How to Make Lighting Fixtures in Revit Nested Family

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Luminaire Manager - About Luminaire Families

A hard situation we have faced in the development of ElumTools is the lack of a solid specification for the construction of Luminaire Families. In a perfect globe, all possibilities could be handled by ElumTools transparently. However, the fact is we are leap past certain limitations of Revit and the logical demands of our own calculation engine. The upshot: ElumTools expects luminaire families to be well-formed geometrically and be photometrically right. What do these phrases mean?

Every bit the luminaire families that are currently available take been created by a variety of sources, following different methodologies (some of which never intended the family to be used for accurate lighting computations), you volition inevitably notice some families that require modification to function properly with ElumTools. Nosotros expect many current incompatibilities to progressively disappear as content creators begin to standardize on industry best practices. You may find that some families are easily modified on the user level while others leave more to be desired. Poorly formed families should e'er be referred back to the content creator.

Be sure and watch our YouTube videos on Luminaire Director.

Family Creation Guidelines

1. All source types must be "Photometric Web" blazon. They cannot be fictitious such as "Spherical", "Hemispherical" or "Spot".
2. Fix the "Emit Shape" to "Circle" for round luminous openings and to "Rectangle" for luminous rectangles. This volition enable easy specification of the luminaires luminous expanse in Luminaire Manager's Calorie-free Source Tab for visualization purposes.
3. Each source should exist combined with its corresponding housing geometry in the same lighting fixture family. ElumTools will ignore the luminaire housing geometry in the same family as the source when performing the initial directly lighting calculations. See "Nesting" below for more complicated families.
4. It is recommended that families exist created equally "Face-based" to be compatible with linked models. Face-based families are created (and appear) upside downwards as the family unit editor does not differentiate between items that sit on a floor, mount to a wall, ceiling or any other "face".
5. Families should be created with geometry that would normally exist touching the host "confront", coinciding with the face surface. For example: mounting hardware for suspended luminaires are mounted on the face. Recessed luminaires should exist recessed in the face.
6. The light source should mostly be placed at the eye of the luminous surface horizontally, and so depending on the light distribution, the vertical position should be: at the bottom of the luminous area for direct just; at the heart of the luminous box for directly/indirect; and at the acme of the luminous expanse for indirect only. Be very conscientious that you understand the luminaire examination position so that you marshal the source correctly with the housing.

7. Previous versions of ElumTools had a few limitations with regard to correctly detecting the Revit lite source position (especially with regard to dynamic/nested families). Currently ElumTools can properly detect the light source position for dynamic and nested families with no bug or hard workarounds.

8. All housing geometry should be assigned a material type.
   1. It is preferred that material names be assigned containing the suppliers name and material description.
   2. For best results when rendering luminaire families in ElumTools, create a separate material for luminous surfaces and include the string "Low-cal Source" in the cloth name (e.k. Manufacturer XYZ Light Source). Run across "Luminous Surface area" in the Light Source tab documentation.
9. Pendants and mounting brackets should be placed in a Shared, Nested, kid family if they should occlude light from the luminaire. Otherwise, they should be placed in the parent family, or a non-shared child family (See Simple vs Nested Luminaire Families for details).

Simple vs Nested Luminaire Families

A luminaire family that requires more complication must employ nesting where the parent luminaire family unit hosts one or more child family instances. Examples include families with multiple sources such as runway lighting, a chandelier, or complex mounting hardware that is Not included in the luminaire photometric examination data and therefore should occlude light. Nesting is complicated and it is unlikely we take all the possibilities covered in this brief assay, however, the following rules should help yous avoid costly errors and ensure ElumTools compatibility.

• Family unit geometry (assumed to be role of the luminaire housing) will not occlude its ain source (source in same family unit).

• If the source is in a shared child family unit, you will exist able to interact with information technology just similar a non-nested source (i.eastward. y'all can prorate information technology, alter the LLF, color, etc).

• If the source is in a non-shared child family, the source cannot exist edited (LLF, color, proration, etc). ElumTools will discover and use the light source as information technology is specified in the child family.

• Child families which are shared will schedule separately which may or may not be desirable.
• Parent geometry will occlude sources from shared child luminaire instances.
• Parent geometry will not occlude sources from not-shared child luminaire instances.
• The geometry of each shared kid luminaire family unit will not occlude its ain source, but will occlude all other sources.

• The geometry of non-shared child luminaire families will not occlude its own source, the source of the parent family unit (if whatever), nor the source of any other non-shared child family, only volition occlude all other sources.

• It is usually best practice to not "share" nested/child family geometry.
  • Non-shared child families cannot be scheduled separately.
  • Non-shared child families will act as part of the parent family and will non occlude a parent source.
  • Child families that contain only geometry (no light source) should non exist shared unless you want them to occlude/reflect direct light from the parent family unit's source.

Comments on Shared Parameters and Type Catalogs

• ElumTools ignores the "initial intensity" parameters (wattage, efficacy, luminous flux, luminous intensity, illuminance) as this information is capricious and not physically accurate. All the data ElumTools needs is contained in the IES photometric file. This is inherently more than accurate due the photometry being the result of a laboratory test.
  

• Coefficient of Utilization (CU) should not be cataloged in type catalogs as it is an instance parameter. More importantly, this parameter should be calculated by Revit MEP (based on the infinite where the luminaire resides) or overridden by the lighting designer.

• Light Loss Factors should not be cataloged in type catalogs. They should be determined by the lighting designer when considering the maintenance schedule of each projection and the specific utilize case of the luminaires within each project.

• Ballast Factor (BF) should be specified in the corresponding IES file, and then, if necessary, cataloged in the blazon catalog. ElumTools automatically handles the BF parameter and reconciles it with the BF from the IES file. Our recommendation is to exclude all Lite Loss Factors from blazon catalogs.

• As of this writing, yous cannot specify photometry directly via a type catalog. This is a limitation of Revit. Annotation: You can specify the Photometric Web File parameter (i.e. the name of the photometric file), but there is no (visible) parameter in Revit to specify the Photometric Web File data.

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Source: http://www.elumtools.com/docs/2017/Content/Using%20ElumTools/Luminaire%20Manager%20-%20About%20Luminaire%20Families.htm

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