The Revit family refers to a collection of elements that share a group of common properties, known as parameters, as well as related graphical representations. While individual elements within the same family may have different parameter values, the set of parameters—meaning their names and definitions—remains consistent across all elements in that family.
Within a Revit family, these variations are called Family type or type. For example:
- The ‘Furniture’ category includes families and family types used to create various furniture pieces, such as tables, chairs, and cabinets.
- The ‘Structural Columns’ category contains families and family types that generate different widened flanges, precast concrete columns, corner columns, and other types of columns.
- The ‘Nozzle’ category consists of families and family types used to design both dry and wet nozzle systems.
Although these categories serve distinct purposes and are made of different materials, their usage is interconnected. Each type within a family has a specific graphical representation and shares the same set of parameters, referred to as family type parameters.
When you create elements in a project using particular families and family types, one element instance will be generated—an example. Each instance possesses a set of properties, allowing certain parameters (unrelated to the family type parameters) to be modified. These changes affect only the individual instance, meaning a single element in the project.
If you modify the parameters of a family type, the adjustments will apply to all instances of elements created using that type. In summary, instance-specific changes impact only that element, while family type parameter changes affect every element instance of the same type.
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