Category: Uncategorized

Revit Addin Giveaway! dp Stuff Utilities and Randomizer updated for Revit 2015

Luke Johnson

dp Stuff have updated their very cool Revit addins to work with Revit 2015, and happily I have three prizes to giveaway:

  1. Free Revit Utils 2015 and Randomizer 2015 pack
  2. Half-price Revit Utils 2015 and Randomizer 2015 pack
  3. 25% off Revit Utils 2015 and Randomizer 2015 pack

To enter the competition, scroll down to the Comments on this post and write your response to this question (don’t worry if your entry doesn’t appear straight away, it will 🙂 …

Name one challenge you have faced while using Revit.
How did you overcome it?

The deadline for this competition is Tuesday 10 March 2015. After this date, I will review the comments and then give the prizes to the entries that I think are the most original, thought-provoking, outside-of-the-box and interesting 🙂 Results will be announced in a comment on 11 March, and I will reply to the winners individually.

I have posted about Dima Chiriacov’s dp Stuff addins several times over the years, including this random tree generator post and this one about his Workset Explorer (which is now included in the “Revit Utils” pack).

Here are the links to the updated 2015 dp Stuff addins:
Revit Utils 2015
Randomizer 2015

Dima’s post:
Revit 2015 Addins Update – Revit Utils 2015 – dp Stuff

It is very easy to buy from the site, just

  • Add to Cart, 
  • Checkout,
  • Apply any discount codes
  • Fill out your details
  • Accept the terms
  • Proceed to download

Automatically Visualize Your Revit Model by Parameter Values with Color Splasher (also… free GUID Element utility)

Luke Johnson

BIM One have released a new automatic color filter addin for Revit. It is very simple to use, and its free:

  1. Install the addin using the install tool (refer here for steps on using the addin manager)
  2. Open a Revit project
  3. Go to BIM One ribbon
  4. Click on Color Splasher
  5. Click on a Category
  6. Click on a Parameter
  7. A color set is automatically generated
  8. Click on Apply color set

If we check the element VG, we can see that this addin basically runs through and applies a By Element override to each element in the view:

Note: a nice added bonus to the above functionality is that if you open Color Splasher and click “Clear Set”, every Element visibility override in the current view will be removed. Might be handy for QA and model management?

They have also provided a Element GUID tool. It works like the Select by ID tool in Revit, but instead of using the Element ID, it works on the GUID parameter inherent in all Revit elements:

I previously posted about the BIM One NWC Batch Exporter here:
NWC Batch Export from Revit – multiple Revit views to multiple NWCs with one click

via
http://us8.campaign-archive2.com/?u=f58c55b9516e3ecd984b6ff84&id=95df102b3a&e=3729ed9af6

Hospital Design Whitepaper for Download

Luke Johnson

Synopsis:
This short paper sets out Andy Black‘s personal observations based upon four decades of working in the hospital world. 

Link
Download the full white paper ‘Notes on the design of hospitals and their clinical organisation’, from the Australian HealthCare Week site…

Direct link

via
A New Approach for the Design of Tomorrow’s Hospital – A2K Technologies Blog

New version of BIM 360 Glue iPad app V3.0 has better Grid support

Luke Johnson

From joan.allen on the Ideastation:
..
I’m happy to announce that you can view gridlines on the iPad app – and control the visibility settings of grids in both 2D and 3D view – with the BIM 360 Glue iPad app V3.0 that was released today.  Learn more here about the new 2D to 3D “Map” navigation feature and gridline controls:  http://youtu.be/ILqdJVjloA0 


Related post:
http://autode.sk/1vItZ2K

Forum Link:
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/bim-360-ideastation/make-grids-visible-on-ipad-glue-app/idc-p/5509989#M433

Automatically Renumber Mark Parameter of Multiple Categories At Once with Dynamo

Luke Johnson

This tip comes from Troy. He has provided a simple Dynamo definition to set the element Mark to Element ID. It is very fast, and I have tested it on a fairly large data set. As usual though, ‘use at your own risk’ etc.

I posted about how Bonus Tools can handle this too, over here.

How to use it:

  1. Install Dynamo (currently 7.5)
  2. Start Revit, open a project
  3. Open Dynamo, then open DuplicateMarkValuesFromID file from here
  4. Click Run…

Basically, it iterates through each Category in the left most part of the diagram, and sets the Mark parameter to the Element ID. If you aren’t using Mark for anything else, this will instantly clear duplicate mark warnings for those Categories. You could expand or reduce the list by adding or removing Categories and All Elements of Category node sets.

I made a trimmed down version for one Category (Sprinklers), but you can use this to choose a specific Category if you just want to do one at a time.

Thanks to this email from Troy:
Here you go. Feel free to post it and use it as you wish. It is fairly straightforward.

At the left is all of the categories I was checking in my model (mostly mechanical and plumbing). To add or change them just copy and paste the two left boxes, then add an array to the list create. The list count and watch to the top are just there to tell me how many items are being modified. I did about 30,000 objects in all of 30 seconds in one button push.

I’m no expert with Dynamo but I just did this with a spare hour I had int he morning.

I obviously take no responsibility for any damage it may do to any projects, files or computers etc etc.

Regards,
Troy

The 3rd Most Expensive Building in the World

Luke Johnson

I’ve spent the past year working in a coordination role on the new Royal Adelaide Hospital project. The sheer number and complexity of the Revit models involved is immense. But here is something interesting:

basically every contractor who works on this project is
required to deliver their work in Revit format.

