Month: June 2015

Select All Elements in Revit using List of Category Names

Luke Johnson

Cooking in the Bakery today:

From here we could export a list of Element IDs to CSV, make a Selection Set by Elements using Clockwork, or use one of the Select in Revit nodes.

As you can see, to make a string list in a code block, you need to enclose list in curly brackets, divide with commas and use quotation marks around the entries themselves. More about code blocks at:
http://dynamobim.com/cbns-for-dummies/

Present, Discuss, Share and Collaborate using Your BIM Models in Realtime, Globally and Instantly

Luke Johnson

Update use this code to get a discount on your Revizto annual purchase:
LUKEJH

Oh, and across devices too. You might say “hey, I’ve heard of Revizto before“. Someone tweeted today “”Even if we could get the model into a game engine, it would be difficult to navigate.” We can. It isn’t.”

Revizto has been providing smooth, great-looking visualizations of your Revit model for a while now. It has some very cool features, like Oculus Rift support (fun!) But its not just about the game-smooth graphics anymore.. I’m excited about something else…

Firstly, the big picture: what does Revizto do? Well, it shares your 3D model with others via the cloud, which is pretty normal these days. But over the past few months (and especially the last few days), it has added collaboration features that make it an extremely useful tool for BIM teams. Some of these are:

  • intelligent issue tracking
  • sheet and 3D collaboration attached to the same issue
  • issue reporting
  • enhanced Navisworks export, which includes overridden colours (meaning it can be useful for services visualizations where you use the Appearance Profiler in Navis)

If you like videos, maybe start here:

Revizto bridges some obvious gaps in current Autodesk interoperability scenarios, as it allows you to easily:

  • create and share viewpoints between Revit, Navisworks and AutoCAD
  • go straight to the 3D viewpoint of an issue in whatever model you have open (using the Issue Tracker addins)

Also, compared to various other collaboration services, it is relatively inexpensive, especially given the level of functionality it provides.

So how do we get started with Revizto? Here’s a quick few steps:

  1. Download and install the 30 day trial with addins
  2. Open a Revit model, or a federated Navisworks model, and upload to Revizto using the addin
  3. Choose a project name
  4. After upload is complete and your model is open in Revizto, share it with others
  5. Start collaborating! Make an issue with + sign in the top bar, then type some words, assign it to someone, start a conversation about that issue.

Once an issue is created, you can easily switch between multiple different representations:

You can also quickly create or export issues to BCF. It uses the bcfzip format, so imagery and viewpoint information is all included.

Issues can be quickly tagged to create custom lists of related issues too.

A few beginner-style tips:

  • The Viewer is different to the Editor. The Editor is mostly used to create and upload projects.
  • Go to hamburger (top left) Objects to be able to turn off and select items in the model
  • You can see the room names in the Map mode (little compass arrow in top of Viewer). When you scroll down to any level you can see all of the rooms, and by clicking to any part of the room you it will take you there in 3D
    Grids and Rooms visible in 3D Map view
  • The recommended workflow is to use a combined, federated model in Navisworks or Revit and then export to Revizto, rather than trying to federate models in Revizto itself

    What’s New in 3.4:

    • Collaboration on 2D sheets, now you will be able to mark up on top of 2D sheet and see them in 3D and all your issues made in 3D will be visible on 2D sheet
    • Ability to see the 2D sheet on top of the 3D
    • Invitation in the Viewer, now you can accept invitations to projects you have been invited to right from the Viewer
    • Revision control, now you will be able to see all your versions of the files you have synced to the cloud right from the Editor and open and review them and/or revert to the version you choose and make it master file for everyone.
    • You can see what have been updated in the project gallery in the Viewer and open the latest version
    • Great enhancements in export from Navisworks
    • ArchiCad support, now you will be able to export from ArchiCad your files and benefit Revizto collaboration
    • Grid visibility in Revizto, now you will be able to see the grid in the Viewer in 2D Map View.
    • Ability to set self-luminous material to any object in the scene to be visible in the Viewer and in the Editor after you bake the light maps

    Some more general info and screenshots below:
    Manual Introduction • Revizto Editor User Manual

    What is it again?
    Revizto is a tool that transforms heavy-weight 3D data into navigable lightweight scene in one click. The resulting scene can be opened with free Revizto Viewer on PC, Mac, iPad and Android tablets or in any web browser with Unity plugin. Revizto Workspace allows users to upload their projects to cloud storage and access them from any point of the globe. Revizto works with the most architectural and 3D-modelling software (Revit, SketchUp and any software that supports FBX export). 

