BIM Blog

Multi-Framing with Model Groups in Revit [WEBINAR]

Would you like to speed up the framing, drawing, and scheduling process for your wood- and metal-framed designs in Revit? Model groups and multi-framing can bring you major time-savings. See how in our free 30-minute webinar on March 18^th.

Intended for AEC professionals who design timber walls, roofs, or floors in Revit, the focus of this webinar will be on placing elements into groups and creating building modules. We’ll also show how framing and sheathing for standalone building elements can be produced simultaneously using the multi-framing function in our Wood Framing and Metal Framing design software. This is a good chance for architects, designers, and structural engineers to catch up with the latest advances in the timber and light-gauge steel framing industry and see how the processes of framing, drawing, and scheduling can be optimized.

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 designers of wood-framed buildings, architects, engineers, BIM managers, and out-of-box Revit users.

AGACAD celebrates 30 years of growth & innovation

In February we celebrated our 30^th birthday as a company! Our thanks go out to everyone who has been with us throughout these years.

This momentous anniversary came amidst big changes. As announced last month, AGACAD has joined ARKANCE, a digital-transformation leader in Europe. Our readiness to become part of this group was the result of long years of steady effort. The BIM solutions that we create are valued worldwide because they ensure more productive design, fabrication, and contracting work.

Since its inception in 1991, AGACAD has grown from a group of like-minded individuals to an international company, step-by-step approaching the strategic goal of working for the success of the construction sector. From AutoCAD to Revit, from software representation to software development, purposeful steps have borne fruit. Launched in 2008, AGACAD’s BIM Solutions and Revit add-ons are now valued around the world for increasing efficiency in design, fabrication, and contracting.

Many thanks to all our clients and partners for trusting and choosing us. We also sincerely thank our employees for all their efforts and achievements. With the help of all of you, we have become a strong team that is recognized in Lithuania and beyond for its expertise and driving spirit. May the coming years be full of important initiatives, major tasks, and the courage and resolve to make them a reality!

How to Place Grout Tubes Automatically in Precast Designs in Revit [VIDEO]

Grout tubes are used in the construction of precast concrete buildings for connecting elements like walls, tilt-up panels, beams, and columns. They’re also known as grout ducts or sleeves. The way it works is a starter bar (also known as a lap bar or dowel) is precast in one element, say, a wall panel, and then on site that dowel slides into a sleeve that was precast into, say, another panel. The sleeve – typically made of plastic or corrugated steel – is then filled with concrete to form a connection between the wall panels.

Since precast designs can contain quite a lot of grout tubes, placing them is certainly worth automating. That’s where the Smart Connections feature of our Precast Concrete BIM Solution for Revit comes in. It has options that you can configure so that grout tubes will be placed in walls automatically, reducing the amount of time you need to spend on repetitive, manual tasks.

Here’s the workflow that I would recommend. Steps are also laid out below the video.

How to Set Up Automatic Dimensions using Smart Assemblies

With our Smart Assemblies BIM tool, you can quickly place dimensions on many kinds of Revit elements. In this post, we will look at precast walls since walls are one of the most time-consuming elements to detail. The same approach could be used for beams, columns, floors, and other elements. Smart Assemblies cuts out a ton of clicking that goes along with preparing shop drawings in Revit, reducing BIM stress and leaving you with more time for actual design work.

No matter where in the world a client may live, one thing that many of their drawings have in common is that two different dimension styles need to be used in the same view. And with Smart Assemblies that is no problem. Just use the Smart Dimensions configurations.

Let’s walk through an example to see how to set up the configurations, using a precast wall as an example.

Wall Reinforcement for Precast Concrete Design in Revit [WEBINAR]

In this free 30-minute webinar we’ll show how to model rebar for precast walls in Revit automatically using the Wall Reinforcement tool that’s a feature of our signature Precast Concrete design software. Sign up and save your seat for March 4^th!

Modeling reinforcement in precast and in-situ walls in Revit is time-consuming, so to make it easier we developed the Wall Reinforcement addon. It’s part of our Precast Concrete BIM Solution, which streamlines the whole design process based on the workflows and insights of precast experts around the world – and eliminates myriad mouse-clicks in the process.

The Wall Reinforcement tool can place external and internal reinforcement, straight and diagonal bars, stirrups around openings and perimeters, plus reinforcement for wall corners. The tool will recognize the shape of the wall and place rebar based on the configurations you set. If you have a sandwich or double wall, you can apply different rebar settings for the respective layers of the wall.

