You want your Revit models to reflect your attention to detail, but the Revit spellchecker doesn’t check data in Schedules. Take pride in your deliverables with Ideate SpellCheck. Available for Revit 2016, 2017, and 2018, Ideate SpellCheck, a tool in our IdeateApps collection of Revit add-on applications, enhances your quality control process by checking all open Sheets and Views, Sheets in a Sheet list, and all Schedules. It even checks the spelling in many languages, including some not covered in Revit. 

• Avoid embarrassing mistakes
• Eliminate time-consuming manual processes
• Increase your clients’ confidence in your work

Learn more about Ideate SpellCheck.

Have a Revit challenge you’d like addressed? Post it on the Revit Ideas page of the Autodesk Revit Forum or send Ideate Software an email. Either way, we’ll review it and take it into consideration.

For more information on our Revit software add-ins that help our customers get the most out of their Revit software, visit the Ideate Software website or contact your authorized Ideate Software partner.

You’ve said that Revit guide grids aren’t easy to use and that they have too many limitations. Those limitations disappear with Ideate Align! Available for Revit 2016, 2017, and 2018, Ideate Align, a tool in our IdeateApps collection of Revit add-on applications, eliminates time-consuming manual processes by enabling you to align all Plan Views in a set, so they will synchronize perfectly across all Sheets. 

• Coordinate View locations across many Sheets
• Use it for any View type, including Schedules, Legends, Sections, Elevations, and Drafting
• Create easy-to-read deliverables

Learn more about Ideate Align tools designed to streamline the tasks that everyday Revit users perform most often. Download a free trial of IdeateApps.  

Have a Revit challenge you’d like addressed? Post it on the Revit Ideas page of the Autodesk Revit Forum or send Ideate Software an email. Either way, we’ll review it and take it into consideration.

For more information on our Revit software add-ins that help our customers get the most out of their Revit software, visit the Ideate Software website or contact your authorized Ideate Software partner.

San Francisco, CA, 06/01/2017 – Ideate Software, a veteran Autodesk Developer Network member, announced today that it launched its spring 2017 updates for IdeateApps, which include the new 2018 version of four new tools and the four existing tools for Revit, as well as enhanced features of the 2017 and 2016 versions. These solutions are designed to work with Autodesk^® Revit^® 2016, 2017, and 2018.

IdeateApps is a collection of tools that simplifies the activities that daily Revit users perform most often.

“Every function of our IdeateApps tools meets specific needs of Revit users,” said Ideate Software’s Director of Software Development, Glynnis Patterson. “Our first four tools addressed the challenges that our Support team heard about most often, and our new tools and enhancements are based on information in the Autodesk Ideas Forum as well as customer feedback.”

Below are highlights of the new tools and enhancements. An overview video of all tools is available on the Ideate Software website.

• Ideate SpellCheck improves the quality control processes by checking the spelling of Text and Schedule elements within a Revit project file. (2017 and 2018 only)
• Three new Sheet management tools streamline workflows to save time and increase model accuracy:
  • Ideate SheetManager is a powerful new Revit project browser that addresses several challenges. It includes a powerful search engine for filtering the Sheet and View lists and supports placing or relocating Views onto Sheets
  • Ideate Align helps ensure that a View on one Sheet is aligned with a View on another or many other Sheets.
  • Ideate Clone lets you copy a Sheet and its properties and place unplaced Views onto new Sheets that align with the previous Views.

Significant enhancements to Ideate Software’s existing tools include:

• Ideate ReNumber, which simplifies the process of renumbering elements, now includes uniqueness support for Grids and Viewports.
• Ideate XRay, which identifies the reasons an element isn’t visible in a certain view, now includes Advanced Selection Help to make it easier to select a hidden view.

“The rapid evolution of building information modeling creates an exciting time for our architects, engineers, and designers,” said Ideate Software’s President, Bob Palioca. “They thrive on identifying challenges that BIM managers and Revit users face and developing tools to address those challenges. These new products and enhancements are a testament to their knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm as well as Ideate Software’s commitment to the architecture, engineering, construction, and owner community.”

