Autodesk Informed Design, connecting manufacturing and construction to support industrialized construction, is launched today.

I often get asked the question, "Why, when I generate a new variant, does it add _1, _2, _3, and so on to the Revit family name, instead of creating a new type?" ~ Learn why in this Article!

Use this framework to help you build reliable, configurable Inventor models, that you can publish to Informed Design - providing Revit families from known manufacturable products.

Thanks Matthew, for asking this question in the Informed Design forum. Can a unique Revit family type name be spontaneously generated by Informed Design based on the selections made by the Revit user? The answer is yes.

You don't need to think about which version of Inventor you are exporting a Revit Family from, or which version of Revit you are exporting to. Informed Design will always generate an RFA for the version of Revit you are using. Learn more.

Define void cutting objects in your Inventor model to enable Revit users to cut intersecting geometry when publishing with Informed Design.

Explore Autodesk Informed Design learning resources, including tutorial videos, articles, and support materials. Join the community to share your progress with your peers and give your product feedback.

Read on for detailed information about the requirements, advantages and disadvantages of the Configurable and Static product publishing methods in Informed Design. 

What's new? Autodesk Sample Content is now available right inside the Informed Design add-in for Revit. Insert a product, and toggle 'Autodesk Sample Content' to see what's available!

Use this checklist to help prepare your existing configurable Inventor models for publishing to Autodesk Informed Design.

Learn the pros and cons of iLogic managed models Vs component suppression when building configurable Inventor Assemblies for Autodesk Informed Design.

From faster Revit workflows to a new API for developers, the latest updates to Autodesk Informed Design are here. See what’s new this quarter and what’s coming next.

Learn what's new in Autodesk Informed Design for April 2024, including importing and exporting of Codeblocks, and uploading automatically generated manufacturing output files to other Autodesk Docs projects.

Watch the Connect Design and Make with Informed Design Webinar in partnership with Engineering News-Record

Learn what's new in Autodesk Informed Design for May 2024, including support for outputs to Fusion team, revised Revit Replace and Update commands, and a new Form Design workflow in Inventor.

Informed Design automatically generates a thumbnail image of your manufacturing model.  So, how can you improve the thumbnail image and make it more useful to the Revit user? 

Codeblocks containing complex logical or mathematical statements can become difficult to follow. Learn how to improve readability with External Inputs. 

