This is the third post in a series of three provided by BIMAGE Consulting, our value-added reseller in Singapore, about how companies in that country use Ideate Software products to comply with BCA BIM e-submission requirements. Read the first post, which was about IdeateApps, and the second post, which was about Ideate BIMLink. 

Established in 2010, BIMAGE is the leading technology company in BIM/VDC and Digitized Construction within Singapore. BIMAGE helps customers optimize design development, construction and operation phases of buildings and infrastructure while using various technologies, including Revit and Ideate Software tools plus other BIM software such as virtual design and construction, augmented reality/virtual reality, geographic information systems, cloud, mobile and more.

The Challenge – Complying with Varying E-Submission Requirements

As required by the Singapore Building and Construction Authority (BCA), design consultants submit their native BIM models for new developments with a gross floor area of more than 5,000 square meters through an e-submission system. They must obtain approval from seven different authorities before commencing the construction work for any project, and all the authorities have different criteria and requirements. 

To prepare their BIM models for submission, design consultants often spend a great amount of time creating multiple views and sheets for the regulatory agencies. While duplicating and modifying the views and sheets, they must follow various naming conventions and standards, and they often spend a lot of time performing extensive quality checks. 

 Screenshot of e-submission page showing the many links to instructions and forms by discipline

Ideate Software Solutions

Ideate Software provides several applications to aid consultants in performing quality checks of BIM models before submission:

• Ideate Explorer efficiently manages and audits Revit models using a browsable object tree that enables fast search and query, select and edit, replace or delete, warnings management, and model clean-up. 
• Ideate StyleManager  analyzes styles and can delete non-standard styles or merge them with e-submission approved styles in order to reduce documentation errors.
• Ideate Sticky is used to directly display information required for submission on Revit sheets by linking Excel, Word or PDF documents as schedules or images. 

These tools help the consultants achieve the desired quality while saving a great amount of time and effort spent on auditing and correcting the models.

Browse the Ideate Software website for more information on our Revit productivity tools. Give them a try with a free trial version, or subscribe today. 

Blog Article Authors

Ms. Lee Yih Perng – Manager, BIM/VDC/Smart Cities, BIMAGE Consulting
Ms. Pratibha – Senior Consultant, Architecture & Planning, BIMAGE Consulting

San Francisco, CA, August 5, 2020 – Ideate Software, a veteran Autodesk Developer Network member, is pleased to announce its collaboration with Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), an interdisciplinary design studio whose practice spans architecture, urban design, installation art, multi-media performance, digital media, and print.

“Knowing that our Revit productivity tools help the architects, designers, artists, and researchers at DS+R automate tedious tasks and become more productive makes the whole Ideate Software team proud,” said Glynnis Patterson, Director of Software Development. “Our goal is to help our clients succeed. By freeing DS+R to focus on their goals of addressing the changing role of institutions and the future of cities, we have achieved ours.”

Here are some of the ways the professionals at DS+R use Ideate Software applications:

• Ideate BIMLink
  DS+R uses Ideate BIMLink to produce and maintain Revit schedules of all types. “In particular, our Index for Construction Document packages has been completely handled with the help of Ideate BIMLink,” said Eranga De Zoysa, BIM Manager, DS+R.
   
• Ideate Explorer
  “As a BIM Manager, I get a lot of questions, even from advanced Revit users, about missing or hidden elements,” said Eranga. “Ideate Explorer removes a lot of time-consuming steps we used to take to locate the elements. It also helps us delete unnecessary views and sheets when running through our routine maintenance management.”
   
• Ideate StyleManager
  “We save a lot of time by using Ideate StyleManager to remove unnecessary imported styles from Revit projects,” noted Eranga. “It also allows for surgical precision when we need to combine styles that commonly appear because of the different workstyles of users.” 

Read more about this collaboration. Visit Diller Scofidio + Renfro to learn more about the firm.

Download a trial of Ideate Software solutions or subscribe online.
 

About Ideate Software
Ideate Software an Autodesk^® AEC Industry Partner and Autodesk^® Authorized Developer, empowers Revit users to gain unprecedented control over their data. Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, IdeateApps, and Ideate StyleManager were all developed to solve persistent problems in architecture, engineering, and construction, and owner (AECO) 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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Want to simplify your Revit data challenges? If so, this webinar is for you.

Ideate Software is all about helping you confidently manage Revit model data. Part of that help is through Ideate Software’s robust support services. We have online Help files for each product, short how-to videos, live and recorded classes, blog posts, and a technical support team made up of all Ideate Software employees. 

Watch the recording of this webinar to get an overview and demonstration of each of our Revit productivity tools and how they help users manage their Revit data challenges: 

1. Ideate BIMLink – Take Revit model data into Microsoft Excel where you can copy/paste, fill down, concatenate, find/replace, translate to other languages, and more. Then bring the updated data back into your Revit project. 
2. Ideate Explorer – A true model browser that allows you to audit your BIM models with certainty. With it, you can find anything in your model. It comes with Ideate Query, which allows you to refine a selection of elements based on a large selection of parameters, and Ideate Warnings Manager, which offers many more features than the Revit warnings manager and makes reviewing and addressing warnings an easy task.
3. Ideate StyleManager – Aggregates essential graphic style and visibility controls within a single solution, so you can find non-standard styles and decide whether to keep, merge or delete them. This task is nearly impossible to safely accomplish using the native Revit tools.
4. Ideate Sticky – Allows you to live-link Excel files as schedules, or Word, PDF, or Excel files as images into your Revit projects. Changes to the documents are automatically reflected in Revit. 
5. IdeateApps – A collection of nine tools that simplify common Revit tasks. This webinar covered Ideate SmartDelete, Ideate ReNumber, Ideate SheetManager and Ideate ViewCreator. 

