Metric Tutorials - Autodesk

About Families and the
Family Editor
All elements in Autodesk Revit Structure 2009 are “family based.” The term family describes a powerful concept used
throughout Revit Structure to help you manage your data and make changes easily. Each family element can have multiple
types defined within it, each with a different size, shape, material set, or other parameter variables as designed by the
family creator. Even though various types within a family can look different, they are still related and come from a single
source, thus the term family. Changes to a family type definition ripple through the project and are automatically reflected
in every instance of that family or type within the project. This keeps everything coordinated and saves you the time and
effort of manually keeping components and schedules up to date.
In this tutorial, you learn about the various types of families and the Family Editor.
Using Families and the Family Editor
One of the many advantages of using Revit Structure is the ability to create your own families of components
without having to learn a complex programming language. Using the Family Editor, you create a family
within predefined templates that contain the intelligent objects required to create the particular family type.
You provide the information necessary to describe uniquely the family geometry.
In this lesson, you learn about the three types of families and how they are used within a project and how
they are created. You also learn about the Family Editor, and when and how to use it.
Introduction to Families
Most families are created in the Family Editor and saved as separate files with an .rfa extension. All different
types that you create are stored with the master family file. For example, if you create a family called wide
beams that includes types with several sizes, the types would all be saved as one file which can then be
loaded into any project. The different file types become much easier to manage, because there is only one
file to track. There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Some family types are pre-defined within Revit
Structure and cannot be created or modified outside of the project environment. Walls, and roofs are examples
of these types of families. In addition, there is another type of family that allows you to create any shape or
form required for a particular project and have Revit Structure recognize it as a particular component type,
such as a curved beam.
Revit Structure has three types of families:
■ System
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