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Add custom “Type of Parameters”, Units, and/or Unit Symbols

Add custom “Type of Parameters”, Units, and/or Unit Symbols

There seem to be a lot of people asking for different units or “Types of Parameters” (data types). But the requests and support are spread thin because people are only asking for a particular unit (see links below). I have a few ideas that are related that I think could help.

 

  1. Let us “build” new “Type of Parameters” that don’t already exist. For example, someone may want to add mass flow rate since it’s an industry standard for many Revit users. Let them “build” a new unit using fundamental units (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Fundamental_units)
  2. Let us add Units to existing “Type of Parameters”. Continuing with the example above, someone might want to add pounds per hour. I imagine that they would need to provide a symbol and a conversion factor to the fundamental units.
  3. Let us add Unit symbols to existing units. Someone might want to report a Length parameter in “FT” (all caps), but currently they cannot.

 

I realize that some of this is putting a lot of trust in the users. They could potentially create an incorrect unit that causes havoc. But the reality is, as long as people don’t have the units they want, they will do this anyway. I’ve seen people either create a number parameter, text parameter, or just pick an existing data type and not display the units (so on paper it looks fine, but in the model it’s wrong).

 

If the requests above are technically challenging. It would be great if all (or even one or two) of the parameter types/units below could be added:

 

Type of Parameter "Type of Parameter" already exist? Common Units Unit Symbol Application:
Energy per Unit Time/ Power/Heating Load Yes Thousand British Thermal Units per Hour MBH This is a US industry standard for heating capacities.
Volumetric Flow/ Flow/Airflow Yes Cubic Feet Per Hour
Liters per Hour
CFH
L/H
CFH is a US industry standard for gas flow rates. I think just about everyone else in the world used Liters per Hour. I know that Revit doesn't support compressible flow (yet?), but we could at least get the appropriate units as a starting point
Rotational Speed No Revolutions Per Minute RPM Motors, blades, impellers 
"Mass per Unit Time" or "Mass Flow Rate" No Pounds per hour
Pounds per minute
Kilograms per hour
Kilograms per minute
LBS/HR
LBS/M
KG/H
KG/M
Often used for fluid flow. Especially steam
Date No Date varies numerous

 

Other posts I could find where someone is asking for units in one form or another:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/we-would-like-to-have-pcm-as-an-unit-symbol/idi-p/6368720
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/project-units-create-a-customized-symbol/idi-p/6488139
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/adding-liter-by-hour-unit/idi-p/7849132
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/project-and-field-formatting-mbh-units/idi-p/7487342
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/new-unit-for-piping-in-wg/idi-p/6518610
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/horsepower-please/idi-p/6658202
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-mep-forum/how-to-create-units-kg-h/m-p/6840488/highlight/true?_ga=2.96243679.294445781.1546433687-1701866626.1527621482#M38001
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/regional-date-formats/idi-p/6530574
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/take-date-format-into-project-units/idi-p/8301389
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/i-wish-dates-were-real-dates-and-not-free-form-text/idi-p...
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/quot-date-quot-parameter-type/idi-p/6323051
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/revolutions-per-minute-needs-to-be-added-as-a-unit-within...

 

 

12 Comments
crapai
Advocate

Not having MBH as a data type drives me up a wall.

info
Community Visitor

11

moodyj2000
Contributor

Not having mass flow rate seems like a major oversight that could have been easily implemented.  

Evan.S.Hall
Enthusiast

@moodyj2000, I've wondered it Revit doesn't have mass flow rate because it's use may imply a two-phase flow scenario which would be difficult to do automated calculations with. Pure speculation, but maybe they were taking an "all or nothing" kind of approach when that decision was made. Whatever the case, I think even an incremental approach to adding mass flow rate would open up new opportunities and simply things for anybody routing steam pipe or process piping in Revit.

maco4PQ28
Explorer

I agree. On that note, the standard for slope in my country is in per mille (‰), so that would be nice to be able to specify as a unit.

Status changed to: Accepted

Congrats! We think this is a great idea, so we've decided to add it to our roadmap. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

The Factory

Evan.S.Hall
Enthusiast

Great, thank you @kimberly_fuhrman-jones! I'm looking forward to this

crapai
Advocate

Does this mean MBH will be added soon?

Evan.S.Hall
Enthusiast

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones, do you know the status of this? 

@Evan.S.Hall , I am checking with the product team. It may still be on the internal roadmap but hasn't gotten far enough to be on the public roadmap yet. Thanks for checking in!

rbaillet
Explorer

@kimberly.fuhrman, I'm also wishing for that MBH unit!

ebeleubaka
Community Visitor

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones are their options for changing currency symbol? There are about 11 currencies in the currency unit symbol and the one I need is not in the list.

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