Modifying Geometry in ROBOT and Updating Geometry in REVIT

[stephen.lewis]

Has anyone any experience of using ROBOT as a means of modifying an existing REVIT Model geometry? I currnetly have an existing REVIT model which I successfully export to ROBOT through the extensions manager. I then wish to "tweak" the node coordinate of a column by adjusting the Y,Z ordinates such that it becomes a slanted column. I note that when I resend the model back to REVIT I cannot update the geometry. I note that I can start in ROBOT and create a slanted column and send it to REVIT, but once created, teh same colum geometry cannot be revised in ROBOT and updated in REVIT.

Currnetly my conlcusion is that geometry is not bi-directionally linked between ROBOT and REVIT for existing objects. You either start in ROBOT and export to REVIT after which the geometry is locked, or you start in REVIT and the geometry is locked when you try and edit in ROBOT.

Is it because after creation, a REVIT object has Top and Bottom plane attributess that cannot be modified by ROBOT. I have looked at changing teh property type of teh bar in ROBOT from a "column" defintion to a beam/bar/simple bar but this does not help.

Any thoughts?

cheers

[Tomasz.Fudala]

You can remove/add/delete elements or change a section type. Unfortunately when you change position of your elements in Robot it has no effect in Revit.

[stephen.lewis]

Hi Tomasz, thansk for the reply.

Do you think there is a need to allow for this? I think this would be a great addition,

cheers

[Craig_L]

if its just a few select elements create a file with just the elements that need updating and everything else removed.

Export to DWF

In autocad - extract the x,y,z data for the new/altered elements.

In revit - using revit extensions input with excel spreadsheet.
Input new x,y,z data as indicated for the required elements - set the object type etc during this time.

Verify data - fix any erroneous data.

Model!

Voila, should now be in your model in the right place. All up this process will take you about 10 minutes.

I have retro-modelled an entire steel frame for a fairly complex building from a DWF - analytical export using this method. Out of about 500 sticks of steel I had 5 that didnt want to model....so I was fairly happy with that.

The more elements you are trying to model the harder it becomes to know what member size/material to make them, so just set a constant size across the data and change it once its modelled individually if you have to.

Also worth noting is that your analytical model will either break members that should be continuous or, make elements that should be non-continuous continuous. I had a strut that was about 150m long so of course you should thoroughly check the elements it has modelled using this method. As far as getting into your model quickly tho this is great, and you will save a load of modelling time this way.

I think if you have your 2-way collaboration working with ROBOT you should now be able to update back to your robot model.....and make sure that its modelled in the right place.
I was however, of the impression that you could make changes in robot and update your model from that...so Im not sure why you cant 2-way colloborate with your analytical model and recieve updates, somehow that just doesnt sound right to me that you cant update your model based on changes made in ROBOT. Perhaps do not DELETE the elements within robot but move them and alter them to suit as then the element ID is still retained....

[blackqube]

if its just a few select elements create a file with just the elements that need updating and everything else removed.

Export to DWF

In autocad - extract the x,y,z data for the new/altered elements.

In revit - using revit extensions input with excel spreadsheet.
Input new x,y,z data as indicated for the required elements - set the object type etc during this time.

Verify data - fix any erroneous data.

Model!

nice!

It is really what they say: "the Need is a Mother of all the Inventions"
Great!.

[stephen.lewis]

if its just a few select elements create a file with just the elements that need updating and everything else removed.

Export to DWF

In autocad - extract the x,y,z data for the new/altered elements.

In revit - using revit extensions input with excel spreadsheet.
Input new x,y,z data as indicated for the required elements - set the object type etc during this time.

Verify data - fix any erroneous data.

Model!

Voila, should now be in your model in the right place. All up this process will take you about 10 minutes.

I have retro-modelled an entire steel frame for a fairly complex building from a DWF - analytical export using this method. Out of about 500 sticks of steel I had 5 that didnt want to model....so I was fairly happy with that.

The more elements you are trying to model the harder it becomes to know what member size/material to make them, so just set a constant size across the data and change it once its modelled individually if you have to.

