Family Visibility Control

When creating a door or other family we find that when loaded into a project we sometimes like to be able to switch on and off parts of the family but not the whole family. We have found three ways to accomplish this.

Visibility: We like to use symbolic lines to represent doors and windows in plan so we like to turn off the visibility of our model objects (glass and panel) in plan view. While in your family editor, this is simply done by selecting the object you want to hide and clicking on the Visibility button in your tool bar above. Note that this method is for turning off objects that you NEVER want to see in plan, section, elevation, or at specific Detail Levels.

Object Styles Subcategory: Another way to control the visibility of parts of a family is to setup new subcategories. While in your family editor goto Settings... Object Styles. From here you can add subcategories. Now select an object in your family and goto its properties. You'll notice that you can change the object's Subcategory. Load your new family into a project. You can now control the visibility of parts of your family GLOBALLY under Settings... Object Styles or in a SPECIFIC VIEW under View... Visibility/Graphics.

The Yes/No Parameter: While in the family editor goto Family Types... Add Parameter... And create a new Type parameter with Type (Yes/No). Now finish the Family Type and select any object in your family. Goto it's properties and you'll find a Visibility check box. At the far right there is a tiny grey box. Click on it and select your new Yes/No Parameter as the parameter that defines the visiblity. Now exit the element properties and go back into the Family Types. From here you can control the visibility of the object. Just add two new family types and uncheck the new parameter in one type while leaving it checked in the other type. The object will appear grey while in the family editor, but once you load the family into a project you will find that you can now switch on or off part of the family by switching between family types.