Combining Revit Lookup and Sysexporter has a lot of potential for getting hard-to-reach data out of Revit in almost realtime. For example, in Revit 2013 there are limited options for scheduling Revit Links. But if we open Revit Lookup (Snoop Database), and then start Sysexporter, we can see this (find Snoop Objects in the list and select it):

From here, we can copy that list of Revit Links to Excel and do some LEFT and RIGHT operations to strip the Element ID:

Now, we can copy a group of element IDs to the Select by ID box in Revit (maybe need a trip to Notepad++ to remove linebreaks) to multi-select a group of Links, based on their Discipline or Level. Then, you can assign them to a particular Workset. See where I’m heading with this?

As part of meeting his RTCNA requests, Harry posted this idea for saving all groups to file:

  • API can be used to generate a text file listing all model groups. 
  • this text file can be used as input to a journal file that saves each group to its own file

Its good to keep this general principle in mind when working with and around Revit – if it doesn’t seem possible, try and think about it from a different direction. Usually there is another way to attack the problem you are facing. Don’t give up… just find the unobvious answer, make it work, and then share it with the rest of us!

View the demonstration video at:
#RTCNA Wish 6: Save all groups to file | Boost Your BIM
 
via https://twitter.com/BoostYourBIM/status/480096851555672065

I was speaking to a surveyor recently and he indicated that he believes in around 2 years time, point clouds will be a “commodity” that almost anyone can produce. Devices to scan 3D spaces are becoming more powerful and more accessible, and essentially anyone can use them.  For example, have you seen Google’s Project Tango?

Along with Recap 360 and other iOS apps for scanning rooms and converting to 3D models, the question soon will not be “how do we scan this?” The question will be:

What do we do with all of this scanned, real world spatial data?

Learn more:
ATAP Project Tango – Google

These Dropbox links are copied from the Autodesk Community Russia site:

Project Template  2012
2013
2014 & 2015 NEW!!!
Doors Семейства
Спецификации
Window Семейства
Спецификации
Escalators 2013 Семейства
Moving walkways 2013 Семейства
Garbage chute 2013 Семейства
Fence 2013 Семейства
Lifts 2012 NEW!!! Семейства и руководство пользователя

From:
Forum page

via borissofff at
Source page (translated)

To use, basically:

  1. Download from link below
  2. Install
  3. Pick the retention time
  4. Click Clean all file types (you will be shown how much space was saved)
  5. or/ click Toggle Calc mode to clean individual file types
  6.  You can also click Open Journal Folders to see all versions of Journal folders on your PC

(As you can see there is  also an unrelated angle calc tool. I usually use this family.)

From Dante van Wettum, via email:
Also this year again i have updated the Revit journal cleaner again to support 2015. Also i added a few new features to the tool that might help others. Though i wrote the tool in first instance for personal use, i will share it again as the passed few years 🙂

EDIT fixed download link here:
http://gdurl.com/FPiy

Download via: http://www.aqua-page.nl/dls/dls/download.php?fname=./other/RevitJournalCleaner_2015.zip

Here the changelog:
======================
Revit Journal Cleaner
======================
Copyright (C) 2014 D. van Wettum.
2.0.4
– Added support for revit 2015
– Added commandline parameter “/CleanAll:<number_Of_Days>” Example:”C:…RevitJournalCleaner.exe /CleanAll:1″
– Added a small angle calculation tool that has completely nothing to do with cleaning journal files, though i found it to be a nice add-on for my own use 🙂
Kind Regards
Dante van Wettum
(The Netherlands)

From viewing the video, it looks like you just:

  1. Take some pictures with your drone and GoPro
  2. Upload to Recap 360 and make sure you get an RCS output
  3. Link it into Revit and do your conceptual modelling
  4. Visualize the model using the site context from the linked RCS point cloud

Easy!

Here’s the video:

Heads-up https://twitter.com/Alex_BIM_AJP/status/479897809634988033

I have covered using FBX to access Navisworks data for downstream use. What about KMZ? This format contains lightweight geometry as well as some model structure. It is actually quite difficult to find an easy way to go from KMZ to IFC, or KML to IFC. But, it can be done!

Here’s one method:

  1. Export desired view from Navisworks to KML with “collapse” set to None. This will bring the full model hierarchy with the KML file (see help for more info)
  2. Install ArchiCAD 16 and the Google Earth import / export plugin
  3. File Special – Merge, select the KMZ (this part could take a while)
  4. File Special – IFC 2×3 – Merge to IFC Model…
  5. Select an IFC file (maybe make an empty one to merge with first, like this one)
  6. You will get geometry and some basic data, but the main thing is that the object segregation is still present
  7. From here you can import the IFC file to Revit as usual

Note: you can use 7-zip to extract a KMZ and you will see the KML file inside.

Screenshots:

Other ideas:

QGIS:
Welcome to the QGIS project!
Weekly builds:
Index of /downloads/weekly

Forum post:
Importing KMZ files into AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 – Autodesk Community

Addons for AutoCAD:
SL-King Download King.KML FDO provider

Spatial Manager™ – Download

When working with multiple linked files, you can utilize the ability of Revit to close Worksets in Linked Files, and in some cases this is a good visibility shortcut. Along these lines Simon over at BIM42 has written “a few line of code for set up every Scope Box, and Reference plane to the correct workset…”

See the code at:

Managing linked worksets | BIM 42