As we expand support for publishing to non-US Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) accounts, our users based outside the US have asked important questions about where data is stored, when it’s processed, and what regional implications that might have. This article outlines how Informed Design stores and processes product-related data, what role ACC plays in access control, and why no building project data ever leaves your region — even when publishing or using products linked to non-US based ACC accounts.   All Product Data Is Stored and Processed in the US   All product-related data in Informed Design is stored in our US-based Informed Design service and processed using our US-based APS Automation services. This includes: CAD files or model references Parameters and rules Product variations (configurations and model state representations) Output file definitions (such as Revit Families and bills of materials)   At the time of publishing a new product or a product update, users of the Informed Design Add-in for Inventor are shown a clear notice:  By using Informed Design, your project data may be processed and stored in the US.   The notice also mentions the following limitation:  Currently, Bridge functionality is supported for Informed Design products published in US-based accounts only. This means that as of now, ACC Bridge folder automations between non-US based ACC projects will omit Informed Design products. All other files will sync as expected.   What About Non-US ACC Accounts?   Informed Design integrates with ACC — the Files tool in Autodesk Docs — to manage access permissions, not for file storage or data regionalization. This lets your team use the familiar ACC environment to control who can work with your published products in the Informed Design Add-in for Revit and the Informed Design Web Portal.   You can now publish to any Docs project folder, regardless of the ACC account's regional data storage.    ⚠️ Important: Publishing to an ACC account based in the EU, Australia, UK, Germany, Canada, India, or Japan does NOT mean product data is stored or processed in that region.    When Does Data Enter the US?   New user-defined data is submitted to our US-based service only at a few specific points.   When the user publishes a Product or Release: Creating a Product (POST /products) Updating a Product (PATCH /products/{productId}) Creating a Release (POST /releases) Updating a Release (PATCH /releases/{releaseId}) These publish-related actions send and persist your product definition, CAD files or model references, input parameters, and output types to our Informed Design service, hosted in the US. When the user submits a Variant: Create Variant (POST /variants) This action sends and persists your specified parameter values as constrained by the published product release, and in some cases, your chosen variant name. Our US-based APS Automation services use this information to build your requested variant on-demand using the CAD dataset. Variant creation submits no new user-defined data to US-based services other than your request parameters, and variants contain no reference to specific building models or Revit files.   When a user requests Output creation based on a Variant : Create Outputs (POST /outputs) This action sends and persists the alphanumeric identifier of the variant you've specified, and your choice of output types (such as a Revit Family or shop drawings) to be created from that variant.  Our US-based APS Automation services use this information to create your requested output file on-demand using the previously-generated variant. As you'll see in the payload schema, output requests submit no user defined-data to US-based services other than your choice of variant and output file types.   When a user requests file upload based on an Output : Create Upload Request (POST /uploads) This action sends and persists the alphanumeric identifiers of the outputs you've specified, and your choice of upload location for the resulting files. Our US-based Informed Design service uses this information to create files using your previously-generated outputs and place them into your selected ACC or Fusion Team folder. Upload requests submit no user-defined data to US-based services other than your choice of outputs and folder for the uploads.   What Happens in Downstream Workflows?   Once a product and its releases are published, the additional workflows described above use our US-based services, but do NOT introduce any building design or project-specific data to our system.   Instead: Variants are created by modifying parameters and model states of the already-published release; no building-specific context is involved. Outputs (Revit Families, shop drawings, etc.) are generated from those variants using our APS Automation engine, based on already-published product and release data. Uploads refer to our service placing generated output files into your selected ACC or Fusion Team folder; no incoming files are transferred from your building project. No Revit models, building geometry, or project-specific design context are ever uploaded to or processed by the Informed Design or APS Automation services.   What This Means for Data Privacy and Sovereignty   Even when publishing to a non-US ACC account: Your building project files stay in your region by design, thanks to ACC Regional Data Storage.  Your published product data is stored and processed in the US. After publish time, all downstream activity is driven by users acting upon the already-published product and release data. With this architecture, your building project-specific information remains within your chosen ACC data region.   For Developers and Partners If you want to dive deeper into exactly what data is transmitted, when it’s sent, and how each request is structured, our full API documentation provides a complete technical reference — including endpoints, payload schemas, and response formats.   Explore the Informed Design API Reference.   We hope this helps you and your team make legally and operationally compliant decisions when working with Informed Design across international projects. Still have questions? Leave a comment below or visit the Informed Design Forum. 

