Orkestra Review: Distributing Tools—Dynamo or Grasshopper Graphs or OkPy Add-ins

Editor's Note: This is a sister article to OkPy Review: Create Fully Functional Revit Add-ins with Zero Coding, with Examples!

Orkestra can be used for a couple different things. One is developing Revit add-ins with OkPy, which we've already covered. The second is distributing customizations in a managed way, whether they are OkPy-authored add-ins or Dynamo or Grasshopper graphs. 

The first step is publishing. If it's an OkPy add-in, you'll need both OkPy Pro and Orkestra subscriptions. For Dynamo and Grasshopper, an Orkestra subscription will suffice. For our example, we're going to work with the Color Warnings add-in from our OkPy review.

From the OkPy for Revit window, with the OkPy file loaded, click the Publish button:

The Publish to Orkestra window opens. There's some work to be done in this dialog: there's the Description, which is also the tooltip in Revit, the Body, which is the text for a wiki entry (this is what the user will see if they click on More Info in the tooltip), and Keywords:

Free Color Tabs Pro: Includes User-Defined Rules-Based Processing

Executive Summary

Color Tabs Pro is a free Revit productivity add-in that visually organizes open document and view tabs. It automatically applies color and styling according to the source document, view type, file category, or user-defined rules. Its purpose is to reduce navigation errors in busy Revit sessions, particularly when users have many views open across multiple projects and family files. Instead of relying only on truncated tab names, users gain an immediate visual cue indicating which document or view category each tab belongs to.

Core Capabilities

• Unique color per document: Automatically assigns a distinct color from a curated palette to each open project, allowing all views from the same model to be recognized instantly.
• Color by view type: Uses different colors for functional view categories such as Sheets, Floor Plans, 3D Views, and Schedules.
• Single-color mode: Applies a consistent color to a selected document category—for example, displaying all Revit family documents in green.
• Separate project and family behavior: Allows .rvt and .rfa documents to use different coloring modes and styles.
• Multiple visual styles: Offers Solid Fill, Striped, Top Bar, and Border treatments, enabling users to balance visibility against interface intensity.
• Custom rules engine: Supports “If/Then” overrides based on Project Number, File Name, or Project Name. A high-priority project can therefore receive a specific color and style regardless of the general settings.
• Rule precedence: Custom rules override the broader project or family configuration, making exceptions predictable.
• Native-theme integration: Overrides Revit’s normal tab appearance while preserving the active-tab selection theme, helping the current tab remain identifiable.
• Background operation: Runs silently after configuration; users return to the settings dashboard from the Penguin Tools ribbon when changes are needed.

Orkestra: An Automation Deployment and Governance Platform

Summary

A Revit-integrated automation deployment platform for managing, securing, and scaling Dynamo, Grasshopper, and OkPy tools across AEC teams.

Overview

Orkestra is an AEC automation platform with a dedicated Revit add-in that brings firmwide script and tool deployment directly into the Revit interface. Rather than functioning as a single-purpose modeling utility, Orkestra acts as an automation management layer: it helps teams organize, distribute, document, secure, and run DynamoBIM, Grasshopper, and OkPy tools from a controlled library.

Based on current online information, Orkestra is positioned for firms that have already invested in visual programming or custom automation and now need a scalable way to deliver those tools to production users. The Revit add-in is especially relevant for BIM managers, computational designers, design technologists, and application engineers who need to make automation accessible without requiring every user to open, understand, or maintain the underlying scripts.

Primary Purpose

The primary purpose of Orkestra for Revit is to replace informal script-sharing workflows with a managed automation environment. In many firms, Dynamo graphs and custom tools are stored in shared folders, passed around through Teams or email, or maintained locally by individual power users. Orkestra addresses that problem by giving teams a central interface for hosting tools, controlling access, organizing versions, and presenting approved automations through user-friendly Revit ribbons and panels.

