The Ideate Software team packed a lot of activities into a short amount of time at Autodesk University 2018. Joining me were Craig H. Dodge, Director of Sales; Richard Taylor, Technical Evangelist; Sash Kazeminejad, Customer Success Manager; and Rahul Verma, Business Development. We attended learning sessions to stay up-to-date on Autodesk Revit software, hosted a customer appreciation event, and discussed Revit workflow challenges and Ideate Software solutions with customers and prospective customers at our booth. 

 
While we discussed the time-saving and quality-enhancing benefits of all our software tools, these three attracted the most attention:

1. Ideate ReNumber – Easily renumber and rename Revit elements
2. Ideate XRay – Quickly search through 50+ reasons elements may be invisible, identify the reasons, and fix the problems.
3. Ideate ViewCreator – Batch-create multiple Revit views while complying with company-established BIM standards

So many Revit users commented on how they would have more time and fewer headaches if they had these tools. Fortunately for those people, these three tools are part of our IdeateApps collection, and Autodesk University attendees got a free, one-year, single-user subscription to IdeateApps.

For a demonstration of these or any of our other tools, please contact [email protected]. 

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.

Thank you to everyone that attended our recent webinar on IdeateApps where I covered:

• Sheet and View tools in IdeateApps
• BIM standards for naming
• How to customize rules to fit your needs
• Creative workflows
• Tips and tricks

Did you miss the webinar? Would you like to listen to it again or share it with a colleague? Here’s a link to the recording. 

Questions Answered 

Throughout the webinar, my colleague Sash Kazeminejad and I answered questions. Here are a few that I think will be of interest to others:

Q. Can you assign a view template to the duplicated views when you create them, or do you have to assign them manually after they are created?
A. You can “apply” up to three view templates and finally “assign” one to be permanent.  

Q. Are ViewCreator rules by project, or are they loaded from that central file? Will they overwrite each other if reloaded?
A. By default, when ViewCreator runs the first time in a project, it will load the rules from the default location. If you centralize rules you have customized, you can repath rules to your server. If you load rules with the same name, they will overwrite the original rules. When you load rules, they are on a per-project basis.

Q. Where can I get more information on the BIM Link Placeholder Sheet function?
A. Visit “Create New Placeholder Sheets in Revit with BIMLink” on our website.  

Q. Can you modify title block parameters within the rules?
A. Not with the rules, but Ideate BIMLink is great for modifying more properties, and Ideate Clone allows you to do sheet names and numbers when creating sheets.

Q. Do all the views have to be the same scale to align the views?
A. The view scales do not have to be the same, but they will be in the same location with that scale. We give people flexibility because by default, we look at views that have the same scale and same type, so if the scale or type are different, we give you options for a swap out.

Want to learn more about IdeateApps? Check out the short how-to videos on our website. Give it a try with a free trial version, or subscribe today. 

For more information on how Ideate Software tools can enhance your business, please contact us at [email protected].

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.