Create a type catalog

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After completing this lesson, you'll be able to understand type catalogs, export a family type, and create a type catalog.

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The objective domains covered are, 2.3b, export a family to create a type catalog.

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A type catalog contains multiple family types in a tabular format.

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The type catalog can contain dimensions and other data such as structural properties.

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A catalog is much more efficient when there are a large number of family types to create.

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Also, the user only selects the types required for the project, which can help keep down file size.

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A type catalog is simply a text file that shares the same name as your Revit family.

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Both files have to be placed in the same folder.

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Assuming the text format is correct, a type catalog will be displayed when a Revit family is loaded into the project.

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Go ahead and open up the family 023-Type catalog.rfa.

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The family file will open up in a floor plan.

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We're now going to export this family as a type catalog.

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Before we do this, let's investigate the family types that are created.

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On the Create ribbon, select "Family Types".

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In the Family Types dialog box, you will notice here that we have one family type created 12" Diameter.

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This family type is comprised of a number of different parameters.

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We have some dimensional parameters controlling the pile size.

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And we also have some custom parameters setup for structural analysis.

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In this case, the force in the z-axis.

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As well as some custom parameters for identity data, in this case, the pile number.

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Click "OK" to the Family Types dialog box.

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We will now go ahead and export our catalog.

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To do this, select File, Export, Family Types.

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Ensure that we save this in the same project folder.

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Don't change the file name as this will by default match the RFA file. Click "Save".

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A text file is now being created and stored in our project folder.

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Let's go ahead and open up this text file.

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Once the text file is open, you'll notice it has a very specific format.

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It's very difficult to understand and edit the type catalog in Notepad.

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Instead, we'll import this into Microsoft Excel, which will give us a much better environment to view and create a type catalog.

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With Microsoft Excel running, select "Open", click "Browse", and ensure in the Open dialog box that we're viewing all files.

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Go ahead and select the text file 023-Type Catalog.txt, click "Open".

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Excel now displays the Text Import Wizard dialog box.

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Here, we should ensure that we have delimited selected as this a comma-delimited file. Select "Next".

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The file is delimited with columns, the default is Tabs.

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So we'll go ahead here and select Comma, and you'll now notice that each column is separated. Click "Next".

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And here, the formatting is set to General, and finally, we can select "Finish".

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The data is now imported into an Excel file.

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We'll just zoom up on this data and start to expand some of our columns.

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At the top of each column, we have formatting which tells Revit what the data holds.

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So for example here, you can see we have structural material and this is currently set to other.

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If I take a look at a column that's holding a dimensional value such as pile length,

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you'll notice here that we've got pile length, then it's a length and then the unit's a feet.

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The first column here is simply the family type name.

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So I'm going to go ahead here and make some new family types.

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So here perhaps we'll have an 18 inch diameter.

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We'll instance this value here, and we'll pull down the pile number.

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Here, I'll just keep the pile number the same.

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For the length, we'll set this to 18 feet.

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Pile diameter perhaps we'll now go for 2 feet.

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The embedment we'll leave at 0.5.

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And we can keep the description the same, and also the default elevation.

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So now that we have this line created, we could continue to create new lines of information.

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When we're ready to save this, it's important that we save it as a comma-separated file.

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To do this, select File, select Save As, in the file types, ensure that you're selecting CSV (Comma delimited).

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Go ahead and select "Save".

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Browse to the file location in Windows Explorer and ensure that Windows Explorer is set to show file extensions.

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So you'll see here that we have our original text file, and our CSV file.

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I'm going to delete the original text file and I'm simply going to rename the .csv file to .txt.

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We can then open that up in the Notepad text editor, and you'll now notice it has the correct formatting.

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We can then test our new family in Revit by creating a new project.

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So here we'll create a new project.

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And select "OK".

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On the Structure ribbon, select "Isolated".

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On the concepts ribbon, select "Load Family".

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And we now select our RFA file, 023-Type Catalog. Go ahead and select "Open".

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You will now be presented with the Specify Types dialog box. This is our catalog file.

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Here we can select the family we want to load in, and go ahead and select "OK".

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The family type is then created and we can place it.