Change & Replace Family and/or Type Names - A Free Add-in from Case (Updated)

"This is a handy little tool that goes out and renames families and/or type names in your project model. Be careful though, because this version does not offer a means of isolating the renaming scope, it is all or none."

This free add-in may be downloaded from the Case Apps website.

Update 5/8/2016: CASE and the CASE Apps website are no more but, courtesy of WeWork, the CASE Apps are now open source. They may be accessed on GitHub.

I'll Be Presenting on Revit Add-ins at RTC NA 2013

Over the weekend I received confirmation that I will be presenting at the Revit Technology Conference North America 2013, to be held in Vancouver BC July 11-13, 2013.

My session will be a lecture titled "75 Revit Add-ins In 75 Minutes", and will feature a deep dive into a handful of some of my favorite add-ins from this blog.

The Revit Technology Conference is extremely well done, and over the past couple of years it's become my favorite conference. I hope that you'll be able to join me there.

Move To Analytical

Move beams and floors to the location of their analytical model.

How to use:

1. Move the analytical model of a floor or beam away from the physical model with the Analytical Adjust command in the Revit UI
2. Run the “Move to Analytical” API command
3. Select the analytical model of a beam or floor that has been moved with the Analytical Adjust command
4. The element will move into the position of its analytical model (this command will move a floor but does not change the shape of its sketch)

There's more information available on the Boost Your BIM blog.

See other Revit Structural-related add-ins here.

BIM Manager Suite from CTC

CTC have apparently bundled their Revit add-in products into a couple of suites, including the BIM Manager Suite...

The fastest way to manipulate Revit families and make consistent changes to materials and parameters programmatically.

The tools included in this suite:

Family Processor

The fastest way to update your Revit families programmatically.

• Change, delete, and add family materials and parameters
• Make changes individually or for an entire content library
• Instant OmniClass number population

Watermark

The safest way to protect your Revit Content from unauthorized use.

• Add encrypted information to family files
• Scan for watermarked content in a project or network
• Password-protected data cannot be removed
• Apply a transparent overlay to family previews

BIM Project Suite from CTC

CTC have apparently bundled their Revit add-in products into a couple of suites, including the BIM Project Suite...

Help adhere your documents to the standards of COBie2 during project workflow and minimize the time required for creating project handover data. This package also includes all the tools in the BIM Manager Suite Premium and Standard.

The tools included in this suite:

COBie2 Link

Help adhere your Revit documents to the standards of COBie2 during project workflow and minimize the time required for creating project handover data.

• Parameter creation
• Schedule creation
• Bi-directional parameter mapping to any external Excel standard

BIM List

The most advanced, yet easiest to use Revit family browser for finding, organizing, and leveraging Revit families.

• Locate and insert families into a Revit project
• Search parameter data using filters
• Administrative controls enforce company standards

Revit Keyboard Shortcut Tutor

• Become a Revit speed demon
• Leave your co-workers in the dust
• Increase your productivity

Boost Your BIM’s keyboard shortcut tutor gives you a friendly reminder in a small modeless dialog box when you use the mouse to click on a command that has a keyboard shortcut. A button in the dialog lists all shortcuts.

A full-functioning version of the Keyboard Shortcut Tutor is $4.99. There's more information available on Harry Mattison's Boost Your BIM blog.

Via Luke Johnson's What Revit Wants blog.

Maxwell Render Plugin for Revit

The newly released Maxwell Render plugin for Revit includes:

• Support for Revit lights, including IES
• Support for many built-in Revit materials
• Ability to override scene materials with MXM files
• Maxwell Grass
• Multilight read back: changes made to lights in Multilight can be imported back into the Revit scene
• Easy access to the Maxwell material library and gallery from inside the Revit UI

There's more information available on the Maxwell Render website.

See other rendering-related add-ins here.

Via: Luke Johnson's What Revit Wants blog.

Window Studio from Andersen Windows

Window Studio is a powerful, stand-alone design support tool for installation on your Windows-based PC that generates CAD symbols and BIM support, including elevations, detail and plan symbols, with your Andersen® windows and doors.

• Create single or multiple unit designs visually, and quickly get elevation, detail or plan symbol of your design
• Plug-ins for Autodesk Revit and SketchUp are installed with Window Studio
• Generates native 3D symbols in AutoDesk Revit 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and SketchUp 8 and 7 
• Click and drag units to size and position visually on interactive workbench  
• Select and configure exterior trim on single units and combinations
• Automatic snapping, alignment and joining for easy combination design
• Specify joining materials for accurate unit spacing and joining details
• Save window and door designs in a project file for editing, report generation,  and reuse
• Generate schedules and reports for designs:
• Window and door schedule
• Unit information report
• Elevation report
• Energy report
• Product performance report
• Sustainability report
• Energy, performance and sustainability attributes included in Revit families and Google SketchUp components
• Comprehensive help content and simple online tutorials to get you going quickly
• Workbench guidelines available to align and space units in combinations and for sizing custom units

 There's more information available on the Andersen Windows website.

