As a company focused on delivering relevant solutions to companies in the AECO space, Ideate Software is committed to being aware of current trends as well as emerging trends. That’s why I attended the NXT BLD (Next Build) conference at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London. The goal of the conference was to explore emerging technologies beyond BIM for the build environment. Industry practitioners, software developers, and investors met to discuss their views on what’s next and help shape the future of related software development.

 
I enjoyed seeing and talking with many Ideate Software customers who attended and/or led presentations on some very interesting and thought-provoking topics, including:  

• Transforming the industry with artificial intelligence
• Automating drawing documentation
• Leveraging technologies such as AR, XR, generative design, and the metaverse
• Use of data and collaboration across multiple applications
• Focusing on data, interoperability, and sustainability 

After the conference, I walked away with a lot of information about potential enhancements to the use of 3D models and the data associated with them as well as the enthusiasm of the speakers, which included industry leaders, renowned technologists, and design technology developers.

Browse the Events page on our website for opportunities to meet with the Ideate Software team at virtual and in-person events.  

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.

San Francisco, CA, June 21, 2023 – In response to increased global demand for its add-ins for Autodesk® Revit® software, Ideate Software, an Autodesk® AEC Industry Partner and Autodesk® Authorized Developer, has added three new professionals to its technical team.

“Despite the restrictions on in-person meetings over the past few years, our team has done an outstanding job of getting the word out about the value of our Revit add-in tools,” said Glynnis Patterson, Director of Software Development, Ideate Software. “We’re thrilled that our continued success led to the hiring of three more people who are passionate about BIM and committed to helping customers enhance the quality of their Revit models while streamlining workflows.” 

Jason Bailly
Training Manager
Jason brings 20 years of experience in the architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator space with past roles including customer success manager, digital practice specialist, digital design principal, and application manager. At Ideate Software, he develops and leads training courses for customers and the internal technical sales and software development teams. When not working, Jason enjoys spending time with his wife and children as well as mid-century modern architecture, road racing vintage two-stroke motorcycles, and landscaping. 

Matt Moser
Software Developer
A Registered Architect in New York with experience as a BIM manager and digital design specialist, Matt is an ideal addition to the Ideate Software development team. While at work, Matt focuses on helping companies in the architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator space improve efficiency with technology. When not working, he enjoys traveling with his wife, woodworking, mass timber architecture, forestry, classical guitar, theater acting, and play reading. 
 
Adam Sandberg
Software Developer
Adam is pleased to return to the software development field where he uses his 25+ years of related experience to create innovative solutions that improve the lives of Revit users around the world. Most recently, Adam was a development manager leading teams for Fortune 100 companies. Before that, his roles included software developer, technical lead, consultant, and lead developer. When not working, Adam can usually be found having fun with his kids skateboarding, rock climbing, watching silly movies, and getting into a little mischief.

Visit www.ideatesoftware.com to learn how Ideate Software add-ins for Revit help users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables, and elevate design. Give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, IdeateApps, and Ideate StyleManager for six months.
 

About Ideate Software - Ideate Software, an Autodesk AEC Industry Partner and Autodesk Authorized Developer, empowers Revit users to gain unprecedented control over their data. They developed Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, IdeateApps, and Ideate StyleManager to solve persistent problems in architecture, engineering, and construction, and owner-operator (AECO) workflows. They developed Ideate Automation to boost the power of their Revit plugins by running time-intensive activities in the background.

Autodesk and Autodesk Revit are trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries.

Recently, I had the pleasure of joining Steve Deadman, Ideate Software’s customer success manager for the EMEA region, as hosts of Ideate Software’s Revit Data Management Insight Group meeting at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London. 

The atmosphere was fantastic; attendees, which represented some of the best and largest architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator companies in the UK, asked questions and shared experiences.

Steve and I delivered a presentation on the May 2023 updates to Ideate Software products (see videos of the new workflows). We also talked with attendees about their current and upcoming initiatives, and automation was at the top of the list. Many are looking for ways to use technology to automate manual, repetitive workflows and address model management issues.

We were pleased to welcome two guests:

• Lee Morris, UK Managing Director, Solibri, spoke on collaborating with Laing O’Rourke and BDP on a digital fire stopping project.
   
• Jonathan Hand, AEC Industry Community Manager, Autodesk, spoke on his role with the Autodesk community, explaining that his goals are to listen to customers, build community, gain insights, and build relationships. 