    Installation screenshot (addins):

    Platform includes:

    To conclude: give the latest version a go, and feel free to comment with your thoughts.

    Update use this code to get a discount on your Revizto annual purchase:
    LUKEJH

    Navisworks Manage 2016 Service Pack 2

    Luke Johnson

    Most of these are bug fixes, and some BIM360 Glue integration performance improvements. Details and direct links below:
    Autodesk Navisworks 2016 Service pack 2 delivers user experience and stability improvements to the Autodesk BIM 360 integration. Service pack 2 also addresses problems identified in other parts of Autodesk Navisworks 2016. Service Pack 2 also includes all of the updates from Service Pack 1. Service Pack 2 can be installed on either the original version or the Service Pack 1 version of Autodesk Navisworks 2016.

    Autodesk_Navisworks_2016_Service_Pack_2_Multilingual_Freedom_64bit.msp (msp – 78Mb)
    Autodesk_Navisworks_2016_Service_Pack_2_Multilingual_Manage_64bit.msp (msp – 101Mb)
    Autodesk_Navisworks_2016_Service_Pack_2_Multilingual_Simulate_64bit.msp (msp – 101Mb)

    Readme
    Autodesk Navisworks 2016 Service Pack 2 Feature readme.pdf (pdf – 422Kb)
    Autodesk Navisworks 2016 Service Pack 2 Installation readme.pdf (pdf – 308Kb)

    From http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/navisworks-products/downloads/caas/downloads/content/navisworks-2016-service-pack-2.html

    Better Sketchup to Revit Conversion via FormIt

    Luke Johnson

    Check out this excellent forum post by Tobias Hathorn, in which he describes the best workflow for Sketchup to Revit conversion via FormIt 360. Interestingly, the major steps are:

    1. Install Revit addin
    2. Use addin to convert SKP to format for Formit
    3. Import to FormIt Web
    4. Export Locally
    5. Use the same Revit addin to convert the FormIt 360 Sketch to RVT

    Some more detail here, reproduced from the post:

    The one ‘gotcha’ (which should be kind of obvious)… if the model is poorly constructed geometrically in SketchUp, then that same geometry will come down the pipe into FormIt and eventually into Revit… 

    Another comment about size – you’ll get better results componentizing your SketchUp import – doing a blanket conversion of your entire existing SketchUp model will take longer and be a MUCH bigger memory footprint.

    Here are the steps for SketchUp conversion…

    • Go to the SketchUp Warehouse – browse to a great looking catalog – LINK
    • Download the files you want locally onto the hard drive
    • Get the free FormIt Converter Plugin for Revit 2015 – LINK
    • Install the Plugin and restart Revit 2015
    • Go to the Add-Ins tab, FormIt 360 Conversion panel and choose Convert SketchUp Files from the drop down menu
    • Navigate to the folder with the SKP files in them
    • Then navigate to where I want the FormIt 360 files to be (can also go to A360

    Here are the steps for FormIt categorization…

    • Start FormIt Web – LINK
    • Import (or Link through the Content Library) the converted SKP’s – place the content in your FormIt scene…
    • Double click to edit the furniture group – you can push and pull the geometry as if you were in SketchUp!
    • While in Edit Group mode – set the name and category (Furniture) in the properties panel. Finish editing the group.
    • Save the FormIt file and download it locally (to your downloads folder) by clicking ‘Export Locally as FormIt 360 Sketch’

    Here are the steps for FormIt to Revit conversion…

    • Open Revit 2015 – Click New file – choose the template you’d like to use for the design model

    • Go to the Add-ins tab and choose “Convert FormIt 360 Sketch to RVT‘

    • Navigate to the downloads folder and choose the FormIt sketch you exported locally

    • Click through any warnings and now you have Revit versions of SketchUp files!