You can model strands like in the USA, perimeter rebar as in Australia, seismic joints as in Dubai, and sandwich walls as in Norway. So, come and join the webinar to start modeling real rebar in your Revit projects.

Smart Browser: Collect & Control Revit Families [WEBINAR]

In this free 30-minute webinar we’ll show how to use Smart Browser to store, preview, use, and modify any of your external Revit families while keeping them in one easy-to-access list. Sign up and save your seat for February 25^th!

Since Smart Browser has modules that provide varying degrees of access and control, the tool is useful for engineers or architects working with private family libraries and even more so for BIM managers who have to control company-wide Revit family libraries.

In this webinar, we will cover the module that has the widest range of functionality: Smart Browser BIM Manager and its satellite BIM Tree Manager. These BIM and Revit project management tools have been developed and honed over the course of years based on the experience of the most advanced users around the world.

If you’d like to better control Revit families in libraries and within projects, then this a webinar you’ll want in on. Register below!

AGACAD joins European digital-transformation leader ARKANCE

AGACAD is pleased to announce that it is joining ARKANCE – Europe’s fast-growing leader in the digital transformation of construction and manufacturing. ARKANCE has acquired AGACAD in what is its 10th acquisition of a top European CAD/BIM technology company in the last two years.

“Joining ARKANCE provides the resources to realize our vision of creating tomorrow’s AEC much more fully. It will let us serve existing AGACAD clients even better and enable us to implement our powerful BIM solutions for major international players,” says AGACAD Managing Director Donatas Aksomitas.

The transaction initiates a new stage of strategic growth for AGACAD, which has always been a pioneer in digital technologies for the building industry since it was founded 30 years ago.

“AGACAD has proven its ability to develop world-class, innovative digital technologies that offer new possibilities and large productivity gains for building and manufacturing industries. We look forward to leveraging that expertise, including but going beyond their current portfolio of solutions, to support clients in their digitalization journey,” says Gregoire Arranz, the CEO of ARKANCE.

AGACAD’s Managing Director stresses the company will maintain its driving spirit of ‘Building BIM Together’ and ‘Sharing BIM Advances’. It will continue directly serving its clients worldwide and ensuring the same accessible, attentive and flexible support and training that clients appreciate. The company also intends to continue working with its existing partners, agents and resellers.

Read the full text of today’s announcement.

New Feature added to Wall Reinforcement Revit Tool: Automated Rebar for Wall Corners

Walls can be connected in different ways, depending on the country and type of wall, whether it’s precast or cast-in-place. It takes quite a lot of time to model connection bars for walls in Revit, so we went ahead and automated it based on examples that some of our clients from seismic regions sent in.

This new update for our Wall Reinforcement tool lets you define how rebar should be placed at wall corner connections, so it eliminates the task of modelling those connections manually. One more reducer of BIM stress, right there. Use it on cast-in-situ or precast concrete walls. Here‘s a quick look at what you can do now for wall corners automatically.

Wood & Metal Framing in Revit: 5 New Features

The latest release of our Wood Framing and Metal Framing BIM Solutions includes five useful new features for Revit users. Our thanks go out to those BIM and Revit experts with whom we’ve been in contact to bring these to fruition. Together, we’re building BIM up and making it better for the good of the industry.

Let’s take a look at each of the updates.

WATCH our webinar (February 18, 2021) that goes through these and other updates.

Framing in Groups

This feature lets you frame walls in groups that may be replicated and mirrored throughout a project. Needless to say, it can save architects and designers copious amounts of time, especially with large framing projects in Revit.

Wood & Metal Framing Wall software for Revit: Framing in Groups [New Feature]

We‘ve updated our Wood Framing Wall and Metal Framing Wall BIM Solutions for Revit with an important new feature called Framing in Groups. This major enhancement comes from working with top experts in the framing design industry and will especially benefit Revit users who work with large projects or projects comprising mirrored building parts. In the spirit of sharing BIM advances, we bring it to you now.

The Framing in Groups command allows you to frame walls in groups, a valuable feature because walls that are grouped may be used to repeat and also mirror framings many times throughout a project. Incorporating this into the framing workflow has the potential to save architects and designers a lot of time.

Please note that this update to our framing software is part of the final release for Revit 2019. Our programmers are turning their attention to the Revit 2020 (and 2021 and upcoming 2022) version, which means that the 2019 version of our software will be no longer be supported.

Watch our webinar about multi-framing:

There are five new functions that fall under the Framing in Groups feature. Let‘s take a look at each one as enumerated in the image above.