Somehow I managed to forget to post about them even though I uploaded the video in April.
If you haven’t seen it here it is:
My old node dimensioning from each Structural Column to its closest grid lines (divided into 2 groups by their name’s first character being a letter or a number) was quite successful.
However, people kept asking:
“That’s all pretty good, mate but what about other families?”
And my answer most of the time was something along the lines:
“Thanks, in Revit versions newer than 2018 it is possible, but I’m quite busy with other stuff and I don’t really make money from this so I’ll do it when I get the time and energy and will power to do it”
Which took approximately 2 years.
But it is finally here and it’s not alone, there’s another dimensioning node, that gives each family instance width and length dimensions. This, in my humble opinion, is pretty darn neat.
The video shows everything in detail and if you decide to get the nodes and use them, please watch it carefully it explains everything you need to know.
But to sum it up here:
Node - Dimensions_FamilyInstances_Closest_Grids
1. It Dimensions any placeable family to its closest gridlines.
2. Those grid lines must be parallel to the family’s Center Left/Right and Center Front/Back reference planes.
3. The family should have these planes in its centre for the node to work properly. They should be there anyway if the family is properly built, but this is definitely a requirement for the node.
4. First, you select the family instances and the grids you want to use - you can do that any way you prefer, manually, or pull all the gridlines/families with AllElementsOfCategory. It’s up to you.
5. It has 3 more inputs:
Dimension Type: connect the desired dimension type or leave blank to use the default one.
Update_Create_new - A boolean value, default is set to true - which deletes previously placed dimensions and places new ones each time the node is run. A false would mean to create new Dimensions every time without deleting the old ones.
Grids to ignore: a string or a list of strings containing names of the gridlines which we do not want to participate in the calculations.
If a family lies on a gridlines intersection no dimensions are created. If it lies on a gridline, a dimension is created only in the other direction thus preventing zero value dimensions.
Node Dimension_Width_Height
It has only 3 inputs:
Family instances
Dimension Type
Update_Create_new
They work exactly as in the other node.
This one though finds all the reference planes inside the family instance and divides them by parallelity. Then it finds the most distant ones and creates dimensions between them.
They don’t need to be named, but they need to be Reference Planes. So anything in that list except for “Not a reference”:
Both of these nodes can be used on any placeable family instance.
Please watch the video to see them in action.