Metamorphosis – A Free and Open-Source Revit Change Analysis Tool

Editor's Note: Spinning out of the 2016 AEC Technology Symposium Hackathon comes Metamorphosis, a free and open-source change analysis tool for Revit. The following information is excerpted to focus on the add-in. To read more about the genesis of the solution at the hackathon, click over to the original post after the break.

From Kyle Martin's website:

INTRODUCING "METAMORPHOSIS" - An Open Source Revit Change Analysis Tool 

Running the model comparison add-in results in a list of Revit elements that can be filtered and re-sorted. Clicking on the categories and individual elements adds them to the selection in the active view and zooms to their location.

List of changed elements sorted By Category (left)
or By Change Type (right)

Clicking the Color Elements button will apply Override Color in View to all elements that fall under 3 change types:

1. Green - New Elements
2. Blue - Geometry Change (size or shape)
3. Red - All Other Changes: modifications to parameters, location, rotation, etc.

The Color Elements feature works any view type: plan, RCP, section, 3D axon, etc.

For some of the change types, an Analysis Visualization Framework (AVF) object appears:

1. A box for an element that has been removed
2. Arrow(s) for an element that has changed location (in the case of elements like walls, there are two location points so you get two arrows)
3. A symbol if an element has been rotated

On the Dynamo side, opening the .dyn file and browsing to the exported JSON file will process the accompanying data for visualization in Mandrill. Clicking "Launch Window" in the Report Window node to the far right will open up the interactive data visualization window containing 4 chart types:

1. Donut Chart (upper left) - number of changes by element type
2. Stacked Bar Graph (upper right) - number of changes by change type
3. Bar Graph (lower left) - percentage of items changed vs. total number of items for each category
4. Parallel Coordinates (lower right) - number of changes for each level, each overlapping line represents a different Revit element category

METAMORPHOSIS VALUE SUMMARY

• colorize elements in any active view to quickly identify changes, much more efficient than previous methods
• color by change type allows you to target specific changes
• sorting, filtering, and element selection in add-in interface allows for quick location and isolation of elements
• quickly evaluate where most changes are occurring with analytics/visualization, this is particularly useful if the model comes with no documentation
• compare current state to any previous model, helpful to tell the story of location and amount of changes over time
• not just a tool for coordinating/viewing changes but making sure you cloud revisions as you go if the drawing set has already been issued

Interested in trying this tool out? Here is where you can access the datasets and learn more:

Github Repository
DevPost page
Presentation slides
Youtube Screen Capture Demonstration

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Metamorphosis is brought to you by Kyle Martin, Matt Mason, Charles Prettyman, Timon Hazell. It's free.

From left to right: Kyle Martin, Matt Mason,
Charles Prettyman, Timon Hazell

Revit version compatibility was not known at press time.

There's more information available on Kyle Martin's website.