The collection of IdeateApps tools is available with a non-commercial free trial. Download a free trial of IdeateApps.

For more information on IdeateApps for Revit 2018, call 888.662.7238 or contact [email protected]. For support, contact [email protected].

About Ideate Software

Ideate Software allows Revit users to have unprecedented control over their data. Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer for Revit, Ideate Sticky, and IdeateApps were all developed to solve persistent problems in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) workflows. Ideate Software solutions enable Revit users to save time, increase accuracy, improve project deliverables, and elevate design.

Autodesk, the Autodesk logo, ATC, and Revit are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries.

Microsoft Excel is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

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If you’ve ever stared long and hard at a section or elevation view in Revit, willing an invisible level line to present itself, then this is the blog post for you. 

I’ll be the first to admit it, I’ve done this.  I’ve created a duplicate level line…I’m so sorry!  I didn’t realize by creating two level lines, at the exact same height, I was:

• Creating a host of visibility issues, because now the View Range for “Level Above” is unexpectedly 0, making a mess of many views
• Making it impossible to delete my rogue level because since I created it, several others in the project have created new views based on this level, and it’s not possible to modify the “Associated Level” assignment for a view
• Producing the very real possibility that many views will be unwittingly deleted

Read on to avoid the wrath of the model manager and learn how to force the level line to appear in your section or elevation view.

In the image at the top of this post, the North Elevation view, is missing a level line as indicated by the dashed red line. While there are several reasons for its invisibility, the most befuddling reason is that the level line is a 3D plane, and that plane does not currently intersect the extents of the North Elevation.  The trick is to find a perpendicular view (East or West elevation) where the level line can be seen.

In the image of the Plan View above, you can see the extents of the 3D Level line (shaded in orange) does not intersect the area representing the North Elevation.  By grip-editing the 3D extents of the level line, you should be able to fix the issue, as shown below.

Ideate XRay is a tool within the IdeateApps collection that helps find and resolve visibility issues, including this level line conundrum. You can download the trial version of IdeateApps here. Imagine not needing to remember the 50+ reasons why a Revit element might be invisible.

To learn more about this issue, including Revit tips on how to modify a level line extents, refer to our Ideate XRay online help topic.

About the Author

Glynnis Patterson, NCARB — Director of Software Development
Glynnis is a Registered Architect and has worked within the BIM industry since 1998. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, she has worked as an architect, educator and construction site manager. Glynnis is currently the Director of Software Development at Ideate Software, and she continues to work with AEC clients worldwide, developing, and consulting on solutions to Building Information Modeling challenges. In her spare time Glynnis does volunteer work for ECLC of NJ and Grow it Green Morristown. Follow Glynnis on Twitter.

Ideate QuickSelect allows you quickly find, select, and manipulate Revit elements. Unlike the Revit project browser, which is a library of objects that can be in your Revit project, Ideate QuickSelect is a model browser that shows you the objects that are there, even those not easily visible within the model, whether in an Active view or anywhere else within your Revit project.

IdeateApps QuickSelect offers an easy and efficient solution to eliminate duplicate types within a project. Without Ideate QuickSelect, this can be quite a challenge, because Revit software doesn’t offer an easier way to find the duplicates, and can lead to error-prone results.

Follow the instructions in this Find Revit Elements with Ideate QuickSelect video to see how you can quickly find the duplicate types and swap them out with the right family type. The video features a rectangular duct as an example, but the process is the same for all elements.

About the Author

Vasudha Dixit – MEP Application Specialist
Vasudha is an MEP Application Specialist at Ideate, Inc. based on San Francisco office. She has a Master’s degree in Energy Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago where she specialized in HVAC design, green buildings and energy analysis. Prior to Ideate, she interned at a few multinational companies where she performed finite element analysis for design validation of components. Vasudha provides Revit MEP training and support for various AEC firms