Revit-Robot Link and Panel Thickness Property

[Anonymous]

I started looking into whether the Revit-Robot link would support the transfer of a panel thickness property. I found this post by Artur from a few years ago (https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/robot-structural-analysis-forum/list-of-revit-link-improvements-in-20...) which confirms that the link is supported from Robot to Revit. However, I am interested to know if there is a back-and-forth option -- i.e. a 3D model with panels is built in Revit, and a panel type property is applied to it. Then, when brought to Robot for analysis, we would like the thickness property to be applied based on the panel type.

Possible? We have had limited luck thus far. Maybe there is some helpful guidance that I'm missing.

[Pawel.Pulak]

Hi Mike,

as concerns panel thickness property in REVIT-ROBOT-REVIT workflow the main points to remember are:

1. In case of multi-layered plates or walls in Revit only the Structure  layer is transferred to Robot.  It should have correct physical properties and is transferred as isotropic thickness
2. In case of returning with the model back to Revit it should be no problem if the EXISTING Revit model (previously sent to Robot) is updated. Some issues (like changing thickness) can be observed when the model is send back from Robot to EMPTY Revit project.

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[Anonymous]

Hi Pawel,
I think your posts suggests that there is no way to influence the panel thickness as the model is transferred from Revit to Robot? So I cannot assign a "PANELTHICKNESS TYPE A" property in the Revit model, to the structural layer of the panel, and have that imported into the THICKNESS property in Robot? Is that correct? Is there any possibility of this through APIs or other tools?

[Pawel.Pulak · Accepted solution]

Hi Mike,

because your latest comment is somehow unclear for me I will answer 2 of possible interpretations:)

1/ When exporting from Revit to  Robot the name of the plate family in Revit is used as the name of the thickness label in Robot. But inside this label the real thickness, read from the thickness of Structure part, is used. See the screen capture below:

It may be somehow misleading in Robot that "In situ concrete 225mm" is in reality 175 mm thick. Of course it is possible to modify/reassign the thickness label (in UI or using API) to make the name coherent with thickness - but it may not be welcome when returning back to Revit with the changed name.

That is why it may be better to generally call the plate families in Revit giving both the total and structural thickness - like "In situ concrete 225/175mm"

2/ If you meant sending from Revit orthotropic plates then the link does not support it - in my previous answer I mentioned that it applies to isotropic (homogenuous) plates.

Orthotropic plates will be transferred from Revit to Robot as homogeneous ones. After the transfer you can change them to orthotropic ones using Robot's UI or API.

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[Anonymous]

Thanks Pawel 🙂 Answer 2/ was the most relevant to my inquiry and we will explore the possibility of developing an Add-in to reassign thicknesses based on the panel names. IT will just mean we develop a convention for naming panels in Revit, so that we can identify the exact panel type when we transfer to Robot.