View templates are a key and vital part of any Revit project. View templates control the ‘look and feel’ of your printed (exported) output as well as 2D documentation. 2D pdfs are still very much the accepted contract documents. So, you want to make sure that all your drawings are consistent and look identical. View templates manage this very well. But what about managing the view templates themselves? There is no way to do this easily within Revit.
Within Ideate BIMLink are many pre-defined link definitions that look after standards and model health within models, including links that manage views. You can assign view templates to views using the Views link definition that ships with Ideate BIMLink:
Bulk Assign View Templates to Views using Ideate BIMLink
There are also a number of links that deal with view templates themselves:
Link Definitions for View Templates
Using our Project_Stds-View_Templates link definition, it’s possible to review the properties of each view template and make edits to multiple templates at once such as turning on and off the properties included within each template.
This link can be used to edit all the properties shown in yellow below (with any of your view-specific custom parameters) but cannot be used to dig into any property that has an Edit… button within the dialog. This means that you cannot, for example, edit the settings within the V/G Overrides RVT Link. You can control whether the V/G Overrides RVT Link settings are applicable for the given view template.
Editable Properties within Ideate BIMLink Shown in Yellow
Managing View Template Properties with Ideate BIMLink
Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software add-on products help Revit users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables and elevate design. You can give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to the Revit plugin solutions Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months.
About the Author
Steve Deadman - Customer Success Manager - EMEA
Steve provides support to customers and helps them get a strong return on their software investment. He has a B.Eng (Hons) degree in Mechanical Engineering and various certifications in engineering. Before joining Ideate Software, he worked at several top architectural firm in the United Kingdom where he specialized in the implementation and management of BIM processes and technology. Find Steve on LinkedIn.
Revit software is the most popular BIM software used by architects; structural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineers; designers; and contractors to create, edit, and review 3D models. It’s used to:
Model 3D shapes, structures, and systems
Start from scratch or convert 2D models to 3D
Create photo-like representations of structures or systems
Identify clashes early in the design stage
Streamline documentation work
All model data is kept in a single database
Changes made in one place automatically update throughout the model
Monitor, review, and share information on changes
Unite multidisciplinary teams in a unified project environment with specialty toolset that empower:
Architectural designers to focus more on creativity and innovative designs by using Revit to easily iterate design ideas and then document, coordinate, manage, and deliver architecture projects
Structural engineers to save time, reduce risk, and minimize errors by using Revit to design, detail, analyze, and document structural systems through all stages, from pre-planning through maintenance
MEP engineers to reduce headaches down the road by using Revit to model, analyze, and iterate system designs that support better performance and sustainability
Construction teams to increase productivity by working from accurate drawings of constructable structures
Feature Requests from Revit Users
Autodesk’s mission is to “empower innovators with design and make technology so they can achieve the new possible.” To do this, they must listen to the users of their technology, and they do. One way they listen is through Autodesk Community, a place for software users to connect, find answers to questions, share knowledge, build networks, and more. The Autodesk Community offers many ways to connect, including community-led webinars, a Community Voices vlog, and Community Challenges. The Community places for people to ask questions, get help, and share knowledge are the Community Forums, or product discussion boards. To make it easy to find topics of interest, Autodesk has separate forums for each of its products. Revit users can go to:
Revit Architecture Forum
Revit MEP Forum
Revit Structure Forum
Revit API Forum
Revit Ideas Forum
The Revit Ideas Forum is where users can go to share ideas for future product features directly with the Revit team and collaborate on existing suggestions with peers. At the time this blog post was written, there were more than 43,000 posts in the Revit Ideas Forum. To simplify the process of contributing to and finding posts, Autodesk has three main tabs on the page: Hot Ideas, Top Voted, and Latest Ideas, and they have all posts sorted into more than 30 categories, including Architecture, BIM Management, Collaboration, Construction, Documentation, Mechanical, Modeling, Multi-Discipline, and Visualization.
Ideate Software – Essential Revit Plugins List
We at Ideate Software know that we create essential plugins for Revit because we actually address challenges expressed by Revit users. The Revit Ideas Forum is one of the ways to learn about what’s important to Revit users. We monitor the site regularly, paying attention to the ideas that get the most “votes,” which are ways for Revit users to express their agreement with the original post. Armed with that information as well as information we get from discussions with Revit users from around the world, we decide which ones to focus on, and then determine if we can add functionality to an existing product or develop a new product.
