Hi there,
I’m wondering if it is possible to load a specific family type using rhino inside.
I’m trying to load specific structural framing members, ie: W8x40. I’m able to load the W-Wide Flange.rfa using “Load Component Family” but is there any way to access the specific types?
I can manually load them into the revit model, but I’m hoping to do it all from grasshopper.
Hi Matt, I’ll dig into this a bit more, not sure how old this post is.
Key point:
The first one loads a family and places an instance of it, and the second one only loads the family. If the chosen family has a TXT file associated with it containing different types, Revit shows a popup window where you can select the types you want to load.
Using the API to load a family, I can choose between the LoadFamily and LoadFamilySymbol methods. Is there any other function I can use to load a family and have Revit pop up the dialog to choose which types I want loaded?
If this does not exist, can you tell me if there is a way to read which types exist within a family?
Answer:There Revit API does not provide any method which will pop up a dialogue listing the types contained in a family.
https://jeremytammik.github.io/tbc/a/0586_load_selected_types.htm
Thanks Japhy, looks like this is going to be quite a bit more complicated then I thought. This on your roadmap at all? Seems like it would be very useful for structural models.
There are some possibilities. PyRevit has a script for loading additional types from an existing family. I believe something similar could be done in RiR, where you pick from the generated list of a particular existing family.
I’ll add it as a feature request.
Thanks @Japhy much appreciated 
I’m trying to do the exact same thing as @schmid.matt suggests.
I can easily load all 300 beam types, but if I only need 20, access to the type catalog would be nice.
Current workaround is to load the 20 needed and use other RiR components to purge the extra types.
The Type Catalog is a .txt file that contains specific formatting.
More about Type Catalog formatting here Help
There are a lot of variables that need to be handled by this formatting, so not ideal for a Rhino.Inside.Revit component to translate seamlessly.
You can read this file and create the Types roughly like so
The format was inches so a conversion to decimal feet was required.
