How Do You BIM - lets take a look at ReCap Mesh

[#1]

The first thing you need to know is that you don’t need Revit 2026 to use Recap Mesh. If your project is in an older version of Revit, you can still use this awesome tool if you have access to ReCap 2026. I currently have five versions of Revit on my Laptop. After installing Recap 2026, I had access to Recap Mesh back to 2023.

Before you start, know what you're after. Chances are, you don’t need the whole cloud, you're just looking for a couple of things. In my case, I'm usually looking for piping or ductwork locations.  All the rest is nice to see, but not needed in my mesh.

The first thing I do is make a copy of the point cloud file. I'm going to be doing a lot of editing to remove content I don’t need to see, and I don’t want to risk editing the original. Depending on what I'm after, I may make several more copies of the point cloud so I can focus on specific areas and edit them as needed.

In this example, I made a copy of the ceiling content and another for the back wall where the equipment is.

• If multiple files are needed, once the meshes are made, they can be recombined in Revit when done.

Once I have my copy made, I'll open the point cloud file and use the Limit Box to focus on only the necessary information.

Now here’s where the fun begins (sarcasm?). In your copied files, use the limit box to focus on the areas with the content you need. In the last model I cleaned up, I had a ceiling and 2 wall models (North and East) because that is where the pipe and equipment in those areas were that I needed to display.

TIP: When cleaning up the points, use SHIFT to add to selections & use ALT to remove from selections

To start making the Mesh, select the New Recap Mesh tool from the sidebar in ReCap. Once selected, you have two options, Cloud or Local. If you have a small model or limited content you want to convert to mesh, you can pick the Local option. In my example, I am using the workshop sample file that comes with ReCap.

 There are only a handful of pipes and a couple of pieces of equipment, so using the Local option works fine. If the point cloud file is larger or more complex, you may consider taking advantage of using the Cloud option.

The cloud option does use tokens, and the “Mesh Location” needs to be on an “Autodesk Connected Drive” (i.e. ACC) when using the cloud. In my playing with the tool, I found the Local worked faster and provided a cleaner result.

• On the Left is the Cloud processed image, it had an estimated time of  39min and one token (it only took about 5 min).
• On the right is the Local processed image, which took about 10 seconds and no tokens.

The cloud option has limited customization settings. The Local option has Advanced Mesh Settings and Workflow Preferences that you can explore. For this example, I just use the default Local Processing settings.

Once processed, the Mesh can be opened in the Mesh Editor. The editor offers tools to refine and clean up the mesh, as well as the ability to filter and classify the elements. The filter and classification options allow you to separate different systems and components, which provides additional visibility options.

After the Mesh has been filtered and classified, it can be exported to various formats for use outside of ReCap. If multiple classifications have been created, they can be exported as separate files or all together.

The default Mesh format is a .RCMR extension. The ReCap Mesh tool in Revit only reads this format. 

With your Recap Mesh made and the .RCMR file created, you can now bring that into Revit and use it to see where the content is located in the model. Next, I’ll show how to bring the .RCMR file into Revit, set categories to content, set levels, and use the Mesh to recreate the content in Revit.

[hmunsell]

LOL so the blog was estimated as a 3min 30sec read time... so I did beat the 90sec mark after all 🎉.