Flip Flop

Reading other blogs I always enjoy posts that shine light into some dark Revit recess.  The posts explain something that might not be self evident at first glance  Well here is a very old feature I recently crossed paths with.

When creating/editing 3D families there is a tool available called "Control"

 

The icon shows the control we all know from Doors and Windows and sure enough these families have these controls inside.

When you press the tool you get more contextual items:

What do all these do?  Whats the difference between Single and Double?  A flip is a flip is a flip right?

Not quite.  As the icons subtly communicate the Single flips behave more like Rotate.  They flip the element around its origin 90 180 degrees with each click.

The Double flips cause a behavior more like mirror - they flip it across the reference axis (vertical or horizontal).

Below is a test family with all of the controls and what they do.

 

Here is the family in a project with 4 instances after the controls were pressed:

Now that we see what it does I see some opportunities to improve clarity:

• Rename the commands to more accurately reflect the behavior. e.g. replace the novel "flip" with the tried and true mirror / rotate. (BTW this is already done in the contextual menu for doors where we find "flip hand" and "flip facing")
• Consolidate the two single flips into a single command as they both rotate.
• Make the in window controls match the icons which better communicate the behavior

_erik

Comments

[David Kingham]

Changing the single arrow to more of a rotate symbol (like it is in the ribbon icon) would clear up a lot of confusion, and consolidating to one tool

[KTJ]

Did you mean rotate 180 degrees instead of 90 for the single flip arrows?

[Anthony Hauck]

Um yes. I'll fix this.

[Mark]

I've been using Revit for 10 years, and finally know what the single arrow controls are for - I guess I'll stop ignoring them now ;)

[DoTheBIM]

maybe also adding a perpendicular dashed line to the existing dashed line might help some see the difference. It would kind of lead someone to think about rotating around an origin. I agree with all the other thoughts. Flip might indicate that your want to flip the object upside down like a pancake.... Hmmm maybe an enhancement... we could have flip controls for an elevational flip.

[Tim Waldock]

I wish the single flip controls did only rotate 90 degrees, then they would be so much more useful - particularly for freestanding objects. As it is, the two single flip controls each do the same job as the other.

Can you change the software to 90 degrees (and keep both controls), and the graphics to match the contextual menu? I guess that wall hosted objects would have to rotate 180 degrees.

Incidentally, when placing a component, hitting the space bar rotates the component 90 degrees anti-clockwise. I'm sure I've seen different behaviours/rotation increments in the past but have never figured out the rules. Can we tie that in with the controls somehow?

[Anthony Hauck]

All good points and yes hosted elements restrict the behavior a bit though I think a 90 degree rotation could be considered. I never noticed the spacebar rotation was counter clockwise. Another inconsistency. The coriolis effect would be the opposite for Boston, MA. If it were changed would we offend those down under?