As a Technical Evangelist for Ideate Software, I take great pride in sharing the details of our tools that streamline Revit workflows. And I LOVE hearing back from Revit users.

After presenting information on Ideate ViewCreator at one of our recent free webinars, an attendee commented, “Nice tool. I just created four views with 20 dependents for each just using [the Revit] project browser. That was a pain.”

Although I wish she had heard my presentation before spending so much time on that manual work, I’m happy that next time, she will get it done much quicker and eliminate the “pain” factor.

Ideate ViewCreator is one of nine tools in our IdeateApps collection that simplifies the tasks that Revit users perform most often.

With Ideate ViewCreator, it’s easy to:

1.    Batch-create multiple Revit views while complying with company-established BIM standards
2.    Create multiple Revit views at the same time based on smart rules
3.    Create copies of plans from one level to many levels

Learn more by reading our help files or watching this short video.

Watch the entire webinar of IdeateApps, including the section on Ideate ViewCreator that spawned the comment.

For implementation services or to learn how IdeateApps can benefit your business, contact [email protected].

 

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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 18 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.

The Ideate Software team returned to Portland, OR and Boston, MA from the BiLT NA Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. We are still thinking about all the great conversations, presentations, and events that transpired during the conference from August 9 – 11, 2018.

Did you visit us at the Ideate Software booth, or did you attend one of our classes?

My colleague, Richard Taylor, presented on a topic that continues to plague many Revit users: finding elements that should be visible in views, but for some reason do not! His presentation was appropriately titled “Visibility #$@! Storm with Revit.” As you may be aware, there are over 50 reasons an element may not be visible in a view, and sometimes trying to figure out which one can just drive you insane! If you would like more information, be sure to check out Richard’s BiLT NA blog post.

I also presented at BiLT NA this year, and my topic was, “Revit Phasing From A to Z.” This presentation was successful because the topic of phasing serves as a reminder of the importance of coordinating Phasing before modeling anything. We also took a deep dive into the graphical settings for phasing and hierarchy of where Phasing belongs in Revit’s overall graphical hierarchy. This presentation also served as a reminder as to why we should not create demolition phases.

Phasing in Revit touches functionality within our Ideate Software solutions. Watch this video to see how you can create new views with the correct phase settings with our Ideate ViewCreator tool. 
 

While Revit Phasing plays an important role in the graphical hierarchy of Revit models, other settings and overrides take precedence over Phasing. This topic was presented to the group as a reminder of how overrides can greatly affect the output of design documentation.

Here’s a picture of my session. I always try and have a casual conversation when presenting to the audience. The red arrow is pointing at me.

For implementation services or to learn more about how Ideate Software tools can help your business, please contact [email protected].

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About the Author

Sash Kazeminejad - AIA, LEED AP, BCI, BCC - Customer Success Manager
Sash earned his Master of Architecture from Montana State University and is a California registered architect, LEED Accredited Professional, and a Bluebeam Certified Instructor. 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.

 

The Ideate Software team has returned from the gateway to the west in St. Louis, Missouri. We are back in our Portland, Oregon and Boston, Massachusetts locations, but we are still thinking about all the great conversations, presentations, and events that transpired at the BiLT North American Conference on August 9 – 11, 2018.

Did you see us at the Ideate Software booth, or did you attend one of our classes? Fear not, if we were out of your View Range, or maybe on a different city-defined Workset that was not visible from St. Louis.

As you can tell from my bad view analogy and puns, I presented a class entitled “Visibility #$@! Storm with Revit.” During the presentation, we went over a Revit visibility checklist, and we showcased Ideate XRay, one of the amazing tools within IdeateApps. Ideate XRay helps you understand complex Revit visibility problems.

I am pleased to report that the slide below, one of the many tips and tricks in my presentation, was recognized at the closing session as one of the top 10 tips from all the classes presented during the BiLT North America sessions! This slide shows the detailed and highly informative graphics that are included as HELP within Ideate XRay. These graphics were highlighted as extremely helpful in understanding the complex View Range settings in Revit.

Want to learn more about Ideate XRay? Review a short video.

For even MORE fun, you can review a recording of a full one-hour class the power of XRay.

Welcoming people to my presentation on Ideate XRay, showing off new St. Louis Starbuck’s mugs

Stay tuned for a post from my colleague, Sash Kazeminejad, with his take on BiLT North America and Revit Phasing.

For implementation services or to learn more about how IdeateApps can help your business, please contact [email protected].

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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 18 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.

Since the launch of Ideate ReNumber for Revit, several customers have come to us with their unique renumbering challenges. One of those has been pile foundations, which present challenges because they need to be numbered in a way that reflects their relative location as well as their relationship to the nested pile families. This task is one of the many that Ideate ReNumber can handle. Because other people may find the solution valuable, we created this short video called: IdeateApps ReNumber Tool — Advanced Numbering: Pile Foundations.

In the example, we walk you through the steps to quickly assign meaningful numbers to both the pile caps and their piles relative to their related concrete pour sequencing. With this information, you will be able to easily customize the process to meet your specific needs.

Ideate ReNumber for Revit plays an important role in model management for our engineering design and construction customers. It provides a way to efficiently document building elements — such as pile foundations — with logical numbering schemas, bringing clarity to construction sequencing work. It is part of our IdeateApps for Revit collection of tools designed to simplify the tasks that daily Revit users perform most often.

Related post: IdeateApps ReNumber Tool — Advanced Numbering: Curtain Panels.

For more information on how Ideate ReNumber can be used to renumber almost any Revit element, visit our help files.

 

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About the Author

Glynnis Patterson, NCARB – Director of Software Development
Glynnis is a registered architect and has worked within the building information modeling (BIM) industry since 1998. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, she has worked as an architect, educator and construction site manager. Glynnis is the Director of Software Development Services and continues to work with AECO clients worldwide, developing, and consulting on solutions to BIM challenges. In her spare time, Glynnis volunteers for the local high school and with growitgreenmorristown.org. Find Glynnis on LinkedIn.

 

At Ideate Software, we pay close attention to the details within every application we create. For example, we designed the SpellCheck application within IdeateApps to work seamlessly between the language that Revit is running and any other language that might be needed, using robust logic to select the right language and the right dictionaries.

This article will help you take advantage of that logic to set up standard dictionaries and dictionaries that reflect the language of the words stored inside them. 

The Right Language

Ideate Software’s Spellcheck application detects the language that Revit is using and the language specified in the Revit options for ‘Check Spelling.’ If there is a discrepancy, SpellCheck will display a warning and select the language specified in Revit. 

A warning is displayed when there is a language conflict.

If this is not the desired language, a different language can be easily selected. Once changed, SpellCheck will remember the selected language for the remainder of the Revit session.

The Right Dictionary

To maintain parity with Revit, SpellCheck uses the same settings as Revit when determining the custom and industry dictionaries to use. This ensures that words added when using the Revit spellcheck utility will be seen by SpellCheck. 

In addition to the custom dictionaries, SpellCheck uses the dictionaries maintained by Windows. In Windows 10, this can require additional setup. The language of the operating system is included, but additional languages need to be added. This is accessed in the ‘Region & Language’ settings of Windows. 

Adding languages in Windows 10

Setting Where Dictionaries are Stored

By default, the dictionaries used by Revit are stored in %programdata%\Autodesk in a version-specific folder, similar to ‘RVT 2019.’ 

The custom dictionary is not language-specific and starts empty. The industry dictionary has a language code in the file name. It contains predefined words from that language that are common in the industry.

To change the path, the Revit.ini must be edited. This should be done when Revit is not open. The Revit.ini is stored in %appdata%\Autodesk\Revit in a version-specific folder, similar to ‘Autodesk Revit 2019.’

By default, the section that controls spellcheck settings is not present. If the language for ‘Check Spelling’ has been set through the Revit Options, the section will exist in the .ini file just before the ‘[Recent File List].’ Here is an example of the Spelling section and all of the values under it:

[Spelling]
OptionFlagsSSCE=18
LanguageCode=9
CustomDict=C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\RVT 2019\Custom.dic
ArchDict=C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\RVT 2019\revitDEU.dic

If the value for CustomDict (custom) and ArchDict (industry) are not present, they can be added. 

Standardizing the Dictionaries

We recommend that these paths be changed to a standard location. A network location will allow all staff to have the same definitions, allowing different people to spellcheck a file and get the same results. The path and permissions for the industry dictionary can be set separately from the custom dictionary, allowing some basic control over what words are added to the company standards.

Even if a network location is not viable, moving the dictionaries to a version-agnostic location will allow words added in one version of Revit to be seen in another.

The Right Dictionary for the Language

As mentioned before, the default industry dictionary has a language code in the file name. Ideate Software’s SpellCheck will detect this state and use the dictionary that has the correct language code, allowing you to seamlessly switch between languages without modifying the paths. 

The choice to add a language code to the custom dictionary depends on the types of words that will be added to it. If those words are specific to that language, a language code should be added. 

If the dictionary will store names of manufacturers or other general words, leave it language-agnostic, but then language-specific words will need to be added to the industry dictionary instead. This is currently a manual process. The ‘Add Word’ option in both Revit and SpellCheck add to the custom dictionary.

To set up a custom dictionary with a language code, first review the contents of the file. If it is empty or contains only words from one language, you can simply rename the file and update the path in the Revit.ini file. Ideate Spellcheck will create the other corresponding dictionaries when words are added for that language. If there are multiple languages in the file, a duplicate needs be made for each language and cleaned up with only the relevant words.

The supported language codes are:

• British English: ENG
• Chinese (Simplified): CHS
• Chinese (Traditional): CHT
• Czech: CSY
• Dutch: NLD
• English (United States): ENU
• French: FRA
• German: DEU
• Hungarian: HUN
• Italian: ITA
• Japanese: JPN
• Korean: KOR
• Polish: PLK
• Portuguese (Brazil): PTB
• Russian: RUS
• Spanish: ESP

A Better SpellCheck

Part of IdeateApps for Revit, SpellCheck is used for comprehensive quality control of the Revit project file. It checks the spelling of both text and schedule elements and can be used to check all sheets at once.

Download a trial version to see how easy it is to improve your Revit deliverables. You can learn more about SpellCheck in our extensive online Help.

IdeateApps Toolbar with SpellCheck for Revit versions 2017-2019

Visit the Ideate Software website to learn more about how Ideate Software applications can streamline your Revit workflows.

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About the Author

Jesika DiGregorio - Software Team Lead
Jesika received her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon in Eugene where she also spent time studying advanced math. Her work experience includes Junior Designer at an award-winning firm specializing in architecture and land planning, and Intern Architect at a firm that provides services in planning, design, construction documents and construction administration for projects of all sizes. After working in architecture design for several years, Jesika decided to pursue her interest in programming and her love of efficient systems. She now serves as a Software Team Lead for Ideate Software.