BIM Blog

Wood/Metal Framing for Revit: The most significant enhancements of 2020

During the past year, we implemented over 40 updates to our Wood Framing and Metal Framing BIM software for designing walls, floors, and roofs of prefabricated timber and light-gauge steel-framed buildings in Revit®.

These updates include new features, enhanced sample families, and requests made by clients that benefit many of our users. In the spirit of sharing BIM advances, we walk through over 30 of them now in the hopes that this summary will be of use to not only current users but also Revit users generally and those who may be considering making the switch over to a BIM workflow for framing design.

We’ve put a lot of work into our Wood Framing and Metal Framing BIM software over the past year to make sure it continues advancing to meet the needs of architects and structural engineers around the world. Click a topic in the list below to auto-scroll down for more about it.

By the way, we also hosted this webinar in June 2021 that goes over most of the features enumerated below.

AGACAD Advances | Autumn 2021

The latest edition of our newsletter AGACAD Advances has several new items of interest, including the first two installments of the Global BIM Survey we began this year and a few client success stories focusing on wood framing and precast concrete design in Revit.

Here are some highlights:

• New Product: Say hello to Smart Views
• Wood / Metal CNC exporters released for Pinnacle and EasyFraming machines
• Most significant improvements made to Wood Framing and Metal Framing
• QR/barcode technology added to Sort Mark Revit tool

Read on for more!

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New features for Column Reinforcement tool for Revit: Work with round columns, crank and bend rebar

In the latest update of our Column Reinforcement plug-in for Revit®, a couple of new features have been added, including the ability to work not only with rectangular columns but round ones well. By way of reminder, Column Reinforcement is a feature of our BIM software for Precast Concrete design.

We developed the two features in this update based on the needs of precast structural detailers and engineers. With our dual goals of reducing BIM stress and securing BIM benefits ever at the forefront, we think these enhancements will prove useful for many more Revit users who need an efficient way to place rebar throughout precast models.

1. Reinforce columns with round sections

In the past, the tool could only add reinforcement to columns that had rectangular sections. Now it’s also possible to define reinforcement settings for round columns.

How to make QR/barcodes for precast concrete elements in Revit [VIDEO]

QR codes and barcodes surround us in everyday life – when shopping in the grocery store, receiving packages at home, or giving a blood test sample at the doctor’s office. Their purpose is to transfer data about an item, so you can track, check, or use it down the road in other processes. Such codes are used in a variety of situations in the AEC industry too, and precast is no exception.

A few months ago we announced that our Sort Mark Revit add-on lets you generate QR/barcodes with any information from the model. Sort Mark creates QR or barcodes as images and assigns them to each element, to the selected Image type parameter.

Sort Mark is an included tool in AGACAD’s Precast Concrete design software, so that means that our Precast users can make codes in a jiffy too. Here’s how! Written instructions follow the video below.

Global BIM Survey: Norway is a leader and continues advancing

Drawing on the expertise of our partners around the world, AGACAD is currently examining the specific situation of BIM use in different countries.

Here we look at Norway with the help of Knut Sandvik, a construction engineer and IT professional with three decades of experience who works at Focus Software AS, Norway’s top provider of BIM solutions. Knut also teaches BIM at the university level.

Early adopter

Norway today is one of the world’s most advanced countries in BIM implementation. One reason is how early the government got involved in promoting digital construction. Statsbygg, the Norwegian Directorate of Public Construction and Property, ran a BIM pilot project in 2005, published a BIM manual in 2008, and began requiring BIM use in public projects already in 2010.

“Finland was the first to have a government BIM mandate and then Norway and some other countries were second,” Knut Sandvik says. “The Norwegian state has been requiring the use of BIM for over a decade now, so everyone involved in big projects – hospitals, airports, operas and the like – has been doing BIM to one degree or another for quite some time now.”

