Automatic Selection-Specific Revit® Family Files
Overview
McQuay International was the first major HVAC equipment manufacturer to create their own high quality Building Information Modeling (BIM) files of their products.
McQuay is proud to continue our leadership role in supporting BIM by being the first HVAC equipment manufacturer to automatically generate, from equipment selection software, Autodesk® Revit family files which not only provide fully functional geometry, but also include the selection-specific performance values pre-loaded into the parameters in the family files.
What It Is
The Revit family files automatically generated from McQuayToolsTM Suite:
- Are the same exceptionally high quality family files available for download from mcquay.com. These files are compliant with the Autodesk Revit Model Content Style Guide, including using Autodesk-endorsed shared parameters. They also contain properly configured connector objects.
- Include selection-specific performance values and other selection-specific data such as electrical properties, fan properties, filter sizes, etc. preloaded into the parameters.
Figure 1 - Selection-specific values are automatically loaded into parameters
- Include multiple types generated within the family files where possible, resulting in the fewest number of family files needed for the Revit building project. This minimizes the impact to system performance when working in the building project. The type names match the item descriptions seen in the submittal documents.
Figure 2 - One family file with 3 types of different sizes (as opposed to 3 family files)
These families do not come with type catalog files. Instead, all of the information and configuration values for your project are embedded right in the families that are generated.
As with all Revit content from McQuay, the following are also provided:
- Rich, working Revit schedules
- The Revit shared parameters file used
- Additional supporting documents, such as those with links to product literature
The Process
In McQuayTools Suite a new feature allows requesting BIM files for the products being selected:
Figure 3 - Starting the Request BIM Files process
The dialog that appears allows the user to specify which job items need BIM files generated, in which format and to whom e-mail messages should be sent:
Figure 4 - Requesting BIM files for selected job items
Only those job items that can have BIM files generated will appear in the list of choices.
When the "Send Request" button is pressed, the request along with the selection data is transmitted to McQuay servers.
Those servers will:
- Automatically choose and configure with selection values the fewest Revit families needed
- Retrieve associated files such as the schedule project file, shared parameters file, etc.
- Package all of the files into a single zip file
- Send an e-mail message with a link to download the zip file to the people on the e-mail list
The BIM files requested should generally be ready for download within about 30 minutes.
These fully-populated and optimized Revit family files can be generated directly from McQuayTools™ Suite for Engineers as well.
Summary
At McQuay International we continually strive to improve and automate the experience of specifying and purchasing our products.
With this next step forward in technology - the epitome of Revit content generation - McQuay customers will save valuable time and money, because they will receive a minimal number of families which don't require additional work to get selection-specific data for mechanical equipment into their building models.