Category Archives: BIM

07 May

How to save system family as external loadable family

As you already know, there are three kinds of families in Revit®: system families, model-in-place families and external (loadable) families (also know as .RFA files).

Some Revit® categories are exclusively system categories (families of those categories can be created only in project environment), for example: Walls, Stairs, Floors and similar categories. There are, however, hybrids (can both have system and external families in the same category), for example Structural Foundation categories but they are topic for some other time. Read More →

30 Apr

How to change Revit® default icon?

Maybe you noticed that since Revit 2017, every Revit version has the same icon. This could be deceiving to most users if not unpractical and may lead to errors (eg. opening and saving file in newer Revit version).

Also, Autodesk® calls them REVT.ico instead of REVIT.ico for reason probably only known to them.

To support my statements how such approach is unpractical, below is an example on how your Windows taskbar looks if you run multiple instances of DIFFERENT Revit versions at the same time Read More →

09 Feb

Left / Right Door Updater, Revit® Add-in

Having multiple instances of doors or windows often carries a problem that some of them are (intentionally or not) flipped (mirrored). Flipping doors and windows is neat option but it can bring big problems. Left doors are not equal to right doors (the same goes with windows) but Revit will treat them as they are the same (if they are of the same type). This Revit Add-in solves this problem by updating parameter value whenever door (or window) instance is changed (flipped or mirrored) from right to left or vice versa. Read More →

12 Nov

Modeling Structure in Revit®: 3. Practical guidelines for modeling vertical structural elements

Practical guidelines for modeling structural elements in Revit® include:

Guidelines for vertical structural elements:

  1. Modeling structural bearing walls
  2. Modeling structural non-bearing walls
  3. Modeling other (non-structural) walls (in case they are needed for some reason).
  4. Modeling structural columns

guidelines for horizontal structural elements: Read More →

12 Nov

Modeling Structure in Revit®: 2. Set Levels and Grids

“Set levels and grids? Just throw a few of them in the model and let’s do some real modellin’!”

Level as the most important element

Levels are the most important elements of a Revit model. Grids are important, but not so much as levels (you know, if you delete a grid, nothing will get deleted with it like when you delete a level).

Your whole future (re)modeling work  depends on how you plan and set your levels in the beginning. Levels and grids are “the structure” of your Revit model. You don’t need to be a structural engineer to know the importance of a good structure. Here are some important tips about how to properly Read More →

05 Sep

Dynamo: Copy values between Revit® parameters

To copy values between different Revit parameters quickly, use Dynamo script. Let’s say that we entered information (parameters values) into many Revit family instances in our project just to realize that it should be on another place (in another parameter). Or we change our minds during the project (it happens).
So, in order to do the boring task of copying parameter values to another place quickly, let’s use the power of Dynamo.

The script is simple, it just uses Element.GetParameterValueByName and Element.SetParameterByName methods to get and set the values.
All you need to do is: Read More →