One of the more challenging aspects of Revit LT is the inability to model items in place. I experienced this first hand when modelling up a Restaurant for a prospective client.

One may, however, create content in families. This got me thinking: why not create the context needed within the families using 3D exported CAD files? Indeed, this method works very well.

First a default 3D view is created which contains the relevant geometry. Switching on the section box allows one to limit the extent of the geometry that will be exported. The quickest way to do this is to create a section in plan view to which the 3D vie may be oriented (RMC on View Cube and Orient to View)

Using Visibility Graphics view overrides allow one to exclude content not needed for context.

Now export this view to CAD.

In the Export Setup

Select ACIS solids as the solid export method.

Import this CAD drawing into the relevant family (in this case the Metric Generic Model Family).  Clearly a weak point of this method is that the families that are being created cannot always be scheduled as the correct category. Instead the family itself can be scheduled, but the information that can be extracted from it is limited.

Insert the CAD drawing and manoeuvre it into position relative to the origin (insertion point). Make sure to enable selection of underlays (otherwise one is unable to snap to the CAD import).

Now model up the geometry and then delete the CAD import.

Load the family back into the project and place it correctly with respect to the project geometry.