New AGACAD Wood/Metal Framing version: Framing in Groups, Part Assembly Creation for All Framing Layers, Floor and Roof Dimensions and more

From the AGACAD website:

July 28, 2021 AGACAD

The newest Wood/Metal Framing version has been released with possibility to work faster within big projects and improve daily framing and dimensioning routine!  Make sure to download the latest updates via TOOLS4BIM Dock today!

Our team in AGACAD strives to make work easier for framed building designers. In order to address the growing needs and popular requests from the user community, we are announcing the latest updates for Wood and Metal Framing products.

These enhancements make framing tools more flexible and enable users to have more control over frame design. As a result, you’ll be able to save time and avoid workarounds. So, check out all the latest features in the article below and make sure to download these updates via TOOLS4BIM Dock.

Parameter Manager

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Rename, Delete or List parameters of multiple *.rfa files placed in a folder to select.

Features

• Batch program to edit multiple *.RFA family files located in a batch folder.
• Edited files can be saved in a different folder.
• The dialogue settings can be saved under a name and read later again.

Delete parameter dialog

Tag Legend

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This application allows Autodesk® Revit® users to place a tag for Legend Component and keep the tag updated automatically.

By using this app, Revit users can also input door & window information to door & window type parameter automatically such as: number of instances, level, sill height, room name.

Longboard - Power, Lighting Controls and Fire Alarm

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Are you tired of the tedious task of laying out electrical systems in buildings?

Inserting thousands of devices over and over again, project after the project gets tiring, boring and just plain repetitive! 

No longer will you need to put a switch next to each door, layout occupancy sensors, fire alarm devices, or electrical panels. 

You won't have to place each initial receptacle to only have them move on you anyway. Place those initial devices to start the conversation, with minimal effort on your part. 

You heard that right! In minutes we place the following devices in your Autodesk® Revit® model:

• Receptacles
• Switches
• Occupancy Sensors
• Smoke Detectors
• Wall and Ceiling Mounted Fire Alarm
• Electrical Panels

Wakeboard - Diffuser and Thermostats

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Are you tired of laying outbuildings?

Inserting thousands of devices repeatedly, project after the project gets tiring, boring and just plain repetitive! 

No longer will you need to put a thermostat next to each door or determine the spacing of your diffusers. 

Diffusers and thermostats are laid out for you in minutes based on the T50 throw value of your diffuser. Make sure to choose a hosted family to populate the diffuser to the ceiling. 

Select your thermostat family you want at each door and which rooms you want them in. 

Wait a few minutes while your entire model is populated for you! 

Have better conversations sooner! 

Save time!

Respond to changes faster than ever before.

Never has designing a building been easier! 

Start living a better life today with Wakeboard! 

Diffuser Main Menu

Skimboard - Low-Voltage Automation

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Want to find ways to improve your efficiency? Tired of the time it takes to do initial layouts? Need to get information to owners and team members faster?

Skimboard will help you to increase your efficiency by laying out your initial low-voltage systems in minutes, giving you the ability to do counts, pricing and have better conversations sooner in the process, saving your hours and headaches along the way. 

Skimboard is going to help you layout your data drops, cameras, card readers, intercoms, speakers, DAS system, Data Racks, wireless access points, and floor boxes in your Autodesk® Revit® model, taking the time out of modeling all of these systems.  In minutes you'll have layouts in what would have taken you hours. 

Bodyboard - Sprinkler Head Layouts

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Tired of the hours and detail lines that it takes to layout sprinkler heads to ensure complete coverage? Now you can layout an entire building with sprinkler heads in minutes! Choosing either to host them to the ceiling or a reference plane. Bodyboard is a must-have tool for your team and you won't want to layout sprinkler heads any other way moving forward. Simply pick your Autodesk® Revit® family. the coverage diameter of the sprinkler head, hosting type and Bodyboard will take it from there. Simple, quick and easy for you and your team. 

A solution that you'll want to have because you'll love how fast it takes you through your projects! 

Host your sprinkler heads either to the ceiling or a reference plane across an entire Revit model in minutes! This enables coordination to happen so that you are in sync with the other trades and ready to tackle the project sooner, saving you tremendous amounts of modeling time. 

Boogieboard - Lighting Controls

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Tired of having to repetitively place switches and occupancy sensors in your projects, project after project, day after day, instead of being able to have conversations with the Architect or Owner about what they need and want? 

Want to be done in minutes with lighting controls?

Boogieboard can to help you have those conversations faster than ever before. 

• Place switches, dimmers or wall-mounted occupancy sensors next to each door.
• Lay out occupancy sensors on the ceiling according to your coverage diameter. 

