Manufacturer's equipment & schedules

[sec-k]

I'd like to open up a discussion regarding the use of manufacturer created content and scheduling. It appears that more and more manufacturers are providing Revit families for their products. For example, Trane, York, and McQuay have created some of their rooftop air handlers in Revit. That is great and I would like to see more manufacturers join in. However, I'm not quite sure how to approach trying to schedule these items within a project. Currently, I have standard equipment schedules created within my template file and have the associated shared parameters in my family files. For example, all of the rooftop units I have created have the same shared parameters. When I drop in a rooftop unit, all the parameters match up to the schedules and I just edit the data as needed. The issue arises with manufacturer created families. The ones I have seen come with an associated schedule and shared parameter file. I feel this is going to create a major headache if I have to bring in manufacturer's schedule and link in their shared parameter files in order to schedule a piece of equipment. Obviously, there is no way to standardize the parameters, so what is the best way to handle this? The same goes for light fixtures and anything else that would typically be schedules within a Revit project.

[KyleB_Autodesk]

Jason,
Excellent point, and something we are working to resolve in the least painful way. I'll shoot you an e-mail offline to discuss our intial efforts.

Cheers,
Kyle B
Sustainable Design Product Manager

[c_gates]

Kyle, if possible, could you send me a copy of that email?? This is an issue we're very interested in as well!

Thanks much,
Curt Gates Edited by: cgates on Oct 21, 2008 5:31 PM

[jsun10]

Great discussion as I just downloaded content from McQuay and noticed an important message stating:

IMPORTANT:
The majority of parameters on these models are Shared Parameters which have been defined and endorsed by Autodesk with the express purpose of being used by multiple HVAC equipment manufacturers as they produce Revit content going forward. This will allow equipment values from participating manufacturers to all be automatically included in the same schedules.

This sounds good, does anyone know what the “Endorsed Shared Parameters” are, and should we be using them instead of our own shared parameter file? Does this mean that we have to use the schedule and shared parameter file provided with the equipment? Our Mechanical group created a shared parameter file which will be used throughout all of our offices. Does this make sense for us to do if we are going to have to modify the family once we obtain it for scheduling purposes? I can see us having to modify the family to match our shared parameter file. Any feedback is appreciated.

Jason

[James.Klatt]

I would like to receive that e-mail as well. We are currently finishing a project about 300,000 square feet and it is our first project we were hesitant to use revit for scheduling and this is one of the reasons why. Any info you can provide would be greatly appreciated for use on future projects.

[gomez]

I would also like to see the emails for this because this concerns my company as well. Thanks

[gomez]

Would you please include me in this discussion because this is important to my company as well.

[w.neuok]

Please include me on this email too. We are suppose to start a job soon that we are needing to do in revit alone and this information is critical in the direction we will be going. Edited by: W.Neuok on Oct 31, 2008 12:24 PM

[rusmwb]

Kyle,
Please email me the Autodesk endorsed parameters as well.
Thanks,
Mark

[embolisim]

Sounds like a good topic for your blog Kyle. (which I haven't looked at for months.....spankings for me)
Don't tell them too much though, some of us think we are smart enough to work it out for ourselves & get a running start on the compettition 😛

[mazzonipb]

I am creating content for my company and I think it would be very helpful if I had the "Autodesk endorsed parameters" file but I can't seem to find it. Can someone e-mail me a copy or point me in the right direction of where to find it?

Thanks,
Paul

[Alex.Escobar]

Are the "Autodesk endorsed parameters" available online yet.
Could someone please email them to me as well.

Thanks,
Alex