What you get
The Power of Profiles
We created the Prototype Studio tool to save time and minimize human error. As a starting point, this tool models floor, wall, and ceiling finishes based on information saved in an external file. Each set of finishes is “keyed” to a room name and number. After placing the rooms and naming them appropriately, the tool quickly models the interior finishes throughout the project. While the time savings will differ from project to project–depending on factors like complexity, scale, and detail–we encountered a 70% reduction in modeling time when we applied Prototype Studio to our own projects. Since all the data is saved externally, the room “profiles” developed in one project can easily be loaded and used in a different project.
Repetition Time Sink
Scaffolding out a set of construction documents in the Revit environment can be gruelingly repetitive. Draw your walls, place your doors, number your doors, place your families, cut some sections, make some elevations, etcetera, etcetera. On a large project, this can consume days (or even weeks) of a project schedule and budget.
Automate It
Our vision is to automate the entire documentation process. As a first step, Prototype Studio includes an assortment of tools that begins to alleviate the burden of repetitive annotation. With a focus on interiors documentation, the tools target interior elevation creation, tagging, and dimensionsing; placing views on sheets; and door numbering. These were chosen as our automation starting point because they offered the greatest immediate time savings on BLT SMRT’s own projects. We believe these tools will dramatically benefit your workflow as we have seen up to a 50% reduction in time investment using the Prototype Studio documentation tools.
List of tools
Number Doors
Quickly and intelligently renumber doors in a project to match the associated room number. Construct a virtual map of the project to better guess the room to which a door belongs. Future development will focus on continued refinement of the supporting algorithm and expanded options.
Rename Elevations
Automatically rename selected interior views based on the room in which they are located. User modifiable inputs include suffix declaration and the “Title on Sheet” parameter. Future versions will include a direction (N, E, S, W) suffix.
Auto-Tag Views
Responds to and improves upon Revit’s built-in “Tag All” tool. Allows element tagging within multiple views, not just one at a time. Additionally, only tags elements that are visible in the frame [we are especially excited about this feature; ask us about it!]. Options include delaration of tag type and orientation. Future versions will expand available tag categories.
Generate Elevations
Generate interior elevations for selected rooms. Users can define the marker type as well as placement strategy to match company standards. Elevations are automatically named to match the containing room. Future versions will refine view cropping strategies and include additional options related to marker placement and view naming.
Place Views
Easily place selected views on a list of specified sheets. Users can select the view margin, packing strategy, flow direction, and titleblock margins. Ongoing development includes expanded and smarter packing strategies and enhanced user interface.
Outline Views
AutoCad graphics without having to use AutoCad. Generates a filled region that traces the edge of a view around elements like floors, walls, ceilings, and casework. Customized line width to match company graphic standards.
