As many people know, Ideate BIMLink is a great tool for extracting data from your Revit model to Excel, making changes in Excel, and pushing that data back into Revit to update your model. What some people may not know is that you can create new data using Ideate BIMLink. This online Help file has more information on which elements you can create using Ideate BIMLink.

In this blog post, we look at how you can use Ideate BIMLink to create new plan views. Ideate BIMLink ships with over 300 pre-loaded link definitions, several of these are related to creating views. In this example, we are using the 01 Views-Create_NEW_Plans link definition

 
Ideate BIMLink ships with MANY pre-loaded link definitions that help you create new Revit elements easily. There are a few that reference view creation.

You can customise the properties easily from the Properties tab. You can fill out data for these properties within Excel that will be added to your new element created in Revit.

This dialog shows some existing views within the Revit model. You can optionally filter out any existing views, so you only show the proper column headers.

In Excel, fill in the information about the new plan views you wish to create. In this example, we created the new view names, assigned the views the appropriate family and type, assigned the views to scope boxes, and applied view templates to control each views visibility. Tip: Remember to add NEW in the element Id column to instruct Ideate BIMLink to create the NEW elements. 

 
This image shows one existing view that has an element ID plus many additional views that will be created once imported into Revit.

When importing back into Revit, the views are created with scope boxes applied, view templates applied, and in their correct place in the project browser.

 
Since the family and type of view was automatically set, the location of the views appears correctly in the Revit project browser.

Bulk creating new elements in Revit has never been so easy and powerful.

For additional training tips, check out our Training blog series.

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.
 

Questions come in from time to time about whether Ideate BIMLink can be configured so that both type and instance parameters can be edited in the same worksheet. The answer is that the ability to edit both type and instance parameters in the same worksheet is not allowed, as we have added a layer of protection to avoid major data editing pitfalls. 

Let’s have a look at one (there are many) potential pitfalls if type and instance parameters were editable in the same Excel worksheet.

The example below represents both editable type and instance parameters in the same worksheet, as indicated by the white cells (the colored columns also have white cells):

• Columns A-E are instance parameter
• Columns F-K are type parameters
• Column E, highlighted in green, represents the family and type parameter, which allows users to take a placed family instance and swap (called type swapping) it out for another instance

Where users could run into trouble with a mix of editable type and instance parameters in the same worksheet is by type swapping families from column F while also editing other type-based properties from columns F-K. The big problem here is that when working in Excel, if you were to type swap some instances in column E and decide to change other type-based properties at the same time, you could be making unintended mistakes. 

Let’s say that you wanted to type swap family instances in rows 8-15 for another type and at the same time change the air flow values from column K (highlighted yellow). By doing this, you would accidently change the airflows for the entire family type without even knowing it. Trying to import the changes back into Revit wouldn’t work because you would have a mix of different values for the same type parameter.

To avoid any potential pitfalls of data editing mistakes, Ideate BIMLink allows users to safely export both editable type- and instance-based link data to the same Excel file in the form of multiple worksheets (tabs). This way, there is no mistaking whether you are editing type- or instance-based data, as the information is carefully exported to separate tabs. 

To learn more about how to implement this workflow, be sure to review this Help topic.

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.