S o f t w a r e     f o r     a u t o m a t i c     c r e a t i o n     o f     m o d e l s     u s i n g     p a r a m e t r i c     d a t a


 

123456789_123456789_1123456789Parametric Buildings (FRBL software) 

Model description

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 ICDAS YouTube Channel   ICDAS FRBL 2024.00R


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FRBL Model Examples 


Model description  

 

Input


 

BIM model


 

Analysis model


 

Landscape model


 

ICDAS Basis of Design


 

Workflow of Software


 

Additional features


 

Rendering & Animation


 

Trial Version


 

Subscription









 

Figure: ICDAS automatic models creation of MT Højgaard project.

 

About the project

 

The above figure demonstrates a test on ICDAS automatic models creation for new buildings project of construction industry MT Højgaard. The project consists of four point-buildings and a long building of total area 9500m2. 

 

The ICDAS automated models are based on an architectural design and recreated most of the building components
in Revit. The curtain wall panels incl. glass door, balconies and the skylight roof are not yet automated in ICDAS, and
will be one of the interested updates for the next ICDAS release. 
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Details level

 

Using Internal Design, every internal wall automated by parameters given in Excel fil. Dimensions, wall type, distance

to a door, and even to flip the door hand and facing are all input either by exact values or by 1/0 option.



 

Figure: Automatic creation of the long building.



 

 

Figure: Automatic creation of the point building.

 

 

Using ICDAS Dynamo file ‘Place Family By Level’ one can easy place furniture, trees, people on an existing model

and surrounding. Below is a list of new updates in FRBL 2017.01 just to name a few.

 

›   Floor Areas Design By Points incl. floor type, zOffset, structural/non-structural for each area each level.


›   Roof Areas Design By Points incl. roof type, slope of Angle, zOffset for each area.


›   Door Flip Hand, Flip Facing input for doors in internal walls.


›   Add window on any internal wall.


›   Dynamo files for Excel report on existing Revit model: wall, door, window, structural framing, structural column,

    floor, Room report and Room Rename.


›   Dynamo file for existing Revit model: Create Framings, Create Floor Framing Tower, Import Solid Roof, Place

    Adaptive Component, Get and Set Window Parameters, Floor Creations from Rooms.



Updated 27-11-2016



Automatic model creation for Parametric Building is enhanced with Dynamo graph/scripts from Version 2017.00. The

Dynamo graph/scripts will interact with an existing Revit model and provide many useful features. Some new

automations using Dynamo graph/script are listing below.

 

 

 

 

Automatic parquet floor creation after individual rooms


 

 

First the structural concrete floors automated continuously over all rooms, then the non-structural parquet floors

automated individually after dimensions of the internal rooms. The parquet floors have the height offset of its

thickness above the structural floors. Shown above the parquet floors are separated by thicknesses of the internal

walls, and can have its own material. The parquet floor on the level1 in the centre is bigger than the one on level0

due the rooms are designed differently in two levels. 

 


Automatic Roof Creation


 

By default, FRBL model uses Revit API to automate the roof as shown to the left above. Using Dynamo, the roof can 

also be designed as shell vault construction as shown to the right. Parametric Buildings V2017.00 includes both of automations. Just a single click, one gets a traditional roof by ICDAS add-ins with Revit API. Open an ICDAS Dynamo

file, select three lines along the building and run Dynamo, one will import a solid form into Revit for the roof. For both

of options the user can easily modify the appearance of the roof.



 


 

Automatic Excel Reports on existing Revit model


 

ICDAS automates a series of Excel sheets which report parameters of family instances created in an existing Revit 

model. Enlarge a clip below for either wall, door, window, structural framing, structural column or floor family.

You can found these parameters in Revit Properties window when a family instance selected, e.g. a wall.

 

For each sheet there are only a few rows shown as example. They are from the tutorial model including in the FRBL

subscription. Note that Revit Properties window provide more parameters than shown in Excel columns below for

a selected family instance. The full parameters report for a single selected family instance will also automated in

Excel file. In so desired, the users have to manually select a model element for the Excel report. By default, to milit

the amount of column data in Excel, only the most interested parameters are reported for all family instances in the

model, automatically. The users can contact ICDAS for adding more parameters in the desired family instance.

 

Some advantages of Excel reports are listing below:

 

›    Calculation of quantities.


›    Check of geometry and location of family instances in the building.