Watch a recording of the 75-minute webinar.
 

 

Browse our website for more information on our Revit productivity tools. Give them a try with a free trial version, or subscribe today. 

About the Author

Sash Kazeminejad - AIA, LEED AP - Customer Success Manager
Sash earned his Master of Architecture from Montana State University and is a California registered architect, LEED Accredited Professional. He has extensive experience in project management; BIM management; design for architectural firms in California, Montana, and Oregon; and leading classroom and online BIM training. He provides consulting, sales, support, and training solutions to AECO customers around the globe. Find Sash on LinkedIn.

San Francisco, CA, June 16, 2020 – Ideate Software, a veteran Autodesk Developer Network member, announced enhancements to its Revit productivity applications.

“As we do every year, we launched updates to all our products shortly after Autodesk released its newest version of Revit software,” said Glynnis Patterson, Director of Software Development. “In addition to aligning our software with Revit 2021, we added enhancements requested by Revit users around the world. One of the most significant changes is within Ideate Sticky, which has always enabled users to link Excel spreadsheets into their Revit projects. With our latest version, users can also link Microsoft Word and PDF documents—even multi-paged PDF documents—into their Revit projects.”

Below are highlights. Click on the links for more details: 

• The new version of Ideate Sticky now offers: 
  • Support for PDF and Word documents
  • The ability to mass-edit Sticky properties
  • The option to link Excel files into Revit projects as images when greater visual fidelity is needed
     
• The new version of Ideate StyleManager includes:
  • Improved usage results for families containing older CAD imports object styles
  • Hatch patterns displayed on the Fill Pattern dialog
  • Filled and masking regions renamed from "Detail items" within usage results of the user interface to better indicate their status
     
• The new version of Ideate BIMLink has the following enhancements:
  • MEP — Create spaces from linked room data 
  • Structure — New data category: Sketch
  • New quality control workflows with additional properties available:
    • Walls: Has Edited Profile and Has Split face
    • Roofs, Ceilings, Floors: Has Split Face
    • Walls, 2021 Only: Cross Section
    • Walls, 2021 Only: Angle from Vertical
  • New Health Check Folder within Library Links
     
• The new version of Ideate Explorer now offers:
  • Support for new Revit 2021 elements including Direct Shapes and linked PDFs
  • New features in the Ideate Query component:
    • All quality control properties added to Ideate BIMLink also available within Ideate Query
    • Review survey or internal coordinate data for all model elements
  • Support for deployment of company standards in the Warnings Manager component
     
• The new version of IdeateApps includes the following improvements: 
  • Ideate QuickSelect supports new Revit 2021 elements 
  • Ideate QuickSelect supports the new Ideate Sticky images
  • Improved support for deployment of company standards for Ideate ReNumber and Ideate ViewCreator content

Those who already subscribe to Ideate Software solutions have access to the current Revit-compatible version (2021) plus three earlier versions (2020-2018), as well as access to point release improvements made during the subscription period. Those who aren’t subscribers yet can download 14-day trial versions from the Ideate Software website or purchase the $500 bundle that gives them access to all the solutions for 6 months.
 

About Ideate Software
Ideate Software an Autodesk^® AEC Industry Partner and Autodesk^® Authorized Developer, empowers Revit users to gain unprecedented control over their data. Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, IdeateApps, and Ideate StyleManager were all developed to solve persistent problems in architecture, engineering, and construction, and owner (AECO) 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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Brian Mackey of BD Mackey Consulting joined our webinar to speak about how he uses Ideate Software applications. Brian has worked in the AEC industry for more than 30 years. He is a frequent speaker at industry events, and he hosts Revit Radio and shares insights regularly through blog, Twitter and LinkedIn posts.   

During this 60-minute webinar, Brian demonstrated how he uses Ideate Software tools. “I did a webinar for Ideate Software already on Ideate StyleManager. Because I use some of their other tools in kind of round-about ways, I wanted to talk about how I use them.”

Brian started with his favorite tool, Ideate StyleManager, which he uses on a daily basis.

Then he switched gears to talk about Ideate Explorer, a tool he has started using more often when reviewing and cleaning up projects for clients. He demonstrated how he uses the Sort by and Navigate features and gave several examples of how they helped him quickly solve client challenges. He talked about the Warnings Manager feature and said, “I don’t ever touch the Revit warnings anymore.” When demonstrating Warnings Manager, Brian pulled up the warnings on a project and stumbled across a recent update that simplifies the processes of correcting overlapped sketch lines on handrails. “You guys eliminated a step for me,” he said. “Kudos to the team!” 

If you missed the session or would like to see it again, here’s a link to the recording.

 . 
Visit our website for more information on our Revit productivity tools. Give them a try with a free trial version, or subscribe today. 

About the Author

Richard W. Taylor, Associate AIA – Technical Evangelist 
Richard has more than 30 years of experience working for companies that develop architectural and engineering software solutions, such as Intergraph, Bentley, and Autodesk. He has over 20 years of Revit experience, and he was part of the original development of Revit while at Revit Technology Corporation. He worked for 12 years at Autodesk, where he presented, taught, and worked to improve features in Revit. Richard holds both a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies and Master of Architecture from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. As Technical Evangelist, Richard works with AECO clients worldwide, developing and consulting on BIM solutions. Find Richard on Twitter and LinkedIn.