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Friday, January 31, 2014

IMAGINiT Updates Scan To BIM Adding 3 New Tools Plus New Rental Option

From yesterday's IMAGINiT press release...

New Features Enhance Productivity
The new features in Scan to BIM 2014.1 build upon the software’s successful record of enhancing workflows and improving productivity for teams taking advantage of point clouds. Watch Scan to BIM’s newest features in action in this series of short instructional videos.

Scan to BIM’s new Section Box Tool improves navigation through the point cloud so users can immediately focus on the area required and quickly complete the task. Users can toggle to (sic) point cloud ‘on/off’ with just one click and control the direction in which they step through the model based on designated distance and direction.

Scan to BIM’s new Create From CAD Pipe Tool allows large amounts of Revit piping to be built from Autodesk® AutoCAD®-based cylinders or pipe centerlines extracted from other programs and brought into the Revit model.

The new Quality Assurance Tool improves both productivity and quality by clearly showing users which entities in the point cloud have been quality assured, resulting in more accurate and reliable data for future use. Now users can step through each pipe or wall element and mark it as approved, make adjustments or move on to the next element.

Scan to BIM 2014.1 is available via a new short-term rental option that makes it accessible to any mechanical engineer, architect, scanning provider and plant designer whose projects could benefit from working with point clouds directly in Revit.

Scan to BIM’s new rental option provides three core benefits for teams performing point cloud conversion work on an occasional basis:
  • It enables small firms and infrequent users of point clouds to increase their productivity and profitability by using the industry’s best software.
  • It provides a low cost and simple way to expense software back to a specific project.
  • It’s flexible, with options to add licenses or extend the time as required.


There's more information available on the IMAGINiT website.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Free RDBK_Flipper Add-in for Revit

From RedBike Systems comes the free RDBK_Flipper add-in...

"It's a common practice among Architects, particularly in major projects, to number doors (and sometimes windows) with a reference to the room into which they enter. Typically, the numbering sequence begins at '1' for each room.

"When you first place a door or window into a wall bounded by a room, Autodesk® Revit® will assign its ToRoom and FromRoom properties according to the room that it enters. Often, however, design changes require these elements must be flipped to the opposite direction and in this event, Autodesk Revit does not update its ToRoom and FromRoom settings so applied room references in door or window numbers will read incorrectly.

"Before Redbike's Flipper app you would need to delete the door or window and create a new instance, re-entering all properties - an inefficient process. With Flipper you can simply select doors or windows to automatically flip the ToRoom/FromRoom properties. Optionally, you can select a room element prior to selecting door or window elements to ensure that the selected element's ToRoom property is set to the selected room. Note that selected elements must lie on one of the selected rooms bounding walls.

"Typically, you will select a door (or window) that enters the room, but Flipper will allow such elements to reference a room from which it leaves. This is appropriate in the case of an ensuite door adjacent a patient bedroom where the door number will reference the ensuite but the door swings into the bedroom.

"You will need to manually update door or window mark properties with the new ToRoom/FromRoom value, or use Redbike's AutoNumber Update command to automatically refresh the values."


The free RDBK_Flipper add-in may be downloaded from the Autodesk Exchange Apps website.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Free Duct Fitting Table Viewer Add-in for Revit

From Autodesk comes the free Duct Fitting Table Viewer add-in...

Revit MEP utilizes the ASHRAE (American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers) Duct Fitting Database to lookup coefficients that are used for determining pressure losses through duct fittings. This add-in provides a way to view the illustrations and the data table of available duct fittings from the database. Presently, the ASHRAE Table property of a fitting presents the user a list of tables that may apply to the selected fitting. This allows the user to select a table used for the coefficient lookup.

The Duct Fitting Table Viewer add-in provides the following functionality:
 (1) Visualization of the selected fitting – when a fitting is selected in the add-in, the graphics describing the application of the coefficient table is shown to the user.
(2) Display of the coefficient table – by clicking on the Show Table button, the user can see the lookup table that Revit utilizes for the selected fitting.
(3) Table assignment for multiple fittings at once – allows the user to select multiple similar fittings, and assign them the same table in one operation.

This plug-in was written by Martin Schmid of Autodesk's AEC Industry Success team. It was first published as an ADN Plugin of the Month: http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/ADN_plugins. The plugin has been provided with the complete source code needed to build the application, with the intention of encouraging users of Autodesk software to use programming to tailor the products they use to their specific business needs.