For Revit users, this means Dynamo-based workflows can behave more like standard add-ins: they can appear on the ribbon, launch from curated tool buttons, use preset inputs, and operate without exposing users to the complexity of the underlying graph. For administrators, it provides a way to standardize tools, reduce dependency on local file paths, and improve governance around automation.

Free Maestro: Create, Organize, Deploy, & Manage Custom Autodesk Revit Tools

Summary: 

Maestro is a platform for creating, organizing, deploying, and managing custom Autodesk Revit tools without building a traditional compiled add-in. Rather than functioning as a fixed productivity pack, Maestro gives AEC teams a flexible framework for turning firm-specific workflows into accessible Revit ribbon tools. It is designed to help BIM, VDC, digital practice, and software development teams package automations, scripts, documentation, and resources directly inside Revit in a way that feels familiar to end users.

Purpose and Positioning

Maestro is intended for teams that need custom Revit functionality but do not always need or want the overhead of developing, compiling, distributing, and maintaining a conventional add-in. It allows workflows to be assembled around the actual needs of a firm, project team, or production group. Users can place scripts, websites, folders, documentation, and other resources into custom Revit ribbon interfaces so that important workflows are easier to find, launch, and standardize.

Custom Revit Ribbon Creation

One of Maestro’s primary capabilities is the creation of custom Revit ribbon interfaces. Teams can build their own structured ribbon environment using custom tabs, panels, individual buttons, button stacks, pulldown buttons, split buttons, and panel slide-outs. Each ribbon item can include custom naming, descriptions, and icons, helping teams create a polished and intuitive interface for their internal tools.

Ribbon items can be configured to launch Python scripts, websites and web applications, files, folders, documentation, and other workflow resources. This reduces the need for users to search shared drives, remember command names, or locate scripts manually. Instead, Maestro places the workflow directly where Revit users already work: inside the Revit interface.

Python-Based Automation and Future Support

Maestro currently supports Python-based Revit workflows, allowing teams to create reusable automations that can be launched from the custom ribbon. These scripts can support a wide range of Revit tasks, including parameter review and modification, view and sheet management, annotation workflows, element selection and filtering, model audits, repetitive model changes, report generation, and enforcement of company standards. Support for C# scripts and Dynamo workflows is currently in development, which suggests the platform is intended to expand beyond its current Python-focused automation model.

HMK Tools: Productivity Add-ins & AI for Revit

From the HMK Tools website:

The tools that should always be there.

A deep suite of productivity add-ins for Autodesk Revit, plus Pilot AI — an assistant that lives inside Revit and drives Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D from your favorite LLM. All the things your design software should already do, in one place. 

Pilot AI

Pilot Chat

An AI assistant that lives inside Revit.

Pilot Chat is a dockable chat panel right inside Revit. Ask questions about your model, run audits, and automate edits in plain language — without leaving the application. It understands your active document and can act on it directly.

Highlights

• Dockable pane that stays out of your way
• Analyze, automate, and audit your model conversationally
• Bring your own API key — you stay in control
• Works on any open Revit document

How Revit MCP works →

TabManager – Colorize and Wrap Project Model Tabs Into Multiple Rows

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

TabManager: Open up new horizons in tab management!

In a world of rapidly changing technology and the need for prompt access to information, our latest TabManager add-on offers incredible possibilities for efficient work in Autodesk.

Color Highlighting: Distinguish project tabs from family tabs with intuitive color solutions. Active tabs stand out especially, so you can always quickly switch to the required document.

BIMprove – A Free 5-Star Rated Productivity Suite

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

1) Geometry Converter:

This tool allows you to convert any type of geometry, whether it's a family or a Generic (Model In Place), into a regular editable Autodesk® Revit® family. It's extremely useful for modeling point clouds and complex architectural forms.

Key features:

• User-friendly window interface.
• Various element selection methods.
• Table of selected content.
• Settings that can help streamline the conversion process.
• Ability to select family units (metric/imperial) and language by choosing the appropriate family template.

Geometry Converter user window.

