Posts from "Product news" category

How to quickly design light-gauge steel framing in Revit

AEC professionals in the light-gauge steel (LGS) framing industry face constant pressure to churn out deliverables, like drawings and schedules. Modeling and updating a frame in Revit manually, however, means hours of additional work.

Not to mention the high probability of errors. And mistakes at the design stage result in wasted resources, increasing the carbon footprint of the building project.

Enter AGACAD’s Metal Framing add-ons for Revit. They help fabricators and framed building designers quickly and accurately create, update, and manage LGS framing drawings and schedules by automating Revit tasks.

Increased productivity and fewer mistakes during the building design phase lead to time savings, money savings, and substantially less waste. And less stress, too.

New user interface for Wood Framing CLT Revit add-on coming soon

The user interface of our Wood Framing CLT add-on for Revit is going to be enhanced within the next few weeks! The commands will be collected into a single ribbon and rearranged to make the workflow more intuitive and the UI overall easier to use.

This major new release is part of our ongoing quest to help optimize your work and reduce time spent on manual Revit tasks.

As you can see in the before-and-after image below, it was previously necessary to open separate Revit tools – like Wall+, Floor+, Roof+, Smart Connections, etc. – to access the functionality you needed.

With the new release, that is no longer the case. All functions are now available from a single compact ribbon, conveniently arranged according to the recommended workflow.

Make auditing your BIM data, Revit family browsing and management look easy

Having consulted Revit users from all over the world who work in lots of different types of design companies, I can say that Revit users generally face similar challenges in working with Revit families and managing projects and have needs like these:

Working with Revit families

• A quick and easy way to modify multiple families from different locations in one go;
• to see in one window all the changes to be applied to the families, from the addition of a new Type to a formula change inside a given parameter;
• to check every parameter of owned families and see if there are any duplicates or typos in naming;
• to standardize the parameter scheme in families.

Managing Revit projects

• A way to load, out of multiple Family Types, only the needed ones into a project;
• to easily access all owned families;
• to compare families used in a project to the ones in the family library to see if any changes were made;
• to get detailed analysis of every single element inside a project with access to both visible and hidden parameters.

Sound like something that you or your BIM team would need? We recommend using the BIM Manager module of Smart Browser. A powerful Revit extension, it provides all the features described above and more besides, saving you time and improving results.

Create interlocking precast wall connections easier with this new feature of Smart Walls Revit add-on

We’ve implemented a new feature for our Smart Walls Revit add-on. In addition to controlling gap distances and joins between walls, the tool now lets you manage interlocking precast wall panels, giving you more flexibility in building design modeling.

The new Interlock Split feature modifies enhanced joint connection details between reinforced precast concrete elements and reshapes wall profiles held together by vertical steel dowels or solely by shear friction.

Let’s look at what options you now have with Smart Walls when it comes to interlocking walls in Revit models.

Renewed Revit family library of hangers & supports included with MEP Hangers add-on

Big changes are in store for our MEP Hangers Revit add-on during 2022.

One change has to do with the Revit family library of hangers and supports that comes with the tool. We started from scratch to create elements that would benefit a wide range of users.

Our goals for the renewed library were to supplement the existing library with commonly used hangers and supports, improve functionality, make families more customizable, and enhance their appearance.

Ultimately, we want to make placing hangers and supports in Revit a breeze. So you can work more efficiently and with less stress. That’s what MEP Hangers is for.

Efficiency on site: Logistics in Revit made simple

Looking for a way to manage – even automate – logistics planning for construction projects designed in Revit?

Our Panel Packer application simplifies and speeds up logistics planning in Revit for buildings composed of prefabricated panels (whether framed or precast), making it an ideal solution for architects, structural engineers, builders, manufacturers, and other construction industry professionals.

To put it simply: Sorting, packing, and stacking prefabricated building components in Revit for loading, storage, and transportation has never been easier.

Key benefits

How can you automatically number grids, annotate door swing, sort elements & more in Revit?

If you use Revit every day, you probably face the stress of spending a lot of time on repetitive tasks. Every project has a certain workflow that has to be followed containing unavoidable tasks. Although Revit itself has many features that optimize your work, it doesn’t fill all the gaps. Repetitive manual tasks still consume your time, time that could otherwise be spent creating additional project value.

But there are ways to automate many tasks and accelerate your work.

More flexible and advanced options for structural precast element design in Revit

Our Precast Concrete solution for Autodesk^® Revit^® users has always been a top-class product for increasing productivity. Autodesk recognized this by naming Precast Concrete as an AEC Industry Partner solution back in 2018. Since then, we’ve only continued improving it, implementing lots of updates and expanding its capabilities according to customers’ needs.

At the end of 2021, our team gathered forces to add many new features that had been requested by clients, so that Precast Concrete would continue to impress current and future users, Arkance Group members, Autodesk, and other partners. The features added were based on a questionnaire sent to current users, past requests from Revit users around the world, and years of development experience.

A massive amount of work was completed in two months, resulting in the implementation of many of the features people had requested. And the groundwork was laid for development of a new UI as well, but it will be released later due to interplay with other products.

In this post, we’ll go through what’s new with modeling and then move on to the documentation side.

New version of Excel2R: Load multiple spreadsheets into Revit, plus conditional formatting

Excel2R has been one of our most popular Tools4Revit add-ons for a long time running. And there’s good reason for that. Besides quickly importing MS Excel spreadsheets into Autodesk® Revit® with all formatting intact, users really appreciate that they can sync their Revit data tables with the original spreadsheet at any time because the app maintains the link between Excel and the Revit project.

Through working together with our clients and listening to their requests, we’ve revamped Excel2R so that it can serve their needs even better. The two major enhancements have to do with conditional formatting and loading spreadsheets. Let’s look at the latter first.

New features for Smart Assemblies Revit add-on: Dimensioning, tagging, rebar mass, and more

When we talk about different project phases, shop drawing prep is definitely one of the most time-consuming. 

If you’re working in plain Revit, you have to create many dimensions manually, and placing one dimension takes two clicks, and a given assembly may need upward of 200 dimensions.

Not to mention dropping views on sheets and creating notes or tags for each connection.

We made Smart Assemblies to drastically reduce the time it takes to make shop drawings in Revit. And we’ve been making it even better ever since, so that it can save you hundreds of hours of manual work. So, if you work in Revit and the prefabrication industry, Smart Assemblies is definitely a tool to have.

Now more than ever.

Let’s have a look at the new enhancements that Smart Assemblies has gotten.