Posts from "Smart Assemblies" category

AGACAD Advances | Mid-Year 2022

The latest edition of our newsletter AGACAD Advances has several items of interest, including the Japan installment of the Global BIM Survey we began last year and two client success stories focusing on wood framing in Revit.

Here are some highlights:

• Global BIM Surveys about Japan
• New product released: Smart Documentation
• Success stories from clients who use Wood Framing out of the USA and the Czech Republic
• Upcoming webinar season kick-off
• MEP Hangers enhancements

Read on for more!

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Quickly generate & control Revit project documentation [WEBINAR]

Throughout the years we’ve been optimizing BIM workflows, one thing has not changed. 2D documentation and shop drawings are the final results that building designers and manufacturers need to put out for the prefabrication and construction processes to move forward.

As BIM becomes an integral part of the AEC industry and workflows quickly adapt to it, we still need to produce many documents and detailed drawings, whether plans, sections, elevations and other project data.

Communication in the industry still hinges on documentation and its precision.

New feature for Smart Assemblies Revit add-on: Rebar images for schedules

Creating schedules in Revit is a useful way to display information from your model and prepare documentation. Flexible and suitable for multiple construction sectors, schedules can be managed using tool functions to distinguish and highlight relevant data.

From a structural perspective, when information needs to be displayed graphically, Revit users can show rebar shapes as images in a Rebar Schedule. Creating rebar schedules in native Revit that contain certain rebar images is a tedious process, though, as a typical Revit model consists of rebar elements of many types and properties.

That’s why we made a new feature to automate the process of making rebar images. The function to ‘Create Rebar Images’ is part of our Smart Assemblies Revit add-on, and it offers several, easy-to-use options for creating rebar images with just a few clicks.

AGACAD software released for Revit 2023

We’re pleased to announce that our BIM Solutions and Tools4Revit Add-ons are all ready to use with Revit 2023! Our BIM Application Engineers have tested the TOOLS4BIM DOCK against the latest Revit version to ensure complete compatibility.

Follow the instructions below to get our tools up and running in Revit 2023.

How to launch AGACAD’s Revit add-ons via Dynamo

The visual programming interface of Dynamo enables designers with the tools to extract, manipulate, and move Building Information Model (BIM) data in ways that make optimized workflows accessible. Dynamo for Revit opens up an unprecedented parametric approach to projects.

With Dynamo as a visual programming tool, algorithms are connected to Revit’s parametric database, which determines conceptual design development via formulas, algorithms, and geometric functions and integration with Revit for optimization, automation, and documentation.

Revit users who design, build, operate, and maintain built environments often utilize Revit plugins to manage BIM data and enhance workflows. Now, it’s possible to engage the functionality of AGACAD’s BIM Solutions and Tools4Revit Add-ons while using Dynamo. Here’s how!

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 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.

New feature for Smart Dimensions: Dimension to nearest Revit element

Placing dimensions on views in Autodesk® Revit® is a very time-consuming process, but it’s got to be done in order to have drawings to send to the manufacturer. So, the faster it can be done, the better.

Our auto-dimensioning technology for Revit – Smart Dimensions – is useful for wood and metal frames, precast elements, and more, but individual drawings are a bit different from plans, sections, and elevations. So, we have updated Smart Dimensions so that it gives better results in those views for dimensioning to the nearest surrounding elements.

Helping BIM professionals in the AEC industry automate their daily tasks is our aim, and this new feature of Smart Dimensions will definitely help in this regard.

Dimension to nearest

This new feature allows elements to be measured from the nearest grids, levels, floors, walls, etc.

What are Revit assembly views? Pros & Cons

Documentation in Revit is relatively easy and intuitive. Switching between views, creating new views, visibility settings, filters, annotation tools – you have everything you need right there in Revit.

When it comes to presenting your model elements on sheets, there are two ways to go about it: model views and assembly views.

Model views are sections, elevations, detail views, callouts, floor plans, etc. where all model elements are visible. Unless, of course, elements are filtered, hidden, or Category is switched off.

The other way is Assembly views. For those, you create assemblies from selected elements, then you can make views of the assemblies, and only isolated assembly elements will be visible.

In this post, I’m going to look at the ups and downs of using assembly views. And show a couple of solutions to eliminate some manual work in Revit.

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.