The free Duct Fitting Table Viewer add-in may be downloaded from the Autodesk Exchange Apps website.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Autodesk Labs' Revit Daylighting Analysis to be Extended

From Scott Sheppard's It's Alive in the Lab blog:

"The current build of the free technology preview of Daylighting Analysis for Revit expired today. [The] period will be extended to 2/28. Stay tuned for a new download in the next few days.

"The Revit 2014 Daylighting Analysis (RDA) plug-in uses the Autodesk 360 Rendering cloud service to perform very fast and physically accurate daylighting analyses from within Revit. The RDA plug-in was specifically designed for architects to be able to use without learning the difference between the Perez or CIE’s sky models, direct normal incident, or direct horizontal radiation. The current technology preview has expired but we plan on posting an update in the next few days. When the update is posted you will find it announced on this blog as well as the Daylighting Analysis for Revit Autodesk Labs page."


RDBK_AutoNumber FREE Add-in for Revit

From Redbike Systems comes RDBK_AutoNumber FREE...

Redbike BIMApps AutoNumber is a great time-saver in managing room numbering on the fly. With a pre-defined structure including prefix and suffix, you can apply an incremental number to each selected room element.

AutoNumber takes a start number (default = 1), a prefix and suffix that you specify (default is blank) and specified length for the numeric number. With the structure of the number defined you can individually select room elements in your preferred numeric order. AutoNumber will apply the incrementing number that you have defined in the room's 'Number' parameter. For example, if you define the structure as:

Start number= 1, Prefix = "L1", Suffix="", Numeric Length=3 then the first selected room element will be numbered as L1-001, second will be "L1-002", third will be "L1-003", and so on.

AutoNumber dialog

AutoNumber dialog with defined numeric structure

Selecting room elements in sequential order

Completed room numbering

The free RDBK_AutoNumber FREE add-in may be downloaded from the Autodesk Exchange Apps website.

RDBK_AutoNumber Pro Add-in for Revit

From Redbike Systems comes RDBK_AutoNumber Pro...

Redbike AutoNumber Pro is an app for Autodesk® Revit® that provides a sophisticated yet efficient creation and management of element numbering. The app extends the standard Autodesk Revit tag labels by allowing a structured numeric scheme to be applied to the Mark parameter, or the Number parameter in the case of Room, Space and Area elements. AutoNumber Pro brings four individual commands that are available via the Add-Ins tab in Autodesk Revit 2014 versions.

ReNumber
Use ReNumber to apply a defined numeric scheme to the Mark parameter of family instance elements or the Number parameter of room, space and area elements. Extend the numbering solution to a wide range of element categories, include instance parameter values as prefix or suffix and a host of other productivity enhancements.


Insert
AutoNumber Insert creates a numeric gap in a numbering sequence by incrementing all element numbers above a start value.


Compress
AutoNumber Compress removes numeric gaps in a numbering sequence by decrementing all element numbers above identified gaps.


Update
Where a numeric scheme has specified a prefix parameter, suffix parameter or is to include a room or space number in the scheme, AutoNumber Update refreshes element numbers with any changed parameter values.


The RDBK_AutoNumber Pro add-in may be purchased from the Autodesk Exchange Apps website for USD 5.00.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Milestones: 500 Posts and Half A Million Pageviews on the Revit Add-ons Blog

Over the weekend, a couple of months short of its 3rd anniversary, the Revit Add-ons blog ticked over 500,000 pageviews and, coincidentally, 500 posts. Not bad for a Revit blog from a converted Bentley BIM guy. ツ

Thank you readers for making this blog a bigger success than I ever expected. And thanks to my advertisers past and present for helping me to make this blog a going concern:

3DA Systems
The Building Coder
CAD Technology Center
Content|Studio
Ideate Software
IMAGINiT
Punto Revit
Revit Works
Revizto
Revolution Design
YourRibbon

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Free RQuick Select Add-in for Revit

From CAD Masters comes the free RQuick Select add-in...

Quick Select command for Autodesk® Revit® to select by element type and its properties. Expand the element or family type and select the properties that you wish to filter by. Click OK and all those elements will be selected.

When in “Or” mode, the command will select all elements that match any of the properties.

When in “And” mode, the command will only select elements that match all the selected properties.

Note that if you have any elements selected when you initially run the command, there will be a prompt to only use the selected objects.  Use this if you are interested in selecting from a particular view, or if you need to continually narrow down your selection.

Main Quick Select

Entity Filtered Quick Select

The free RQuick Select add-in may be downloaded from the Autodesk Exchange Apps website.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Move Circuits Add-in for Revit

From Kyle T.Morin comes the Move Circuits add-in...

Ever need to move circuits from one panel to another in your Electrical model? Do you need to re-host your electrical panels on a new wall, but can't because your panel is loaded up with circuits?

