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:

• Manage view names with Ideate BIMLink
• Audit the Revit model and manage elements on specific worksets with Ideate Explorer
• Manage styles with Ideate StyleManager
• Schedule repeatable processes with Ideate Automation
• Increase data accuracy with the 10 tools in the IdeateApps collection
• Live-link external documents with Ideate Sticky

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.

Do you wish you had more time to impress your manager, coworkers, and customers with your design ideas? Here is an easy way to add hours back into your day. Get IdeateApps! This collection of 10 productivity-enhancing tools simplifies common, repetitive Revit tasks. These productivity-enhancing tools improve the look as well as the performance of your Revit models, and they give you more time to work on bringing your innovative and creative designs to life.

Learn more about these 10 powerful tools by reading this blog category on IdeateApps. It is in addition to the post of March 30, 2022, which was about the top Revit plugins developed by Ideate Software. In that post, we highlighted all our tools: Ideate Explorer, Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps. 

About IdeateApps

IdeateApps is a set of add-in tools for Revit. These BIM tools give users easy access to data in their models, making it much easier and faster to verify and manipulate that data.

Daily Revit users and BIM managers at architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator companies around the world consider the IdeateApps tools essential for creating a competitive advantage by decreasing the time spent on common tasks, increasing the accuracy of the data in their Revit models, and enabling them to deliver models that truly reflect their design ideas.

An Introduction to IdeateApps

Take just a few minutes to get a good understanding of all the tools by watching these two videos. The first one highlights nine tools, and the second one highlights the newest one, Ideate Annotate.

 A Look at Each Tool

Below are links to some of the many how-to videos on IdeateApps available on our website. Access many more as well as recorded webinars from the IdeateApps Playlist on our Video Library. 

• Sheet and View Management Tools: Ideate Sheet Manager, Ideate Align, Ideate Clone, and Ideate ViewCreator
  
  You can see an overview of all the Sheet and View tools within the collection by watching this recorded webinar from The Architect’s Newspaper.
   
  • Ideate SheetManager
    The Revit project browser does not provide adequate support for sheet creation and layout. Watch this short video to see how to use Ideate SheetManager to filter sheet and view information, create new sheets, and place views onto sheets:
    
    
     
  • Ideate Align
    See how easy it is to align multiple views across sheets by: 1) using the model coordinates of similar views, or 2) keeping the view position relative to the title blocks
    
    
     
  • Ideate Clone
    See a short demonstration on how to use Ideate Clone to copy a sheet with viewports to a sheet that will match all the title block and sheet properties of the original sheet. You’ll also see how to place and control unplaced views on the newly created sheet so they align with the previous viewports:
    
    
     
  • Ideate ViewCreator
    Creating a drawing or sets of drawings in Revit can be a laborious and time-consuming process. Watch this video to see how to use the Rooms View creation method in Ideate ViewCreator to automate the naming of interior elevations and other room-based view types. You will also see how to quickly assemble new sheets to match your desired layouts.
    
    
     
• Ideate SpellCheck
  The Revit spellchecker doesn’t check data in schedules. Ideate SpellCheck does. Here’s a link to a six-minute video with the highlights:
  
  
   
• Ideate ReNumber
  • See how to dramatically reduce the amount of time spent on tedious renumbering tasks. Watch this short video to learn how to use Ideate ReNumber to:
    • Sequentially renumber Revit elements by various methods
    • Easily push data from one Revit parameter to another
    • Quickly set up and customize the numbering rules to create sophisticated solutions for hundreds of tedious renumbering tasks

• Ideate XRay
  Watch this short video to see how easy it is to search for elements that are hidden within a specific view with Ideate XRay and the Ideate XRay selection wizard:
  
  
   
• Ideate SmartDelete
  • Have you ever delete an element in a Revit model only to have other elements disappear along with it? That’s not a problem with Ideate SmartDelete. Take a look at this five-minute video to learn why that happens and how to avoid it by:
    • Reviewing the deletion set
    • Previewing other elements, dimensions, regions, keynote tags, etc. that will be delete with your deletion set
    • Remove the elements you don’t want deleted
    • Refresh the list of elements that will be deleted to ensure it is correct

• Ideate QuickSelect
  Unlike the Revit project browser, Ideate QuickSelect is a model browser that can be used to view all instances of hard-to-find times such as model or annotation elements, inserted or linked CAD files, section boxes, scope boxes, elevation markers, section markers, schedule graphics, and view references. Here’s a seven-minute demonstration video:
  
  
   
• Ideate Annotate
  Watch this short video to learn how to reduce liability by ensuring the legibility of tags, text, dimensions, and other annotative elements. You’ll also learn how you can support Revit design documentation and/or quality control activities through enhanced browse and review workflows that expedite production documentation work through easy access to all annotative elements:
  
  

Learn More

Visit www.ideatesoftware.com to learn how Ideate Software Revit plugins for architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operators help users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables, and elevate design. Give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the “get to know us” bundle for access to Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, IdeateApps, and Ideate StyleManager for six months.

Stay Connected

Check us out on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.

