About Nesting and Sharing Loadable Families

You can nest (insert) families within other families to create new families that contain the combined family geometry.

Video: Use Nested and Shared Families

For example, rather than model a light fixture with a light bulb family from scratch, you can create the combination-light family by loading a light bulb into a light fixture family. Whether you share families before you nest them determines the behavior of the nested geometry in elements that you create with the family.

Window Family Example

For example, rather than model a combination window family from scratch, you can create the combination-window family below by loading the Double Hung and Instance - Fixed families into a new window family. Place the fixed window instance in the center with a double hung window on each side.

Nesting Restrictions

There are certain restrictions regarding the type of families that you can load and nest in other families:

Nesting Families with Interchangeable Components

By applying a family type parameter to a nested component, you can create families with interchangeable subcomponents. After you load and create an element with the nested family, you can swap components at any time.