Besides that top-down encouragement, Norway has also seen grassroots movement to BIM among designers, owners and builders. Sandvik says BIM adoption, while far from universal, is extensive and continues increasing: “You have all kinds of approaches to BIM, how to use it and how much, even when it’s not required. Almost everybody now uses BIM modelling tools – maybe not the methods, but the tools yes, and over time it is slowly seeping into their methods too.”

Fink Horejsh powers structural design business with AGACAD precast suite

This US-based structural engineering firm says the AGACAD Precast Concrete solution for Revit^® has enabled it to streamline its project delivery processes and focus more on high-value tasks instead of routine drafting.

Client Profile

Fink Horejsh LLC is a structural engineering firm in Madison, Wisconsin, with a focus on precast concrete solutions that are economical and highly constructible, from hollowcore slabs to precast walls, columns and beams.

New Features added to Smart Assemblies for measuring

Several new features have been added and UI changes have been made in the latest update of our Smart Assemblies BIM Solution for Revit®. Smart Assemblies is our plugin that makes preparing shop drawings in Revit a breeze.

The latest features, which we’ll go through below, come as a result of client requests that we had received. Now we’re happy to show what we’ve implemented so that Revit users can spend more time on design work and less on repetitive tasks that don’t add value.

CNC Exporters for Wood/Metal Framing Compatible with Revit 2022. PLUS New Exporters for EasyFrame & Pinnacle

While almost all AGACAD products are available through the Tools4BIM Dock, we do offer some specialized products that have to be installed separately. Those would be our exporters for sending wood and metal frames from Revit to CNC machines and CAD/CAM production lines for prefabrication.

As previously announced, the 2022 versions of all AGACAD applications accessible via the Dock have been released, so all those Revit plugins can be downloaded by Revit 2022 users. Now we’re pleased to inform you that we’ve released 2022 versions of our Wood / Metal CNC Exporters as well! So now producers of timber-framed and light-steel-framed buildings can press forward with their latest designs and rest assured that they can be output to machines for prefab.

Framing Openings in Revit Easily Using the Cut Opening Tool [WEBINAR]

The importance of coordinating and designing openings in Revit should not be underestimated. Whether for doors, windows, structural, or MEP systems, it must be done accurately, as quickly as possible, and be readily adaptable to design changes. Setting up a system where such tasks may be performed easily, however, can cost considerable man-hours.

Here’s the good news: AGACAD has developed the software and workflow that allow Revit users to automatically insert openings based on clash-detection analysis. Once openings are generated, the software naturally accommodates them so that, for example, a duct passing through a wall is taken into account.

We invite you to sign up below for this free 30-minute webinar on August 26^th during which we’ll show the process that streamlines the insertion of penetration holes in the context of a timber or light-gauge steel framing project.

The webinar will be held twice, so please register for the session that’s more convenient for you. Content will especially be of interest to architects, engineers, BIM managers, out-of-box Revit users, and designers of wood or metal walls, roofs, or floors.

Best Practices for Starting to Frame in Revit [WORKFLOW]

Want to frame walls, floors, and roofs quickly in Revit®? Our Wood Framing and Metal Framing BIM software for Revit streamline the framing process for architects, structural engineers, and framed building contractors and provide a wide range of options for modelling framed buildings.

The great thing about our framing software is that we’ve built best practices right into the tools, based on the insights of leading users. Those just starting out with our framing tools, however, sometimes feel overwhelmed doing the initial setup for a new project. That’s why we’ve pulled together these best practices, which will help even experienced users navigate more confidently from the start.

In this blog post, you‘ll discover the essential steps for getting your project started on the right foot. We’ll start from the very beginning of the workflow so new users can start working on their own projects with confidence. And if you’re a seasoned user, knowing these steps will reinforce techniques with which you may already be familiar.

These essential steps – along with other useful recommendations – were also given in our recent webinar, so be sure to check that out for more visuals and explanation.

Modeling Recommendations

1. The Wall/Floor/Roof structure should be layered the way the parts of the framing will be modeled, e.g.: