The Family Editor from a Structural Engineer's Perspective

DESIREE MACKEY: All right, afternoon. Hi. All right, so halfway through day one, yeah? OK, so thanks for coming today. This lab was actually after years of lab assisting for Paul, who I'll introduce in a second. He does a version of this class, the original, but it's architecturally focused and while a very nice class, ignores the structural engineers.

So with his blessing, I was like, hey, how about if I do a structural companion to it? And so that's what this is. So this is sort of an intro to the Family Editor from a structural perspective. It's meant to be sort of a step one, but we're going to dive pretty deep. So you're going to go from step one to step 50 pretty quickly here.

So I'll start with kind of a basic activity, and we'll move into what we're going to make today. If you've looked at the handout, you already know. We're going to make a tapered wide flange beam, which is not something you can get out of the box. You've got to make your own. And there's a few different approaches to these custom structural families. And so you'll see what I've decided for this one.

Last time I did this class a few years ago, we made a wood stud pack. So I try to mix it up a little bit but pick something that kind of gives us a little bit of everything. That one had a lot more formulas and parameters to play with. This one is a little bit more geometry heavy. So next time I do it, maybe I'll mix it up. I had a hard time picking what to do this year. So you guys can write your comments what you want to see next time.

So OK, so that's the sort of the intro. I'll introduce our lab assistants, our lovely lab assistants. I didn't ask permission for any of these photos, so I'm sorry if you don't like them. So I mentioned Paul. Paul Aubin is the father of all things BIM. He writes books is what I usually say. He's a consultant. He's teaching like 900 hours of Dynamo this week. So he's a good resource.

The other Mackey. So the other half of, I don't know what we are. Some sort of Revit family. No pun intended. And then Ana-Maria, who is a architect in the Denver area. She's one of my clients. She's very good at Revit, and she's a dear friend. So I roped her into-- is this your AU? It's her first AU, and I roped her into being a lab assistant. So thank you, Ana-Maria.

All right, so this is what we're going to do. When I tested this, it was just the right amount of time. So I followed my own instructions and tested it with interruptions from people at work. So hopefully we have just the right amount of time. If we end up with extra time, I've got a little bonus. So we have some flexibility. If we run out of time, so I won't speed up if we're going slowly, but if we run out of time, everything's in the handout step by step. And if you get stuck on anything, you can email me. So we'll try to cover everything, but I think we'll get through it OK.

So we're gonna start with a box. When I did this last time with that stud pack, that box turned into our stud. So it made a lot of sense. But if you can create a 3D box in Revit and parameterize it, that's pretty much the building blocks, again, no pun intended. Man, I'm on a roll. Of every 3D family. That's all you really need to know. So we'll start with that to get you introduced into the family. I don't know if you've ever been in there, but I do assume that you've all used Revit, right? OK. And then we're going to move into making the girder, which has kind of two steps. And that's the end of my PowerPoint. I love labs.

All right, so oh, I forgot to have you launch Revit while I was talking. So go ahead and make sure you have Revit up. And I'm going to follow my own instructions. Make sure that we follow the handout. And if you have any questions, go ahead and throw up your hand and somebody will come help. Go ahead.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: What'd you say?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: Oh really? Oh, OK. So I just learned something. Thank you. So you have to go into the data sets folder that there's a shortcut to, and then you can open it that way. There's no Revit in there? There's a Programs folder. OK, in the data set, there's a Programs folder, I guess, and you can open Revit.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: Thank you, Paul.

AUDIENCE: Or you could search [INAUDIBLE].

DESIREE MACKEY: Launching Revit is the hardest part.

[LAUGHTER]

I want to make sure everybody has it up before we go. Let's not start off with people not there. Anybody still don't have it up? It's getting there? OK. Let's all start on the right foot together. So I'll pause here for a second. What are you-- you're on the your right foot? OK, thank you. Smart alecks. All right, good? OK.

All right, so we're gonna start with creating that parametric box. So we're going to create a new family. So you can hit New. Wow. And then I have all the templates and everything in the data set. So if you navigate to the data set, which you have a shortcut on your desktop.

AUDIENCE: Yeah. So you go to Desktop and then you go to data set.

DESIREE MACKEY: All right. So you should have the generic model template, or if you are a metric person, you can use the metric one. Your call. All right, and when you have the template open, which is one of the most blank templates there are when it comes to the Family Editor, just go ahead and save it. You can save to the desktop or the folder or wherever you like, and we're going to call it Parametric Box. Or you can call it Box or you can get creative, if you'd like. Save my desktop. OK, save. Good.

OK, so this is generic model, which is just generic 3D model. It doesn't have a category that-- well, generic model is a category, but it's not a structural category yet. We would change that later. And it's a very blank template. You can see there's just two reference planes there are meant to be the center. So with a 3D-- or with any family, the first thing you want to do is layout your reference planes or lines depending on what's most appropriate. And that's the skeleton of your family. So the geometry is actually the last thing to go in. So we'll see that here. So what we're going to start with is creating reference planes to define our box.

Now, we're on the-- we're looking down. We're seeing the plan. So we're going to draw some reference planes in to represent the width and depth of the box. So to do, that on the Create tab, you can go to Reference Plane. And on your Drawing panel, you have your click line or your pick line. You can do either. I kind of like using that pick line with an offset just to be quick. And then I sort of draw in two more reference planes on either side of those center lines. You can use whatever you'd like. I used a foot, but you can do whatever you'd like. We're going to change it and move it and whatever later.

So then now that's the width and the depth of the box. We're looking at the top. Now we need to have a height. So to do that, you can go to the front elevation here. And you can see here's the reference level, so the base. And we need another reference plane for the top of our cube here. So do the same thing. Reference Plane. You can use an offset or you can draw it. Yep.

AUDIENCE: Turns out we have an extra-- excuse me. Does anybody that's not a [INAUDIBLE]. Sorry to interrupt.

DESIREE MACKEY: No, you're fine.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: Or you can just arm wrestle the person you're sitting next to for who gets to run the mouse. So I already skipped a step. I said I would follow my own directions. I didn't. So we're going to pick this up as we go.

So the other thing you want to do with these reference planes as you're drawing them is you should name them. And you need to set there-- it's called is reference. It's a really poorly named parameter that if you select your reference plane, it says right here. And you have a couple of options in here. Strong, weak, left, right, top, bottom, center, et cetera.

And you want to set those to drive the behavior of the family. So if you put something as not a reference, it has a different implication as if you have a weak reference. So weak reference is how you would get shape handles in your family if you want them. Things like that. Strong reference is you're going to hover over the family and see those references. You can snap to them, things like that.

So we have a cube. So we have top, bottom, left, right, front, back. So this is our top reference plane. So I'm going to go ahead and name it. I'm gonna name it Top if I can type correctly. And then I'm going to use the top is reference. This is good later when you open your family 10 years from now. Or probably not that long. Two years from now. And you're like, what was I thinking here? If your reference planes are named, you'll know what you were thinking. So when we go back to the reference level, we'll name the other ones as well.

So now we have our reference planes, but we need to constrain them. We need to tell-- we want to be able to tell this box how tall to be. So in order to do that, you add dimensions, and then you give them parameters. So we're going to do that by adding a dimension here. So if you go to Annotate, use your line dimension, grab that reference level, go up to your top reference plane, and then place it.

So right now this is just a dimension. It's telling us that that is one foot or two feet or however far you put it up. But in order to be able to control that, we have to turn it into a parameter. And the way I like to do that-- you can go about this a couple of different ways. You can create all your parameters first and then link them to your dimensions, or you can sort of create them as you go.

So for this one, if we select that dimension, you'll see up here where it says label. If you use the dropdown, if you already had created parameters, you could just associate that dimension with that parameter. We don't have one, so we have to create one, which you use the little-- I've decided I'm calling these emojis. They used to have words in the buttons, but this is the Create emoji. So if you hit that, you'll get this.

And what's kind of nice about doing this as you go is it sort of fills out some of these properties of these parameters based on what they are. It's a length parameter, because it's a dimension. So some of the information's already filled out for me, which I like. So I'm going to call this Height. And I'm going to make it an instance parameter versus type. And then it's going to be grouped under dimensions. That's fine. We can go ahead and leave it. And so now what you'll see is the name of your parameter and also the value.

AUDIENCE: What was that parameter box again?

DESIREE MACKEY: No, you're fine. If you select your dimension, it's this little tiny Create Parameter emoji. Then once you've done that, let's go back to the reference level. And we need to do the same steps that we just did. So we need to name these reference planes and add dimensions and add parameters. So I'm going to call-- make sure I name them appropriately for what I said. I didn't. OK.

All right, so I'm going to call this one Back. Make its is reference back. And then grab this one and make it Front. And make its is reference front. And then there's a whole argument of if this is left or right. If this is front, like if you're on a stage, stage left, stage right. I just call it left even though I see the argument the other way. My husband calls it right, I think. We fight a lot about parameters and keyboard shortcuts. All right, so left and right.

So named all your reference planes. Set there is reference. Now let's add those parameters. So start with dimensions. So we have a width. Right. And we have a depth. I might call it length. Doesn't really matter. Now, the one more thing that we need to do, because we have the center and we want to keep our box centered, you have to add one more dimension here that's an equality constraint and toggle it. So you should have four dimensions, one for each parameter, and two equality constraints. Good?

All right, so now we need to add two more parameters for our two more dimensions. So you grab this guy. Hit the Create emoji. I'm going to call this-- what did I call it? Width? Make it an instance parameter. And this guy, and we'll create another one and call it length.

So now we've built our skeleton. So we have all the reference planes that define our box. No geometry yet. Don't worry. We'll get there. But we need to make sure that it's going to stretch and flex the way we want it to. And it's important to do this at this stage before you add the geometry so that you can troubleshoot it later if it's not working. So to do that, you have two options.

You can grab your dimensions right on screen, which a little bit different than in the project environment. In the project, you're going to grab the element if you want to change the dimension, which could can also do. But here you can grab the dimension and you can click right into it. If I can click properly. And you can change it. And if it moves your reference planes the way you expect, everything's good. So kind of walk around to your different views and change these values and make sure it moves. Maybe go to your front.

The other option you have is you can go to the Create tab. Go to this the Family Types dialog here. It's like four little blue boxes. And you can see the parameters that we've created, and you can change the values there. And if you need to change anything about the properties of the parameters, if you need to change your thing about the properties of the parameters, that Family Types dialog box is also what you would do.

So if you accidentally left it as a type property, you can come in here and change it to instance. Or if you want it grouped under graphics instead of dimensions, you could change that here. You can't change it from, say, a length to an angle parameter or something like that, because that's already set. But some of the other aesthetic type things you can change in here as well. Everybody good?

AUDIENCE: Could you show us how you change it [INAUDIBLE]?

DESIREE MACKEY: Sure, absolutely. So a good tip, the one that says-- oh, repeat the question. So the question was please show how to change from type to instance. So how it says default right here, that's how you know it's an instance parameter. Because you're going to come, you're going to place an instance of the family, and the default value of that instance parameter is going to be this.

If you accidentally left it as type, if you just select it and then you grab the Edit emoji. I really miss the words. You can come in here. And the things that are grayed out you can't change, but everything else you can. So you could change it to type or instance here. And you just hit OK.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: Oh yeah, that's a good tip. So now we have our skeleton. We flexed it. It's working. So now we're going to go ahead and add the geometry.

So this case, we're just doing a box. So on the Create tab, we have a bunch of different tools here. We're going to work with some other tools a little later on, but for now, we can just do an extrusion. Very basic.

So what I like to do, go to your reference level. Make sure I'm following my own directions here. Go to your reference level. Hit Extrusion. You get sketch mode. I'm going to grab a rectangle. And I like to draw it away from my reference planes. You can absolutely draw directly on your reference planes, locking as you go. I like this a little bit better, because I feel more intentional about it. I'm telling it where to go, but it's totally just up to your style. So that's my box.

Now, I need the sketch lines to follow those reference planes. So the way you do that is to align them. And this line works just the same as in the project environment. You hit a line. You grab your reference plane. Grab your sketch line. And then you're gonna toggle that little lock and just repeat that all the way around.

So that little padlock will come up if you're drawing them directly on the reference planes as well, if you're kind of-- oh, I missed. There we go. It'll come up, and you can kind of lock as you go. Totally up to your particular style. And you could draw-- since this is just a box, you could draw this from any view. It just depends on how you want it to behave in the family or in the project environment, how you want the family to behave.

So I'm going to finish it here. So hit Finish. And you have your box here. And if you go-- we've locked the width and the length. So we need to lock the height. So if you go back to your-- oops-- your front elevation, you have a couple of options here. You could map the start and end of your extrusion to parameters if you have them defined that way. Or one of the ways that we'll do-- the way we'll do it right now is just by aligning and locking that face.

So you can do that one of two ways. You can use the align again. You can also just grab the shape handle, drag it up to that reference plane, and your padlock will come up. So you can see the start and end are following. Right now they're sort of reporting parameters. You can see the values. You could use that as well. We're just going to take the easy route. If you want to, you can go over to 3D and you can see your box. Everybody have a box? You created a parametric family.

All right, so we've got to test it a couple more times. So you can go back to your plan and your front elevation and adjust your parameters the same way we did the reference planes. You can also, if you're in 3D, you can leave it here. Go to your Family Types and adjust your parameters here and hit Apply. And if your box changes shape, it's working. Everybody's box working? Good.

All right, then last we want to test in a project environment. This is often the step I skip when I'm trying to go really quickly. Just send it to somebody here to test it. But it is kind of important. This one's very simple, so it's going to behave just the same. But it is important to test in the project environment as well.

So I have a little test project for us. So you can go-- if you hit this little Home button, that's new to 19.1. And you hit Open under Models. Go back to the data set. There's one just called Test Project. And you can open that guy up. And this has final versions of all the families preloaded in. So if yours doesn't work, you can play with the one that's completed.

If you go back to your family and hit-- you can-- I would save first. But you can hit Load Into Project or Load Into Project and Close. Either one is fine. But make sure you save your family before you close it. And then you should be in a 3D view already, and you should be able to just place it immediately.

And once you do, you can grab it and you should see your instance parameters under dimension. And you can, once again, flex those values. If it's not working the way you like, there's preloaded-- I think it's called completed parametric box or something you can play with. Did I go too fast through that?

Once you've loaded it in, when we load it in that first time, it immediately wants to place it. If you want to place another one, it will-- I always go the Structure tab. It's under the component command. So place a component. You'll get your parametric box, because it's a generic model. If we had it as a structural column, it would come up under Columns, et cetera, which we'll do in a second with our beam. Good enough? Yay.

So I mean, this seems really silly. I mean, it's just a little box. But this is all the fundamentals you need to create a family. You create a skeleton, parameterize it, add your parameters, which were just values for us, but it could easily be formulas or depending on it can be as complicated as you want. And then you add geometry that you constrain to that skeleton, which is exactly what we're going to do next but just with a slightly more exciting shape. Good?

AUDIENCE: Strong versus weak [INAUDIBLE].

DESIREE MACKEY: Strong versus weak. So you guys correct me if I say this wrong. A strong reference plane, you're going to be able to dimension to it. And it's like you hover. You can tab and select Faces. This is why the HSS out of the box families drives me nuts, because the inside of the face-- I see people nodding, because you know exactly what I'm talking about.

You can dimension to the inside edge of the HSS out of the box family, because it's a strong reference plane. You can't get that outside face. But weak reference-- I actually think weak reference planes are the most powerful ones, because having an instance parameter linked with a weak reference plane is how you get those shape handles. So you can drag things.

AUDIENCE: You would also get that as a strong reference plane.

DESIREE MACKEY: Oh, you would also get that as a strong reference plane. There you go. See? Anything else I missed?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: I love it when he quotes the help desk file to me.

[LAUGHTER]

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: Makes me dream about-- I just hit F1. All right. Everybody ready to create our big, exciting girder now? All right, so go ahead and close out. Let me make sure. Like I said, following my own directions here. So go ahead and keep the test project open. You can close your box family. We won't need it again. And then we're going to come back to that start screen by hitting the Home button.

And we're going to use profile. So there's a few ways you can go about creating a structural framing family. Most of our-- as you guys know, the profiles of our families, wide flange or angle or whatever you're going to create, it's defined codified profiles. They have a set shape. So we're going to use a profile and drive our geometry with that profile. You could directly sketch lines to define the shape as well.

But by using a separate profile family and nesting it in, it just makes it a little bit easier. You'll see how much easier. And a little more efficient. And since those profiles have set shapes, then I have a tight catalog that link to that profile. Makes it a little bit easier. So that's why I chose to go about it this way with the profiles. But you could easily just sketch these shapes as well and parameterize each piece within the family itself.

So we're going to start with a profile. So we're going to go Families, New. And in the data set, there's a profile family template. Just hit Open. Now I have, for these guys, I have, I think, an excessive amount of catchup files. So that if at any point something's not working for you, there's I think three catchup files along the way. So there's lots and lots of files.

So if you have the handout right next to you, it might be useful to open to page 15. If you don't, I'll try to go slowly here so you catch it all. So we're going to do a wide flange profile. So there's a lot of edges. There's a lot of reference planes to draw. I'm gonna ignore the fill it. We're just going to do a block, a medium level detail.

So we need to add some reference planes. I'm going to sort of arbitrarily put them in as far as lengths and distances. So you don't need to match that. So we're gonna do the same process we did with the box. But instead of defining a box, we're going to define a wide flange. So go to Reference Plane. You can just start drawing them in however it makes sense to you. So I have a top flange, the top of my top flange. And then I'm going to have the bottom of my top flange. So kind of draw it in like that. This is going to be a tapered profile. So I'm thinking ahead a little bit.

And I'm gonna draw in the top-- the left and right side of my top flanges. And then I'll do the exact same thing for the bottom flange. If this were a standard wide fit flange profile, you could use those left and right all the way down. And then I need the left and right side of my-- I might use the-- oh, I'll just do that-- for my web.

So mine's really awkward looking at the moment. So you should have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. One, two. Yep, so four on the top, four on the bottom, one left, one right.

Then we're going to go through and name these. And this is a little bit up to you. There's a couple different ways you can name them. I have suggested ones on that same page. And then as well as setting that is reference. So I'm going to call this one the top.

And then so this one will be the bottom. And then I'm going to call the edge of the flanges top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right. Yes, that's what I said. And then I'm just going to leave them as weak references.

So top. This sloped podium is really messing with me. Because if I let go of my mouse to type with two hands, my mouse is not working very well. Top left. Top right. Bottom left. This is the riveting part of the class where you watch me name 10 reference planes. Bottom right.

Then I'm gonna call these two, they're going to be for the web. Web left and web right, I think. And then the underside of the top flange and the top of the bottom flange, I'm just going to call them-- I'm gonna call it top flange and bottom flange because it's the underside.

So 10 reference planes, 10 names. And I want to get a couple more properties for us to make it even easier. This is a little bit different than it's been in previous years. And then there's a catchup file if you didn't get everything in there named. I'll wait for a second when I hear typing stop. Good?

All right. So just a couple of properties. I think just the one. One property to set that's going to help a little bit of a shortcut with this profile family. If we tell Revit what kind of profile it is, it creates some starting places for us. So what you want to do it is up here where it says Section Shape, if you hit the little dot, dot, dot, the ellipsis, there's a bunch of different shapes in here. And we want I shape welded.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: It's right-- this little tiny. Yeah. No, you're fine. It's really easy to miss. So we're gonna do I shape welded, because we're going to do a built up tapered girder. So you can kind of click through and you can see all the different sort of basis of what you're making. This is what we're going for. So hit OK.

And then if you're good with your progress so far, go ahead and save. And what are we calling this? Plate girder profile. If you don't like how it's going, there's a catchup file in the data set called Plate Girder Profile Catchup One.

So we have a reference planes. We've set our section shape. Now we need to start constraining our reference planes to give us that skeleton of our profile. So to do that, we're going to add dimensions. So we need a bunch. So go back to your dimension. So we need the width of our top flange. And we want to keep it centered. So you're going to add a bunch of equality dimensions too. Same thing on the bottom with our bottom flange.

And you have the width of your web. And then you want to keep it centered. That might be the counter intuitive part of family creation. That second equality dimension. Then you have your flange thicknesses, both top and bottom. Then you have your overall depth.

Hopefully I didn't-- oh. I'm going to move this down just a little. There we go. Feel free to move those guys around a little bit if it's a totally weird shape to kind of give yourself a good place to start.

AUDIENCE: Did you leave out the right reference?

DESIREE MACKEY: Say that again?

AUDIENCE: Did you leave out the right reference?

DESIREE MACKEY: Did I miss one? Do I need my own catchup file?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: Is my top below my-- oh, you are correct. Good catch. Thank you. There we go. Now it's happier.

AUDIENCE: Did you keep all your references [INAUDIBLE]?

DESIREE MACKEY: I did top and bottom as top and bottom and I did the rest as weak, because depending on what this is going to look like, I don't know which flange is going to be wider. Left and right and whatever. Not a reference for a lot of this could be valid as well. It's really kind of up to you. Everybody's OK?

All right, so this is going to be a tapered plate girder. So our profile at the beginning of the beam is going to be different than at the end. Their start and the end. So I'm going to use the same profile for both. So we want two types of this profile. So think about it as two different sizes of wide flange, essentially.

So to create the two types, we're to go into the Family Types dialog, that button with the four blue squares. And you'll see while we're here that when we set that section shape, it gave us a bunch of structural parameters that we would potentially want-- that are relevant to that particular section shape. So this is a huge head start. Lots of parameters here we can use and we don't have to create ourselves. So setting that section shape is a huge advantage.

So for types, you're gonna hit the little New Type emoji. And we're going to create two of them. I'm calling them profile start. And you're going to repeat that for profile end. You can go ahead and say OK. And if you're happy, hit Save. If you're not, there's another catchup, catchup two that has all the dimensions in there for you.

And now our almost last step before we add our-- our last step will be the geometry. Is we need to associate our dimensions to parameters. So you're going to work your way through. We don't have to create them this time, because we set that section shape and they're all there for us. So if you just work your way through. I'm going to grab the top-- the width of the top flange first.

And if you go to the dropdown menu instead of the Create New Parameter emoji, there's a bunch of things here for you. So top flange width. And then this is web thickness. Then bottom flange width. Gonna use height. And then top and bottom flange thicknesses. I'm gonna move this guy so I can see a little better.

All right, once you get them all associated the way you want, you want to flex your parameters in your reference planes. So you can do that on screen like we did with the box or go back to that Family Types dialog. And you can see-- let me collapse that-- all the values in here. And so I'm going to do it here so I can pick dimensions that kind of make sense. Like four inch web is a little bit excessive.

And then you can-- you notice if you change between your two types, they'll have different parameters. So you can play with that as well. So I'm gonna hit OK. Make sure everything flexes. Paul says two thumbs up. Everybody's good? Simple, right? Same thing we did with the box, just a little bit more interesting shape. All right. If you're happy, hit Save. If you're not, there's a catchup three. Like I said, there's excessive amount of catchup files.

All right, then last, we're going to add in our geometry. So in this case, it's just lines, because it's going to represent the profile. So do that, we're just going to grab the line command. And your choice. You can draw right on the reference planes for your wide flange shape.

And if you do, what I suggest is toggle off the chain, because then you'll draw one line at a time, then you can toggle that padlock as you're going around. I find that chain, the padlocks disappear real quickly as you keep going on the chain of lines. So I'm going to do what I always do and draw it away. Stick with what I know. What?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: Ah, shit. Sorry.

AUDIENCE: Don't worry. You're not being recorded or anything.

DESIREE MACKEY: Man, I'm not going to be invited back next year. You cussed in three of five of your classes, therefore you no longer can teach.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: What if what?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: Oh, you absolutely can do that. This is what I'm in the habit of doing, so that's what I do. You absolutely can do that. I find that Revit starts locking things for you, guessing what you want, and often it's pretty close to right too.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: Although I'm having a really hard time. There we go. And work your way around. Yeah, sometimes you'll draw a line and like 13 locks come up and you're like, I don't know which one I want. This just feels more intentional to me. And I have some carryover habits from back when the Family Editor really sucked instead of just kind of sucking. So there's lots and lots of stuff that exists now that didn't exist then. So you had to have like-- what, did I miss something?

AUDIENCE: I think you missed [INAUDIBLE] the top of that thingy.

DESIREE MACKEY: The top of that thingy. I think I got it. Well, I'll find out in a second when I flex it.

AUDIENCE: Why hasn't Autodesk included a line and lock one fell swoop?

DESIREE MACKEY: Any Autodesk people in the room that can answer that?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DESIREE MACKEY: There's a lot of those. Why can't we have the leader default to the top line of text forever instead of every-- right? There's a lot of those little ones. Just why? That's a good point, though. Maybe it should be two separate tools. Align is one thing, but constrain or something should be a different tool. They split the split line tool into three options now, but the align only has one.

So draw those lines, lock them, and then flex it. So I'm going to go to my-- I'm just going to-- I'm gonna grab this guy. Mess with these. Sure. Looks like I got it. My top right isn't locked? Now it is.

Oh, 18 feet. That is not what I wanted. That's fine. That looks super funny, but it's fine. I'll just dismiss the structural engineer in my brain. Everybody's good? Flexing? Looks good? You like it? If you're happy, go ahead and save. And if you're not, when we get into the next step, just load in the completed version instead of yours.

And we're on to our last step. We're actually going to make the girder now, which is the easiest part, I promise. If you thought that was difficult, then it's all downhill from here. If you thought it was easy, then you're done. So we're going to do-- go ahead and leave this profile open. I think that's what I want.

Oh. No, I said go ahead and close it. Following my own directions. So go ahead and close it out. And then we're going to go back to that Home button, and you're going to hit new family. And this time, you're going to hit New. There we go. Structural framing beams and braces. There's also the metric version in there if you want.

And then now you'll see that there's sort of a default beam in there. It's got that symbolic line. It's got an extruded shape. It has a bunch of reference planes already in there. Structural framing beams and braces. It's in the data set, the only one. Go ahead and save this guy on your desktop or wherever you're saving as Tapered Plate Girder.

So what I like about this template that was not the case years ago is a lot of-- you know where I'm going with this. All these reference planes are sort of set and named and they just have inherent function that's built in that-- anybody build a frame? When was it, like five or eight years ago? If you built a framing family, there was a million parameters in here dimensioning from the outside to the length versus the end of the member.

So you have your cutbacks versus the end of your symbolic line. There was a bunch of complicated dimensions that crossed over each other in half the time. They weren't right in the Autodesk template, and you had to go fix it. So all of that is sort of like built in back end functionality now. None of those dimensions are here anymore, which I think is really interesting and convenient and actually works.

AUDIENCE: The reference planes are named?

DESIREE MACKEY: Yeah, they are named, which is nice. Because then once you delete this geometry out, because this is not the geometry you want, we remember where the end of the symbolic line or the end of the member are supposed to be. So this is a much better template than it used to be.

So like we did with the profile, we want to set a couple of properties right up front so that we get some of those parameters generated for us. So there's three this time that we wanted to pay attention to. This same section shape up here that says not defined. Go to the same one, I shape [INAUDIBLE]. And then material for model behavior is two down from that. It says other right now. Change that to steel. And think about how concrete elements versus steel elements behave in the project. That's what this property is driving.

And then this one's personal preference. But down here, the symbolic representation, right now it says from family. Change that to from project. What that does is if you set this beam to be a girder versus a joist versus other or whatever, it'll change that line style in your-- that's what this is driving. If you say from family, it will always show the symbolic line that is drawn in the family, which may be what you want. But that's what it does. So keep that in mind.

All right. So now we need to load in our profile. So if you were happy with yours and you want to test it out, load in the one you've saved. If you're not, in the data set, there's a completed version. You can load that one in. So we're just going to go insert load family.

I've got too many files here. Oh no, I put it on my desktop, didn't I? Plate girder profile. There it is. OK Load it in. And if you're happy with the step so far, save. If not, there is another excessive amount of catchup files that you can start up.

So now we're going to swap out the geometry that's here for the geometry that we want. This that they have in here is just a simple extrusion. And since we have two profiles that are going to be different sizes, extrusion is not going to work. So extrusion shape is the same profile constant all the way through, like this box, like our box that we did. We're going to use up here on the Create tab, we're going to use the swept blend. And what that does is it allows you to sweep from one shape to another along a defined path.

You can do a lot of crazy things with this particular tool. Ours isn't quite this nuts. But what this does is allow us to use those profiles and create it at the front and the start and the end of the beam. So we're going to you use that one. So we can't just simply redefine what's here. We're going to have to delete it and create our own. So that's what we're going to do. Grab that extrusion that they have in there and just delete it out. Make a mental note of the extents. And then we're going to create that swept blend.

So sort of three parts to a swept blend. Profile one, profile two, and the path. So if you hit that, it takes you into the path first. And we're going to use pick a path. I'm sorry. There is pick a path. We're going to use sketch a path. So hit Sketch Path. And then you're going to draw from the intersection of that member left and center line reference planes to the member right I think it is. And you can sort of see it.

And then I always align and lock these. I assume that you have to, but maybe you don't. So I'm going to use the padlocks that show up to lock my start profile. That dot is where that start profile is going to go to that reference plane. This is the axis of the path. And then I'm going to use the align to get the member right in my dot there and toggle the lock. So that defines the extents of our girder.