What does everyone think about adopting a single set of shared parameters?

[J.Merlan]

Check out OpenRFA.org.

Would this help your workflow?
Would you adopt a set of standardized shared parameters?
Would your firm/organization adopt a set of standardized shared parameters?

[Twiceroadsfool]

Yep... As long as i wrote them.

Otherwise.... Nope!

Been covered many times.

[J.Merlan]

Yep... As long as i wrote them.

Otherwise.... Nope!

Been covered many times.

What if you did have control over the shared parameters and your colleagues and clients were on board? Would that make your job easier?

As the title says, this would be a set of collaborative parameters, meaning a larger group would work to develop the set of parameters.

[Twiceroadsfool]

If i had complete control and i was telling everyone else what the parameters were going to be, and they were all just accepting it and moving on? Sure, then i would be on board.

Youre missing the point. Its not a new idea, its extremely hard to do because people disagree on what the parameters need to be, and there are many differences (national, linguistic, mathmatic, code and regulation, etc) to contend with. Much easier to just focus on making sure you have an easy way to migrate standards, than to try to make one single standard. All youll end up doing is making *another* standard that some people use, and many people dont.

[J.Merlan]

Thank you for your input. I did a search on the forum and couldn't find any recent threads on this topic.

Let's say for the sake of this conversation that this is an American standard, so we can take out the national and linguistic points out of the debate.

What sort of mathematical differences would there be? For example, a shared parameter for Voltage - The data should always be in volts, correct? Why would I use any other data type for voltages in Revit?

What sort of codes and regulations are you referring to?

[jeffhornsby]

Thank you for your input. I did a search on the forum and couldn't find any recent threads on this topic.
For example, a shared parameter for Voltage - The data should always be in volts, correct? Why would I use any other data type for voltages in Revit?

What sort of codes and regulations are you referring to?

It would be great, but when it comes to things like this people get caught up with trivial matters.
Have you ever heard of "bikeshedding".
If you worked with the people I do one person would refuse to use the Voltage parameter because it should be "_Voltage" because the "_" makes move to the top, another would argue that its stupid to type it out completely and will use their own "V". Another jackass would argue that we never have devices that use 1 volt so it should be VOLTS, the last project I did it was volt lowercase and yours is wrong, etc........

[tzframpton]

No for me. Mainly because of one universal truth among the homo sapien species as once stated by Thomas Sowell: "There's no ultimate solutions in life, only tradeoffs."

Universality is a fantasy due to the subjectivity in human nature. While it sounds good in theory, somewhere down the line for all of us, we'll find something about the one universal standard that we don't like... not that it's wrong, but it simply doesn't 'work for our taste'... which makes it difficult to completely adopt. I like having everyone do SP's their own way. I learn a lot more seeing how others do it and it me and my team the freedom to do things our way which works best for us. And when you work with teams a lot, you get to know their SP patterns and can use 3rd party software to map things to your standard for data grabbing.

No two Families with a moderate amount of functionality are the same if developed by two separate companies or people. The way we built and schedule our Canvas Connectors for FPB's works for us, and only us, because of who we send the BOM sheet to for ordering. Going off a universal standard wouldn't give us that option since it's too detailed and too specific of data to be universal.

Or manufacturers... Loren Cook and Greenheck build their fans differently. While the simple stuff like "Voltage" can be universal, many things would probably not be able to. Connector information and things that are used in pushing overall Family flexibility would certainly be hindered as well. There's all kinds of things that would be difficult to span across manufacturers, and many MEP designers use their own Families anyways for ensured in-house efficiency and visual/functional expectation with their own Template and workflow.

My $0.02 anyways, if I'm interpreting the poll correctly.

-TZ

[snowyweston]

You need only look at how long PDTs have been in developement here in the UK, and how poor the uptake has been to date, to recognise that this is an entirely lost cause.

[tzframpton]

Forgive me in advance, but what is PDT out of curiosity?

[snowyweston]

Sorry, a Product Data Template.