We often work with consultants using Tekla Structures, but we only recently came across the issue of trying to import point clouds into Tekla. The officially recommended workflow is: Leica / Trimble scanner — Trimble Real Works — Landxml — Tekla Structures
But what if we don’t have Real Works? Basically, we want to create geometry from point cloud (which we can make into a massive list of XYZ values in a text file). Sounds like an easy job for Dynamo… and in a way, it is.
Here is what worked for me:
Import the source point cloud to Recap, decimate to 100mm grids, and remove all values except X,Y,Z (screencast below). This took me from about 19 million points down to about half a million
Export from Recap to PTS format.
Remove first line in the PTS file using Notepad++ (if necessary). The output should look something like this:
Here is the Screencast:
Note: steps 1 to 3 should essentially create a 3 field space delimited XYZ text file with no Intensity, RGB or Normals (sometimes called NEZ by survey people)
Load some family called PointCloud.rfa with a Type called Point (can be adaptive or not)
Use a Dynamo definition to place a given family at each location. One of my main concerns was scalability.. How many points / instances can Dynamo and Revit handle here? Initially, I used a method where the definition itself threw away a lot of points in a totally arbitrary manner, using a series of DropItemAtIndex nodes. This got me from about 500000 to about 120000 points, and this worked ok. I ended up modifying the node to allow for a number of ‘drops’ (from 0 to 4). Each drop throws away every second point… Finally, as I was getting all the points anyway, I thought it would be nice to have a Topography creation option. The published package can either create families at each point, make a topography, or both.
Once you have generated the geometry you want from the point cloud, then Export to DWG or DXF
Transmit to consultant
Here is a little readme: When you first load the package, you should set up the entry data types as per below:
If your text file is space-delimited (as mine was), make sure the delimiter string field actual has a Space in it.
Also, set the two booleans to False (meaning that no families or topos will be created) for the first Run, and set the drops to 4. The “Number of points” output node will give you an idea of how many points are in play at that particular drop level, like this:
If you are running on ‘normal’ system hardware, you probably should keep it to around 50000 geometry creation points if possible. On my Surface Pro 3, it could work with the 30000 points no worries, and my workstation could handle 120000 ok. So, once you have a reasonable number in that output box, you can set the go and place instances and / or make a Topo options to True. I think Revit may struggle with huge points on a Topo, but I was able to place the family instances (with a small crosshair or 3D sphere at the origin) and then export to DWG.
Keep in mind this is a very arbitrary and lossy method – point clouds were never really meant to be wrestled into geometry like this. However, it may help you in certain situations. The Dynamo node has been published but it is very beta at the moment, so of course the usual disclaimer applies: “use at your own risk”.
Package is called Place Family Instances or Make Topography by Point Cloud.
A note on coordinates and rounding: This tool currently uses project coordinates. A future revision may offer shared coordinate translation. In the meantime, you could use some reference geometry at project base point and run this tool in an new empty, linked file, then move it into place in project. Related discussion:
Also, it appears that rounding is occurring to 3 decimal places, which is not ideal. Again, this may be fixed in future.
Endnote: I tried lots of other methods, including POINTSIN and IMPORTXYZ lisp routines in AutoCAD, but oftentimes the dataset was too big, or the input data was not what the routine was expecting. Some other methods I attempted are below, but they weren’t too successful… Also tried:
Import points to Civil3D
Convert Civil COGO points to vanilla AutoCAD blocks
Use blocks to generate geometry
Using Civil3D to Convert Points to LandXML for Import to Tekla Structures Another possibility:
Points into Civil3D (as Drawing Objects in a Surface)
Note: you will need to login to Subscription to download … Autodesk® Shared Reference Point 2015 provides functionality to export known points and elevation from AutoCAD® Civil 3D software to an external file, in which Autodesk® Revit® software can import and setup a “Shared Coordinate System.” This enables the collaboration of exported RVT, DWG and NWC files back to AutoCAD Civil 3D and to coordinate models in Autodesk® Navisworks® software.
When reviewing any Revit addin suite, I’m often interested in the unique tools that you just can’t get anywhere else. CGS Revit Tools has quite a few of these… and in this post I will describe just a couple of examples.
Also, in some very good news for What Revit Wants readers, for three months CGS are offering an exclusive, limited-time, 30% off of retail discount (yes!) offer if you email orders.usa@cgsplus.com and specifically mention What Revit Wants. You can also just click on the CGS banner in the left sidebar. I think you will find that this is a very comprehensive suite, and with this generous discount it is very good value indeed.
