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580 | ChaptEr 14 Designing with the Family eDitor

Figure 14.4
wall-hosted
plumbing
fixtures

We can’t stress this enough: You should avoid creating hosted relationships between objects
that do not require hosting (that do not cut or otherwise modify the host). This discussion brings
up an interesting point. Rather than use hosted elements, why not make elements face-based?
There are some advantages:
◆ ◆ You don’t have to decide on a particular host. Any surface will do: Wall, Ceiling, Top Of
Casework, anything that has a face. This is great if the lighting component you’re creating
needs to cut into a wall, floor, and ceiling!
◆ ◆ A face-based element can cut the face of geometry in both the project and family editing
environment. So the light fixture that cuts a wall in a project can cut the face of a piece of
casework in the Family Editor.
◆ ◆ Deleting the host will not delete the component. Is this desirable? Maybe sometimes, but
not always. What’s important is that you have the option if the component is face-based.
You won’t have the option if the component is hosted.

Creating Other types of Families in the Family Editor
Now that you understand the importance of selecting between a hosted or non-hosted family
template, you should become familiar with some other types of families you can create in the
Family Editor.

placing Line-Based Components
This is a less-common type of family that allows you to place components in the project
environment as lines. Line-based families can take advantage of line-based tools such as Trim/
Extend and Split and can also support parametric arrays.

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