You can perform those tasks with ease and save hours of your time with this add-in.

Allows selection between panels from a list of panels available in your model or via individual selection within your views.

Pick from List of Panels in your model

Or...select the panels directly in the model

 List populated with Electrical panels in your model

Results of successful circuit move

Select Panels in model

The Move Circuits add-in may be purchased for USD 14.99 on the Autodesk Exchange Apps website.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Project Falcon, for Airflow Simulation, Graduates to Autodesk Flow Design

Autodesk Flow Design (formerly Project Falcom) simulates airflow around vehicles, buildings, outdoor equipment, consumer products, or other objects of your choosing in a virtual wind tunnel. Flow Design technology is extremely geometry tolerant and easy to use, enabling you to begin seeing and understanding air flow behavior within seconds of starting the application. Flow Design allows you to:

  • Quickly and easily visualize how your design will interact with the wind. See where wakes and high and low pressure regions will form in a virtual wind tunnel.
  • Start with results. Flow Design enables you to see results almost immediately and then allows you to explore the effect of different conditions.
  • Use your existing design data. Flow Design reads a variety of CAD file types and can accept everything from conceptual designs all the way to fully detailed models with little or no preparation necessary.
  • Get results within CAD. Inventor and Revit users have the option to use Flow Design right inside their design environment, making it easier to get insight during the design process.
  • Visualize results interactively by creating dynamic 2D and 3D flow line animations, vector plots, iso surfaces, and velocity or pressure results on planes.



See the It's Alive in the Lab blog for additional information on Autodesk Flow Design.

Credit: Luke Johnson's What Revit Wants blog.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Rockit Add-in for Revit

From Rock CAD Support comes the Rockit add-in...

Rockit™ Revit® productivity tools to assist model and BIM managers, and anybody using Revit® with a massive collection of the most useful and productive add-in utilities on the market.

Using Rockit Bulk Rename you are able to rename multiple views or sheets or anything! with one click using the powerful find & replace, suffix, postfix options.

With parameters manager you are able to quickly find the shared parameter you are after and bind it to the project or family, quickly rename or delete shared and project parameters.

With the project search tool you can find anything within the project browser so simply, like you are using Skype and searching for a contact, this functionality has been included into the object style and materials search, category search and publish tools.

Family management commands. Publish to PDF (include sheet revisions), manage links, sheet creator, and so much more.

Rockit Project Search

Rockit Bulk Rename

Rockit Control

Rockit Object Styles and Materials Search

Rockit Dimension Spot Label Text Font Search

Rockit Category Search

A 60-day fully functional trial version of Rockit may be downloaded from the Autodesk Exchange Apps website, where it's very well reviewed.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

2013 – Year in Review

Awards season is upon us and it's once again time to recognize exceptional performers and my favorite products on the Revit Add-ons blog.

Products that I presented Editor's Choice awards to during 2013 are as follows...

As a Bentley BIM user for 7 years, one of my frequent requests to the development team was to add what I called "depth queuing" to 2D elevation views, presenting what was closer to the "camera" as darker linework and what was further away lighter. This request was often met with puzzled looks, and sometimes even downright disdain. Paolo Emilio Serra's View Depth Override macro provides the solution I always wanted, but for Revit...and it also works in 3D views! Bravo Paolo!

With the alpha release of TTX, the Advanced Computational Modeling group at Thornton Tomasetti delivered on a vision of interoperability between structural analysis and modeling packages including Revit, Grasshopper, Tekla, SAP and very soon RAM and ETABS by adding a database for syncing between the different packages.

Over on his dp Stuff site, Dima Chiriacov releases free Revit Add-ins. I was happy to award Dima an Editor's Choice award for his UpdateAreaCalcs add-in, a time-saver for rooms and areas that can be used to perform simple mathematical calculations on two parameters to populate a third.

KiwiCodes Bonus Tools won for sheer utility and value. (KiwiCodes has really great branding too.)

Purveyors of many quality add-ins, Case won an award for their free Room and Space Insertion Point to Centroid add-in for centering text in areas. It's perfect for anal retentive sorts like me.

Tools4Revit landed an award for their free Cut Opening LT add-in, used to automatically create penetrations for ducts, pipes, cable trays and conduits.

The free ClarkDietrich Wall Type Creator "intelligently incorporates detailed information on wall elements and design properties, such as UL assemblies based on fire rating requirements, STC sound ratings and limiting height design" for powerful wall assemblies.