Free AG Custom Ribbon Tab Builder – Ribbon Panel and Button Consolidation

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Overview:

The AG Custom Ribbon Tab Builder is a plugin for Autodesk® Revit® designed to simplify your workflow. It enables you to create a dedicated ribbon tab where you can relocate frequently used panels and buttons from other tabs.

Key Features:

1. Custom Tab Creation: Generate a dedicated tab on your Revit ribbon called "Custom Tab".
2. Panel & Button Consolidation: Easily move panels and buttons from other existing tabs to your new custom tab.
3. Auto-Hide Empty Tabs: Tabs from which all panels and buttons have been moved are automatically hidden to reduce clutter.
4. Plugin Tab Management: Combine panels and buttons from various installed plugins into your custom tab, making your workspace more organized.
5. Renaming: The custom tab name can be changed to better align with specific projects, teams, or your architecture company's needs.
6. Settings Management: The ability to save, export, and import settings via a straightforward script file.

View Tracker — Views Organized in a Dockable Panel, Grouped by Parent File

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Have you ever had so many views in so many files open that even colorized tabs couldn't help you? (kudos to Ehsan for pyRevit <3) Unfortunately there is a limit where horizontal lists like the view tabs get unmanageable, and you lose track of what you have open. The other built-in lists which are provided are quite inconvenient, and difficult to overview.

Then comes View Tracker to save your day!

This tool provides a user-friendly way of managing your currently or recently open views. Your views will be organized in a simple dockable panel, grouped by their parent file. You can collapse these groups to free up real-estate, and you can close any view or project if you wish to. You closed a view by accident? Don't worry, we got you covered! Just enable `Show Recent Views` and you can see the views which were open in your current session.

This tool can be extremely helpful for BIM Managers, or any power users who must deal with many files and many views simultaneously.

СOLORING TABS

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

• When working simultaneously with several projects, situations arise when several views or sheets in different projects have the same names. Therefore, it is often difficult to determine the correct tab.
• Ability to enable tabbed previews to quickly navigate between views
• This add-in solves this problem by separating the tabs of open projects by different colors.
• The functionality allows you to set the style and color palette for displaying the tabs of open projects and arrange windows in a cascading or mosaic form.
• Separation of tabs according to their belonging to documents.
• Set the color and thickness of the selected document and the selected tab
• Switch between documents, close all document tabs.

Free NonicaTab & NonicaTab PRO — 12 Dynamo Scripts as Buttons

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Integrating your Dynamo Scripts in Autodesk® Revit® has never been easier!

NonicaTab creates a new Revit toolbar with 12 buttons easy to customize with your Dynamo scripts and favourite icons.

NonicaTab runs Dynamo in the background and pops up any input window such as Data Shapes package input nodes. NonicaTab notifies in real time if the script was run successfully or with errors or warnings with Dynamo versions from 2.0.

Deploying and sharing your NonicaTab toolbars with other computers is possible with NonicaTab PRO. Forget about Dynamo packages with the PRO version!

You can also set your Dynamo scripts to run from keyboard shortcuts!

Each new button has a Set up Script and Set up Icon buttons to set it up.

Important! All Dynamo packages must be installed to run scripts successfully.

55 beautiful icons are included with this app ready to be implemented in Nonicatab. Set up Icon button will open that folder by default.

This is a free Add-In for Revit developed by Nonica

If you would like to update, only install the new version on top. Uninstalling NonicaTab would delete your current toolbar configuration.

RevGame — Navigate in Revit with a Game Controller

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Play it. Navigate in Autodesk® Revit® with a PC Joystick. It's easy, fast, and accurate!

Navigate through your BIM model as never before, using a joystick to have all the control in your hands. It's as easy as gaming.

Move forward, backward, sideways, up and down, and get to every corner of your model in the speed of your mind.

Also, you have a special visualization mode: XRAY

• Use the X-RAY button to turn all the structure and architecture of your model transparent, allowing you to see all the MEP elements inside. 