›    Set Comments on a selected family instance in Revit 3D model, you can easy find its report in the Excel sheet.

    Parameter Comments is editable in Revit Properties window for any selected family instance which is empty by

    default. You can edit the same comment for many selected family instances. You can also edit a unique Mark for 

    a selected family instance. The Comments and Mark are found in the Excel report the end columns. 









 

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Automatic Excel Report of Walls Schedules 



This feature is including in ICDAS FRBL API, i.e. you don’t need to run Dynamo.



Figure: Schedules of wall's data to HTML/Excel

 

Have you an existing Revit model with wall elements, then add-ins 'ICDAS FRBL Create Walls Schedule' will

automate schedule of walls just by 2 clicks highlighted above. Three are further three options of schedules,

either '1/All walls in continued order', '2/All walls after Element Type' or '3/Filter walls with Volume only'.

The option 1, 2 or 3 can be selected in Excel input. 

 

Once a schedule appears on Revit view, just by a single click on ribbon panel 'Export to HTML', the schedule

will be exported on your default web browser. You can save this *.html file in your project folder, and open it

in Excel directly in format *.html.

 

These Excel files help you to determine sum of volume, area, reinforcement volume, length of all walls for

all levels of the building. Further, the schedule also report structural usage, top and base offset, height and

other geometrical data for each wall of the building.

 

This feature is also useful for new model, where the users automate the building with ICDAS FRBL Add-Ins,

then export the schedules of walls to HTML/Excel. These Excel sheets can copy to Excel input sheet 2, 3, 4…

so the users will have all information in one Excel file.


 

  

 

 

Automatic Report/Rename Rooms Data to/from Excel (Dynamo graph & script)


 

›   Read room name/number/area from a Revit model and write them to Excel. Just by a click you will get

   all names, numbers and areas of all rooms of the building to an Excel sheet named “RoomReport”. ICDAS has

   chosen to store this sheet in “INPUT FRBL Excel.xlsm” file to keep all data in one Excel file. From this sheet, you

   get sum of areas of a floor or the total area of all floors by few more clicks in Excel.

 

›   Read new room name/number entered in Excel and overwrite them in Revit. This feature is powerful for the final

   check and correction of name/number of all rooms for a project. The users can check and modify name/number

   for rooms in a sheet named “RoomRename” in the same input Excel file. This sheet is actually a copy of

   “RoomReport” where all rooms data have been detected and listed. Run the dynamo file “ExcelRoomRename.dyn”

    by one click, the new updated name/number of the rooms will be updated for all drawings of the project



Figure: Automatic read room name/number/area from Revit and write to Excel





Figure: Automatic read new room name/number from Excel and overwrite in Revit 
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Automatic Placing of Families


 

You can place a family type, or many types, anywhere at any level of the building. Shown below is an example of three

columns, some males and females. The inputs are positions given from the origin (0, 0). You can either enter inputs in

in Dynamo files, or Excel file for beams and columns.

 


Figure: Automatic placing of families

 

 



Automatic creation of cross framings between two selected model lines (Dynamo graph & script)


 

 

Shown below is an example of automatic creation of 9 framings. They are uniformly distributed between the

two selected model lines along the front and the back side of a FRBL model. Dynamo graph/scripts allows the

users easily can change the number of the framings. It can be a useful supplement to parametric building

regarding wood truss supporting the roof, design of the top floor without the roof, carport and so on. 



Figure: Automatic creation of framings on existing model.

 





Automatic creation of conceptual tower design (Dynamo graph & script)


 

The tower main geoemtry automates by the following paramters:

 

nLevRa = Levels-Radii depending-input. E.g. 4450mm as radius at the bottom and also 4 levels of the tower.

IncRa = Increasing radius each level (mm)

TotH = Total height of the tower (mm)

nfram = number of framings, also number of edges of floor

 

Keep (TotH, nfram) = (15000, 6) and varying (nLevRa, IncRa) for the three examples below. 

 

 

Figure: Conceptual tower (nLevRa, IncRa) = (4450, -500), (3500, 0) and (3500, 500)

 

By varying parameters, the conceptual geometry of the tower can be used in combination with parametric

building, cylinder building and jack foundation.

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Updated 13-04-2022


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ICDAS   •    Hans Erik Nielsens Vej 3   •    DK-3650 Ølstykke   •    E-mail: th@icdas.dk    •   Tel.: +45 60 53 83 79  •   CVR no.: 34436169