Revit and shared components for connecting subcomponents- and what about assemblies?

Does anyone know of a good application of assemblies?

Is anyone using Shared Components?

The back-story:

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with shared components – it is a way of making parts of a family directly accessible to the project in which it is contained- and subsequently available to other families that use shared subcomponents of the type.

Tricky business I have had blow up on me before. However, it should bring file sizes down considerably and make annotations simpler.

One example of share model components  would be a door family hosting a door with sidelights- you would want to schedule the door and sidelights separately, but the 3 pieces act together as one. Once loaded the doors and sidelights are available directly to the project. Changes to the nested door or sidelight family will reflect in the collection.

Another example would be a detail component flexing a collection of parts- for example a roof curb.

Each level can be tagged,  annotated and scheduled:

·         Roof Curb Section

o   Roof Curb Single

§  Dimensional Lumber:pt 2x4

§  AISC Channel:w12x8

There are some fundamental problems with shared components:

·         Once shared you cannot reload an unshared version back in the project – so adding a marker like "(Shared)" to the end of the family name may be a good idea.

·         Shared detail components cannot be used in 3D families.

Assemblies are useful - but they are hard to access and cannot be swapped out for one another… They generate3 their own cut sheets which can come in handy… and they schedule as assemblies…

Thoughts?

Ron E. Allen | BIM Manager | Associate | VOA  Orlando |  407.541.0211