Computational Logic In Families

[j0hnp]

I would love to see an idea like "Project Honeycomb" be implemented in the Revit family editor. Zach Kron previewed this internal plugin at RTCNA14 and it looked awesome!! This would further expand the Dynamo to Revit infrastructure, just like Dynamo player.

Embedded computational logic in families would be infinitely powerful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eu-1HzMb7U

[Anonymous]

 Q"Why can't Revit do this?" 

A" But you can! Just use the API!"

Response - "Fine, can you pay me to take 4 years off to learn C#?" 

Having only just discovered 'Project Honeycomb' - yes, I'm all for it! Dynamo I can understand. API I cannot. I trained as an Architect, not a Computer Scientist, and it seems that more and more of BIM is focussing on BCSc graduates instead of drafters. Dynamo is at least no harder than standard Family creation (an artform in and of itself), and us mere mortals can use it reasonably successfully. (At uni they taught me PASCAL because that was The Language Of The Future. Thanks)

Actual real Architects who use Revit / BIM are astonishingly rare. In the 50 person, heavily BIM-focussed firm I'm in, only TWO staff are both Registered Architects and in any way skilled in BIM. We have a lot of juniors - yes and they are skilled - but they are years from Registration!

Back on topic - You can already do some neat-o tricks using Boolean algorithms in Families (let me tell you about my one-line even-odd detector!) but you can't do TEXT HANDLING?. I've wanted this hundreds of times, it would save me resorting to clunky Excel spreadsheets and Family type-txt-files (there's a 1970's 'good enuf' solution!)

Risks: 

Dangers of built-in coding? it's no more dangerous that inexperienced Family creators making 14-level nested abominations.

File corruption? Revit does that automatically if you look at it funny, or use it on a file system with any form of latency. 

Complexity? Have you tried building a Family for a set of folding doors? How about handling all the types of doors in a hospital? Families are already massively complex if you want to get them right - a little bit more won't hurt!

[bosborne]

This would be worth it just for the capability to concatenate, the ability to convert numbers to strings, and the ability to run boolean tests on text (but self aware families and all the other goodies would be awesome too...).

[Anonymous]

Is there a better quality audio on the video?

[thebimman]

Completely agree. A long time has passed since it was demo'ed. It's time to make active steps into bringing this concept to market. The ability to have a door know how far off a wall based on accessibility codes, or adjust its type based on the fire rating of the wall is key for the AECO to capitalize on BIM and automation in design and more importantly design documentation. Please bring it to market.

[j0hnp]

@Anonymous, unfortunately there is not a better quality video. This was from an RTC presentation and they do not record them. We are actually quite lucky to even have this, because it is also uncommon to even have a poor recording. 

[lukas-tunka]

It will be great to have at least something similar to Inventor iLogic.