Now, on with the review..
CGS Revit Tools comes with a built in spreadsheet editor called BIM Query. So, unlike some other Revit addins, you don’t actually need to open Excel and deal with input/output files – you can modify the data directly in a special editing canvas and then ‘Apply’ it directly to your model. It is quite fast at extracting the data to the spreadsheet (depending on size of model and number of categories selected).
Resize Section Box is a very useful addition to the suite, as it allows you to quickly match a Section Box to a Room, Space or View. This is a pretty powerful and unique implementation, as other Section box tools often only deal with model elements:
The BIM Manager panel provides a very comprehensive set of cleanup tools, very useful for detailed model review and audit:
There is also a tabular Type Editor, which allows quick and easy navigation, duplication and modification of family type information:
There are various tools provided to easily align text and labels. Here is a quick demo:
The Legend by Category tool helps automate the creation of Legends for an entire category at once!
And CGS Revit Tools offers a lot more, including:
ability to create finish floors based on rooms
automate assembly view creation
visibility automation / toggle switches
a ‘Zoom To…’ tool
Sheet view automation
Create views for rooms automatically
Tool to give your elevations that nice ‘depth’ effect
Additionally, a Content Admin Kit is included for free:
Among other things, this allows you to easily create a calculated value and then Execute to update that formula or relationship as needed. The Update Category tool will update a selected Category for a given folder to the current Revit version in a batch process.
As you can see, this suite covers a lot of ground and can save you time by automating repetitive tasks. Quick cost analysis: if it saves you 6min / day, that is one hour per fortnight, saving you almost 25 hours per working year. Let’s say you make about $25 / hr… The suite will have paid for itself at least 4 times over in the first year alone. So, yeah, it might be worth a look 🙂
Reviewer’s Note: I tested version 2015.2.250.0
Special pricing* (if you email orders.usa@cgsplus.com in the next three months and specifically mention What Revit Wants, you can take an additional 5% off the already discounted web prices below, meaning the total discount is 30% off retail):
# of Licenses
SRP
Current Web Pricing
What Revit Wants discounted price
Single
195
145
135
10
595
445
415
50
1195
895
835
250
2395
1795
1675
*Note: For pricing in Australia and New Zealand, please contact Cadgroup.
There has been a bit of strange talk around the social web and some forums lately about whether or not Dynamo is truly useful, and whether it has a real future in the BIM environment. I admit, at the moment it is still leaning to the ‘enthusiast‘ side (but only just), and I think as you read over the posts and resources I have selected below (many of them from the past couple of months), you will see that the momentum and value of Dynamo in our Revit world is accelerating. As usual, full credit goes to original posters and content creators.
The software is hardly at version 0.8 (officially)… just wait for 1 point oh!
14) Visual programming for Revit – 80 minute demo from one of the top conceptual designers in the business… Dynamo: Visual Programming for Revit from Alfred Huang on Vimeo. 15) And this is more of an amusing one… 🙂
Some other BIM-related, Autodesk 2016 software links here (keep in mind these are useful as trials only, unless you have access to legal activation methods through subscription with Autodesk):
Just making sure you got these two important points:
All project and enterprise BIM 360 Glue subscriptions include access to Autodesk Navisworks Manage 2016 (available soon) for use by the purchasing company
Attach and view BIM 360 Glue models directly inside AutoCAD 2016 Reference the Glue merged model as you design to avoid potential conflicts
Looks like there are some Glue updates, check your Application Manager and start Glue desktop app… pic.twitter.com/3l41eKo9fK — Luke Johnson (@lukeyjohnson) March 29, 2015
In times past, I had this dream that Revit would be the sole answer to every single architectural and modelling question. Due to the proliferation of excellent addins and addons, I now realise that Revit is positioning itself as the operating system of the BIM environment. It has a solid parametric, data and intelligence engine, which can be extended in many ways through the expansive API. One area in which Revit has sometimes wavered is in pure visualization, particularly of the real-time and photorealistic variety. Using RPC and Realistic display modes within Revit can achieve a certain result, but here are some questions:
Is using an additional presentation package, like Lumion, worth it?
Will it result in a better visual result?
Will the performance be acceptable?
I received a review copy of Lumion 5.3, and tested it using Revit 2015 Update 7. As usual, I have reviewed the software, but at the same time I am sharing practical tips and guidance on how to get up and running with Revit and Lumion.
