Revit 2020 Family Offset Parameter

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With each release of software, there seems to be little things that change, but are either not documented as a change or the documentation on being a change is buried and difficult to locate.  In Revit 2020, there are some changes in the built-in parameters for families when they are placed in a project file.  These changes can come into play when using automation, such as Dynamo.  While they may or may not have much impact on your particular usage of Revit, it is important information of which to be aware.

The parameter changes will be a bit different depending on the type of hosting mechanism used with a family.  I am showing just a couple of different examples to illustrate the changes.

Example 1

The following illustration shows the same non-hosted cabinet family placed in a Revit 2019 project file and in a 2020 project file.  Note the following differences:

  • The Offset parameter in Revit 2019 no longer exists.
  • Elevation from Level and Offset from Host parameters are new in Revit 2020.
    • Depending on the type of hosting of the element, when modifying one of these parameters, the other parameter may automatically change to the same value.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Example 2

The following illustration shows the same face-based family placed in a Revit 2019 project file and in a 2020 project file.  Notice the following differences:

  • The Elevation parameter in 2019 was renamed to be Elevation from Level in 2020.
  • In 2020, The Schedule Level parameter has been moved up into the Constraints section.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additional Info

  • If the family is a wall-hosted family, the Offset from Host parameter will move the family the specified distance from the wall since the wall is the host.
    • This is a great feature if you use wall hosted families.  However, since I do not recommend the use of wall hosted families, this new parameter will not benefit me or anyone else like me.
  • The following link will take you to Autodesk’s Help page to give you additional information about the new parameters.
  •  Note that the Generic Model. rft family template in Revit 2020 now has a Default Elevation parameter that did not exist in previous releases.

 

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