    • The FormIt elements have the same categorization you set in FormIt

    • and you can double click to edit the families as you would normal Revit geometry

    Thanks Tobias!

    Original post:
    http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/formit-360-general-discussion/sketchup-conversion/m-p/5670578#M235

    Free Form Element does not show Visibility Settings in Contextual Ribbon – Workaround

    Luke Johnson

    Have you ever exploded a SAT or DWG in the Family Environment, and then gone looking for the Visibility Settings ribbon button for one of the resulting freeform elements? Its not there:

    But, as you can see from the image above, you can still access these settings by using the Properties Palette – Visibility/Graphics button.

    Collect Elements in Rooms Across Linked Files, and Write Room Data Directly to Elements or List to Excel

    Luke Johnson

    Its a long-winded title, but its only one Dynamo node… Just added to the Bakery package, called Collect Elements in Rooms and Show Detailed List. Basically, it takes a list of Rooms and a list of Elements and then tells you which Rooms those Elements are in. It also works across linked files, so you can have a fixture model, link in the Architectural containing Rooms, and use those to do the comparison.

    Once we have the Room that an element lives in (mostly thanks to Konrad’s work on Family.InRoom, which I have altered a little bit here), we can do lots of things. I used a Cycle and LaceShortest to get a 1:1 list of Room:Element. This makes it easier to do things with the resulting combined lists. Like, one of the outputs of the node is a detailed 6 index list, which can be directly exported to Excel. The list in Excel can then be filtered by Room. You can choose two parameters from Rooms, two from the Elements, and it also gives you the Element Ids of both:

    I could have added headers to the list in Dynamo, but I didn’t do it for this first version (yet):

    We can also take a parameter from a Room (like Room Name or Room Number) and then write it directly into a parameter in the Elements, like this:

    This shows the Mark parameter populated with Room Name:

    Or, we can take two parameters from linked Architectural rooms, and drive two Shared Parameters in every element in the current model. I ran the following node to set parameters for about 2500 elements in just a couple of minutes:

    Or, we can use another Bakery node to do a wildcard search and collect elements from one Category across multiple links, and then check against these:

    While this is a basic implementation at this stage (and no doubt there may be some hiccups), it demonstrates a powerful concept: to be able to take a mixture of linked Rooms and/or linked Elements and determine their relationship, then export that data or use it to instantly drive other parameters in Revit.

    Goooo Dynamo!

    Scheduled and Unattended Exporting from Revit to Multiple Output Formats.

    Luke Johnson

    I reviewed RTV Xporter PRO late last year, but there have been a few updates and new features since then so I thought I’d briefly list them here.  For less than $50US per user, you get a lot of automation capability. A 2016 compatible version is now available. Also, a new build for Revit 2015 has been released.

    Here are some of the new features in Xporter PRO 2015 build (599):

    • improved revision management
    • improved stability for unattended scheduled tasks with Revit
    • improved PDF connectors
    • new Citrix Sharefile connector
    • new Edit/Update Revit Sheet Parameter data mode
    • new Right-Click shortcut menu options on the main interface
    • new Create 3D views split by floor level and export to individual NWC files

    Get it here

    A few of the other key features of this addin:

    • tasks can be automatically run as a single Batch process or on a repeating Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Hourly Scheduled process.
    • Automatic creation of PDFs, DWG, DWF, DWFx, DXF, DGN, NWC and IFC files from Autodesk® Revit® drawing sheets and views.
    • Built-in parametric file naming engine automatically saves exported files to match any company’s or project team’s file naming conventions.
    • Batch print large format and reduced hardcopies to two separate printers simultaneously.

    If you want to know more, you can check out my November 2014 review:
    What Revit Wants: Automatic Batch Printing and Exporting from Revit that could save you Dollars and Time (RTV Xporter Pro review)