Automatization of processes in BIM
The development of day-to-day automation has grown exponentially in recent times, with several implications for processes executed humanely, directly, or indirectly. The goal is always the same, to remove repetitive tasks from humans and to put them in something that can perform them in a much more efficient way, as is the case with computational algorithms. Automation can be applied in a generalized way to all kinds of events from the simplest, such as regulating the temperature of an oven, or even to the most complex ones as in the use of robots for car assembly. In all of them we went from tasks that were performed by humans to automatic tasks performed by algorithms.
The use of Autodesk Revit software, most often in the areas of architecture, urbanism, engineering, and design, despite its developments and being considered a software with a relatively high degree of automation, still requires human interventions to achieve certain processes The extraction of information and elements of the software is one of those processes that requires developments in automation, such as the creation of a drawing. However, it is possible through this software, that users have the possibility to make the processes a more automatic task by providing an API, Application Programming Interface.
Creating drawing sheets, when applied to a correct plug-in, is one of the examples where automation can be checked in Revit from 3D models. Slefty through its R&D team has developed and identified a plug-in, which can be used in automating the creation of drawing sheets, which has the following process: Creating drawing sheets, then creating the drawings, and finally placing the drawings on the sheets.
Starting the process with the creation of drawing sheets, the plug-in through its capabilities has the possibility to predict whether the drawings can all be placed on a sheet, and thus is created the drawing sheet 1. Caso is necessary, due to the lack of space, another sheet is created to contemplate the remaining drawings. The folhas can also be created according to a predefined format, a Title Block, ed size A2 and, according to the design used by Slefty, as was the development carried out internally.
In the creation phase of the drawings, the process to be applied for the creation of the drawings would start with the duplication of the predefined 3D model, defining the camera to view in the drawing and then creating a cut, a Section View, modifying the measurements to values adapted to the size of the cut. At the end and to obtain the plant of the bases of the 3D model, one of the predefined levels of Revit, called Level 1, is used.
The final task of the process is the creation of Viewports, similar to a window through which the drawing is seen, where the area measurements for the drawings on the sheet are automatically calculated, thus defining the boundary corresponding to the zone where the drawings would be placed . Whenever drawings are not possible to place in the given space, they would automatically move to a second sheet.
Slefty continues to work to unleash not only the technicalcapacityof engineers, but also their technical creativity. For this, we must end the routine and repetitive tasks, giving way to a great synergy that is symbiosis in a professional environment between machines and man. Automation can be a still embryonic process in some software, however, it is something that deserves to be developed and implemented for the design and development of products and services. Only then can we increase not only efficiency and productivity, but make the most of the best of each man and machine.