Knoll 2016 Revit Families User Guide

Knoll 2016 Revit Families User Guide

Thank you for your interest in Knoll products and for choosing to include our furniture families into your Revit Design projects. Knoll hopes your Revit needs are met with our families Graphical Detail, Meta Data & visual fidelity. Following are details specific to Knoll Revit version 2016 families that will aid you in integration to your projects.

Loading Families into Revit

Always use the Revit Insert/Load Family command to load families. All Knoll Revit Families have an accompanying Type Catalog “TXT” files with the same name as the RFA file. Both of these files need to be placed in the same local folder. Drag-n-dropping RFA files into Revit bypasses the Type Catalog and size options will not be available.

Type Catalogs

Each Knoll Revit Family Type Catalog contains the complete orderable Knoll pattern numbers. Knoll has also included filters after the description to aid in identifying the product options in the catalog. Using filters trims down large Type Catalogs and aids you in locating the exact types to load into your project.

Family Locations & Categories

Knoll individual product families are located in the “Furniture” category, and Planning Idea typicals are found in the “Furniture system” category.

Visual Styles

Knoll has taken advantage of each of Revit’s three Visual Styles; Coarse, Medium & Fine. Plan and 3D each having different methodologies to aid the designer’s interaction with our furniture. This allows the designer to control the display of the same geometry at different view plot-scales. Products are represented with as few elements as possible to decrease the demand on the graphics cards while navigating designs in both Plan & 3D views.

Product Exclusion – A “Dot” In Coarse Visual Style – Knoll excludes products in both Plan & 3D that do not have a direct effect on the overall footprint of the workstation. The family is represented by a small circle to aid in selection. Products such as Worksurface Brackets or Task Lights, that are not critical to the overall workstation space requirements, are excluded from Coarse view to increase the performance of the project model. This allows the ideal level of detail to be shown at different plot-scales.

Plan View

• Coarse – Outline or Dot – products that influence footprint only.
• Medium – Inclusion of additional lines and graphics.
• Fine – Full detail plus product tags and Snapping Points.

3D

• Coarse – Dot or Primitive o Primitive – Products are represented with as few elements to decrease the demand on the graphics cards while navigating projects in 3D. In most cases, a bounding box will represent overall dimensions.
• Medium – Additional elements like brackets and drawer fronts are added to make the product identifiable.
• Fine – Fully detailed elements that emulate all the fidelity and finish subdivisions of the furniture.

Autodesk Revit Architecture 2020

Currently Knoll Revit Families are modeled in Revit 2020. It is our goal to stay 4 releases behind Autodesk for compatibility with as many users as possible.

View Range

View range is a set of horizontal planes that control the visibility and display of objects in a view. Many Knoll furniture components are installed above the default 4’-0” cut plane. Knoll recommends changing your view’s Cut Plane height near 6’-0” so all elements display in the view.

Model Object Sub-Categories

To aid in the material mapping of finishes, Knoll has divided all of our family’s 3D elements into Revit Sub-Categories. Knoll also separated each plan view element into product types enabling plot views to mimic installation staging.

Tags & View Scales

Knoll removed all tags from our families in 2017, but you may find older families exist in projects. To completely hide tags, make these changes from within the Project Editor. From the View tab, open the Visibility/Graphics Overrides dialog. Then under the Annotation Categories tab, uncheck Generic Annotations, then apply.

Tags are only visible in the Plan View with Detail Level set to Fine. Tags heights are best viewed at 1/2” = 1’-0”. Revit does not have a method to globally scale Tags as in AutoCAD.

Frequently Asked Questions:

In Plan view, how can we see the products under the worksurfaces?
To view all products in plan, set “Visual Style” to Wireframe.
Each family has a masking element. Masking regions are provided to obscure elements below. Masking regions may be useful clip away a flooring hatch pattern under furniture.

I cannot see some of my higher components in Plan view?
Within the Properties panel for the view, increase the “Cut plane” value found with the View Range. Number could be set to 5’0” or higher than the tallest component.

How do I assign materials to furniture, and are there materials provided?
Knoll does not assign material properties inside our Revit families. We provide individual sub-categories inside each family to allow material assignments to elements sharing the same finish. These are also instance parameters if like products(family types) need to have unique finishes. In a the Project Editor, under the Manage tab, choose Object Styles. On the Model Objects tab, click in the Material column and set materials to subcategories. All Knoll subcategories are found in Furniture Category, and are preceded with “Knoll “. Materials are not included with the RFA files.

Does Knoll have a materials library for Revit?
Knoll is currently in the development process of a materials library. At this time each material needs to be created in project.

Why is all the furniture appearing blocky and simplistic upon insertion?
Chances are you are displaying your view in “Coarse” Visual Style. Set the Visual Style to “Fine” to visualize the full features of the family.

What Version of Revit are these families compatible with?
Knoll has standardized on Revit Architecture 2016 for its authoring package. Families may be inserted into version 2016, or new projects. We will continue to stay two releases behind Autodesk for development.

Where can I get more Revit families?
Knoll provides two areas to acquire Revit content.

First visit the Resources > 3D Furniture Symbols > Revit Families https://www.knoll.com/design-plan/resources/knoll-revit/#/byProductLine

Or from the Resources area, choose “Planning Ideas” to browse a gallery of ideas starters available in Revit.
http://www.knoll.com/Typicals/search

How do I contact Knoll’s Revit coordinators for specific concerns?
E-mail cadpack@hermanmiller.com

Read More About This Manual & Download PDF:

References

• Knoll : Planning Ideas
• Knoll Revit FSL

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