Been a little while since I posted a tutorial but this month I am going ‘back to basics’ to talk about Instance and Type Parameters and where to use them. I still find that many people are using OOTB families that are not suitable for certain modelling workflows. I will focus in on two specific families, Structural Openings and Structural Framing. The structural Openings will be created with a Generic model family that’s face based, this will be ideal for rectangular openings in walls, foundations, floors, beams etc. Let’s start by looking at the instance properties of Structural Framing. In the image below I have selected the UB section, notice that the Structural Material is instance based.
It may be more relevant if we made this a type parameter as the structural material needs only to be set once per family type. To do this you can simply edit the family and change the instance parameter to a type parameter. With the Structural Framing Element selected, click the Edit…