Credit: Luke Johnson's What Revit Wants blog.

Free Revit Journal File Cleaner

Dante van Wettum has created a free utility to clean out journal files that Revit leaves behind. Apparently, Revit does not clean out these files itself and they can end up consuming a lot of space.

This free utility may be downloaded from the 1869* Web site.

Credit: Luke Johnson's What Revit Wants blog.

Free Place 3D Room Tags from Case (Updated)

Have you ever exported a model to Navisworks and wish your room tags were visible? This utility will place a 3D Room Tag family at each room in your model using a provided Generic Model family. You can customize the family.

This free add-in may be downloaded from the Case Apps website.

Update 5/8/2016: CASE and the CASE Apps website are no more but, courtesy of WeWork, the CASE Apps are now open source. They may be accessed on GitHub.

Free Super Tag from Case (Updated)

This tool is only available under subscription and offers a simple means for tagging specific family types by category using a specified tag on as many views as you choose.

View names as well as family type names are all searchable making this an even more powerful everyday time saver.

This add-in may be downloaded from the Case Apps website.

Update 5/8/2016: CASE and the CASE Apps website are no more but, courtesy of WeWork, the CASE Apps are now open source. They may be accessed on GitHub.

Free Family Manager Basic Add-in

The purpose of this tool is to directly load families from one Revit project to another i.e., this tool enables the users to easily look in to the views, types, parameters of the families in a Revit project file and directly load the selected families in to the current Revit project or save them as ‘rfa’ files in the given PC path.

Salient Feature of this Add-In:

• All the families of a Revit file can be viewed in one place and they are also grouped under their corresponding Category and Sub-Category.
• The legacy families (which can’t be edited in Revit) are highlighted with separate color code.
• Options are available to see the thumbnails of all the views in a family.
• The types and their parameters of a family can also be viewed at a single click.
• The families can be previewed as real Revit project without opening them in Revit.
• The selected families can be saved in your PC.
• The required families can be directly loaded in to the current Revit project.
• Only the non-legacy families can be handled (previewed, loaded or saved) using this tool.

This free add-in may be downloaded from the Autodesk Exchange | Apps website.

Win a Free Custom-built Revit API App!

Over on his excellent Boost Your BIM blog, Harry Mattison is running a contest for using his Image-O-Matic add-in. Two winners will be selected, one winner for the best phasing and the other for parameters. The contest ends February 15, 2013.

Each winner will get to design one Revit API app that Harry will build to their specifications!

There's more information available on Harry's posting here.

Rushforth Tools for Revit

Rushforth Tools for Revit: Tools List

A collection of time-saving tools that have saved hundreds of users thousands of hours by automating tasks and simplifying workflows. Below are some of the included tools:

PARAMETER TRANSFORMER

The Parameter Transformer is the tool that generates more comments and praise by users than any other tool in the collection. The fascinating thing is that I have people constantly showing me ways they are using the tool that I had not even thought of.

User quotes:
 
“It comes with a bunch of other stuff, but as a customer I would pay $200 just for the excel link. Your tool is going to take a process that currently takes 4 days worth of a professional’s time and reduce it to less than 4 hours.” -Aryn Bergman, Facebook

"This tool has raised you to super-hero status around here!" -Bryce Wilson, Student, Northeastern University

“First, it’s a filtering tool that’s much more powerful than Revit’s, which is limited to just category. This allows you go 'grab' any objects and modify any parameter within those objects. Second, when modifying parameters, you can point it to an Excel file. Think of it like VLookup for Revit: It looks up a value in one column and returns a value in the same row of another column. It could be hugely beneficial to your work flow. I use it extensively for doing loads, passing information freely back and forth between Revit and Excel. Check it out, post haste!” -Phil Cunningham, Glumac International

Features include:

• Filter elements based on parameter values
• Set parameters of multiple elements of multiple families at the same time
• Find/replace values in parameters
• Auto number parameter values
• Automate creation of project shared parameters Use Excel to display and set element data including properties such as rotation, location, and element type

PROJECT FOLDER

Quickly open a windows explorer window in the central file location.

Image-O-Matic - Animate Models Via Parameters and Phases

Harry Mattison recently entered the world of Revit API blogging with his excellent Boost Your BIM blog. Harry currently has a single product available on the blog, Image-O-Matic...

"Do you want to animate your Revit model? Instead of a tedious process of manually changing parameters and exporting images, you can use Image-O-Matic to automatically create dozens, hundreds, or thousands of images to show phases or a range of parameter values. Use these images to easily review your design, create slideshows, consider alternatives, or merge them into a video file."

There's more information available on the Boost Your BIM blog.