Advertisement

Friday, September 22, 2017

Free BIM Navigator – Quality Inspection and Management of Parameters (Updated)

From the AGACAD website:

BIM software for quality inspection and management of models

BIM Navigator helps you to quickly find elements in your Revit® model and explore their parameters by means of a Navigation tree and Parameter table. The same parameter list is used to generate the Navigation tree and populate the Parameter table.



Benefits & Features

  • Work quickly. No lag, no waiting – even with 50,000 elements in your project.
  • Available parameters: Instance, Type, Shared, Host, HostType & Calculated.
  • Edit Instance and Type parameters from the table.
  • See the element counts on each filter.
  • Find elements by matching parameter text.
  • Export Parameter Table to CSV file & Open in MS Excel.

Compatible with REVIT 2019, 2018


Navigation tree

The tree is built from a user-specified sequence of parameters. Each tree node filters down elements based on all parent parameter values. Changing/reordering the parameter list allows you to group and filter project elements according to your needs.

Parameter table

The table shows elements filtered by the selected tree node. You can reorder columns and rows as needed and order elements by any column. If you select an element in the table, the corresponding elements in the project will be selected. Ctrl+A selects all elements in the table.

Toolbar

The toolbar contains a list of functions you can perform on the table or selected elements.
Is there a function that would help your workflow that is missing from the toolbar? Request it, and we’ll try to include it in the Pro version, which will contain specialized functions for improved productivity.


Parameter Location

There are Instance Elements and Type Elements. Some elements have “host“ Elements. E.g. A Window is hosted by a Wall. A Wall is an Instance Element and has a Type; hence, the HostInstance and HostType parameters, which are native to Revit. This lets you see a Wall’s height when looking at a Window in the Wall.

Shared Parameters

In the parameter window, there is a checkbox column indicating if the parameter „IsShared“. Shared parameter columns are colored aquatic blue in the Parameter table.

Calculated Parameters

You can filter and see calculated parameters, but you can‘t change them. They are READ ONLY because there are no actual Revit® parameters backing them. They also make BIM Navigator slower because it takes time to calculate parameter values for all the elements that you want to see. Thus, for enhanced app speed, avoid using calculated parameters whenever possible.

Parameters fall in one of these categories:
  • Hidden deep inside Revit® core; or
  • Existing Revit® parameter (or a set of parameters) with extra calculations on top.

Descriptions of Calculated parameters:
  • Level — Some elements have a Level parameter; some don’t. Even if an element doesn’t have a Level parameter, it is still on some level. E.g. Furniture. If the element has an explicit “Level“ parameter, BIM Navigator uses it directly; otherwise it uses heuristics to determine the level of the object.
  • Room Name — Elements are usually in rooms, and rooms have names. Again, we use heuristics to determine the room for the Element. Window and Door Elements have a Room Calculation point. If it is set, this parameter will use it as basis.
  • Space Name — Same as for a Room Name, but for Spaces.
  • Coordinate_[X,Y,Z] — These are XYZ offset values from the project origin point.

Recommendations when working with large projects
  • Disable “Tree Reload” when Editing parameter. Use the “Refresh Tree” button instead.
  • Limit the number of working categories.
  • Avoid using "Calculated" parameters whenever possible.
  • Prefer placing Calculated parameters at the end of the parameter list.
  • Place element identifiers at the end of the parameter list. They are useless to filter individual elements.

Related blog posts

View all >>




BIM Navigator is brought to you by AGACAD. It's free.

This add-in is compatible with Revit 2019 and 2018.

There's more information available on the AGACAD website.

Updates
  1. October 4, 2018
    1. Changed to a free product
    2. Updated with current information from AGACAD website

No comments: