Monitoring Autodesk® Revit® Projects Effectively
Dan Chasteen
Regional Design Application Manager, Perkins+Will
Victor Okhoya
Regional Design Application Manager, Perkins+Will
© 2011 Autodesk
Dan Chasteen - Bio

Regional Design Applications Manager at Perkins+Will
 Former Owner of Digital Construction Studio
 18 Years 3D-focused experience
 Research and Development of Cloud Computing at
Perkins+Will
 Hardware Graphics Experience
 War Eagle!
© 2011 Autodesk
Victor Okhoya - Bio

Victor is a trained architect with 10 years of experience
in BIM related consulting. He has worked for leading
Autodesk resellers in Canada as well as consulting to
Autodesk as a BIM subject matter expert. He is also a
proficient software programmer and has developed
several BIM tools and databases. He is currently a
Design Applications Manager with Perkins+Will while
pursuing a Masters in IT degree at Harvard's Extension
School.
© 2011 Autodesk
Class Summary
This class introduces tools, techniques and strategies that provide a formal
approach to the Model Review process including the tracking of user activity and
productivity, diagnosing file problems.
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Monitor Performance of Models
Monitor Status of Models
Audit Revit Projects
Track User Activity and Productivity
Diagnose Model Health
© 2011 Autodesk
Learning Objectives
At the end of this class, you will be able to:
 Realize the available file reviewing tools and tactics
 Appreciate journal files and the rich file management information they contain
 Employ the tool for reading journal files and producing file management reports
 Utilize tracking and comparison tools to discover file changes
© 2011 Autodesk
Tools and Techniques

Manual Audits
 Revit Viewer 2012
 Model Review Tool
 Revit Journal Reader
 Other tools
© 2011 Autodesk
Responding to Need
© 2011 Autodesk
Responding to Need
Challenges for Non-Revit Using Project Leaders
 Check compliance with standards
 Monitor file errors and warnings
 Track user activity
 Understand Revit productivity
© 2011 Autodesk
Responding to Need
Challenges of Using Revit for Model Managers
 Overwhelming Number of Models
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Large Scale
 Campus Style
 Multi-Office
 Any Combination of Above
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Limited Time with Each Model
Time Spent in the Trenches Limits Perspective
Traditional Model Review Time can be All Consuming
© 2011 Autodesk
Responding to Need
QUALITY CONTROL (QC) is a process by which an organization assures that
project deliverables are in conformance with prescribed quality standards.
Since BIM is an integral part of the delivery process it stands to reason that BIM
Model Reviews should be part of the QC process.
© 2011 Autodesk
Responding to Need
Who should do Model Reviews?
 Project Managers
 BIM Managers
 Revit Project Leads
© 2011 Autodesk
Responding to Need
What should they be looking for?
 Health of models
 Productivity
 Delivery standards
 Pro-active risk management
© 2011 Autodesk
Manual Audits & Revit Viewer 2012
© 2011 Autodesk
Auditing in Revit
Simple, but Time Consuming
 Category walk – layer walk for Revit
 Review warnings – assign clean up duties
 Filter and count – numbers should add up
 Project browser – views, sheets, families, groups
 Workset viewer – Revit 2012
© 2011 Autodesk
Manual Audit Demo
© 2011 Autodesk
Autodesk’s Revit Viewer 2012
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Allows majority of standard Revit functionality
Disallows Save or Save as…
If no changes are made…
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Allows exporting to certain formats
Allows publishing
Allows printing
If work shared files are opened detached, allows editing of elements
© 2011 Autodesk
Autodesk’s Revit Viewer 2012
What is it useful for?
 Reviewing models real-time,
without fear of accidentally
obtaining ownership of building
elements
 Does not use up a license
 Checking file History
 Viewing coordination issues
 Running Interference checks
© 2011 Autodesk
Autodesk’s Revit Viewer 2012
Ideal tool for non-production project managers who need to:
 Open files detached
 Manage visibility
 Create 3D sections
 Find views and sheets
 Take measurements
 Print or export views
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
Business Analytics:
Business decisions are driven by the rational
analysis of quantitative data.
TIME FOR BIM ANALYTICS?
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
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Journal files are log files
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Used by programmers to track program activity
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Written out to text files
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Revit journals can grow to over 20MB+ depending
on the length of the Revit session
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
Location of Journal Files:
Revit 2012:
 Windows XP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application
Data\Autodesk\Revit\<Product name and release>\Journals
 Windows Vista or Windows 7: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Autodesk\Revit\<Product
name and release>\Journals
Revit 2011 and before:
 C:\Program Files\<Product name and release>\Journals
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
What can you do with journal files:
 Used for support by Autodesk
 Contain error messages when files crash
 Contains system and performance information
 Can recover a Revit session
 Can automate some tasks (better to use API)
 Can be parsed into an application e.g. Revit Journal Reader
You can set up location of journals files in the admin. image
You can set up number of journal files under Options
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
Revit Journal Reader:
Use Revit Journal files to build a performance monitoring tool
Examples:
Network Traffic Analysis
Windows Events Log
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
Revit Journal Reader:
 Parses journal files and
returns log information based on
selected categories
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Read a single journal file location
or multiple locations
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Filter output based on categories
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Write output to external csv file or display in grid
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
How it works:
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Visual Basic application
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Opens journal files sequentially
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Uses regular expressions
to parse the journals
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Writes results to XML document
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XML is accessed by filters and written to grid or written to comma separated file
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
Interpreting the results:
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Creations: who authored what, when?
Deletions: “where are my slabs?”
 Insertions: track DWGs, images and other insertions
 Errors: user proficiency; could point to training needs
 Families: track and manage content creation
 Subcategories: managing view templates, exports
 Warnings: assign housekeeping duties
 Fatal Errors: isolate hardware problems, detect corruption early
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© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
Generate performance
analysis reports
– text based:
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader
Generate performance
analysis reports
– visual:
Generated by
Tableau Software
© 2011 Autodesk
Revit Journal Reader Demo
© 2011 Autodesk
Autodesk’s Model Review Tool
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
What is the Model Review Tool?
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Standards Checking tool analogous to CAD Standard tools in AutoCAD
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
What is the Model Review Tool?
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Part of Revit Extensions
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Validate the accuracy and consistency of the
Model against prescribed standards
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Configure checks to suit your QC needs
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Batch process sets of models
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Report and optionally correct inaccuracies and
inconsistencies within your model(s)
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
How does the Model Review Tool work?
Two parts:
1. Manage Checks:
Allows creation, editing and configuration of checks
2. Run Checks:
Does the actual running of the checks
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
Manage Checks:
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Create Checks based on templates
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Create additional templates using the API
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Save checks as a check file (.bcf)
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Use check file to run checks
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
Basic Info Tab:
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Name: each check has a unique name
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Category: useful for sorting checks by type
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Enabled: whether or not the check will be run
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Report Only: where pass/fail is not the only
response
 Allow Correction: allows user to interactively fix
problems
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Notes: explanation of the check
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
Details Tab:
This is where the elements,
parameters and rules being
checked are set up
This tab is different for different
rule types
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
Filter Tab:

Restricts the scope of checks
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Important for performance and
preventing over information
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
Conditions Tab:
 provide additional filtering capability
 allow checks only if they meet
certain conditions
 all check types can be used as a condition
for whether other checks are appropriate
 conditions are defined in the Conditions
window and applied to specific checks
 checks that are used as conditions return
either “true” or “false”.
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
Example Checks, Filters, Conditions:
We wish to ensure our detail annotations do not refer to CONCRETE as CONC
Check: Search for CONC and replace with CONCRETE
Filter: Text font must be ARIAL
Condition: Element parameter case must be UPPERCASE
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
Fail/Pass Messages
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
Examples of checks you can create:
 Find views with imported dwgs. Check if a model, or views or sheets within
model meet a specified naming format.
 Check whether objects have appropriate parameters such as an Assembly
Code.
 Check elements for maximum and/or minimum file sizes such as for code
compliance.
 Check the number of elements of a certain type in the model.
 Check tags and notes for upper case text.
 Check that all dimensions use a certain font and leader arrow head.
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Tool
General Remarks:
 You don’t need to know programming
 You may need to know regular expressions
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e.g. A – [0-9][0-9][0-9]? matches A-25, A-336 but not A-1, A-A1, A-1001
Create small test files for quicker processing and easier trouble shooting
On Win 7 with UAC you need to run as administrator on folders
© 2011 Autodesk
Model Review Demo
© 2011 Autodesk
Third Party Model Review Tools
© 2011 Autodesk
Additional Model Review Tools
Solibri
 Not a Navisworks Competitor
 Model Checker
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More than Clashing
 Egress
 Naming Convention
 Missing Spaces/Wrong Location
 Comparing Model Versions
© 2011 Autodesk
Additional Model Review Tools
Solibri
 Rule Based
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Out of Box
 Custom Rules
 GSA
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Reporting
© 2011 Autodesk
Questions?
© 2011 Autodesk
Additional Questions?
Please email your questions to the following addresses
 Dan.Chasteen@perkinswill.com
 Victor.Okhoya@perkinswill.com
© 2011 Autodesk
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Autodesk, AutoCAD* [*if/when mentioned in the pertinent material, followed by an alphabetical list of all other trademarks mentioned in the material] are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and
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