In Revit, we often get access to a lot of useful information early in the design stages. To start with, you might have an Area Plan or perhaps a Room layout with defined area allowances for specific space types (Occupancy). Later, you may have some basic element quantities like Floor Areas or Wall linear length totals. However, we sometimes let that information ‘drift’, and don’t really grab it and use it nice and early.

Xinaps have put together a clean, effective Revit addin that basically puts you in touch with all of that data you already have in your model, and allows you to quickly assign costs. You can do it in different ways based on Cost Templates, so you can customise it to suit the current design stage of the building or development. For example, you may do a quick cost analysis based on the different occupancy types, cost per unit/area for that construction type, and the current floor areas in your building.

However, the Financial Simulator gives you a bit more… it gives you the ability to test the actual validity of the building long-term. How much money will this building produce, based on its lettable tenancy areas? How long is the building lifespan? What might it be worth when it is finished? Once you configure some of these values, the Xinaps Financial Simulator essentially gives you a net value of your building…

Is it worth proceeding with this design, or do we need to make some fundamental changes in order to maintain profitability?

Check out the brief training video that I put together for Xinaps below… and let me know what you think in the comments.

Xinaps

Strangely enough, I recently came across two different BOQ methodologies for Revit – one is an addin, another is a cloud based solution.  This post is about the addin, called eVox, by Luca Vocella.

To be totally honest, I haven’t had much time to do a proper review of the addin.  However, I was waiting for it to be available on Exchange before I posted about it.  It is there now, at:
http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RVT/en/Detail/Index?id=appstore.exchange.autodesk.com%3aevoxbillofquantities%3aen

Luca is very interested in any feedback on comments you may have – feel free to post them here, and Luca will then improve the app according to your recommendations.

Further reading:
http://www.evoxelettronica.com/servizi/evox-bill-quantities-il-computo-metrico-estimativo-integrato-revit/

Translated:
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