Case won a second award, this time for their productivity-enhancing free View Template Controller add-in for Revit 2014 which is used to quickly and intuitively manage which templates are assigned to what views.

SparkFrame is a free cloud-based collaboration platform for Revit projects. It offers an efficient way for A/E/C design teams to communicate while using BIM.

On the People's Choice front, below is an image showing all-time pageviews through today's date:


With 5,176 pageviews since I posted about it in April 2013, Crowd, a free random element generator, was a true crowd pleaser.

CTC's self-descriptive Revit Excel Link netted 3,684 pageviews since the last awards on March 27, 2013.

CADtoEarth, the add-in for coordinating Revit with Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth and last year's People's Choice champion, netted 1,665 pageviews over the same period.

Excluding industrial vendors Autodesk and Graphisoft, LindabRevitTools, an add-in for light gauge steel framing, drops in at #4 overall, but has held steady since March of last year.

Rounding out the chart is AR Software Solutions for Revit: ARUtils, ARRevision, and ARHead of the Family which weighed in with a strong 1,209 pageviews all time.

Thanks to all the developers out there who work to make our Revit lives better, and congratulations to this year's award winners!

Related –
Award-winning add-ins
Annual roundups

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

CTC's BIM Project Suite Gets 3 New Tools

The Ultimate version of CAD Technology Center's Revit Express Tools BIM Project Suite now includes the following new tool:

Model Compare

This tool compares the differences between two versions of a project.

  • Compare models to identify changes
  • Find changes made by consultants, don’t miss another change!
  • Health check models over time


The Premium version of the BIM Project Suite contains the following two new tools:


This tool lists revision information, including view and sheet associations, and allows the results to be saved to a spreadsheet file. 
  • Export revision information for project archives
  • Identify which parts of a model were effected by a revision
  • Validate that revision best practices are being followed



This Revit add-in automates the Spreadsheet Link tool using previously-saved settings.
  • Quickly reapply mass change settings to a project, using Spreadsheet Link's calculated parameters
  • Load settings from a file, or right from the project itself
  • Spreadsheet-experienced users can define settings, less experienced users can apply them to the Revit project


In total, the BIM Project Suite includes the following tools:
  • Standard (FREE)
    • BIM List
    • Detail Link
    • Project Link
    • Renumbering
  • Premium (includes Standard)
    • Fire Rating
    • Revision Reporter
    • Spreadsheet Drafter
    • Spreadsheet Link
    • Spreadsheet Link Express
  • Ultimate (includes Standard and Premium)
    • COBie2 Link
    • Model Compare
    • Room Family Manager

There's more information available on the CAD Technology Center website.

Monday, January 20, 2014

CTC's BIM Manager Suite Gets 2 New Tools

The Premium version of CAD Technology Center's Revit Express Tools BIM Manager Suite includes the following new tool:

Dimension Checker

This Revit add-in finds dimensions whose text does not show dimensionally accurate values. This tool is not available for Revit 2012.

  • Quickly Identify misuse of Dimension overrides
  • Easily open views containing dimensions objects
  • Search for specific characters in dimension strings


The Ultimate version of the BIM Manager Suite includes the following tool:


This Revit add-in tool manages the content of shared parameter files and assists with batch loading pre-saved sets of shared parameters into projects. 
  • Mass create new shared parameters & shared parameter groups
  • Easily re-organize shared parameters via drag and drop, both within a single shared parameter file or between two files
  • Search, sort and filter tools help identify issues and create clean shared parameters files
  • Load shared parameters into projects based on reusable selection sets




In total, the BIM Manager Suite includes the following tools:
  • Standard (FREE)
    • Batch Family Loader
    • Family Tools
    • Project Cleaner
    • Revision Cloud Remover
  • Premium (includes Standard)
    • Dimension Checker
    • Import & Link Manager
    • Watermark
  • Ultimate (includes Standard and Premium)
    • Family Processor
    • Shared Parameter Manager
There's more information available on the CAD Technology Center website.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Free XYZ Coordinates Add-in for Revit

From Hyder Consulting comes the free XYZ Coordinates add-in...

With the standard Autodesk® Revit® family there is no parameter to export X,Y,Z coordinates. The app can add a shared parameter to the Structural Column and Structural Foundation category families and transfer the coordinates to the shared parameter. The coordinates can then be scheduled. Each time you update the location you have to rerun the app to get the updated coordinate.

Structural Column Properties Before Running the addin

Structural Column Properties After Running the addin

Structural Foundation Properties Before Running the addin

Structural Foundation Properties After Running the addin

Schedule

The free XYZ Coordinates add-in may be downloaded from the Autodesk Exchange Apps website.