Automating design with advanced digital tools

by Thomas Lund | May 28, 2021 | 4 min read

Automating design with digital tools
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BIM Academy has recently been enlisted to use digital tools in conjunction with our in-depth digital expertise to streamline the delivery of a highly complex, state-of-the-art venue space.

The resulting design is a true demonstration of how far construction technology has come, and one that would have been difficult to achieve without the use of advanced technology.

It is all too common for designers and AEC industry professionals in general to repeat workflows and processes from previous projects within design authoring software to deliver design information. Whilst there may be a human tendency to ‘stick to what we know’, we often find that these existing workflows are full of manual and repetitive tasks that take time away from value adding project activities. It is these value adding activities that make projects successful.

Using technology to audit the design and visual programming to automate tasks within modelling software, we were able to maximise efficiency and reduce the number of manual processes.

One script we developed aided with the production of room loaded information, a typical exercise and requirement on architectural projects. Room loaded information can vary in requirements, however, typically includes a floor plan, ceiling plan, elevations and, optionally, a 3D view of each room. This manual creation of views within Revit (an architectural modelling and information production software) is a very time-consuming exercise for designers.

The typical procedure / workflow to produce room loaded information views mentioned above, is listed below:

Elevations:

  1. Place an elevation marker in each room and manually activate each side
  2. Manually crop each elevation (typically min. of 4) down to extents of room
  3. Rename each view to correspond with room number and name – by default a generic name is assigned
  4. Apply a view template to each elevation view (to control visibility/colours/appearance)

Floor and ceiling plans:

  1. Duplicate an existing floor plan/ceiling plan of a level within the project
  2. For each room required, repeat step one as many times as needed
  3. Manually crop each plan down to suit extents of room in x and y axis
  4. Rename each view to correspond to the room number and name – by default a generic name is assigned
  5. Apply a view template to each plan view (to control visibility/colours/appearance)

3D Views:

  1. Duplicate a 3D view
  2. For each room required, repeat step one as many times as needed
  3. Manually crop each 3D view suit extents of room in x, y and z axis
  4. Rename each view to correspond to the room number and name – by default a generic name is assigned
  5. Apply a view template to each 3D view (to control visibility/colours/appearance)

To improve this process, we developed a new visual programming script which has allowed us to automate the manual process described above. The script allows a Revit user to press ‘play’ and be prompted with a simple and user-friendly custom interface to select rooms within their model to generate the seven views per room. The script generated all views required, automatically cropped views, automatically named with room number and name, and automatically applied view templates.

The automation of this previously manual task allowed for cost savings as well as substantial time savings, most importantly, freeing up resource to be spent on adding real value adding processes.

To create 1400 views for 200 rooms, it would have previously taken approximately five minutes per room to complete, which is overall 16 hours and 40 minutes. Utilising the new script we developed, for the same amount of views, 200 rooms were completed within a total time of 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

It is clear that the introduction of digital tools on this project allowed for significant time savings, streamlining the design process. The advancement of digital tools such as this allows us to think more creatively and bring those visions from human mind to life on the screen!

Using technology in this way help clients identify areas they’d like to change before construction starts. The earlier you identify these changes, the more convenient and cost-effective the process becomes for everyone involved.

For more information, please contact Thomas Lund.