The face-to-face conversations were invaluable. We are looking forward to continuing to meet with customers at events like this in the future as well as at individual companies, where we can dive into the challenges faced by the teams, and city-specific lunch-and-learn events.

Check out our Events page for more opportunities to meet with our team in person or online. 

About the Author

Nick Johns, UK/EMEA Territory Lead
Nick joined Ideate Software in 2021 after being a customer and advocate of our company and products for many years. He brought extensive experience gained while in sales and sales manager roles at several companies in the United Kingdom, including Graitec, Excitech, Cats Group, Hobs Group and Xerox Business Services. When not working, Nick can be found running, coaching football, and enjoying music, wine, and traveling. Find Nick on LinkedIn. 

Even if you have learned a bit about our May 2023 updates, you’ll want to watch this 30-minute recording to make sure you have better knowledge of the new features. We covered the following new workflows:

• Dynamic Custom Filters 
• Material and Compound Layer Management 
• Sheet and View Set Management
• Documentation Health Review Annotation Issues 
• Align and Distribute Text and Tags 

For short informative videos on each of these workflows and more, see the What’s New playlist on our website.

Here are some comments from webinar attendees:

• “The improvements were clearly and simply laid out in a way that was easy to understand for an average user. Makes communicating this to our staff much easier.” 
• “[The webinar] gave a good overview of new features and pointed to where to access additional information.” 
• “The new functionalities are what we had hope for and will definitely help us with our Revit tasks.” 

Developed to decrease the amount of time you spend on data management and enhance the quality of your Revit models, most updates address feature requests from Revit users, and they all successfully passed comprehensive QA testing with large, complex data from customers around the world. 

These updates align our software with Revit 2024 and also support Revit 2020 through Revit 2023. 

In this webinar, we talk about improvements to the Ideate Software Bundle solution, which includes:

1. Ideate Explorer
2. Ideate BIMLink
3. Ideate Sticky
4. Ideate StyleManager
5. IdeateApps

Ideate Automation, which is included in our Enterprise solution and available separately, was released in December 2022 and is also compatible with Revit 2024.

 
If you have any questions, reach out to your account manager or send an email to [email protected]. We are here to help you get the most out of our Ideate Software solutions.

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 23 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.

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 questions and answers via our Ideate Software Support Series blog category.

An Ideate Software customer asked if they could find all hidden Detail Groups in the Revit model.

Finding Detail Groups that are hidden can be a tricky and challenging task, as they become invisible due to various reasons including:

• Hidden by Element
• Hidden by Category
• Cropped by View

Identifying these hidden detail groups is crucial for maintaining an accurate BIM model. However, the challenge here is that there is no specific property (on the Detail Group) that will flag most of these conditions.
Fortunately, there is a helpful solution available within IdeateApps > Annotate that can assist in this process, although it may require some time to complete, which makes running it at the end of a work day ideal.   

The complexity of identifying hidden detail groups arises from the fact that there is no specific property directly associated with the detail group that indicates these hidden conditions, unlike some other elements in Revit that have explicit properties like visibility settings or design options. The view-specific cropping for detail groups for example do not possess such attributes. Consequently, locating hidden detail groups requires a more comprehensive approach.

To address this challenge, thanks to our wonderful development team, Ideate Annotate, part of the IdeateApps collection, offers a powerful tool that can help uncover hidden detail groups within your Revit model. By leveraging this tool, you can streamline the process and save valuable time. Here's how you can use it:

1. Launch the May 2023 version of IdeateApps
2. Open Ideate Annotate
3. Select the Review tab
4. Change the Display to “Entire Project”
5. After it does the initial review, choose “Full Analysis” This is the part that potentially can take a long time.*
6. When that's done, type “Detail Group” in the Search bar 
7. Look for any Detail Groups listed under both issue types:
   • Hidden by Element – this includes any Detail Group that exists on a dependent view and is invisible due to the use of the right-click>Hide in View>Elements command.
   • Other Not Visible – this includes any other invisibility condition, including those caused by cropped views. 
8. Double click on each instance to open the view where they exist and decide which action to take: delete or change view crop

*After you complete the Full Analysis, the results can be saved and imported later for reviewing at another time. Learn more. 

This blog post is part of our Support Series. Access more here. 

Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software’s Revit 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 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.