Families, system families, fill patterns, materials, details, documents and commands are all in one window, docked next to the model. Instead of clicking through folders and files, you search a catalog with preview image, category and types. The libraries follow the office standard, set up once by the CAD manager.
Content Explorer
FAMILIES, DETAILS AND COMMANDS IN ONE PLACE
EXPLORER
The Explorer is the heart of the module. Each library has its own tab:
- Autodesk: the Revit content libraries in German, English and Italian
- Personal: your own libraries
- Office: your company’s shared libraries, with the company name as tab title
The library’s menu entries are on the left. Above the tiles are search, subfolders and category. Each item appears as a tile with a preview image. Content you use often can be marked as a favorite. When Revit restarts, the Explorer opens with the library and folder you used last.
FIND INSTEAD OF BROWSING FOLDERS
The Content Explorer reads the files once and writes them into a catalog. After that, searches run in the catalog, not on the disk. This keeps searching fast even in libraries with several thousand families.
- Search by name, category and description
- Preview images from the family, from Dynamo scripts and from the first page of a PDF
- If an Autodesk library isn’t installed, the Explorer says so and opens the installer.
- New or changed files are added with “Update catalog”.
INSERTING
- Insert families with a double-click, or just load them
- For families with a type catalog, choose the types you need. Types already in the project are marked. New types can be added to a family that’s already loaded.
- System families such as walls, floors and roofs are taken from an exchange file.
- Fill patterns, materials and detail components
- Place DWG and DWF files and PDF pages in the view
- Open Word, Excel and PDF files with one click, for example guidelines, checklists or data sheets
COMMANDS AND DYNAMO
The Explorer is more than a library. It is also your own toolbar.
- Save Revit commands and CAADiX ProTools commands as tiles, with the icon from the ribbon
- Commands start with a single click.
- Run Dynamo scripts straight from the library, without the Dynamo Player
- If a script has inputs, a dedicated window asks for them: text, number, yes/no, file, folder, and one or more elements picked in the model.
- The original script in the library stays unchanged.
ORGANIZING LIBRARIES
- Create and rename menu entries, and reorder them by drag & drop
- Drag tiles onto another menu entry to move them. The file moves along with them.
- Each menu entry can have its own storage folder for files.
- Image, name and description of every item can be changed.
- Several libraries per tab, for example by discipline or project type
