Revit Style Guide – free pdf download

Luke Johnson

Interesting undertaking to develop a new RFO Style Guide (RFOSG), to enhance the possibility of sharing content – over at the Revit Forum.

Here is the latest PDF version:
Revit Style Guide v0.2 pdf

And here is a sample of some of the contents:
Naming Conventions     4
Separators and Case     4
System Families     4
Loadable Families     5
Materials     7
Fill Patterns (Surface)     8
Fill Patterns (Cut)     8
Line Patterns     9
Line Styles     9
Line Weights     9
Text Styles     9

It is also in a nice ‘open’ format:


This document is developed and released under the Creative
Commons with Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Commonly referred to as “CopyLeft”)
You are free:
to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to Remix – to adapt the work 

via
Revit Style Guide – First Draft

SAuBIM Room Calculation Utility – links and tips

Luke Johnson

Do you ever get a little annoyed by the things Revit doesnt let you do?  There are some irritating limitations in our favourite BIM program – but SAuBIM aims to workaround one of them.

Out-of-the-box Revit does not let you use a ‘calculated parameter’ in a Tag.  Don’t ask me why.  It is just a fact of life at the moment.  SAuBIM (pronounced saw-bim, and meaning ‘semi-automatic BIM’) takes the pain out of this with regard to one specific task – calculating room occupancy data and then displaying it in a tag.

Basically, you take the following steps to use SAuBIM:

  1. Close your Revit project.
  2. Install and register SAuBIM.
  3. Open the SAuBIM utility.
  4. Set your Revit ‘Program’ location in the top Browse box.
  5. In the middle Browse box, select the Revit file that you want to calculate Room Occupancy for.
  6. Click ‘Import Schedules and Tag’.  Wait for Revit to do its thing.

    TIP 1 – If you come across a dialog that says ‘Enter Interactive Mode‘, then something hasn’t quite worked properly.  I recommend that you:

    – Close Revit WITHOUT saving
    – Follow the steps above again, but between steps 5 and 6, tick the ‘I am Importing into a Revit Template File ( *.rte) box.  Even though you are using your .rvt project file, this step may actually cause SAuBIM to complete the import correctly.

    TIP 2 – If the above also does not work, you can manually complete the following steps (on your project BEFORE applying any SAuBIM items):

    – Copy (from Project Browser) the 2 x schedules from
    “C:Program Files (x86)SAuBIMSAuBIM InstallTest Project – Code Calc.rvt” (for Windows 7 64 bit)
    and Paste (Ctrl+V) them into your project
    – Load the Room Tag from
    “C:Program Files (x86)SAuBIMSAuBIM InstallRoom Tag – OL.rfa” (for Windows 7 64 bit)

  7. Once you have saw-bimmed your file, you can now use the Update Occupancy Data function (Revit must be closed to do this)
  8. Tag your rooms with the Room Tag – OL.rfa tag.

You have to keep in mind that it is semi-automatic – you need to ‘Update…’ the data before plotting / exporting.

However, it is a good proof-of-concept, and will prove extremely useful to some architects.  Thanks SAuBIM!

Now, here is a little request / challenge to the SAuBIM guys:  What if you ‘exposed’ some of the functionality of this program, and made it more customizable?  
This is what I’m thinking:  you allow us to select Calculated Parameters FROM a specific project file, and then use your tricks to push these into Shared Parameters, which we can then Tag?
I think it would be pretty easy, with the functionality you already have in place?

10 Tips on how to use the 'Create Assembly' tool

Luke Johnson
1. Warning message displays if the current selection contains elements that cannot be included in an assembly.
The following elements cannot be included in an assembly:
  • Annotations and detail items
  • Assemblies and elements that are already part of another assembly
  • Complex structures (trusses, beam systems, curtain systems, curtain walls, stacked walls)
  • Elements in different design options
  • Groups
  • Imports
  • Images
  • Links or elements in a link
  • Masses
  • MEP-specific elements (ducts, pipes, conduits, cable trays and fittings, HVAC zones)
  • Model lines
  • Rooms
  • Structural loads, load cases, and internal loads

See the rest at:
Assembly Usage Tips – WikiHelp

Revit Success Story

Luke Johnson

“Anyone who has played with Revit for an hour or so will know that there is an initial love affair, followed by a sudden realisation that you are staring into an abyss of complexity.”

“Only when you give yourself up and accept that the world as you know it will never be the same again, do you finally break through.”

“It helped to … have an evangelical desire to make it work.”

“… an extreme discipline is required to use Revit properly.”

“Revit is what everyone thought that CAD was when they were buying it in the 1980’s, only for them to find that they had actually bought Etch-a-Sketch. We love it, and there is no going back.”

This was just a few quotes from:
Barton Engineers: Essays & Blog 12/05/11: