Parametric Escalator – Revit Tutorial

Can an escalator really break? If it stops working, it will just turn into stairs. Albeit, stairs that are not to code, but they are stairs. I also wonder where each step goes when it gets to the top or bottom? It just sort of gets really flat and then disappears.

What does that have to do with Revit? Nothing. So follow along and learn how to make a parametric escalator that will take you from here all the way up to the 13th floor and beyond!

The key to making this all work is the create the pieces of the escalator (railings, steps, & the base) as separate families, and nest them all together. This will minimize amount of time and guesswork, and also reduce the file size of the family. I also make the geometry of the family extremely simple, so we can keep the bloat down, and speed up our modeling time. But it has just enough information to give you a good sense of the space requirements for the escalator.

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Revit Tutorial: Parametric Operable Window

Are you in the mood for making the most parametric window ever? Well that’s pretty sad. But fortunately enough for you, I just created a tutorial on how to make the most parametric operable window ever! Follow along with the video below, and soon you’ll be creating parametric windows like they’re going out of style. Well, actually, on second thought, you won’t be… this window is parametric silly head! You’ll just have to make one! Just change-up the values as you need.

Disclaimer: there may actually be a more parametric window around town. I have not gone through every video ever.

Parametric Window Family

Creating window families in Revit can be a daunting task. We often just use the standard window families that come with Revit to save time or we are just not sure how to create them. We draw our own windows in CAD, so why would we not do it in Revit? I want to break down the barrier of creating custom content for your projects and save you time in the long run. This is your company and livelihood, don’t just boil it down to, “yeah that fixed window family looks good enough.” Sure this will be time consuming at first, but once your library of parametric windows is complete, your speed and efficiency will be greatly increased. The custom parameters allow us to repeatedly use the same geometry, but change the sizes to suit our current needs.

Over the next few weeks, I will be creating a series of parametric window family tutorials, each tutorial in the series being more complicated than the last. This way, I hope that everyone can build upon the skills that they learned in the previous video. The first video will teach you how to create a simple rectangular window that you can change the width and height independently.