A brief description of system families, standard component families and inplace families Revit families are indispensable part of multidiscipline 3D models that are developed in Revit’s environment by modelers. Readers must be aware about the technicalities of different types of Revit families which include system families, standard component families and in-place families.
System families • • •
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Very briefly, system families cannot be created by users as they are automatically preloaded in Revit. As these families are automatically saved in projects and templates users cannot load them in Revit projects form any sort of external files. But the fact remains that system families can be duplicated by the users and they can then modify the types within them for developing custom system families as per project requirement. System family types can be easily copied and pasted by the users between different projects as well as templates. These types can also be transferred between projects by using ‘The Transfer Projects standards command. This command can be obtained from file menu by the users.
Standard Component families • • •
On the other hand standard component families can be undoubtedly loaded into Revit projects from external files as they can be created by users. Since they can be loaded into projects from external files it means they can be saved into external files as well. In short these are customizable families which are used for developing important building components such as doors, windows and stairs etc.
In-place families •
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However, in-place families are developed by users for particular kind of project requirements that cannot be attained either by using system families or standard component families. As these families are tailor made for a particular requirement they are created by using clients’ specific guidelines. When it comes to using ‘Transfer Projects standards command’ it does not apply in the case of in-place families.