Here's a recording of a one-hour webinar in which Richard Taylor, Ideate Software’s Technical Evangelist, highlighted feature requests addressed by Ideate Software
Here are links to the blog posts referenced in the video. Within each blog post, in addition to providing step-by-step workflow instructions, we link to the related feature requests on the Revit Ideas Forum, so you can see how our features granted a “wish” made by Revit users that Autodesk has not addressed:
Below is the top Revit plugins list of tools developed by Ideate Software:
Ideate Explorer – Revit users want to spend more time on interesting design activities. Ideate Explorer helps them do this by dramatically decreasing the amount of time they have to spend on model management. They use it to quickly find and delete incorrect, obsolete, and hidden problem items—including imported or linked DWG drawings—as well as to find, refine, and revise elements, even those not included in the Revit project browser.
The following three features that are included with Ideate Explorer add additional value to the Revit plugin:
Ideate Warnings Manager – Audit warnings that are ranked by importance and fix the problems using Revit tools while the Warnings Manager dialog box is open
Ideate Query – Search in parameters for elements like unused annotations, design options, in-place usage, structure usage/area scheme, and revisions
Ideate Navigate – Navigate view-based elements; find unused sheets and views; find and filter legends, schedules, sheets, or views by category and/or keyword; customize work environments without changing the project browser
Ideate BIMLink – You can use Ideate BIMLink instead of working in Revit to verify and/or edit data one element at a time. Export data to Excel where you can easily view and manipulate large amounts of data easily. Once the data is updated, you can then use Ideate BIMLink for Revit to import data back into Revit, and the model will immediately update.
Ideate Sticky – Revit users appreciate the ability to share accurate and nicely formatted non-BIM data with Revit teams by live-linking Excel, Word, and PDF documents into a Revit model with Ideate Sticky. These “stickies” look nice, are easy to read, and can be updated easily when changes are made to the original source documents.
Ideate StyleManager – Pasting data from one Revit model to another often causes problems because information associated with the original files get copied along with the data. This clogs models with incorrect information that can take a long time to remove if working in Revit. Not removing the information is risky because it can cause model performance problems and documentation errors. With Ideate StyleManager, it’s easy to analyze, merge, or delete non-standard Revit styles. You can also use Ideate StyleManager to see the view filters applied to views and clean object and line styles and patterns, text, fonts, parameters, and more.
Ideate Automation – Do more meaningful work as Ideate Automation runs time-intensive BIM tasks silently in the background. You can start the script manually or schedule it to run at a convenient time, even during non-working hours. Our customers add Ideate Automation to their toolbox to increase productivity, eliminate the need to train staff on repetitive tasks, and ensure task outcomes are highly predictable, free of user errors, and standardized.
Learn More
Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software’s top Revit plugins help Revit users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables and elevate design. You can give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to our addins for Revit, which includes Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months.
Those of you responsible for maintaining or verifying data and documentation quality in your Revit models will find the recording of this webinar valuable. You’ll learn about our six Revit add-in solutions that can streamline your QA processes of implementing Revit model standards and your QC processes of fixing problems that occur within a Revit model either as they happen or as part of a review process. You’ll also see demonstrations of common workflows for each of the Ideate Software solutions:
This webinar was held on 01-31-23 for the Americas region. A similar one was held on 02-15-23 for the EMEA region, and one will be held on 04-27-23 for the APAC region. See our Events page to register.
Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software add-ins help Revit users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables and elevate design. You can give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to the Revit plugin solutions Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months.
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.
Recently, a customer was using our Ideate Automation script: “AUT-Export-Combined_PDF” and ran into a timeout error during the export process. Our timeout for this workflow was set to two hours. As a result, we changed the timeout to four hours for the latest release.
This also sparked a conversation around the factors that impact the export to PDF time. Here is a short list to help you troubleshoot your model before exporting to PDF:
Views Far Clipping and Depth Clipping Parameters Aren’t Managed
Showing too much of what you don’t need in a view increases the time it renders it for the view, therefore impacting the time it takes to print, especially if the clipping setting is set to “No Clip,” which means that it’s infinite, and you are at risk of showing more than what you need.
