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How to Use Groups

How to Use Groups

You can group elements in a project or family and then place that group many times in a project or family.

Grouping elements is useful when you need to create entities that represent repeating layouts or are common to many building projects, such as hotel rooms, apartments, or repeating floors.

With each instance of a group that you place, there is associativity among them. For example, you create a group with a bed, walls, and window and then place multiple instances of the group in your project. If you modify a wall in one group, it changes for all instances of that group, simplifying the modification process.

There are 2 types of Groups;

Model Groups

Model Groups can only include 3D Elements such as families, system families, datums, model lines, solids and voids.

Detail Groups

Detail Groups can only include 2D, view specific elements such as text, detail lines, filled regions, tags, and annotation.

If you select both 2D & 3D elements and attempt to Group them, Revit will prompt to create an “Attached Detail Group” for the Model Group. This will keep associativity between the 2D & 3D elements.

Restrictions on Grouping

Certain elements cannot be grouped together:

  • Curtain Panels / Mullions / Grids (you can only Group the Curtain Wall System Family that hosts them)

  • Top Rails / Hand Rails / Supports / Terminations (you can only Group the Railing Family that hosts them)

  • Stair Stringers / Stair Runs / Stair Landings (you can only Group the Stair System Family that hosts them)

  • Assemblies (these have their own built in “Group” like functionality and do not require grouping)

  • Views / View References

  • Steel Fabrication Shapes (this is all the commands on the “Steel” tab of the ribbon)

If you are selecting elements in bulk using Window Select, you may need to use the Filter option, to filter out the above elements that cannot be Grouped, prior to the Group command working.

Recommendations on Groups

Groups can be very powerful but are also equally temperamental. Understanding what can cause instability of groups can greatly improve your success with them. A repeated layout of elements naturally lends itself to being grouped. This way you only must manage one layout rather than multiples – taking care of the coordination for you. These simply rules will help with your use of Groups:

Do not include Wall, Floor, Ceiling or Roof hosted elements within Groups. Face based elements are generally fine as they can exist without their host.
No elements within a Group should reference or be constrained to elements outside of the Group. (with the exception of Levels, which cannot be avoided)
Where Walls are included in groups, any open wall ends that do not connect with other Walls within the group, should have “Disallow Join” selected.
Where there are Level to Level based elements such as Walls or Columns, give them an Unconnected Height, to prevent issues with varying level heights or if levels later change.
Prior to grouping objects, select the objects and Mirror them in the Left/Right and Front/Back axis, until they are laid out correctly. Then Group them. This helps ensure all external associations are removed and the groups will mirror themselves easier in the Project.
Avoid Mirroring Groups. A mirrored group in reality should be its own independent group, particularly when using services. EG: a Mirrored Fan Coil Unit would flip the positions of all the connectors and would no longer match the real products.
Avoid Nesting Groups. (groups within groups) These become very difficult to edit as all the listed issues are compounded.
Avoid grouping Ceilings. Ceiling sketch lines are too associative with the movement of walls surrounding them, and often have invalid sketches as a result.
Never select “Fix Groups”. Revit’s solution to fixing groups is to ungroup them or create new groups. Instead you may have to delete the problem group and replace it after you have made the change.
Prior to editing groups on a Workshared file, it is suggested to only do so when no-one else is in the file. Especially complicated groups.
Consider Links over Groups when the design is fluid. These can later be bound back to Groups.
Consider using Super Families over Groups, or within Groups to limit the number of elements. Super Families are Families which contain an entire Room fit out of elements that are shared and nested so they can still be quantified independently. These can even have advanced features such as dimensional adjustments built in and the ability to turn individual parts on and off.
Never “Exclude elements” from a group instance. Typically, the command doesn’t work, or the elements can be near impossible to restore afterwards.
Set the Origin point of the group for easy placement from the Project Browser ► Group tree selection.

 

Groups can be converted to Links & Vice Versa. Refer to Tips and tricks page for more info.

 

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