Revit: Automatically create Catalog files for Families

How come when I want to place a 2D section of a Steel Beam or Column in my project I get the following catalog to choose from:

However, when I want to put a put a Brick or CMU section into my project Revit inserts EVERY brick shape known to mankind and now I have to sort through them in the Type drop down list in the Properties palette:

The reason is there is a Catalog Text file (.txt) with the same name as the Family file (.rfa).

The structure of the file looks as follows:

The first line sets the parameters for the types, followed by a list with these parameters filled in.

These are what appear in the Catalog dialog box when you go to add one of these detail components. But hey, I am SUPER lazy. There is NO way I’m doing this for those brick sections, so I guess I’m stuck, right?

NO!!! Let’s review the lazy person’s way to create this catalog file. I’ll begin by opening the Bricks-Section.rfa file. Now, from the Application pulldown menu (the big “R”), choose Export, then at the bottom of the fly-out menu, Family Types.  In the Export As dialog box, keep the default name Bricks-Section.txt for this file, then pick the Save button.

Opening this file, it will look like the following:

Yah, there was no way I was typing all of THAT stuff out. Ok, let’s test it. With both the RFA and the TXT file for Bricks-Section now in the same folder, I’ll open the Bricks-Section.rfa file using the Annotate tab, Detail panel, Detail Component tool.  Picking the Load Family tool from the Place Detail Component tab, Mode panel, instead of all of the types automatically loading into my project, I now get the Specify Types dialog box, and a list of the types to choose from:

Wow. That was easy. Hey, I think I get to go home early. Don’t tell my boss how quickly I did that!

Revit Architecture Viewer 2012

So, you have just had a request from the Project Manager, or worse, the “Boss”, that they want to open a copy of Revit and look around in the model and maybe print some sheets.  Now, several thoughts pop into your head:

1. Oh my God, these guys are going to screw up the model and delay the project!
2. If they open a copy of Revit, then I lose a usable license for production work

Have I got a solution for you! It is called Revit Architecture Viewer 2012 and is found in the Start menu:

Revit Architecture Viewer 2012 (RAV 2012) installs when you install Revit Architecture (RAC).  It modifies the startup code with a “viewer switch” : “C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit Architecture 2012\Program\Revit.exe” /viewer.

RAC starts with the normal splash screen, but when the Recent Files page is displayed, you are presented with the following dialog box:

While elements may be edited in the file, none of the changes may be saved. In addition, RAC 2012 does not pull a network license, thus preserving them for staff that needs editing capabilities.