Here are the settings you can manage to control this:
Depth Clipping: Plan Views and Plan Callouts
Far Clipping: Elevations, Elevation Callouts, and Sections
Note: Far Clip Settings for Elevation Callouts can either be independent or same as parent view, however, Sections and Elevations are inherently independent.
To manage this, you can utilize Ideate BIMLink to audit your Views clipping options. Ideate BIMLink has a link definition named “Views” you can use as a starting point and add the necessary parameters. In this case we need “Depth Clipping” and “Far Clipping”
You’ll notice that the clipping values are 0,1,2:
0 = No clip
1 = Clip with line
2 = Clip without Line
“Far Clip Settings” is another parameter we can investigate. There are two options as indicated above, Same as Parent View or Independent.
Views Far Clip Offset Isn’t Managed
To manage this parameter in BIMLink, you need the “Far Clip Offset.” You can go ahead and add it to your Link Definition. When far clipping is set to clip with or without a line, you can control the Far Clip Offset. You can audit your model by reviewing and editing the distance so that it’s not showing too much information for that view.
Depth Cueing is Enabled for the View
This property can be managed with “Depth Cueing: Show Depth.” If this is enabled for a view, it will take longer to print and it rasterizes the image.
Views with Shadows Turned on
If shadows are turned on for a view, it takes longer to print as it rasterizes it, much like Depth Cueing. Unfortunately, there is API limitations to access this data, but it’s on our roadmap once Revit makes it accessible.
Views Detail Level
The rule of thumb for Views detail level is that the majority should be set to Coarse level of detail. Use Medium or fine level of details for detail only. To manage this, you can utilize the “Detail Level” parameter and add it to the “Views” BIMLink Link Definition.
Number of Views on Sheet
Using the BIMLink Link Definition “Views,” you can use the property “Sheet Number” to investigate how many views are on the Sheet. Sheets that contain a lot of views take longer to print.
Views with CAD Links that aren’t clean
A dense CAD file on a view increases printing time. Cleaning CAD links before linking them into the Revit model is a general rule, however, there comes times where you miss a few layers or want to do a quick merging or deleting layers. You can use Ideate Style Manager; Navigate to Object Styles and check Imported Styles. Scroll to the DWG file you’re looking to clean. You can analyze, merge, and delete certain layers.
You can also check if there are any CAD Links or imports in your project to begin with. You can utilize the Ideate BIMLink definition “HC-Imports” and go to the Filters tab and delete “Is Linked” filter to list all CAD Links and CAD Imports in the project.
As you see, there are many factors that impact the time it takes to export to PDF from Revit. With this short list and the proper tools, you can audit your model and find your Export to PDF from Revit culprit!
Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software add-on products help Revit users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables and elevate design. You can give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to the Revit plugin solutions Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months.
About the Author
Nivin Nabeel, Customer Success Manager, Americas
Nivin has a background in architecture, visual arts, and computer science and has extensive experience in managing and manipulating BIM data, developing and implementing BIM standards and workflows, and applying BIM workflows to ancillary project components for improved efficiency. Before joining Ideate Software, Nivin worked at several architecture and design firms where she learned about Ideate Software products, used them, advocated for them, implemented them, and trained others on how to use them. She earned her Bachelor of Architectural Science degree from Toronto Metropolitan University. Follow Nivin on LinkedIn.
People often think of Revit for architects and engineers who use it to test design ideas, translate conceptual designs into BIM data, optimize building efficiency, create realistic renderings, and prepare documentation with the details needed for construction teams to build the designs.
The benefits don’t end when the documents are passed from the architects to the contractors. In fact, the benefits of having Revit models of planned buildings or structures continue through the construction phase and even through the owner-operator phase.
In this blog post, we focus on Revit and the construction industry. We will address how it is used by owner-operators in a future post.
Because the BIM process automates many challenges faced by companies in the construction industry, several governments have mandated the use of BIM for government projects to save time and money through better planning, designing, and management of buildings and infrastructure. In countries where BIM is not mandated, many construction companies are choosing to implement BIM anyway, because they are watching their competitors who follow BIM processes automate activities that help them gain competitive advantages in terms of win rates and successful project completions.
