Introduction:
We have come across a free tool that automates the data extraction from Revit. The extracted data could be used to check if users Revit models are within the company standards or conform to the set-up BIM standards. In this blog we’ll go through the process of the data extraction and validation.
Revit Plugin Installation Process:
The link to the plug in is found on the Corbis Studio company website: https://www.corbisstudio.com/landing_corbissniffer Note that I looked at the Revit App store and the app is not listed.
Visiting the link, you’ll need to complete your details to be able to download the app. Once done you’ll be notified that the download link was send via email.
The email has links to 2017 to 2019 versions of the plugin. We’ll installed the 2019 version.
The app is very small and the installation is a one-click process.
Opening Revit 2019 you might be asked to how Revit treats the newly installed app. I select the “Always Load” option to have the app loaded every time I start Revit. Then I opened the Basic Sample Project and I found the app under the Add-In tab.
Selecting either of the two buttons a registration dialogue box appears and you’ll need to register the app.
Once you completed the fields and clicked submit it registered and provides feedback.
You are now ready to use the app.
Usage:
There are two icons on the ribbon: and RVTSniffer and BatchProcessUI. The RVTSniffer is used for the exporting the current drawings data. The BatchProcessUI is used to export single or multiple Revit files but selecting them from a Windows directory.
Using the RVTSniffer:
You would use this tool to gather and/or export the correct Revit file’s data. Selecting the RVTSniffer tool it looks at the current drawing and opens up the following dialogue box. This dialogue opens up instantly.
If you click on topic on the left it displays the information on the right. In the image below I selected the Topic under “1.Native” and the file name, size and Revit version gets displayed as information.
If I look at the “19. Families” topic you see that most columns wrt sizes etc have a “not calculated” text as information. If you select on the “Process Families” tool it will look at the families in the project and complete the information. Note that this process will take a couple of minutes.
To process the 90 families in the file took under 2 min. Just make sure you don’t disturb the process.
Once the processing is done you’ll see the complete list of information of each family displayed.
You can also export the information to a excel file for further checking and analysis.
Once you have selected the Export tool you name the file and export. Opening the Excel file thought Windows Explorer, you have a similar menu as in the Revit addin.
You can select different tabs at the bottom of the excel sheets to view the information.
Usage of BatchProcessUI:
You would use this tool to select multiple files to process. Selecting the icon you get greeted with the following dialogue box. Select the “Select files…” option.
Once you have selected the files you want tot process select the Output folder to write the excel sheet to. You also have the option to Process the Families as discussed earlier.
Once you click on the Process button it will work and then a dialogue box appears with the result. If you have selected the option to “Calculated Family Sizes” this might take a while as its processing each Family item. Otherwise it should be fairly quick.
If you now look in the Output directory, you’ll see both Revit files’ Excel sheets.
Conclusion:
This tool can certainly be used to check your Revit file from a different angle, for example the Excel platform point of view. You can check for example inconstant directory values for all the external links, Warnings on objects, Elements numbers per Workset, Views not placed on Sheets and many other checks. As the data is in Excel you can set up certain rules and tolerance checks to auto-check your Revit data.