Also worth noting is that your analytical model will either break members that should be continuous or, make elements that should be non-continuous continuous. I had a strut that was about 150m long so of course you should thoroughly check the elements it has modelled using this method. As far as getting into your model quickly tho this is great, and you will save a load of modelling time this way.

I think if you have your 2-way collaboration working with ROBOT you should now be able to update back to your robot model.....and make sure that its modelled in the right place.
I was however, of the impression that you could make changes in robot and update your model from that...so Im not sure why you cant 2-way colloborate with your analytical model and recieve updates, somehow that just doesnt sound right to me that you cant update your model based on changes made in ROBOT. Perhaps do not DELETE the elements within robot but move them and alter them to suit as then the element ID is still retained....

Nice, thanks very much for the tip, good point.

The 2-way collaboration with ROBOT does work well just that once you have sent the geometry from ROBOT to REVIT its a one shot process. You can't revise the geometry in ROBOT, but you can revise almost every other attribute. I often genertae the analytical geoemtry and wireframe outside REVIT as it is much easier to do so. I guess it could be argued that its better if one cannot alter the gometry outside the BIM model but I would prefer to at least have the option to modify the geometry in ROBOT if it is truely bi-directional with REVIT.

[stephen.lewis]

if its just a few select elements create a file with just the elements that need updating and everything else removed.

Export to DWF

In autocad - extract the x,y,z data for the new/altered elements.

In revit - using revit extensions input with excel spreadsheet.
Input new x,y,z data as indicated for the required elements - set the object type etc during this time.

Verify data - fix any erroneous data.

Model!

Voila, should now be in your model in the right place. All up this process will take you about 10 minutes.

I have retro-modelled an entire steel frame for a fairly complex building from a DWF - analytical export using this method. Out of about 500 sticks of steel I had 5 that didnt want to model....so I was fairly happy with that.

The more elements you are trying to model the harder it becomes to know what member size/material to make them, so just set a constant size across the data and change it once its modelled individually if you have to.

Also worth noting is that your analytical model will either break members that should be continuous or, make elements that should be non-continuous continuous. I had a strut that was about 150m long so of course you should thoroughly check the elements it has modelled using this method. As far as getting into your model quickly tho this is great, and you will save a load of modelling time this way.

I think if you have your 2-way collaboration working with ROBOT you should now be able to update back to your robot model.....and make sure that its modelled in the right place.
I was however, of the impression that you could make changes in robot and update your model from that...so Im not sure why you cant 2-way colloborate with your analytical model and recieve updates, somehow that just doesnt sound right to me that you cant update your model based on changes made in ROBOT. Perhaps do not DELETE the elements within robot but move them and alter them to suit as then the element ID is still retained....

The Excel Generator is very limited if you are starting from scratch from a data table of coordinates and member connectivity of a wire frame model. If you have a "pancake building" it works great. What happens though if my members are not beams where the analytical line is not defined to the top of the beam? There is no option for offsetting the analytical line from teh wire frame data. Also what about slanted columns? Typically the wireframe model is composed of just that, wire frame. I dont know which members are columns and which are beams. They are all wire frame elements. It is not realistic to expect someone to filter the members in to beams and columns before running the excel generator

[Craig_L]

The Excel Generator is very limited if you are starting from scratch from a data table of coordinates and member connectivity of a wire frame model. If you have a "pancake building" it works great. What happens though if my members are not beams where the analytical line is not defined to the top of the beam? There is no option for offsetting the analytical line from teh wire frame data. Also what about slanted columns? Typically the wireframe model is composed of just that, wire frame. I dont know which members are columns and which are beams. They are all wire frame elements. It is not realistic to expect someone to filter the members in to beams and columns before running the excel generator

I have a LISP routine (for autocad) that will extract the BEAM data, and the COLUMN data seperately. Otherwise the only way would be, yes, go through and hand check every piece of steel modelled (which I suggest you do anyways if using the data input method as the odd one or two WILL go haywire or will not model properly. Without the lisp life would be hard trying to work out which data string relates to which element...This is why I was saying for a large model you need to set a standard size and material to all of your elements and then go back and update the sizes manually, its definately not ideal but I dont think theres actually any other way, unless you were to extract the data one piece at a time, which sounds like it would take longer than individually updating the pieces you need...

Also I cant see why sloped columns wouldnt work this way