If you have any questions, reach out to us. We are here to help you understand and use our Revit plugin solutions. 

We recently launched the ability to create the export of DWG files from Revit models via Ideate Automation. (We have supported the creation of PDFs since June 2022). Controlling the output of the files is done within the Ideate Automation set up wizard. We have improved upon the Revit DWG export settings and can control the naming of the DWGs better and add custom parameters where appropriate.

The default file naming for many of the scripts that export to DWG is controlled by the variable ${view_parameterValue}. This value is in turn controlled by either a sheet or view name parameter. The default value for the sheet elements is to use the parameter called “Sheet Number” while the default value for view elements is to use the parameter called “View Name.” 

To comply with ISO 19650 standards for example, many people are managing the required sheet number value with a custom parameter name. In the example shown below, the sheet number is combined on the title block to include two custom parameters called Project Code and Originator, both of which are stored under Project Information.


Example of title sheet using custom parameters to comply with the ISO 19650 UK standard

Both the AUT-Export_DWG and IBL-Export_DWG_Dynamic Ideate Automation scripts can be used to deliver unique DWG file names by adjusting the File Name variable to:

${Revit.CurrentFile.ProjectInfo.Project Code}-${Revit.CurrentFile.ProjectInfo.Originator}-${view_parameterValue}

You can add custom parameters from Project Information to the file name.

After the script has completed and the files have been created the file name is created by concatinating the Project Code, Originator and Sheet Number parameters.

DWGs created with names consistent with ISO 19650 UK standard.

Read more about automating your DWG exports from Revit in this How To guide.

If you’re a fan of ISO 19650, you may find these related blog posts useful:

• Evolve Consultancy Streamlines ISO 19650-2 Compliance with Ideate BIMLink
• I Didn’t Know I Could Renumber That

For additional training tips, check out our Training blog series

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.

Richard Taylor, Technical Evangelist, Ideate Software

Ideate Software’s Technical Evangelist Richard Taylor is a renowned expert in AECO industries and technology. Before joining Ideate Software 8 years ago, he worked for Intergraph, Bentley, and Autodesk, and he was part of the original development of Revit while at Revit Technology Corporation. You can see Richard on our webinars where he leads informative sessions on our Revit add-in solutions. He also stays connected with the AECO community by attending and presenting at many industry trade shows and conferences. You can read his predictions for 2023 in an article featured within a blog post by AECCafe Weekly, a leading portal that delivers the latest AEC industry commentary, news, product reviews, articles, event information, and resources from a single, convenient point.

“I was thrilled to be asked to share my point of view with readers of AECCafe,” said Richard. “We are living in such interesting times, and it is exciting to take a look at the trends of the past couple of years and discuss how they will shape the way we work going forward.”

Find Richard on Twitter and LinkedIn.
 

Every day, our Ideate Software Support team fields all types of questions from AECO professionals all around the world. You can review some of these recent question and answers via our Ideate Software support series blog category.

Recently a customer reached out to us with a question about Ideate Explorer, which is his “favorite troubleshooting add-in to clear out warnings in a hot mess of a project.” 

After deleting one Warning Type that cleared out 10 warnings, he thought that he could clear more warnings faster if he could sort by the severity of the warnings as well as by the number of warnings on a specific element. 

“I just had deleted one object which cleared out 10 warnings, and it dawned on me that in particularly rough projects I could get more warnings cleared faster if I knew which items had multiple warnings. In an ideal world, that sorting by severity of issues could weight based on the errors most severe.   E.g., in our workflows I see a ton of abandoned room separation lines which cause notable room calc based lag, I might want those (or other red rated warning types) to count for 3 points, where I really may not care (from an emergent clean up standpoint) about a green warning about a railing being malformed, which might only get half a point.” 

By default, the Ideate Explorer Warnings tab is set to “Sort by:” the Types of Warnings, such as Highlighted Floors Overlap shown below.

Ideate Explorer Warnings Tab set to Sort by: Warning Types

We responded to this customer that you can also change the “Sort by:” criteria to Elements rather than the Types of Warnings. This will show the Element ID and the number of warnings assigned to that specific element. It will also show all the different Types of Warnings assigned to that element in the Element Information Pane.  

In the example below, the Sweep, the Sunshade, and Mike’s Roof all have 48 warnings of the same Type. However, the Storefront has 2 warnings of 2 different Types. You can also see the severity of the Warning Type by color in the Element Information Pane. In the example below, we have a severity of medium for the walls overlapping and a severity of low for the walls missing their target.

Ideate Explorer Warnings Tab set to Sort by: Elements

”BINGO!” said the customer, who was able to fix 30 warnings from one element very easily.

You can learn more about the Warnings Manager in Ideate Explorer by reviewing this online Help topic. You can also review an entire library of videos focusing on using the Ideate Explorer Warnings Manager. 

Don’t let your project become a hot mess! Fix things easily with Ideate Explorer and the Ideate Warnings Manager!

Keep those amazing questions coming to [email protected]. Your feedback allows us to improve our software with every release.

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.