So… if Revit is good enough for the 3rd most expensive building in the world, don’t you think it’s time you took some action? Maybe its time to get Revit, get learning, and enjoy the ride!

According to Emporis:
The most expensive buildings in the world | Statistics | EMPORIS
and via
The 9 Most Expensive Buildings Ever Aren’t What You’d Expect

Here is what it looks like today, 13 February 2015:

Some related documents:
http://www.sahp.com.au/downloads/Fact_Sheet_09_%20BIM.pdf

http://www.sth.com.au/site/DefaultSite/filesystem/documents/2015%20Publications/2014.03.04_ANCR_New%20Royal%20Adelaide%20edit.pdf

Quickly Fix Duplicate Mark Warnings, and Make Element ID or Element GUID available in Schedules or Tags

Luke Johnson

For some projects, Revit Warnings become a metric in model audit processes (this may be regardless of how much impact those warnings may have in real terms). For example, perhaps your model has become populated with many “Elements have duplicate ‘Mark’ values“. How can we fix these quickly?

I explored a number of options, and I think I have found the easiest. In one particular situation, the Mark value was not important for documentation, and it was simply necessary to make them unique to clear the warnings. What if we could also grab some otherwise unavailable information and apply it to the item? Like Element ID or GUID?

Bonus Tools can do that. Here’s the steps:

  1. Get Bonus Tools
  2. Open your RVT model, check the Warnings dialog, and see what Category is affected
  3. In Bonus Tools 1 ribbon, start Copy Parameter tool
  4. Pick options as per screenshot below

After clicking Ok, the tool will quickly copy the unique ID into the Mark parameter. You can now tag it or schedule it (keeping in mind that it is a static value and may need to be updated from time to time). What I like is how quickly the tool runs – it can do an entire category of thousands of elements in a minute or so.

Note: you could also use Bonus Tools to:

  1. Export multiple categories to Excel using a Multi-Category Schedule – “Export Schedule to Excel”)
  2. Adjust the Mark quickly in Excel with autofill, and 
  3. Re-import to Revit. This method is a bit slower, but you can have more control over how the parameter looks, and you can span multiple categories with unique-yet-readable Mark values.

There have been various other automated ways suggested to fix this over the years, such as:
Automatic Numbering of Elements Within Revit 2015 – Cadline Community 
using element positioning

Revit OpEd: Duplicate Mark Values
using Model Review
 
UPDATE: Recent updates to Bonus Tools include

  • new “Show Warnings” tool (applies a temporary Hide/Isolate after you select a html warning export from Revit) and 
  • a “Renumber Categories” tool (select multiple elements on different categories and it will renumber all elements on those categories by pushing the Element ID into the Mark parameter. It is very fast)

SelFilter, a Powerful Selection Filter Utility (External Command for Revit)

Luke Johnson

When building Revit addins, you may want to implement some specific selection filter. Here is some more good stuff via Alexander Buschmann and The Building Coder:
The zip file SelFilters.zip contains

  • the SelFilter class, 
  • the interface files, an 
  • example external command
    using some of the SelFilter functionality, an 
  • add-in manifest file for
    the example command and a 
  • small Revit project to test it in.

Source:
The Building Coder: SelFilter, a Powerful Generic Selection Filter Utility

To try it out:

  1. In Visual Studio (I use Express 2013 for Windows Desktop), make a new Class Library Project
  2. File – Save project as – RevitSelectionFilters.csproj
  3. Add RevitAPI.dll and RevitAPIUI.dll references (2014)
  4. Add – Existing Items. Choose all the .cs files from the zip
  5. Set project properties Assembly Name and Default namespace to RevitSelectionFilters
  6. Save All
  7. Build Solution
  8. Copy
    SelectionTest.addin and RevitSelectionFilters.dll
    to C:ProgramDataAutodeskRevitAddins2014

Related screenshots:

And screencast showing the examples:

Good intro to Revit customization:
http://help.autodesk.com.s3.amazonaws.com/sfdcarticles/kA230000000tiXXCAY/handout_2116_CM2116.pdf

From the help:
Help: External Commands

Setting up an External Command in Revit 2015:
EXTERNAL COMMAND IN 10 STEPS FOR REVIT 2015 API 

If you want a quick way to differentiate between two datasets in the Selection Tree in Navisworks…

Luke Johnson

You can use the “Require” option. Any item that is set to “Required” will show as red, while normal unrequired items will remain black. This allows you to quickly, visually review two sets of models for differences, without having to check the Properties – Source File Name constantly:

Obviously, the Required function isn’t really meant for this – Navisworks will try to always keep those items drawn in the scene, so keep that in mind if you are having performance problems after making many items Required.

Also, don’t forget about Properties+… I have also shared my JSON property set for this Navisworks addin over here. You can put it into your UsersUsername folder to get started quickly:

Referencing, Replacing and Reloading Images in Revit

Luke Johnson

Did you ever notice this little button, available in the Manage Images dialog in Revit 2015?

Although it is pretty self-evident, here you can replace an image by reloading from a different one. You can also use the Reload button to reload an image from the ‘saved path’.

Example:
 

This was a platform enhancement in 2015, as per:
About Managing Images | Revit Products | Autodesk Knowledge Network

You can read more about it at:
About Managing Images | Revit Products | Autodesk Knowledge Network