December

22

2016

As a developer of add-in solutions for Autodesk Revit software, our goal is to help our customers get the most out of their Revit software investment. One way we do this is by meeting with users of our software as well as Revit customers at Autodesk conferences. At last year’s Autodesk Revit Technology Conference (RTC), we spoke with Tim Ekstrom, the BIM/CAD department leader for SSG MEP. SSG MEP offers a wide range of support for designing electrical, lighting, and low voltage systems for medical, municipal, educational, commercial, and transit facilities, as well as highways, roadways, and streetscapes.

Tim told us about some BIM line style standards that were not supported by our Revit add-in solution Ideate Sticky. Ideate Sticky lets Revit users “stick” Microsoft Excel files containing non-BIM data, such as code checklists, design data, and general notes, onto Revit project files, which are not able to manage or format non-BIM data.

Based on knowledge gained from further conversations with Tim, we realized that we had a great opportunity to increase the value of our software to SSG MEP and many other users who must comply with those standards. Our software development team went to work, and in December of 2015 we added three new features to Ideate Sticky:

1.    Support for hidden rows and columns
2.    Support for additional line weights
3.    Support for images

We didn’t stop there. We asked Tim for his thoughts on the updates, and he provided additional comments that led to further line refinements.

We appreciate Tim’s comments and welcome yours as well. You are deep into Revit software and Ideate Software products. If you are experiencing a challenge, chances are others are too. Please reach out to us at [email protected].