To start with, let’s consider whether Lumion can really add value to your current design and development pipeline. You may be thinking “I don’t have a clue how to make a fly-through animation“, but that is where Lumion lives. It makes it easy for you to take your BIM geometry, and put it into a real, living environment. In a sense, it is a ‘complete’ visual presentation package, as it includes things like environments, backgrounds, materials, weather effects, water, entourage, vehicles, people, trees, landscape, furniture, terrain modelling, and it is all in a package that allows you to modify, manipulate and tweak basically everything in real-time. It has a clean UI and extremely fast rendering capability. For output and deliverables, you can easily export still images or rendered videos of the scenes that you have composed.
You might be thinking “I don’t have time to learn yet another modelling tool“, but if you spend any time at all in post production software like Photoshop, 3ds Max, After Effects or something similar, then Lumion does not represent a steep learning curve. The interface is relatively unobtrusive and simple to understand. The Lumion addin allows for building models to be exported from Revit, but it also allows models to be updated and reloaded into the Lumion scene. As one person put it, “Use Lumion and Revit together and you will enjoy the synergy.”
You can check out a very concise ‘getting started’ style video here:
To put it simply, when you pair a powerful and parametric building design tool like Revit, with a free-flowing, smooth, flexible presentation software like Lumion, you have a very formidable design and presentation pipeline at your disposal. So, let’s learn a bit more about Lumion…
This remainder of the review has been divided into the following 5 sections:
Download, Installation and Deployment
Workflow (BIM friendliness)
Performance
Quality of Output
Real-world applications and Case Studies
Download, Installation and Deployment: Installing the Main application
You will receive an activation email, with a unique download link
Download and run the ‘download manager’
Copy the activation code from your email to the download
It will now automatically download Lumion, usually to your Downloads folder (about 4.94gb)
You should copy the installation .exe and .bin files to some safe location – these are what you will use to install Lumion on other PCs
The installer should run automatically – all you need to do is set the install path
Start Menu – Run Lumion 5.3
Agree to the Licence Agreement
Lumion will now run some benchmarks and initialize itself
Once the next screen appears, you will get a ‘system speed’ rating
Note: I was expecting to see a Revit addin automatically installed… but I have since realised that this is an additional step… see below.
Examples of cards with about 2,000 PassMark points: GeForce GTX 745, Quadro K4000M, GeForce GTX 570M or faster.
Harddrive: 20GB of disk space
Using Lumion and Lumion Pro via Remote Desktop or similar virtual desktop solutions is not supported.
Lumion and Lumion Pro require an internet connection.
Workflow (BIM friendliness)
There are a number of ways to move data from Revit to Lumion, such as using DAE format via Exporter, or FBX via built-in export. The dedicated DAE exporter addin from Revit is the recommended method.
The Exporter addin (Revit to Lumion Bridge) works in orthographic 3D views and takes all visibility filters for the view into account. If you try to export from a Perspective view, the Lumion export addin will be disabled. However, in Revit 2015 R2 you can easily convert a Perspective 3D view into an orthographic or Parallel-3D View to allow export to proceed. Here’s how:
Ensure that a Crop Region is applied and Visible, and the view is “unlocked”.
Then, right-click on the View Cube and switch to Parallel-3D view, like this:
Then, run the exporter. The UI is relatively easy to follow:
I tested using ‘normal’ accuracy, and the file size result was like this:
You can then easily open or create a scene in Lumion, and then import the model you just exported from Revit:
Navigation
Once in Lumion, you can use the WASD keys to walk around, and QE keys to move up and down. If you hold the right mouse button and drag, this will change your view direction. Holding Shift will speed up your movement. It is quite a fluid navigation system. F1/F2/F3/F4 turns shadows on and off and makes other quality vs performance changes.
Click the category (people, transport, landscape etc)
Click Change Object to select desired model
Click to place in the scene
To bring in external models, like DAE or FBX exported from Revit, use the Import models option.
Depending on how your model heights were configured in Revit, you may need to move your model downwards in Lumion. In my case, I had to move the model downwards in the Y-axis by about 150m (yes, Lumion understands the vertical to be the Y axis, not the Z):
To update the model, just re-export the DAE file from Revit. You can reload by: going to Import mode, selecting the spanner for ‘context’ menu, selecting your Model and then clicking on the blue circle, which will open up the context menu with the reload option:
It is interesting to note that even new objects (ie. newly added to the Revit model) that have a Revit material name matching a currently overridden material in Lumion, will then adopt that Lumion material when the import is reloaded. Nice!
There is a brief tutorial video on the Lumion to Revit workflow here:
So, is Lumion able to do anything that Revit can’t do? In a word, yes. For example, it can handle things like sculpting large-scale terrain models very easily, as this demo shows:
Add to that: movie effects, ocean / water, the large model and material libraries, lighting effects, render quality, and the overall ability to transform a scene from a collection of polygons into something that more effectively represents the real world.
Performance
The Collada DAE export was very, very fast – under 1 minute for a 150mb Revit model. Accordingly, of all the file types that can be used to get data from Revit to Lumion, I would expect that the recommended and preferred method is via the DAE export in the free addin.
Quality of Output
Lumion is targeted at rapid, real-time, moving animations with models that may also be animated. So the result is usually something that looks very ‘alive’. Coming from an architectural background, you may initially be surprised at the overall ‘look’ of things and you might find it slightly cartoonish. However, I recommend that you give it a try and have a go at tweaking a few of the display settings.
It is very easy to create a flythrough or fly around animation. Just start the movie tool with the film icon, then create a number of keyframes as you would with other animation tools. Then, you can easily export to mp4.
Real-world applications and Case Studies
I tested using a medium rise model:
Once the model was imported, it was very easy to select entire materials and replace them with more appealing versions:
To delete models, you can remove them directly from the library and they will disappear from all scenes that they are currently placed in. However, you can also delete the model only in the scene you are currently working on, and it will remain available in the library for use in other scenes:
Children´s hospital with more than 15,000 plants and trees
Summary of Lumion 5.3
In review, let’s consider some of the questions raised at the beginning:
Q. Is using an additional presentation package, like Lumion, worth it? A. Yes, it would be very difficult for plain Revit to deliver the same speed, quality, and content
Q. Will it result in a better visual result? A. When it comes to real-time scene export, a Lumion visualization can be much more alive and animated than a Revit equivalent. You can also easily deliver your scene as a selection of high quality images, or as a rendered video.
Q. Will the performance be acceptable? A. Yes, provided you have a decent CPU and graphics card (refer to requirements above)
Summary of each section:
Download, Installation and Deployment – 7/10, necessary to manually install addin
Workflow (BIM friendliness) – 8/10, support for updating changed models
Performance – 8/10, much improved in more recent versions and fast export to DAE
Quality of Output – 9/10, smooth and appropriate for the visual style
Real-world applications and Case Studies – 9/10,
(see links above to see how companies are using Lumion)
My overall software score for Lumion 5.3 is 9/10.Its definitely worth a look if you do any kind of presentation work with 3D models!
In a future post, I want to look at the large-model workflow from Infraworks to Lumion via FBX. Other links, tips and resources
Important notice:
If you migrate your work from earlier Lumion versions take into account that the material system has been changed in Lumion 5. This requires you to re-apply the materials to your objects.
Tips
If you select option “Skip Interior Details” then these Revit Categories are skipped:
Casework
CommunicationDevices
DataDevices
DuctTerminal
ElectricalEquipment
ElectricalFixtures
FireAlarmDevices
Furniture
FurnitureSystems
GenericModel
LightingDevices
LightingFixtures
MechanicalEquipment
NurseCallDevices
PlumbingFixtures
SecurityDevices
SpecialityEquipment
TelephoneDevices
How to delete objects? You delete imported objects by using the Imported Objects Library. It cannot be deleted from the Library if you have a scene open and using that object, so first clear and start a new empty scene.
Then in Build Mode click on Import button –> Change Import Object –> locate your object to delete and doubleclick the Rubbish bin. That will permanently remove the object from the library and the files.
from here
Editorial note: “In the interests of editorial disclosure, I would like to note that this review was completed with some financial consideration from the developers of Lumion. Luke Johnson”
Information related to older versions
I have been familiar with Lumion for some time. A full scale Lumion review has been on my radar for a while, but like anything, it takes time to have a proper look at a piece of software.
My past experiences with Lumion had been hampered by less-than-stellar hardware. You really do need a decent workstation to have a fluid and productive time with Lumion. In my case, my new workstation at Virtual Built has 64gb of RAM, a 6 core (12 hyperthreaded) processor, and a Quadro K4000 video card.
I’ve had a chance to work with Lumion rendering software tonight and a Revit model. Lumion is very impressive. http://t.co/UiUJSIxUd6
— Brian Myers (@BIMfacts) August 10, 2013
