Or the advantages of building project specific tools

Summary

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• Credits

• What tool?

• Examples

• Any Dynamo User in the room?

• Problems

Inspiration

Danny Bentley - BIM Structural Technician at SOM - 2017 https://github.com/dannysbentley/Sections

https://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/create-section-view-parallel-to-wall.html

Dynamic Model Update Section - Revit Samples 2012

https://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2011/08/associative-section-view-fix.html#2

The good, the bad and the ugly

What tools risks?

• Small programs that can be built in less than a week by one person
• They do one very specific thing for one specific project
• They can automate repetitive tasks or make Revit smarter
• They can provide new feature or extend existing ones
• They are not meant to be uploaded on the Tool Register but they live on GitLab:
  • Not ready to be deployed outside the office
  • Can be accessed by anyone who want to reuse part of the code
  • Implements version control
  • Colleagues can update and improve the code
• They are used by a limited and small number of users:
  • It can be less user friendly
  • The workflow to follow can be more complex
  • Immediate feedback for usability and bugs
• Let’s ignore IP for simplicity

Examples: New tool

Void By Face

1716 Rectangular + 1312 Circular = 3028 → 554mb

Void By Line

Add Metadata to PDF + Viewer

Examples: Add function to existing one

BCFier batch issues

Print Selected PDFs

Could have they been created with Dynamo?

• Yes:
  • Revit Voids (Dynamo script by Ethan Gear)
  • Print Selected PDFs
• No:
  • Pdf Metadata
  • BCFier

When another software is involved, Dynamo is not enough.

Also:

• Dynamo is Dead cit. Konrad Sobon

• It’s not as fast as a macro or C# addin
• Easier to share few lines of code than a custom node
• No version control
• Dynamo never ending version compatibility issues and custom packages problems

Problems

• Inevitably buggy (because done in a hurry and not by Software Developers)
• Someone in each office should be in charge of creation and deployment
• Set up personalised toolbars
• What started as a simple tool with 2 buttons becomes a hell