Share and learn how-to tips, workflows, and general knowledge articles about Informed Design and the future of the Industrialized Construction industry.
Contributed by:
Autodesk Informed Design helps building component manufacturers and architectural designers work together on building projects involving equipment, products, or prefabricated components that are available with multiple options.
Building component manufacturers can offer the architectural designer the ability to configure designs and create a loadable Revit family (RFA) of the required variant, directly inside Revit.
When the design phase is complete, the Revit model can be assessed for Informed Design components, and manufacturing information, such as drawings and Bill of Materials (BOM) can be automatically generated for each variant.
Learn more about Autodesk Informed Design for Revit
The problem with manufacturers Revit content
Many Revit users state that manufacturers Revit family models can be too detailed, too complex, or lack alignment with BIM standards.
Revit users typically don’t require the full manufacturing detail model with all the nuts, bolts, and tiny manufacturing details in their Revit project.
Informed Design can help with simplified representations through Autodesk Inventor Model States.
Learn more about Informed Design for Inventor
Informed Design simplified representations: Quick tips
- Set the Model State to [Primary] and the Model State Scope to ‘Factory’ before publishing to Informed Design.
- Include Model State scope in your iLogic rules.
- If you notice any odd Model State behaviour, save and close all Inventor files, and re-open your model.
What are Inventor Model States?
Inventor Model States support a configuration table within Assembly and Part models. Each row in the Model State configuration table can have unique Parameter values (dimensions), iProperty values (metadata), or suppression states.
Click here to learn more about Model States in Autodesk Inventor.
Model states in parts can be used to represent a design at different sizes, manufacturing stages, or simplification levels.
Model states in assemblies can connect model states in parts or even suppress or substitute components entirely.
Model states can be used to protect manufacturers intellectual property (IP), prepare a model for stress analysis (FEA), or improve large assembly performance.
How are Model States used in Informed Design for Inventor?
Informed Design uses Inventor Model States to provide a simplified representation of the manufacturing model for the Revit user.
Note: Model states are not used for configuration in Informed Design for Inventor. For configuration, we recommend iLogic.
When preparing the Inventor model for publishing to Informed Design, the Inventor user can create a single, or multiple model states with detail levels that meet the Revit users’ requirements.
Informed Design for Inventor. Selecting Model States for Outputs
- Selecting Model States for Outputs
- Model States in drawings are selected when the drawing is created, and cannot be overridden in the Product Definition.
The Inventor user can choose which model states to make available as an RFA. The Inventor user can also choose which Model State to reference in the Drawings, BOM, or neutral CAD files, which will be generated as Outputs from the Revit project.
For example, the manufacturer could choose a simplified Model State to be generated as an RFA, while choosing for the drawings and BOM to be generated from the manufacturing model state.
Learn how to generate manufacturing Outputs with the Informed Design Web Application.
Model States and Representations in Revit
Autodesk Informed Design for Revit. Selecting a representation (Model State)
The Revit user can choose the Model State or Representation for the variant they request to be generated.
Once generated, the representation of the variant cannot be changed. If a variant has been generated with a low level of detail, and a higher level of detail is required, the variant must be replaced with an alternative variant.
The use of Model States to provide a simplified representation is not intended to replace Revit detail levels.
Learn how to use the Replace command in Informed Design for Revit.
What should I remove from the manufacturing model for use in Revit?
Simplification is subjective. Building component manufacturers may need to consult with their architectural design partners or examine the project's BIM execution plan to understand the requirements.
Suggestions to Remove:
- Any detail that’s too small to be seen in a 1:5 drawing, such as:
- Small fixings, fasteners, and hardware.
- Internal components
- Internal Voids
- ‘Thin’ features such as grilles, fins, or radiators.
- Embossed features such as Logos
- Engraved or laser-cut text
- Small fillets, chamfers, holes, and pockets.
Suggestions to keep:
- Features required to connect with other objects in the Revit project.
- Clearance areas, access zones, and ‘soft clash’ indicators.
The Bimstore Bible is a good reference for modelling Revit families.
Inventor model states for Informed Design: best practices
Autodesk Inventor Model States User Interface
- Model States in the Browser. Right-click on the Folder to edit the Model State Table.
- Edit factory scope in the browser, or the Ribbon
- Activate a Model State
Primary model State
The default Model State is named ‘[Primary]’ and represents the full manufacturing model. Publish your model to Informed Design with the [Primary] Model State active.
When preparing your Inventor model for Informed Design, create at least one simplified representation that represents the level of detail required in the Revit family.
Check that your iLogic configuration rules work in all your model states before publishing them to Informed Design.
Model State Scope
Each Model State is known as a ‘Member’. With a member active, all edits to the model will be captured in the configuration table for that member. This might not be what we want!
TIP: Right-click on the Model States folder to edit the Model States member table.
When your model is complete, set the Model State Edit Scope to ‘Factory’. This ensures that any parametric changes driven by your iLogic rules will be applied to all Model State members. See the section on iLogic below.
This can be set using the pencil icon in the model browser, or in the (Tab) > Author (Panel) > Edit Factory Scope (Command).
Link Model States
We recommend a ‘bottom-up’ approach. Create a Model State in each part model to be simplified. Give the part Model State the same name as the assembly Model State.
In your sub and main assemblies, use the ‘Link Model States’ assembly productivity tool to drive a Model State change from the assembly into the parts.
Autodesk Inventor Link Model States Assembly productivity Tool
- Assemble (Tab) > Productivity (Panel) > Click on the bottom half of the Button to see the productivity tools.
- Choose 'Link Model States'
- Select the model states to link.
- Click OK.
In your assembly, suppress components that aren’t required in the Revit model, along with any constraints that may be affected.
Check that any derived/substitute assemblies update correctly when you change model states before publishing to Informed Design.
Substitute Model States
Derived assemblies are not supported in the top-level assembly by Informed Design. This means no Substitute, or shrink-wrap model states derived from your main assembly. The ‘Simplify’ command cannot be used in the top-level assembly for this reason.
Derived assemblies using Substitute or Simplified workflows can be included in sub-assemblies.
iLogic and Model states
Include the following code snippet in any iLogic rule which is in a component that has Model States.
'For all model states
iLogicVb.MemberEditScope = kEditAllMembers
This line works just like setting the member scope to ‘Factory’. Any changes applied by the iLogic rule will be applied to all members.
Learn more about Logic and model states
iLogic and model states can clash. We recommend that you control feature and part suppression with Model States or iLogic, but not both in the same model!
If you need more control than Model States can give you, use an iLogic rule. In your main assembly, use an iLogic rule triggered by a change in model states to trigger your simplification rules in parts or sub-components.
We don’t recommend exposing model states to your Revit users via the input form. i.e. Don’t put an option in the Revit Form to control simplification. Let Informed Design handle representations.
Model State, unusual behaviours
We’ve noticed that components containing model states can become disassociated. When this happens, the Model State of the component instance in the assembly is not the same as the Model State of the component in the part.
This seems to happen when the component factory is edited while the component is also open in the assembly. To fix this, save and close all the files that you have open in Inventor and reopen your model.
Revit Detail Levels
Revit supports multiple detail levels in loadable families. The supported detail levels are Fine, Medium, and Coarse. Detail levels can include 2D and 3D geometry.
A use case for detail levels could be to provide a 2D symbol in plan view (coarse) for use in 1:100 site plans, a simplified 3D model for use in isometric or perspective views (medium), and 2D detailing for 1:5 scale details (fine).
At the time of writing, Informed Design does not support Revit detail levels.
Is it important to you that Revit Detail levels are supported in Informed Design?
Please help us to understand your requirements by adding your thoughts to our Ideas board.
As defined at Bimforum.org Level of Development (LOD) represents how complete and reliable the design information is.
LOD 100 is a placeholder without detail on size or location. The designer has indicated that an item is required, but the requirements and details are not resolved.
LOD 350 indicates that the design has been resolved with agreed specifics on size, shape, interfaces, orientation, location, and quantity.
Prefabricated components have fully resolved designs that are ready for manufacture, meeting LOD 400 requirements.
LOD classification is independent of the amount of model detail represented in Revit. An element could be classified as LOD 400, while being represented by a simplified version of the manufacturing model in the Revit project.
You can read more about Level of Development specification (LOD) on Bim Forum.
Your thoughts
Let us know your thoughts on model simplification, Model States, and Representations in the comments below!