each railing type can contain multiple loadable families of various sub-components like rail profile, baluster, post, support and termination.

6- Follow This Hierarchy of Good Families

When trying to get families for your project, follow this priority order:

1- Families developed internally

Families made by your team are always the best option. You know they will be matching your firm standards, you can build exactly to match your needs and not be worried.

2- Families made by trusted external collaborators

If you lack the qualified staff to build families or if you don’t have enough time, trusted collaborators such as BIM consultants is the next best option. Families shared by architecture/engineering firms you are collaborating with can also be a good option.

3- Default families made by Autodesk

If you can’t build your own families or don’t have trusted collaborators to build them, the next best option is to look at what Autodesk has available in their default libraries. These families might not match your standards, but they can be a good starting point.

4- Downloaded manufacturers’ families from websites such as “BIM Objects” and others.

We are now entering the danger zone. The vast majority of manufacturers families are low-quality. They are over-modeled, they have too many parameters, they are very heavy and will slow down your model. If you really have to use one of them, make sure to verify and clean them before.

5- Downloaded families from Revit community websites such as “Revit City”.

Families found on community websites are almost always terrible. Avoid them at all cost.

Depending on the size of your firm, you might decide what content your users are allowed to acquire. For example, a very large firm will ask users to stick to families created internally. Smaller firms might allow loading some default Autodesk libraries.

You will need some time to figure out what works best for you. You need to find a balance between keeping quality control, but also giving some freedom to users, especially if they don’t have quick access to internal content creators.

7- Avoid Most Manufacturers Families

The problem with most manufacturers-made families is that they are made to please the manufacturers, not the users. Remember that when something is free, it means you are the product. Quality is rarely the main goal of this content. Here are common issues with these families:

• They are very heavy (more than 1 Mo).

• They contain too many parameters.

• They are too precise and detailed.

• They are modeled with scripts instead of Revit experts.

• They will slow down your model.

You might think that a couple of manufacturers’ families can’t be that bad for your project, right?

In a video about Revit model health, Gavin Crump aka Aussie BIM Guru mentioned a project where printing a set of sheets to PDF went from 5 minutes to 8 hours. For 4 months.

The culprit was a terrible manufacturer chair family that was downloaded on a shady website. The family contained complex imported 3D geometry. Since that chair was placed hundreds of times, it significantly slowed down the computation time to generate PDFs.

Here is an example of a window family you can find on the most popular manufacturer’s website.

This window family weighs 10 MB, contains more than 200 parameters and has insane complexity. Using this kind of sluggish family in your projects would cripple and slow your models.

8- Use These Websites for Decent Manufacturers Content

While the biggest manufacturers’ content websites are generally quite bad, there are some upcoming players that are doing great work. Here are a few of them we can recommend.

BIM Content - https://bimcontent.com

This Australian-based company's priority is to create the best possible families. It has been launched recently, but is starting to accumulate an interesting library and include showrooms and 3D previews.

BIMSmith - https://bimsmith.com

BIMSmith manufacturers’ content is entirely developed internally with the highest standards. In addition to loadable families, they also offer container files for system families such as railings.

9- Create Visual Showrooms for Families

An interesting trend that has emerged with both manufacturers content and with professional firms is the creation of Virtual Showroom models, sometimes called “Container Files”.

Trying to open each family one by one when trying to find the correct one is a long and boring process.

The idea of virtual showrooms is that families from a similar collection are placed together in a Revit .rvt model.

In the example below, the site bimcontent.com has created a virtual showroom for washroom accessories. Much easier to locate what you are looking for and to verify the content.

Another use of the showroom is for system families such as walls and railings, which cannot be downloaded as individual .rfa.

Here are examples of walls and railings virtual showrooms from BIMSmith and BIM Content. If you have a large collection of system families, you can build this for your firm as well instead of putting everything in your template.

10- Verify and Clean Manufacturers Content

If you really need families found on the internet, you should at least follow this rule: never load them directly in your project.

Always verify and clean the family first. Purvi Irwin wrote a great article on how to clean internet Revit families.

The main points of the article:

• Delete useless parameters.

• Delete the family types you don’t need.

• Delete the useless “Object Styles” subcategories.

• Purge the family 2-3 times.

• Make sure to purge the materials.

• Change materials parameter to By Category so you can change the materials inside a project.

• Clean the nested families as well.

• Delete unneeded line patterns and fill patterns.

If you follow all these rules and the content is still heavy (more than 2 MB), it may indicate poor modeling practice. Perhaps a sign that you shouldn’t use the family at all.

11- Organize Your Revit Family Libraries

Families that you use in the majority of your projects and that aren’t too heavy (more than 1MB) can be included in your template.

Families that you don’t use on the majority of your projects or that are very heavy should stay in a separate library or in a container .rvt file. You can load the individual families as required.

When a family is loaded to a file, it is embedded in the .rvt. It means the external .rfa isn’t linked to the model, it only serves as a backup.

Here is a diagram of how you should organize your families:

12- Use Revit Plugins to Manage Families

Managing families can be quite complex with multiple Revit versions, local servers, cloud and different files. In recent years, cloud-based plugins have been created to manage families and assets more efficiently. They can be used to manage not only loadable families but also system families, details, legends, etc. Here are the most interesting plugins. 

AVAIL - https://getavail.com - starts at $20/user/month

This platform allows you to collect all your Revit assets, including families but also schedules, legends, details and more. You can also harvest the assets from a Revit file, then sort and organize them for all users to access. It contains both a Revit plugin and a desktop app.

UNIFI Labs - https://unifilabs.com/ - starts at $20/user/month

UNIFI and AVAIL are similar, but the big difference is that UNIFI is entirely in the cloud. Once a Revit asset is integrated into the system, it becomes available for all in the cloud. That might be a big selling point for many businesses, although some might prefer to keep their data local.

UNIFI also offers analytics, including the number of downloads for each asset, but also a project health dashboard.

Kinship - https://kinship.io - starts at $18/user/month

This tool is simpler and cheaper than previous options, and it also features a model health dashboard. It lacks certain features of other plugins and isn’t as polished, but it’s easier to install and manage. It doesn’t include a desktop app, only a Revit plugin and a browser portal. It is used by some major architecture firms including BIG.

13- Use DiRoots "Family Reviser" to Export and Rename Families

Family Reviser by DiRoots is an amazing free plugin that helps you export and rename families. In the image below, you can see we check categories of families we want to export to .rfa, inside a specific folder.

You can also use this plugin to quickly add a prefix or a suffix to your families.

Click here to download this great plugin.

Download the Pamphlets Collection