Analysis extensions in Forma – Get involved!

[magnhild.gjestvang]

Autodesk Forma has recently started enabling third parties to collectively enhance Forma with new capabilities and solutions. We believe there is a better way to design our cities and want to engage the community to unify teams, workflows, and data. As we continue to test and expand, we are now looking for collaborators for analysis extensions - both extension authors and users of Forma that would like to test and use new extensions. 

Why are we doing this? 

• We see that to be able to customize and localize our analyses to provide the best value for our customers, we need to leverage the existing community.  
• We are at the start of this journey, and we want to enable the AEC and software developer communities to play a role in shaping the future of Autodesk Forma. 

What will it do for Autodesk Forma users? 

• Access extensions to achieve better outcomes for their projects than with the core offering of Autodesk Forma 
• Solve specific needs by creating or having others create tailored extensions 

What will it do for extension authors? 

• Access to the data models and analysis results of Autodesk Forma through APIs or SDKs to build extension on.  

• Offer extensions to all or selected Forma users to market or monetize an offering or service 

Example opportunities  

We want to hear from you! 

We are looking for extension authors that want to integrate an analysis extension to Autodesk Forma and users that want to test extensions! We will select a few partners and users to work with on some specific use cases to test and release the first analysis extensions on top of Forma.  

• Are you a Forma user and do you miss an analysis in Forma? What analysis would you like to add?  
• Are you someone that would like to develop a new analysis or integrate an existing analysis on top of Forma?  

We want to hear from you! Please get in touch in the thread on this post or by email to forma-api-beta@autodesk.com 

[Chris_D_UK]

I'd love to see something like TestFit as part of Forma

[kronz]

😀

[Chris_D_UK]

TestFit Parking is there, sure... but not the rest of TestFit, which has much better generative design capabilities for site planning than the native Forma tools.

[AntonioCampanario]

Not sure if this should be an extention or a basic function within Forma.

Adding a 'wind hazard' feature would be a great addition to the wind analysis!

[SteveDFThorne]

I would like to start in Revit and then go to Forma not the reverse as the plugin currently supports. It would come in as a building object though not just a shade object

[per.wessel.noreCT6K6]

Hi!

Can you elaborate on what a potential "wind hazard" feature would be?

Kind regards, Per

[mrheBVMDH]

Does the API expose retrieving the analysis results performed in Forma and using them in an external application? 

I would like to set up a generative design pipeline in Rhino/Grasshopper, send the outputs to Forma, run the native wind/solar/acoustic/etc. studies and send the results back to feed into my fitness function.

[AntonioCampanario]

Wind hazard study is an addition to the wind comfort study.

As far as is known, the same data are used for this, but with a different calculation.

For example, it is also important for the wind hazard what percentage of the hours per year these wind speeds occur in order to determine whether this poses a hazard or whether this is acceptable. See below the translation of the tables from a NEN8100 wind analysis.

PS the NEN8100 uses the NPR6097 wind rose, not sure if this would give the same results using the fixed GlobalWindAtlas3.0 wind rose.

Would you like me to send an existing (Dutch) wind comfort & hazard study by PM?

[guillaume_lassiat]

Hi! 

This functionality isn't yet included in the Beta Release of the Revit Add-in, but it will be included in a future release version. We thank you for your feedback 🙂

[natasha.catunda]

Yep, retrieving the analysis results is very important to me as well, in fact it is a killer criteria. 

[per.wessel.noreCT6K6]

Hi!

Thank you for elaborating. I would love to see your existing wind comfort and hazard studies. Please send them to per.wessel.nore@autodesk.com

Kind regards, Per

[magnhild.gjestvang]

Hi! Not currently, but we will explore different options to do so! What level of detail would you need/how granularly would you need to be able to map the results, e.g. none (for all analysed buildings in the project), for a building, for a facade, for a unit wall? If you would like to share, it would be interesting to hear more about the most relevant use cases you envision.

Best regards, Magnhild 

[mrheBVMDH]

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@magnhild.gjestvang wrote:

Hi! Not currently, but we will explore different options to do so! What level of detail would you need/how granularly would you need to be able to map the results, e.g. none (for all analysed buildings in the project), for a building, for a facade, for a unit wall? If you would like to share, it would be interesting to hear more about the most relevant use cases you envision.

Best regards, Magnhild 

---

Depending on the project, I'd like to choose the level of granularity. When working on a masterplan, it'd be sufficient to retrieve aggregated results for the whole site. When working on a single massing optimization, it might be beneficial to analyze results on a facade/wall level. 

It's important that the results are accessible in a way which allows easy algorithmic interpretation (i.e. not baked in as a jpeg or similar format).

[lars_pedersenUFXGG]

Thank you for adding the site volume testing funtionality into new Forma projects!:D Very happy about that!

I'd love to connect the model to a storm water level api from The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE). 

Thanks.

[magnhild.gjestvang]

Interesting, would love to hear more about that. I'll send you a Direct Message to ask if we can have a chat. Best regards, Magnhild 

[csevtekin]

how can I retrieve the numeric data  from the analysis? Is there a way to save them in excel file instead of just clicking on the screen and see the result?  

[magnhild.gjestvang]

Hi! I am sorry for the late reply, your question was lost in my feed. 

We currently do not have support for export to excel. 

We have exposed some APIs to retrieve raw data from the analysis and are planning to expose more. Currently you can retrieve ground results for sun and noise analysis. More information on that can be found in our Developer documentation and more specifically in this API reference. Is that relevant or are you mostly interested in getting the results in excel?

What analyses do you want and do you ideally want raw numbers or other statistics? It would be interesting to understand you use case to guide our prioritisation. 

Best regards,

Magnhild 

[mrheBVMDH]

@magnhild.gjestvang, 

this is super relevant for my workflow! I'm mostly interested in API access to all possible analysis types, including running these in a headless environment, being notified when they are finished, and retrieving results in a raw format.

Is there any timeline for when other analysis types will be exposed in the API?

[ae-t-am-ara]

"I would appreciate it if I could import the "Platau" from the "Library". "Platau" is a Japanese building model provided by the Japanese government."

https://www.mlit.go.jp/plateau/open-data/