Tag: colours

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

Driving a Revit Material Parameter with Formulas, and Randomizing Materials

Luke Johnson

I posted about Randomizer a while back.  I have since seen it used to randomize the colour of panels.  One way to do this is to use a integer or numeric Shared Parameter and View Filters (ie. randomize from 1 to 5, have your View Filter apply Red to 1, Yellow to 2 etc).  However, could this principle be applied to change the actual Material too?

Philip Chan provides one answer:
In the component family environment, Revit won’t allow you to formulate the material parameter. All you can do is to set the material as a parameter; in the formula field, you won’t be able to input formula like you can for other type of parameter (e.g. Length). I recall a trick from Alfredo Medina that you can parametrize a material with conditional statement using nested family. So, I ended up rigging up a curtain panel family with a setup that looks like this:


…
you can download it from the link below:Randomized Panel rfa

Read the whole post:
link here

Getting RGB value of a color under the mouse cursor for use in Revit

Luke Johnson

I previously posted about how to get the average RGB colour of a sample and put it into Revit.   Revit Learning Club Blog today shows a nice, simple way to obtain the RGB values of any color on your screen (under the mouse cursor):

Someone has shared a very nice color picker utility called Colorette, which was written in AutoHotKey. The app description is at http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic69559.html and the EXE itself is http://www.autohotkey.net/~sumon/apps/colorette/Colorette.exe .


For an example of how to use Colorette with Revit, save the EXE to your Desktop and run it. Find a web page with the color you want to find, like http://www.jameshardie.com/homeowner/colorplus-palette.shtml , hover your mouse over the color on the screen and press Space on your keyboard.

via
Revit Learning Club Blog: How to Get a Color From Your Screen into a Revit Material

Find the Average RGB Color of a material sample and get the RGB values with free tool

Luke Johnson

In Revit, we often have to input RGB values for various color properties, such as shaded view colors for a particular material, or if you want a specific Paint color for a rendered material.  To do this, you can use Paint.NET and the Color Picker tool – the resultant properties include the RGB values you need.

However, you may obtain a sample image of a material, but the color is irregular.  For example, you scan in a paint sample and there is a color variation in the scanned image.  Or perhaps you simply want to take a detailed pattern sample image and find out the average color of a particular part of that image.

Here’s how you do it:

  1. Download Paint.NET
  2. Download Average Color plugin
  3. Copy the DLL file from the extracted Average Color ZIP you downloaded into the ‘Effects’ folder, which is in you Paint.NET installation directory (for example: C:Program FilesPaint.NETEffects)
  4. Open Paint.NET
  5. Open the image you want to find an average color from.
  6. Make a rectangular selection.
  7. Click on the Effects menu – Average Color
  8. Now click on the Color Picker tool (looks like an Eyedropper)
  9. On the ‘Colors’ palette, click the More>> button
  10. The RGB values for your selected color are shown.
  11. In Revit, input those RGB values for the desired color or material

Average Color of Selection forum thread
Plugin to Average Color of Selection – Paint.NET Forum
Primary post
Main post

Transferring custom colors using the Revit.ini file

Luke Johnson

If you have just installed a fresh version of Revit, you may have noticed that you have lost your Custom Colors.  There are 16 ‘slots’ available for Custom Colors in the Revit Color Palette.

To transfer the colors from one installation to another, just copy the [Colors] subsection from the Revit.ini file from the old installation location to the new one.  For example, if you previously had Revit installed on drive Y: in Vista, and you now have a new installation on drive C: with a new OS, do this:

  1. Close Revit.
  2. Open Revit.ini from “Y:Program FilesAutodeskRevit Architecture 2011ProgramRevit.ini“
  3. Open Revit.ini from “C:Program FilesAutodeskRevit Architecture 2011ProgramRevit.ini”
  4. Copy the [Colors] section from the older / original Revit.ini to the new, fresh  Revit.ini
  5. Save and close the file.

Here is some other information about the [Colors] section –
The first three entries in the [Colors] section defines the user interface colors from the Options dialog, Graphics tab:

A default installation will look something like this under [Colors]:
HiliteColor=16741179
PreHiliteColor=8729206
ErrorColor=33023
CustomColor1=e2e2e2
CustomColor2=0000ff
CustomColor3=00ffff
CustomColor4=00ff00
CustomColor5=ffff00
CustomColor6=ff0000
CustomColor7=ff00ff
CustomColor8=ffffff
CustomColor9=ffffff
CustomColor10=ffffff
CustomColor11=ffffff
CustomColor12=ffffff
CustomColor13=ffffff
CustomColor14=ffffff
CustomColor15=ffffff
CustomColor16=ffffff