Revit and the Construction Industry
Because Revit is the most popular BIM tool in the world, it is safe to say that as BIM usage spreads throughout the construction industry, the use of Revit will increase as well. Construction companies that use Revit will realize several advantages, including:
Clearer Communications with Architects
Realistic 3D models created in Revit dramatically reduce any delays caused by misunderstandings about the architect’s design. The documentation includes all the parameters and shapes of the structural elements, part details, and systems such as plumbing, electrical, and HVAC, which the contractors can reference throughout the construction project.
Better Stakeholder Communications
With the integration of cloud technology, project data can be accessed from anywhere, allowing project managers to keep their teams and other stakeholders current on project status.
Revision Management
Change happens, even when the architectural drawings have bene finalized. The client may have a new idea, supply chain issues may impact product availability, or manufacturers may make changes that need to be addressed in the design. Contractors that use Revit can make changes in the existing model, recalculate parameters, and confirm that the new designs don’t negatively impact other elements.
Accurate Materials Lists
Ordering too much material, not ordering enough, or ordering the wrong material are common problems with construction teams that cause cost overruns, delays, and frustrated teams and clients. Construction companies that use Revit can minimize waste and reduce costs by using Revit to automatically calculate the required amount of resources and the budget.
Stability Testing
Revit software can be used by contractors to detect structural flaws by assessing the stability of foundations, systems, fixtures, materials, and more. This pre-construction step helps confirm that an architect’s design can be successfully and safely built, potentially saving a tremendous amount of time and money.
Clash Detection
As designs change, the risk of clashes increases. Hard clashes, when two components occupy the same space, and soft clashes, when an object encroaches into the tolerance space of another object, can create a huge amount of rework if not found until after construction has started. Revit users can easily detect clashes in designs and generate clash reports that engineers can use to fix the problems, saving time, money, and the contractor’s reputation.
Ideate Software Add-ins for Revit and the Construction Industry
We develop Revit plugins for architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator companies around the world:
Ideate BIMLink – Control Revit data with precision and speed
Streamline VDC Tasks
Dive deeper into methods of streamlining VDC tasks by watching the recording of this 30-minute webinar.
Review issues with construction sequencing
Watch this four-minute video to see how a project scheduler, who doesn’t know how to use Revit, can use Ideate BIMLink to export Revit data into Excel to enter or edit data, and then import the updated data back to Revit, which can create 4D models that construction teams can review for issues and opportunities. The video includes final steps for Navisworks users.
Get comprehensive quantity data with a 2-step quantity takeoff
Watch this three-minute video to learn how to harness the power of pivot tables and Microsoft Excel when performing quantity takeoff tasks in Revit. Also learn how to expedite the creation of a formatted quantity takeoff. The example in the video show how to use the Ideate BIMLink sample file template, created in Excel, to get comprehensive quantity data in two easy steps.
Keep all team members up to date on critical ancillary information
See how live-linking important Excel, Word, or PDF documents, such as work orders, safety reports, and insurance certificates can ensure your team has quick access to current information, so they can respond to requests quickly and correctly.
Publish project PDF information on a consistent and repeatable basis
Ideate Automation is a scripting solution that is designed for use with Ideate software solutions such as Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Apps, and Ideate StyleManager. It can also be used without Ideate Software solutions to report on Family information or publish information from a series of Revit models.
Steve Deadman - Customer Success Manager - EMEA
Model 3D shapes, structures, and systems
Autodesk’s mission is to “empower innovators with design and make technology so they can achieve the new possible.” To do this, they must listen to the users of their technology, and they do. One way they listen is through Autodesk Community, a place for software users to connect, find answers to questions, share knowledge, build networks, and more. The Autodesk Community offers many ways to connect, including community-led webinars, a Community Voices vlog, and Community Challenges. The Community places for people to ask questions, get help, and share knowledge are the Community Forums, or product discussion boards. To make it easy to find topics of interest, Autodesk has separate forums for each of its products. Revit users can go to: 
Richard W. Taylor, Associate AIA – Technical Evangelist 
Nivin Nabeel, Customer Success Manager, Americas
Clearer Communications with Architects
Ideate Software