Today I’d like to offer a tip on how to work smarter with Revit® without using any add-ins. Just a simple but useful trick will help you control rotation angle of your elements in Revit family with ease.
Not all Revit® elements have rectangular form and if you are not good with Revit families – you might get stuck creating simple elements with angled edges. Sometimes just a few notes might help you save time and avoid frustration while creating Revit families. In the example below, I will create a simple crooked family with possibility to control bend angle.
I started with a face-based family to create connection detail. And if I want just straight lines – that’s ok, I just draw a couple of planes, add parameters “offset”, “b” and “c” to control part’s length inside and outside of the host element.
But what if I want to bend my details inside a host family and to control this angle?
You can use Reference Line for that, because it has end points and you can lock them to the position you want.
The important thing is that when you draw a Reference Line – your start point should be in an intersection of two planes and for second point – just click in the direction you want.
After you have it – select command Align, click on vertical reference plane and then on start point of the line (use Tab to cycle through overlapping elements) and click the lock to lock it. Do the same to lock Reference Line start point to horizontal plane.
……… 
Now you can add angle dimension controlled by parameter between Reference Line and Reference plane to control angle value.
So, in this situation Reference Line will follow changes of parameters “offset” and “b” because it is locked.
Now you can create your solid element and attach it to these reference planes and lines.
I hope it’s useful. Enjoy!