 And there is more!

We added a special button to let you save the current Viewpoint adding information about the discipline and the description of the issue to create information for your ICE Session (Integrated Concurrent Engineering).

Free Quick Rotate

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Essential add-in for all BIM Modelers!

Create your own custom commands to rotate selected elements with a tap of a finger. 

You can think of this app as an improved version of the native "Spacebar rotate command" in Autodesk® Revit®. 

What's different from the native "Spacebar rotate command":

• You can use it in any kind of view: plan view, elevation, 3D view...
• Set up in advance your custom rotation angle and rotation axis.
• Works with a selection of multiple elements
• Works with more types of elements: model elements, detail items, grids, sections...

App workflow: 

Use this plug-in's settings interface to set up 1, 2 or 3 different Quick Rotate commands.

• Set their rotation angle
• Determine their rotation axis

Then, attribute your custom commands to your own keyboard shortcuts, and trigger them with a tap of a finger. 

App workflow: sample cases

Touchconverter

From the Autodesk App Store:

Description

Touchconverter replaces mouse/keyboard inputs with multi-touch gestures:

• Pan
• Rotation
• Zoom

We have focused on the “View” tool in Autodesk® Revit®.

With our plugin, you can manipulate your 2D/3D plans with touch inputs.

TouchConverter converts touch inputs into mouse/keyboard inputs.

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.

the-Saurus – Auto-Complete for Dynamo Using Machine Learning

From GitHub:

the-Saurus

TT Hackathon 2018 Project

"Autocomplete" for Dynamo based on statistical/machine learning models. Please see the Project Presentation Page for more details

Team: Ahmed Abbas Petr Mitev Patrick Pease Konrad Sobon Aaron Tang Varvara Toulkeridou Jasmine Wright

The very basic workflow:

Free Palette Auto-hide Speed for AutoCAD and Advance Steel

From the Autodesk App Store:

With this app you will be able to change the time it takes to show/hide or roll-up/roll-out the palette windows in Autodesk® AutoCAD®.

You can see the effect with palettes like Properties, Quickcalc, External References, Sheet Set Manager, Markup Set Manager, Shared Views and Visual Styles Manager set to auto-hide.

Free OkCommand v1.5.3 – Find Revit Commands

From the Autodesk App Store:

About This Version

Version 1.5.3, 1/4/2018

• Added recent commands
• Added favorite commands
• Added Shift-Shift hotkey
• Fixed scalling bug
• Added images for commands without images

Description

The application searches for Autodesk® Revit® commands.

Have you forgotten where the button you need is? No problem! Enter the name or part of the name, then run!

The application searches for all built-in Revit commands, as well as for all installed plugins. The application will perform a search for all the commands that are on the Revit ribbon.

Free Voice 360 for BIM 360 – Voice Commands for Forge Viewer

From the Autodesk App Store:

Voice 360 provides voice recognition feature to execute Forge Viewer commands. With the help of microphone on your system, you can give commands instead of taking inputs from mouse and keyboard. This application seamlessly integrates with an existing system and can be extended with more commands as needed.

Commands provided are,

1. Show/Hide [model tree / cube / settings / properties]
2. Set View [front / top / back / bottom / left / right]
3. Isolate [partName]
4. Explode / Collapse
5. Select [partname]
6. Etc...

E.g. if you want to see a model tree, you need to give a command, 'show model tree' and it will be shown.

Step 1

Styler – Customize Colors and Fonts of the Revit Ribbon

From the Autodesk App Store:

Styler is an addin created to improve the user’s experience with Autodesk® Revit®, by allowing the user customize the Ribbon and Panels with a solid color, two colors, or any image.

Also, it allows the user to select any Font Style and Size for the text of the Ribbon and Panels.

The addin will automatically start every time the user opens Revit and it will set the customization selected by the user.

It is very easy to change styles of colors and texts without re-starting Revit. You can save your own customizations for later use.