Magic tricks are great when you are expecting the stunt and still fooled by it. The Prestige[1] is a great story about magic and the artistry and sacrifice involved with it. How a simple item that appears to be normal can be turned into something extraordinary right in front of your eyes. The magician knows how the trick is done and is actually quite simple to perform even though the setup can be very complicated. The audience, witnessing the event, is not aware and is amazed at what just happened. In the film, a magic trick is broken down into three parts.
THE PLEDGE is where the magician shows the audience something normal and ordinary, like a ball. He may roll up his sleeves or open a door to reveal nothing behind it. In our case, let us use a Revit Family provided by a Manufacturer. Nothing has been done to the file other than to download it from the Manufacturer. It is a simple red ball.
THE TURN is the second act in which the normal object, like the ball or person, disappears. This isn't much of an ordeal, so the audience doesn't clap because they are waiting for something more. A ball disappears in the hand or he disappears behind a door. Let us take the Manufacturer created Revit Family and load it into a Project Model that has been developed according to the Master Labeling Convention and Shared Parameter Library. After loading, we close the file and it has disappeared. A ball or person disappears, big deal. Where is the trick?
THE PRESTIGE is the awe inspiring moment when that object is brought back, but in a way that is not normal or ordinary. The Ball is no longer seen as just any normal ball and the door that was used appears to be magical. Let us take an instance of that Manufacturer’s Revit Family from the Project Model and click Edit Family to open the family exported from the Project Model. The Revit Family has been brought back, but it is changed. It is the same family, yet it is now extraordinary.
Is this a trick? Is this some sort of illusion? Has anything changed? Nothing has changed, yet everything is different. The Family was provided without any special arrangement. That family was loaded into a model, and then exported from that model. Through this process, all of the shared parameters were renamed according to the Master Labeling Convention defined in the project model. None of the Parameters in the family were Added, Deleted or Modified in the Family Type Editor.
This process can be referred to as Washing the Parameters. This enables a user to see what Parameters in a family are Shared Parameters that follow a common standard in the industry and to know that those Shared Parameters will work in schedules and tags developed by the same common standard. As even more manufacturers begin using this standard, the schedules will populate without any editing or modification. Below are the Before and After images of the same family after Washing the Parameters. Cue the flash of light and smoke.
-Craig
[1] The Prestige, Christopher Nolan, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, 2006
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