What's Hot in Revit Add-ons for February 2015

I recently lined up a gig to write a monthly article about Revit Add-ons for a magazine. I planned to focus the articles on the hottest posts on Revit Add-ons over the preceding month. Unfortunately, the magazine ceased publication. I like the concept so much though that I'm going to run with it here; every month, a week or so after the end of the month, I'll take a look back at the statistics from the preceding month and summarize in a recap article the posts that had the most pageviews.

Though it's arguably a little stale, I'm starting with February – because I already wrote the article for the now defunct magazine. I'll catch up with March and April in the next few days.

I hope that you enjoy these monthly articles.

Free Award-Winning Color Splasher Gets a Major Update

The Color Splasher is a tool by BIM One that allows rapid understanding of model information. It filters, selects and colors elements based on parameter values to help verify model data integrity and improve visualization of non-graphical data. The newly released Color Splasher V3.0 now lets you select multiple categories and then select a common parameter to those categories, color elements in 2D views, and includes MEP category support.

dp Stuff Utils Add-in for Revit 2015

Dima Chiriacov has released the 2015 versions of his popular dp Stuff Revit add-ins. Previously available as separate, free add-ins, most have been bundled together into one for 2015. The newly branded dp Stuff Utils add-in is priced at USD 8.00 and features 10 commands: ChangeTextCase, CopySelectionIds, RemoveAreasRooms, CropViewToSelection, NumberStuffByDirection, QuickViewAccess, RemoveEmptyTags, UpdateAreaCalcs, the award-winning WorksetExplorer, and ArchiSpeak. Dima has maintained his other Revit add-in, Randomizer, as a separate utility. Randomizer 2015 is priced at USD 4.50.

Beginners Guide to Python in Autodesk Revit

For you do-it-yourselfers out there, Chris Welch has approached a complex topic, programming with Python in Revit, on his Product Spec blogsite and presented it in a fashion that should be widely approachable.

Product Review – ViewSync

ViewSync synchronizes open views with the active view. Zoom to an area in the active view and other open views zoom to the same area automatically. When zooming in plan views, ViewSync not only works across other plan views, but also ceiling plans, 3D views, and elevations!

There are some great potential uses for ViewSync. For coordination purposes, it's a no-brainer; for instance, zoom around in the architectural plan view and have the other discipline plan views update automatically. It's also useful for locating the same areas in 3D views and elevation views as in plan, which can otherwise be tricky and time-consuming.

Randomizer 2015 Revit Add-in

Need to create random appearance in Revit? Randomizer 2015 Revit Addin lets you randomize instance parameters of family instances. Random pattern “trick” is being used very often by designers so hopefully this will save a hassle of mimicking random behavior “by hand”. The way it works – it lets you locate the instance parameter that you want to randomize among the family instances in your document by selecting the Category, then Family and then Type of your objects.