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In Focus:IMAGINiT Utilities for Revit
Developer:IMAGINiT Technologies
Info & Pricing: http://imaginit.com/software-solutions/building-architecture/imaginit-utilities-for-revit
Add-in to: Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2012, Autodesk® Revit® Structure 2012 and Autodesk® Revit® MEP 2012
Additional Requirements:For Enhanced DWF Export - Autodesk Design Review or other DWF reader
Used by: Architects, Engineers and Construction Companies
Highlights:This is a collection of utilities for all Revit products. With some utilities that are specific to Architecture and MEP
Well the updated add-ins for Revit 2012 are starting to come out at an impressive pace. As I may have mentioned before, we used to consider anything released within 90 days of the Revit’s First Customer Ship as a great success. Now we are seeing releases very close to the 30 day mark.
These Revit Utilities have been release since Revit 2010 and are quite popular according to the surveywe did when this blog was stared. The new feature I wanted to highlight is the DWF capability which improves on the Revit DWF export by including the following:
Check out the video below:
You can find a lot more detail on Matt Mason’s blog. BTW Matt was also involved with with the Scan To BIM Product that I have talked about numerous times before and it was updated to Revit 2012 recently.
So do you use DWF in your workflow?
It's my pleasure to announce the launch of the “My First Revit Plug-in” guide presented to you by Autodesk Developer Network.
Are you an Autodesk Revit power user with an interest in becoming even more productive? Would you like to automate or extend the capabilities of Revit, but are new to computer programming? Are you envious of all the really cool add-ins that others are developing and you want to join the fold or show them you can do better. If so, then this guide is designed for you.
“My First Plug-in” is a self-paced tutorial guide for a smooth introduction into the programming world. This is a “one-stop shop” learning path for users who know Autodesk products but are absolutely new to programming and are thinking about taking the plunge. In this guide, you will be working with the Autodesk Revit .NET API and the C# programming language. The supported product version is Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 and succeeding versions.
You can access the material from the “My First Plug-in” page or from the Revit Developer Center on the right navigation panel
I wanted to give a heart felt thank you to the ADN Revit team who developed the “My First Plug-in” material. The ADN Revit team have worked hard to support the Revit API since the first release of the API in Revit Architecture v8.0. They have been dedicated since day one to helping our users build great solutions on top of Revit and this is simply another example of that hard work and dedication.
If you get the chance to test the guide and you have feedback please send it to myfirstplugin@autodesk.com!
Please try it out and I look forward to seeing what great things you come up with. I hope you will be able to share some of your new add-ins with the rest of the readers.
In this post I wanted to share with you some of the additions to Revit 2012 API that will be interesting to the different users performing analysis on the Revit model. These include Architect and Engineering personas. This is the third and last installment of this series. You can find the other two here:
Revit 2012 - What is new and what Add-ins you can Expect
and
Revit 2012 - What is new in the Platform
This is purely an API feature with no user visible capabilities. Basically what it enables developers to do is store their data inside of Revit using any schema they want. This eliminates the need for developers to store the data in a hidden shared parameter. So now they have a simple way to store and access their analysis and code checking data with the Revit model. To use an already way overused phrase … “This is the I in BIM”.
I would expect with this API capability, developers will start to store more of their data with the model so users do not have to worry about managing and synchronizing external data. As Revit continues to play an increasing role in analysis of all sorts I expect this capability to significantly improve the user experience of iteratively modeling, analyzing, exploring and updating the design.
A new API is provided to obtain and analyze the contents of a project's detailed energy analysis model, as seen in the Export to gbXML and the Heating and Cooling Loads features:
This analysis produces an analytical thermal model from the physical model of a building. The analytical thermal model is composed of spaces, zones and planar surfaces that represent the actual volumetric elements of the building. This can be used to generate and analyze the contents of the detailed energy analysis model, create + populate the model (while setting up appropriate options) and to extract the entities from the analysis.
You can expect this to create a new generation of sustainability analysis and optimization applications that will help improve designs and reduce the impact of buildings on the environment. This can also be used for lighting analyst, because the splitting of walls into boundary faces for particular rooms is very useful in that type of analysis and it is information that cannot be obtained through other means in the API.
New APIs have also been created to provide access to the conceptual energy model (which includes mass floors, mass surfaces and mass zones) as well as the ability to export a gbXML of that model.
Similar to the detailed energy model I expect this to produce a new crop of more accurate sustainability related analysis applications.
For those of you who have read the blog before you may have noticed that I have a soft spot for the AVF. (Probably worth a blog post on this at some point but for now you can find some info on it at the bottom of the Usability post.) The analysis visualization framework was improved to support multiple analysis results shown in the same view at the same time. It also offers the ability to display additional types of diagrams including vectors and structural moment / shear diagrams on beams, columns and braces.
With the new AVF capabilities I would expect to start seeing structural analysis results displayed in Revit Structure to help the engineer quickly understand their designs performance. Similarly, I would expect to see the same applications that are using the detailed and conceptual energy analysis models to also use the new AVF capabilities to show the user the results of their analysis so architects and engineers can make informed decisions about their design. One cool trick I have seen is for a program that switches out analysis results quickly in AVF to make it look like the results are being animated – works extremely well for analysis across time or due to progressively changing conditions.