There’s a moment on many projects where momentum pauses. Someone asks “Is this dimension allowed?” At that point, the process shifts into static reference materials, a BIM tool, or an engineering review.   That shift is manageable for architects and designers, since they already use the Informed Design Add-in for Revit to configure products within the supplier’s allowable range – but the buying process doesn’t stop with the architect. Clients, procurement teams, and other project collaborators want to evaluate options for a product outside the BIM authoring context.   With the new Informed Design APS Viewer Extension, that same rule-driven validation designers access through our Revit Add-in is now available directly in the web browser.   The Foundation: Autodesk Platform Services Viewer   If you’ve used the Autodesk Viewer through Autodesk Docs (soon to be Forma Data Management), Fusion Team, or Shared Views functionality, you’re already familiar with high-performance 3D model viewing in the browser.   Our Informed Design Viewer Extension is built on that same APS Viewer SDK to enable not only visualization, but rule-driven product configuration and BIM-ready output generation, directly in the browser.   For Product Suppliers   As a supplier publishing products using the Informed Design Add-in for Inventor, you can now open your published releases in the 3D web viewer.     Open a release and preview variants in the web browser   Open the Informed Design Web Portal. In the header navigation, select the Forma hub and project that host your products, then open the Releases tab. Note: Project Admin–level permission in the Autodesk Docs (Forma Data Management) project is required to access the Releases tab. Select a product from the list on the left, then choose a release from the table. Note: Products appear based on the folders selected in the Folders filter. If the list is empty, click the Folders filter button above the list. In the Filter products by folder dialog, select at least one project folder containing published products and click Apply. Open the release: Click View in 3D at the top of the Releases table. The Informed Design APS Viewer Extension opens in a new browser tab and loads the selected release. The Informed Design toolbar appears on the far right of the viewer, after the APS Viewer’s standard navigation and selection tools. It includes the following options: Release details – Displays read-only summary information such as the release date and Revit Family (.rfa) output's Category. Form – Shows the release’s input parameters, values, and controls, which are editable when the release’s configuration rules allow it. Variants – Opens a table listing all variants created for the release. From here you can access the web-viewable (.svf) outputs of completed variants and monitor those still in progress. Preview existing variants: Click the Variants toolbar button to open the variants table. Select any row to display that variant in the 3D viewer.   Configure variants and track output status   If the release is Configurable, you can use the Form to create new variants directly in the 3D viewer. Each validated configuration you generate in the browser automatically becomes BIM-ready content, building your Revit Family (.rfa) library as you go.   Open the configuration form: Click the Form toolbar button to display the release’s configuration form. Note: For releases published as Static, form controls are read-only. Open the Variants table to browse the supported configuration in its available model state representation(s). Create a variant: Use the form controls to select the desired values. Once the configuration passes validation rules, click Generate to create the variant. Note: If a release has the Obsolete status, it can still be opened in the viewer and existing variants can be previewed. However, form controls and the Generate button are disabled because new outputs cannot be created from an obsolete release. Open the Variants dialog. After you submit a configuration, a new row appears in the Variants table. Track variants in progress. Two columns track output status: SVF shows the status of the web-viewable model displayed in the browser. RFA shows the status of the generated Revit Family (.rfa). For variants that support Revit output, both the web-viewable (.svf) model and the Revit Family (.rfa) are generated in parallel. Identify BIM-ready variants: When generation completes successfully, a checkmark icon appears in the status column: When the variant's SVF column is checked, the web-viewable model is displayed in the browser. When the variant's RFA column is checked, designers with permission can immediately load that Family into their Revit projects through Informed Design's Revit Add-in. This relationship works both ways – when a designer generates a variant .rfa using the Informed Design Add-in for Revit, the corresponding web-viewable .svf is created automatically and appears in the 3D viewer's Variants list.   Variants created through the API   In some releases, the Variants table may contain rows where the Representation column shows “Not specified”, and the SVF and RFA columns display question-mark icons. This occurs when a variant was created through the API. API-first variants do not require a representation when they are generated (see POST /variants). However, both the .svf (web-viewable model) and .rfa (Revit Family) outputs depend on a representation (see POST /outputs) so their availability cannot be determined automatically. To resolve this, open the Form and select a representation from the dropdown menu in the dialog footer. The dropdown lists the representations available for the .svf output type. Then click Generate to display it in the viewer. If the selected representation also supports .rfa output, the Revit Family will begin generating in parallel and you’ll see a progress spinner. If it does not, the RFA column will display a ban icon (circle with a dash), indicating that .rfa output was not made available for that representation in the current release.   For Developers and Partners   The Informed Design Viewer Extension is also available as an embeddable component. This allows suppliers to integrate interactive 3D product exploration directly into their own web platforms.   Access the Viewer SDK and reference materials in this repository.    The README provides the information needed to get started. For more detailed implementation guidance, refer to the Informed Design Viewer Extension docs.     Still have questions? Leave a comment below or visit the Informed Design Forum. 

Request for Outputs (RFO's) can now be tracked in the new RFO History tab of the Autodesk Informed Design web Application.