Revit Add-Ons: 2018 – Year in Review

Hi folks, this is your faithful editor Tim Grimm here. I usually look forward to these Revit Add-ons year-in-review articles; they're an opportunity to look back at our accomplishment for the year and see what most connected with our readers. This year I approach this piece with some trepidation though. Although we published at least 500 posts for the third year in a row, our post total, 500 even, is down almost 50% from last year's 937. Of course, 500 posts is still quite respectable – we can think of only one Revit blog that posts more, and they use web scrapers (whereas we don't–or haven't so far at least). Still, it feels like a bit of a letdown.

So, what was the cause of the precipitous drop?

Those who know me might describe me as being as honest as the day is long, and about as subtle as a hammer, so I'll just give it to you straight: my personal health issues have been responsible, but I'm working on them.

What coverage suffered? Our "The Week that was in Revit Add-ons," articles didn't run between April 29 and September 24. We also fell behind on our other weekly feature, "New and Updated Revit Add-ins on the Autodesk App Store", often combining several weeks in a single article. We did, however, get back on track with weekly updates in September.

Our coverage of webinars dropped off steeply, as did, sadly, our coverage of Dynamo and the Revit API.

Expect some changes in 2019 as we look to top our 2017 total. We've already added a contributing author, though, owing to employment complications, she prefers to remain anonymous. We may also add additional resources or begin using some automation.

Please note: keeping up with add-in news via social media is difficult and time-consuming, and it's easy for things to slip through the cracks. Publishers and advocates: please be proactive and reach out to us when you have news you'd like us to share. Although advertisers receive priority coverage, you don't have to be an advertiser for us to cover your products or services! So please, help us to help you.

Thankfully, our pageviews still increased for the year, to a new high water mark of 664,301, up from 641,404 last year (+22,897).

Revit Add-ons post and pageview stats 2011-2018

Our Sponsors

Revit Add-ons is ad-supported. Our ad revenue doesn't make for a great hourly rate, but it does help us to feel appreciated, and it motivates us to put a lot of effort into the site.

If you value the work we do on Revit Add-ons, please, show your support for our sponsors.

At 5-1/2 years, RevitWorks is our longest continuous customer. They're authors of Door Factory Premium, among many other add-ins. Door Factory is also available in a free Preview version for creating the best single and double swing doors.

RTV Tools has been an outstanding supporter of our site for 4-1/2 years. They're the author of the popular RTV Xporter PRO add-in, as well as a number of others, all designed to help you get the most out of your BIM.

ArchVision has been an advertiser with us for about 4 years. They're the final word in RPC content for AEC, and also offer the format-agnostic content management system AVAIL, as well a non-manufacturer specific library of standard Revit Families and Details with their Family and Detail Warehouse product.

UNIFI Labs, authors of UNIFI Core, the essential cloud platform for creating, organizing, accessing, and managing building content, have been advertisers on Revit Add-ons for about 3-1/2 years.

SPECtrum BIM, authors of the GAMUT suite of products for rethinking content management, joined us in winter 2015.

ElumTools by Lighting Analysts, the first fully-integrated add-in lighting software for Revit, joined us as an advertiser in summer 2016.

FenestraPRO joined us in fall 2016. Their FenestraPRO Premium product enables architects to design energy efficient building façades to comply with building regulations and required performance.

PowerCAD joined us in winter 2016. They're the authors of PowerCAD-PNL, a free 2D electrical interface for Revit MEP, and PowerCAD-M, for simplifying the build of your Revit electrical model.

Revolution Design, makers of the add-ins Keynote Manager, Selection Master and the productivity suite Revit Workflow was one of our earliest supporters, starting to advertise with us way back in 2012. We were very happy when they rejoined us in winter 2016.

StrucSoft Solutions, makers of the MWF (metal wood framer) line of products, as well as some useful free add-ins, joined us in Spring 2017.

BIMcollab by KUBUS, an issue management ecosystem for Revit, Navisworks and more, joined us in February of this year.

VisionREZ by Alpine for residential designers using Revit also joined us in February.

IconicBIM, makers of Guardian, the automated cloud firewall for Revit projects, and P.I.G. (Preview Image Generator), joined us in June of this year.

Ideate Software, makers of Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky and Ideate Apps, was one of our earliest advertisers, originally joining us in winter 2012. We were thrilled when they rejoined us in June of this year.

Bird Tools, makers of free or inexpensive add-ins Automatic Tag Stacker, BIM Repeat Remapper, SpankMyRevit!, and Tag Alignment Tool, Joined us just this month.

Lastly, we're very pleased that Openings Studio by ASSA ABLOY, cloud-based software for creating complete openings, will be joining us in the New Year.

Looking back at this list of sponsors, we feel very, very fortunate. Thank you advertisers for what you do and for supporting what we do!

We hope that you agree that we have a great stable of sponsors, and hope that you'll show them your appreciation.

Editor's Choice Award Winners

We recognize products with Editor's Choice Awards for a number of reasons. It may be because an add-in solves a unique problem, or a common one in a unique way. It may be because it delivers exceptional value, or is exceptionally well thought-out. Or maybe it just tickles our fancy.

We were happy to recognize the following products in 2018:

Free Autodesk Enhanced DWG Exporter for Revit from Autodesk (January 13, 2018)
Test Fit – Dynamic Planning Software, from Building Forge LLC (April 16, 2018)
Free and Open Source Align v1.4.0 – New "Untangle" Options Added to Quickly Cleanup Overlapping Elements, from BIM 42 (June 4, 2018)
Guardian – Automate Consistency Re Imported Parameters & Parameters in Families, Plus Prevent Certain Actions, from IconicBIM (November 16, 2018)
Free GAMUT | USER – A Better Way to Search and Load BIM Content, from SPECtrumBIM (November 29, 2018)
Free GAMUT | MANAGER – The Easiest Way to Manage Your Firm’s BIM Content Library, from SPECtrumBIM (November 29, 2018)

Reader's Choice Award Winners

At the end of each year, we take a peek behind the curtain to see which posts received the most pageviews over the course of the year. The top-charting posts/add-ins receive Reader's Choice Awards. Only posts from the year in question are considered.

This year, we included the seventeen posts that received 900 pageviews or more.

At the top, unsurprisingly, was our annual post about Revit enhancements from Autodesk, which far outstripped the competition. Other Revit Add-ons original content that made the cut were our first biannual listing of 5-star rated add-ins on the Autodesk App Store at #3, our interview with the CEO of Flux.io about their discontinuation of service at #6, and our April Fool's Day post about the then fictitious SpankMyRevit at #9 (subsequent posts about the real SpankMyRevit as realized by Bird Tools garnered a further 1,756 pageviews, with the first charting at #26 for the year).

Our post about Lumion v8.3 came in at an impressive #2. Other update-related posts that charted were rvt2skp v2.1 at #7, Dynamo v2.0 at #13, and Kubity Exporter v4.1.0.2 at #15.

The highest charting new add-in related post was Infraworks to Revit Interoperability Add-in at #4. Others were Formwork for Concrete Structure at #5, Test Fit at #8, Autodesk Enhanced DWG Exporter for Revit at #10, GeoToCAD™ for Autodesk® Revit® at #11, PF Printer PDF at #12, and CCupgrader at #17.

Miscellaneous items included Construction Material Library for EU at #14 and Dynamo Program Checker QA Review at #16.

2018 Reader's Choice Award winners

Items that received both Editor's Choice and Reader's Choice Awards this year were Autodesk Enhanced DWG Exporter for Revit and Test Fit.

Here's the full list of our 2018 Reader's Choice Award winners with links:

Curious about what our all-time leading pageview posts are? We were! We'll have to come up with a new award for them!

All-time leader board

Acknowledgements

Many thanks again to our advertisers!

Congratulations to all the award winners!

Thanks to the add-in developers and bloggers who make the Revit add-ins community such a thriving one!

Most of all, thank you dear readers for frequenting our site; we couldn't be a success without you!

And speaking of our readers, now might be a good time to mention our social media accounts. Presently we have 941 followers on Twitter, up from 671 last year (+270), and 2,032 followers on Facebook, up from 1,507 last year (+525). Thank you all!

Now THAT'S a year-end wrap-up!

Wishing you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2019!

Ye ole editor,

Tim Grimm

Greater Seattle area

Not bad for a reformed Bentley guy

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Monday, December 31, 2018

2018 – Year in Review

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