Some examples of what you can get overlaid on your model:
Surface Coloring and Colored Points – Available since Revit 2011
Moment/Shear diagrams on elements – New in Revit 2012
Vectors on Elements – New in Revit 2012
For those of you who have not heard yet, there has been some serious work done on the Revit Structure Analytical Model. The most notably of the changes was the internal separation of the Analytical Model from the Physical model. Those changes enable users to freely edit the analytical model of beams and columns.
Some info can be found at Structural Model analytical enhancements in Revit Structure 2012
The consequence of these changes is much more flexible editing of the analytical model by the analysis links. I would expect significantly improved workflows between Revit Structure and Structural Analysis applications based on the increased flexibility when editing the analytical model and also due to the AVF (mentioned above) that will enable visualization of analysis results directly within Revit. Go to Structural Analysis Links to Revit Structure for a comprehensive list of applications linked to Revit Structure.
There have been a number of improvements in the Revit Structure reinforcement capabilities which have also produced improvements in the API.
These will enable developers to improve the quality of the concrete reinforcement related add-ins. These may include the automated creation of reinforcement based on analysis and code checking (design) as well as the ability to improve the cost estimation or the reinforcement in the building. The relationship between this feature and the construction modeling capabilities can also create some very interesting construction related solutions.
As with many other features mentioned so far, with the improvements to the MEP feature set including piping, placeholders and insulation we have also exposed the API to support those.
You can expect to see applications that help the engineer by automating the initial process of laying out pipe and duct systems. For example pipe size settings are newly exposed; allowing read and write access to the size database. This will enable an add-in to adhere to the settings setup in a given project.
This is the second installment in a 3 part series on the Revit 2012 new features in the API and what you can expect in new add-ins. You can find the first post here: Revit 2012 - What is new and what Add-ins you can Expect
In our continued commitment to improve collaboration and teamwork we have added some interesting worksharing features. As part of that effort we improved the API to provide access to worksharing information in the document. This provides a rich set of access tools to get more information about worksharing activities in the model. In addition, there is API support for the new 2012 worksharing visualization functionality.
This set of APIs I think will enable Revit to integrate better into social media services like Bluestreak and also tools that could be used by Revit users and BIM managers to improve their collaboration. Also using these new capabilities in conjunction with Revit Server could provide some very interesting solutions to provide visibility into project activities. In short I suppose I am not sure what people will use it for but I can’t wait to find out and be surprised.
New functionality in Revit 2012 allows elements to be divided into sub-parts, collected into assemblies, and displayed in special assembly views. The new features are exposed through the API for assemblies, shop drawings, and creating/reading and modifying Part elements that are created by sub-dividing model elements.
These features and the geometry features mentioned below start to define an interesting core of fabrication and construction related capabilities in Revit. I would expect the construction feature to be used by construction companies and fabricators to automate the decomposition of the Revit model into construction parts and assemblies used for estimation, procurement, manufacturing, staging and construction - can anyone say 7 D? (The first 5 Ds are spoken for but I will take applicants on the remaining 2 Ds).
This is a real big one for those of you who remember what the M in BIM stands for. Geometry plays a big role in Revit and Revit add-in developers need to create and understand it without being able to see the geometry. Throughout the years we have added a good number of API features to create and explore the geometry. This year we have probably added the most of any year, including highly requested tools like temporary geometry, boolean operations, wall joins, sweeps and reveals, and compound structure analysis. The geometry API also exposes 3D geometry for Rooms and Spaces which can be used for engineering analysis as well as things like better room book type applications. (More to follow in the next post.)
What can you expect to see because of this API? Well in the short term add-in developers will be able to generate and access/understand Revit models through the API a lot more reliably. Moving forward almost any product that creates, accesses or manages Revit geometry will benefit like structural analysis link applications. I would also expect it to enable a new crop of add-ins to support interoperability workflows and file formats. Moving forward this is a strong complement to the Construction features and related API. Enabling developers to create solutions that support construction and fabrication related tools.
There is a lot to say about IFC export and I will get to the details in a future post. However, to make it short and sweet. Revit 2012 IFC export is done through the API. Yup you read that right. So a number of APIs that were created this year like the geometry API mentioned above were developed to support the IFC effort but were done in a generic way.
Stay Tuned
So this is an interesting one. Developers are now able to add their own custom ribbon between the standard tabs (or the Add-in tab if it is there) and the Modify tab. There is a limit of 20 tabs which has been set to insure that all the ribbons will fit on an average computer screen. Note: before Revit 2012 developers used to do this through a windows hack which could be problematic at times.)
I expect at first every developer will put their features on their own tabs until users complain that it is getting out of control. To save some turmoil I hope developer will read the Usability and the App post before blazing ahead with this (or any other) feature.
So just to be clear, this is really not intended for developers creating tools for Revit that could be considered productivity or automation tools. It is intended for products that are creating a rich set of tools that could be considered a vertical product on top of Revit. Think – wood framing, products like Siteworks, etc. Expect the wild west of the 19th century for a little while before we get the civilized world of the late 20th century. No comments from the peanut gallery about my social commentary above!
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