Revit Add-In: Creating Topography the Standard way or from Lines in Revit

Awesome Plugin from Harry Mattison (Boost your BIM) to create Topography from Lines in Revit.
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In Revit with out of the box functionality you can create topo surfaces by picking points and specifying their elevations or by importing 3D data (the topo lines in a cad file) or a points file.

This means you can actually not create a topo surface from lines that you have drawn in Revit.

This is no longer so, thanks to Boost your BIM's Add-in. With it, you can simply click on the Add-ins Tab, select Topo-From Lines, Select the lines and click Finish.

Bingo, topo created from lines in Revit.

The Add-in is available here for Free

You can say thanks to Harry on his blog post about it.

Great Job!

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BCF Add-Ins for Revit

If you need to use the BIM Collaboration Format and you are using Revit this Add-Ins might be what you are looking for.
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I wrote recently about the BIM Collaboration Format [BFC]. It is (probably) the soon to be Standard to communicate Issues in BIM Models. If you are using Revit and want to be able to work with BCF, you'll need some Add-in to do it. I found 3 of them and tested 2. Here they are:

Number #01: Matteo Cominetti's BCF PLUGIN FOR REVIT (currently at Version 2.2.2)
Easy to use, Free and With a lot of easy to use Options.
The best one of the two I tried.
You can download it here: http://matteocominetti.com/d/BCFPlugin2.2.2.exe
Check more info at Matteo's website or watch the video below:

Number #02: KUBUS' BCF MANAGER for Revit (there is also an ArchiCAD Version)
Now on free trial until Nov 30th. Apparently at a cost from December 1st.
Less options than Matteo's Plugin, but still easy to use.
Download the Windows x64 version here: http://www.kubusinfo.nl/downloads/BCF_Manager_Revit_x64_r2.msi
Download the Windows x86 version here: http://www.kubusinfo.nl/downloads/BCF_Manager_Revit_x86_r2.msi
You can also use this if you are an ArchiCAD user:
ArchiCAD windows version download here: http://www.kubusinfo.nl/downloads/BCF_Manager_AC17_r2.msi
ArchiCAD MAC version download here: http://www.kubusinfo.nl/downloads/BCF_Manager_AC17_r2.dmg
More info at the KUBUS website.

Number #03: AUTODESK'S MODEL REVIEW Add-in
I haven't tried this one, according to its description is more than just a BCF Add-in, but a full Model Checker:
"Check the accuracy and consistency of a Project or Family against standards set by your firm, your clients, or industry best practices. Correct inconsistencies with a single click or with instructions provided when manual fixes are required".
It is only available if you are a Subscription Customer. More info here too

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Revit: Calculating and Scheduling Gross Wall Area

Revit wall area is incorrect if you want it including the openings area. This add in allows you to get the gross area (including openings) correct.
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The way Revit calculates wall areas that have openings (doors, windows, etc) in them is by giving you the wall area minus the opening area. While this might be of some use, if actually you need to get accurate quantities I doubt this will do. The way the areas of the walls should be quantified according to, at least, our local standards is by including the opening areas that are below certain sq meters. Revit can't give you that by default (as far as I know) it just gives you the wall area minus the openings, see the example:

We need to be able to schedule the area of those openings (hello Autodesk??). Recently found an Addin, that allows to do that. It is called AutodeskWallOpeningArea (updated link)and gives you the chance to get this done right. After downloading it and installing it (simply run the .msi file) you will have a new button on your Add-ins tab in the Revit Ribon:

Once installed, simply go to a 3D view and click on the button. It will add 2 shared parameters on your wall families that will account for the openings Area.

The results you get are divided according to an area value you can set. All the openings below that Maximum value are stored as Opening Area Smaller Max, and the total openings area are added to the Opening Area Parameter. Now, you can schedule this parameters and get the Gross area of the wall by playing with calculated parameters. In this case I simply Added wall Ara + Opening Area to get the Gross Total that would be used on a project estimate.

Problems and limitations:

1. The parameters are not dynamically updated, which means that the command must be executed in order to updated the parameter value. Is is a major problem, actually and goes completelya gains the BIM approach of an integrated database, let's be serious, this sucks badly.
2. The Addin must be executed from a 3D view with all relevant elements (walls, doors, windows, openings, etc) visible. Second Major HUGE flaw.

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Book Review: Instant Autodesk Revit 2013 Customization with .NET How-to

A brief review on this book that introduces you to .NET programming to create Revit Add-ins
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The people at Packt Publishing have published a book about customizing Revit using the Revit API and .NET programming language. The title of the book is Instant Autodesk Revit 2013 Customization with .NET How-to by Don Rudder.

The book is a very packed guide to creating your first Revit Add-ins. It is actually the type of book that is a bit hard to follow, but in a good sense. It does not waste time explaining you basic stuff you would already know (or that you can easily find online) if you want to create Revit Add-Ins. So from the first lines you have to pay attention to what you are reading or you get lost after two pages.

I have not had the time to try the code samples provided but the book (many), but overall it seems to me as a good introduction to the basics of Add-in programming, its logic, language and basic steps. If I had a say on the book editing, I must confess I would have given it a bit of a more refined look and a bit less intense pace, for it seems a bit intense to me, jumping from one example to the next one without much time to assimilate what you are learning.

If I end up finding the time to actually program something, then I'll update this post with that experience.

Book is very affordable, selling for $11.99 at the Publishers Page for the Ebook version. Yo can also buy hard copies of the book at Amazon (links below).

or or

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Free Revit Family Manager Add-in

A new add-in to manage your families in revit. And it is free.
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Got the heads up from Luke Johnson about this new, and free, add-in for Revit available at the Autodesk Exchange app page. I haven't tried it but it looks promising.Quoting the app developers HTSSIndia:

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.

So now it is easy to transfer families from project to project knowing exactly what you are transferring. Excellent.

Without this add in, you can transfer families from one project to another using the Transfer Project Standards tool in revit. But then you would be transfering without so much control of which families you actually copy, so this add-in is worth it.

To install it, download the add-in from here, then run the installer.

Via What Revit Wants

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