Tag: add ons

What Level is that on?

Luke Johnson

A while ago I posted about the GetLevel addon by Steve Faust.  However, I haven’t posted about it since 2011 came out – so here we go…

Imagine you have just picked up a RVT project and it has 20 levels in it – and you have no idea which elements are associated to which particular level.  Its a bit of a nightmare, but there is a tool that can help – its called GetLevel.

First, download GetLevel.zip for 2011.  You can get it from AUGI at this post, or the Revit Forum at this post (you will have to register for one of these forums, and then login).
Direct Link AUGI
Direct Link Revit Forum

Once you have downloaded it:

  1. Unzip the file.
  2. Copy the two files to:
    o For Windows XP –
    C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataAutodeskRevitAddins2011
    o For Vista/Windows 7 –
    C:ProgramDataAutodeskREVITAddins2011
  3. Restart Revit.

To test and use the addin:

  1. Open a project.
  2. Add-ins tab on the Ribbon…
  3. Click External Tools
  4. Click Get Level
  5. Select a Level on the left.
  6. Click List Elements on Selected Level >>
  7. Select an element that you want to find or modify on the right
  8. Click Select and Show

Thanks again Steve for this cool add-in! http://www.revolutiondesign.biz/Home.htm

Save All Families in a Project to RFAs and Folders AUTOMATICALLY

Luke Johnson

This is awesome.  Let’s say you have a project with heaps of families in it, and you want to save them to individual files.  There is an API add on that does exactly this.  How do you get it and use it?

First of all, download this file (Chapter 24) from the Sybex resource page for the book Mastering Revit Architecture 2011.

Now:

  1. This is a ZIP file, so unzip the file.
  2. Browse in the contents to:
    c24ExampleApplicationExampleApplicationbinDebug
  3. Copy everything from this folder to:
    C:Revit Projects
  4. Copy the two .addin files from the c24 folder to the correct location as shown below:
        * For a specific user:
              o For Windows XP – C:Documents and SettingsApplication DataAutodeskRevitAddins2011
              o For Vista/Windows 7 – C:UsersAppDataRoamingAutodeskRevitAddins2011
        * For all users:
              o For Windows XP – C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataAutodeskRevitAddins2011
              o For Vista/Windows 7 – C:ProgramDataAutodeskRevitAddins2011
    Refer to this post at The Building Coder for more information.
  5. Restart Revit 2011

Now, on the Add-Ins ribbon, there will be a new section for the Revit Family Export Utility:

When you run this with a Project open, it will prompt you for a directory, and then it will save all the families from the current Project to .rfa family files, and it will put them into appropriate directories (by Category) for you!

This is a very cool tool – thanks to Don Rudder for his great chapter in the book, and for this excellent API demonstration.

Consider some ways you could use this:

  • Load a bunch of families into a project and get this tool to sort them into appropriate folders for you.
  • You have an RVT but you do not have the RFA files for families loaded into the RVT – use this tool to get them all out quickly.
  • Transfer all RFAs from one RVT to another by saving them out and then loading them all in at once.

FREE RevitTV.com Paint for Revit 2010 – Beta

Luke Johnson

RevitTV.com are offering a free ‘Paint’ plugin for Revit 2010.

The features are:

  • Import and automatically create Revit paint materials from existing AutoCAD Color Book (.acb) files.
  • Search and filter hundreds of Revit paint materials by colour name.
  • Manage hundreds of manufacturers paint materials in Revit with ease, including Resene and Sherwin-Williams.

    • RevitTV.com Paint for Revit 2010 – Beta (download page)
    RTV Paint ver 2010 – Windows 32 bit Installer
    RTV Paint ver 2010 – Windows 64 bit Installer, coming soon…

    Copy Spreadsheet tool updated

    Luke Johnson

    If you are having problems with the ‘Copy Spreadsheet’ utility, it is likely because you are running 64 bit Revit or you have recently updated Revit. If you haven’t heard of this tool, it is a simple program made in Autohotkey, and it automates the ‘copying’ of data from a spreadsheet into a Revit schedule. The Revit schedule will need to be a key schedule, and you will need to add the columns and rows before starting the utility.

    Head over to http://forums.augi.com/showpost.php?p=950435&postcount=1 for the updated version.

    Direct link http://www.nichitecture.com/downloads/Copy%20Spreadsheet%20for%20Revit%202010.zip

    You may need to login to AUGI to access the above.

    Free Keynote Manager from Emc2

    Luke Johnson

    This will be old news for some of you, but if you head over to http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=97765&highlight=EDIT+KEYNOTE&page=4 you will find a link to http://www.emc2architects.com/revit_tools.html where you can download a very handy Revit Keynote Manager for free!

    Keynotes are a powerful tool that Revit wants you to use. They are often overlooked and under-utilised. If you want to increase your productivity and add more intelligence to your model while annotating, have a serious look at Keynotes.

    Find Elements Associated with a Particular Level

    Luke Johnson

    Have you ever had to pick up someone else’s project and try to figure out how it all goes together? Or maybe you were trying to delete a level, and Revit just went ahead and deleted all associated elements without telling you?

    I found a great tool on the AUGI Forums that actually reports all the elements on a particular level! You can download it at http://forums.augi.com/showpost.php?p=864748&postcount=22 (you need to login to the forums obviously).

    To help you install it, check out http://forums.augi.com/showpost.php?p=921396&postcount=36.

    I have installed and used it with 2010 and it seems to work fine. Thanks to sfaust!