Say good-bye to hours of placing devices in your Autodesk® Revit® models and let Boogieboard glide you through those drafting waves. 

Main window - Occupancy Sensor layout page

Enscape 3.1 — Now Available!

From the Enscape website:

Author: Gemma Da Silva

Enscape 3.1 makes it even simpler to design and create beautiful renderings and visualization experiences.

With the newest version of Enscape, users of all abilities can bring their designs closer to reality thanks to a new Material Library, an improved Material Editor, support for NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) Support, a Panorama Gallery, simplified assets, ray-traced sun shadows, and other great new features and enhancements.

Download Enscape 3.1 if you’re an existing user, and if you’re not yet using Enscape, try it for free!

Free System Route Flow

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

For horizontal ducts and pipes. If the active view is the floor plan, an annotation can be chosen to put on the middle of ducts/pipes/.

This add-ins is only workable when the ducts/pipes are created by system, because only system can determines the direction of air/water flow of duct and pipe.

Free SelectionCart

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This Plug-in helps to select multiple and complex elements.

You can add your selected elements to the list.

Your selection could be stacked on the list.

WallExplodeCombine

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Explode one type of wall into several types of walls.

Change to Exterior + Core + Interior or Wall of Material-Specific Type.

Combines adjacent several types of walls into one type of wall.

Free FindCAD

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

FindCAD plugin enables Autodesk® Revit® users to find and display all Autodesk® AutoCAD® links/imports information with a single click. It also enables the user to purge all AutoCAD links/imports from project.

Free SheetPRO

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

The SheetPRO add-in will help the user to create multiple sheets at the same time by selecting the desired views which are not placed in sheet in the Autodesk® Revit® Project file with chosen Tile block, Sheet Name and Number.

Free Department Area Calculator

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This app allows the summarizing of areas for rooms that belong to one department. The summed area is then written back to rooms into the desired parameter. Because of this, it is possible to show in plans the areas of departments with standard Autodesk® Revit® tags. Values are updated when the script is restarted. Rooms are grouped by the same values of the desired parameter.

1. Group rooms that belong to the same department by writing the same value into the desired parameter. For instance, write “Apartment 01” into the “Department” parameter.
2. Run script. In “Group by:” choose Department parameter. In “Write to:” choose your custom parameter, for instance, “Department Area”. Click on “OK”.
3. Areas of Departments will be calculated and written to each room into the “Department Area” parameter.
4. You can create a room tag and use it to tag one of the rooms in order to show on plans the areas of departments.

In case you are interested in extending or customizing this workflow please contact us using our customer support email address.

How to calculate areas

InstaWall — For Generating 3D Rebar Models

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

RCCCAD®  IT Solution Pvt. Ltd.

InstaWall is a freemium Autodesk® Revit® app. It helps to generate a 3D rebar model for the shear walls.

Features:

You can place rebars in the wall with an opening or without the opening.

There is a separate tool to place the rebars around the opening.

The tool “Wall builder” helps to build walls in a definite pattern on several floors at a time.

It’s a free tool.

Note – As we all know rebar modelling is a very big subject. Every designer, organization have their own style of placing the rebars. We are ready to add your suggested features, rebar shapes into the InstaWall. Do contact us for the same.

Wall From Detail Line

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This application allows Autodesk® Revit® users to create a new system wall from existed detail lines which form a parallel pair.

Users can also convert dwg lines to detail lines by layers by using this application.

The tool also has the ability to delete overlapped curves.

Create Structural Column By Detail Line

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This application allows Autodesk® Revit® users to create new rectangular structural column instances from existing detail lines that form rectangular curve loops.

Users can also convert dwg lines to detail lines by layers by using this application.

The tool also have the ability to delete overlapped curves.

Floor From Detail Line

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This application allows Autodesk® Revit® users to create a new system floor/slab from existing detail lines which form close curve loops.

Users can also convert dwg lines to detail lines by layers by using this application.

The tool also has the ability to delete overlapped curves.

Framing From Detail Line

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This application allows Autodesk® Revit® users to create new framing instances from existed detail lines which form a pair of parallel lines.

Users can also convert dwg lines to detail lines by layers by using this application.

The tool also has the ability to delete overlapped curves

Free Select By Parameter

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This application is used to filter and select the elements of the current view, which has the same values of the selected parameters of the base element.

Free Select Rebar

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Within the application, there are two selection options.

For both cases, the base reinforcement is first selected, from which the parameters will be obtained.

• With the first selection option (Select Number), all reinforcements visible in the active view that have the same parameter value rebar number and partition are selected.
• With the second selection option (Select Shape), all reinforcements visible in the active view that have the same parameter value shape are selected.

