The Most Essential Plugins for Revit

We at Ideate Software know that we create essential plugins for Revit because we actually address challenges expressed by Revit users. 

About Autodesk Revit Software

Revit software is the most popular BIM software used by architects; structural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineers; designers; and contractors to create, edit, and review 3D models. It’s used to:

• Model 3D shapes, structures, and systems
• Start from scratch or convert 2D models to 3D
• Create photo-like representations of structures or systems
• Identify clashes early in the design stage

• Streamline documentation work
• All model data is kept in a single database
• Changes made in one place automatically update throughout the model
• Monitor, review, and share information on changes 

• Unite multidisciplinary teams in a unified project environment with specialty toolset that empower:
• Architectural designers to focus more on creativity and innovative designs by using Revit to easily iterate design ideas and then document, coordinate, manage, and deliver architecture projects
• Structural engineers to save time, reduce risk, and minimize errors by using Revit to design, detail, analyze, and document structural systems through all stages, from pre-planning through maintenance
• MEP engineers to reduce headaches down the road by using Revit to model, analyze, and iterate system designs that support better performance and sustainability
• Construction teams to increase productivity by working from accurate drawings of constructable structures

Feature Requests from Revit Users

• Revit Architecture Forum
• Revit MEP Forum
• Revit Structure Forum
• Revit API Forum
• Revit Ideas Forum

The Revit Ideas Forum is where users can go to share ideas for future product features directly with the Revit team and collaborate on existing suggestions with peers. At the time this blog post was written, there were more than 43,000 posts in the Revit Ideas Forum. To simplify the process of contributing to and finding posts, Autodesk has three main tabs on the page: Hot Ideas, Top Voted, and Latest Ideas, and they have all posts sorted into more than 30 categories, including Architecture, BIM Management, Collaboration, Construction, Documentation, Mechanical, Modeling, Multi-Discipline, and Visualization. 

Ideate Software – Essential Revit Plugins List

We at Ideate Software know that we create essential plugins for Revit because we actually address challenges expressed by Revit users. The Revit Ideas Forum is one of the ways to learn about what’s important to Revit users. We monitor the site regularly, paying attention to the ideas that get the most “votes,” which are ways for Revit users to express their agreement with the original post. Armed with that information as well as information we get from discussions with Revit users from around the world, we decide which ones to focus on, and then determine if we can add functionality to an existing product or develop a new product.

Here's a recording of a one-hour webinar in which Richard Taylor, Ideate Software’s Technical Evangelist, highlighted feature requests addressed by Ideate Software.

Here are links to the blog posts referenced in the video. Within each blog post, in addition to providing step-by-step workflow instructions, we link to the related feature requests on the Revit Ideas Forum, so you can see how our features granted a “wish” made by Revit users that Autodesk has not addressed:

1. Duplicate a Revit sheet while creating new views or swapping existing views of the sheet 
2. Control the view title alignment when aligning or swapping views on a sheet 
3. Ease the documentation process with the help of the sheet and view tools 
4. Easily find elements that may be hidden in the Revit model 
5. Renumber almost any Revit element with intelligent rules and various methods for selection 
6. Implement a fully functional Revit spell checker that checks all sheets and views plus schedules 
7. Audit Revit models and select elements more easily 
8. Quickly review and fix Revit warnings to ensure a well performing model 
9. Manage, analyze, merge, and purge complicated Revit styles 
10. Live link Excel, PDF, and Word documents into your Revit project

An Overview of Ideate Software Revit Plugins

Below is the top Revit plugins list of tools developed by Ideate Software:

• Ideate Explorer – Revit users want to spend more time on interesting design activities. Ideate Explorer helps them do this by dramatically decreasing the amount of time they have to spend on model management. They use it to quickly find and delete incorrect, obsolete, and hidden problem items—including imported or linked DWG drawings—as well as to find, refine, and revise elements, even those not included in the Revit project browser.
  
  The following three features that are included with Ideate Explorer add additional value to the Revit plugin: 
   
• Ideate Warnings Manager – Audit warnings that are ranked by importance and fix the problems using Revit tools while the Warnings Manager dialog box is open
• Ideate Query – Search in parameters for elements like unused annotations, design options, in-place usage, structure usage/area scheme, and revisions
• Ideate Navigate – Navigate view-based elements; find unused sheets and views; find and filter legends, schedules, sheets, or views by category and/or keyword; customize work environments without changing the project browser 
   
• Ideate BIMLink – You can use Ideate BIMLink instead of working in Revit to verify and/or edit data one element at a time. Export data to Excel where you can easily view and manipulate large amounts of data easily. Once the data is updated, you can then use Ideate BIMLink for Revit to import data back into Revit, and the model will immediately update. 
   
• Ideate Sticky – Revit users appreciate the ability to share accurate and nicely formatted non-BIM data with Revit teams by live-linking Excel, Word, and PDF documents into a Revit model with Ideate Sticky. These “stickies” look nice, are easy to read, and can be updated easily when changes are made to the original source documents.   
   
• Ideate StyleManager – Pasting data from one Revit model to another often causes problems because information associated with the original files get copied along with the data. This clogs models with incorrect information that can take a long time to remove if working in Revit. Not removing the information is risky because it can cause model performance problems and documentation errors. With Ideate StyleManager, it’s easy to analyze, merge, or delete non-standard Revit styles. You can also use Ideate StyleManager to see the view filters applied to views and clean object and line styles and patterns, text, fonts, parameters, and more.
   
• IdeateApps – Reduce the change of mistakes, rework, and frustrations by eliminating the need to perform repetitive Revit tasks on large complex models with the 10 tools that come in the IdeateApps collection: Ideate SpellCheck, Ideate Align, Ideate Clone, Ideate ViewCreator, Ideate SheetManager, Ideate Annotate, Ideate XRay, Ideate ReNumber, Ideate SmartDelete, and Ideate QuickSelect. 
   
• Ideate Automation – Do more meaningful work as Ideate Automation runs time-intensive BIM tasks silently in the background. You can start the script manually or schedule it to run at a convenient time, even during non-working hours. Our customers add Ideate Automation to their toolbox to increase productivity, eliminate the need to train staff on repetitive tasks, and ensure task outcomes are highly predictable, free of user errors, and standardized.

Learn More

Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software’s top Revit plugins 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 our addins for Revit, which includes Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months.

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