Free MEP Align

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This tool boosts your speed when modeling MEP elements. It provides a quick way to model multiple ducts/pipes at once.

Function 1: Align elements to point

Users will first be asked to pick MEP elements and then pick points. The MEP elements will be aligned to the picked points.

(Similar to Built-in "Align" function of Autodesk® Revit® but in batch)

Function 2: Routing for multiple elements

If the selected elements are "aligned", pick a point and the tool will create elbow and routing for the pipes.

Free Project Tracker - A time tracking tool

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Project Tracker is a tool created to assist in time management during the BIM modeling and design process.

With the use of the plugin, it is possible to register the time used modeling in Autodesk® Revit®, counting the total hours of work per file, per sheet, per view or per task.

To record the hours just press the "Start" button. Time recording is automatically stopped when inactivity is detected.

Information present in the model such as the file name, name, and view type are captured automatically. For a more detailed view of your work, you can manually add information regarding the name of the project, discipline, or task you are working on.

The recorded data can be viewed directly in Revit with bar or area charts (timeline). In addition, the data can be easily imported and viewed in other software, such as Excel or Power BI. 

Main page

Free Warnings Reviewer

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This plugin helps you to easily review all the warnings in an Autodesk® Revit® model. You can select the elements which have warnings and modify them to solve their problems.

With this plugin, unlike Revit warnings reviewer, all the Revit commands are accessible. So, you can easily solve all the warnings, one by one or multiple of them simultaneously.

Free Quick Crop View

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This application allows Autodesk® Revit® Users to crop plan view, section view and 3D view very quickly by following below steps:

Click button QuickCropView

Drag a rectangle to set the crop view area. Press escape key to finish.

TestFit 2.20: To Massing Mode & Beyond

From the announcement:

🏙️ A bit about Massing Mode 

Since 2017, TestFit users have generated millions of apartment units with our configurator. To that end, TestFit has solved unit mixes, parking garages, complex setbacks, and a myriad of other urban tech problems.

TestFit has always been about confirming assumptions to narrow the range of outcomes on sites. Our customers have requested a new tool to assist in the creation of those assumptions. 

With TestFit 2.20, users can manually craft any shape. We’ve called it massing mode, and the use cases are many. It can be used as a basic massing tool for urban planning, a simple blocking and stacking tool, or a surface parked retail center. We're looking forward to hearing about your use cases.

- Clifton Harness, CEO at TestFit

TestFit 2.20: Introducing Massing Mode

 

project browser ++

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

This add-in allows you to quickly search for the correct views, sheets, schedules and legends so you can easily switch between them. No longer do you have to search with the vanilla search command or scroll through countless views. Just type in some parts of the name and the add-in quickly filters all matching entries.

Add some shortcuts to easily access the tabs of the project browser to speed up your work even more.

Filter views by name. Open by double-click.
If view is placed on a sheet, click the sheet symbol to open that sheet.

window browser ++

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

The window browser ++ add-in provides a panel similar to the windows taskbar. It lists all open views, schedules, legends and sheets grouped by their project or family file. For the user's convenience a thumbnail with a screenshot is displayed. 

Using this app, specific windows can be easily closed.

This speeds up the switching between many open tabs. 

Screenshot with highlighted task bar and open views

10 Amazing pyRevit Features to Save Insane Amounts of Time

From the Revit Pure blog:

By Nicolas Catellier

pyRevit is an amazing free plugin that will save you an insane amount of time. Download the plugin by clicking here. You can support the project on Patreon by clicking here.

Without further ado, let’s discuss the great tools included in pyRevit.

1- MAKE PATTERN

One of the best feature in pyRevit is called “Make Pattern”. We discussed it in the previous blog post so make sure to check it out by clicking this link.

2- BATCH SHEET MAKER

Creating multiple sheets in Revit has always been slow and boring. Some Dynamo scripts can help, but they can’t compete with the efficiency of pyRevit Batch Sheet Maker tool.

Continue reading on the Revit Pure blog »

Catching up with pyRevit — Now on Version 4.8.8

The last time we posted about pyRevit was regarding version 4.6.18 on March 11, 2019. Since then, Ehsan Iran-Nejad has continued to be very active with this extremely useful tool, and has published numerous releases since then, including two major dot releases. Here I'll try to encapsulate some of the changes Ehsan has made over the past couple of years plus...

In version 4.6.20 published on May 12, 2019, the following tools were added:

• Create Parallel Section
• Match Property
• Cycle family types
• Family type and param maker

In version 4.6.21, published on May 19, 2019, CPython was officially brought to pyRevit. The Compare Elements tool was also added.