Good afternoon. Welcome to PCI's webinar series. Today's presentation is Extracting Revit Data for Precast Production Automation. This webinar is sponsored by PTAG Engineering. My name is Nicole Clow, Marketing Coordinator at PCI, and I will be your moderator for this session. Before I turn the controls over to your presenters for today, I have a few introductory items to note. Earlier today, we sent a reminder email to all registered attendees that included a handout of today's presentation. That handout for this webinar can also be found in the handout section of your webinar pane. If you cannot download the handout, please email pcimarketing at marketing at pci.org. Note that all attendee lines are muted. The GoToWebinar toolbox has an area for you to raise your hand. If you raise your hand, you will receive a private chat message from me. If you have a question, please type it into the questions pane where I will be keeping track of them and will read the questions to the presenters during the Q&A period. Also, a pop-up survey will appear after the webinar ends. Today's presentation will be recorded and uploaded to the PCI eLearning Center. Questions related to specific products or publications will be addressed at the end of the presentation. PCI is a registered provider of AIA CES, but today's presentation does not contain content that has been endorsed by AIA. Today's presentation is non-CEU. Our presenters for today are Jordan Watkins, CEO of PTAC Engineering. He is a registered professional engineer with extensive experience in structural design, detailing, and project management of precast, prestressed concrete structures. He is an acting team leader for working projects and is currently responsible for stability and component design, as well as three-dimensional modeling of precast, prestressed concrete structures. He is also the manager of the software development branch of PTAC Engineering and the branch manager of the Daphne Alabama office. Joining Jordan is Alyssa Roberson, Director of GoToMarket Strategy at PTAC Engineering. She has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of South Alabama. She has extensive experience in software testing and using Revit for three-dimensional modeling. She is currently responsible for managing the Quality Assurance Department, maintaining the training program for EDGE, providing customer support, and developing EDGE's GoToMarket Strategy. I will now hand the controls over so we can begin our presentation. In today's demonstration, we'll be exploring how we can take our Revit model and extract specific portions of that model information to convert it over into file formats that can be read by production automation machinery. There's a few different workflows we're going to be going over today, first of which is going to be our laser export, which is going to extract out relevant portions of your Revit model, your existing project, and save that into a file format that can then be used for laser projection on the production line. Next, we're going to look into our insulation export, which is going to allow us to pull out relevant information from just the insulation pieces in the project and save that information to a file format that can be used to automate the machining of those insulation pieces. And then finally, we're going to review a more general version of a export file, the EDGE4CAM export, which again allows you to extract Revit model information for various production automation processes. So before we can actually get into the details of those exports, one of the common themes amongst all of them is the fact that it's going to be using your Revit model. So one of the key components here is just the fact that Revit in and of itself is a BIM, or Building Information Modeling software, meaning that it's kind of like you're building a model using Legos. You're putting these pieces and parts together, and each of those pieces knows information about itself. So if I place a spandrel or a wall panel in the model, that particular piece is going to know what its overall dimensions are. It's going to know what its volume is, its weight is, and a lot more information as well. So those are just some very generic examples. But the fact that each of those components is parametric means that we're able to extract out all of that information for various other purposes, such as these exports that we're going to talk about later on. Another component here is that we're using Edge for Revit. Edge for Revit is an add-on for the Revit software itself, which is basically a suite of tools making it more user-friendly for the precast concrete workflow. It's going to automate some of those tedious tasks, such as marking the precast members in the project, marking your rebar and your insulation, and also automating the warping for drainage if that's necessary. In addition to that, it also allows you to more easily and efficiently create very, very detailed models. So again, all of that's going to come into play when we talk about these exports as well. But the key takeaway here is all of these exports are going to be dependent on that already existing Revit model, which it's just extracting relevant information from. So the first export we're going to talk about will be the laser export. Before I dive into the details, the graphic on the right, the leftmost one, the one that's kind of a greenish color, that's a screenshot directly out of Revit. So that's referencing in that Revit model I was talking about. Whereas the image on the right-hand side, that is a representation of the actual export that was created based on the Revit model. So for the laser export, like I was saying, it references in what you've actually built into that Revit file. So it's going to be as detailed as you have made that particular model. So you have full control over what exactly gets exported, what it looks like in the export, and all of that based on kind of how detailed you get with each of your families. So with this particular export, it's going to allow you to export the extracted data out to a DWG file. And the data that it's going to export for this particular tool is going to be split out into different layers. So for example, it's going to export a layer for form, which is going to represent the outline of the precast member. You can see that in the right image, it's shown by the white line work, the outline that you're seeing. There's a separate layer for architectural details. So that yellow line work, those are going to be reveals or recesses that were modeled on the bottom and form face. There's also a separate layer that's going to represent all of the bottom and form plates that were in the assembly that were exported. There's also a top and form layer. This top and form layer is going to include the outline of the top and form face of the actual geometry of the precast member. It'll also include any top and form embeds, lifters, and then also any corbels or ledges that were top and form as well. This particular top and form layer, it gets created within that DWG file at an elevation that's equivalent to what the thickness of that precast member was. And then we also have a layer that represents side and form lifters or embeds. And then finally, there is a final layer in there that's going to represent the most outer face or extreme face of any of those top and form corbels and ledges that were exported out in the original top and form layer. So in this video here, it's just kind of going through how that export file was actually created. I've selected an assembly in my Revit model here. I'm just running the laser export tool on it. It's extracting out all of the relevant information from that piece. And then it's saving it to that DWG file. So I'm just opening it up here in the application. And as you can see, it is displaying all of that information that we were running through previously and all of that information you saw in the Revit model. So we have the outline of the piece. We can see where all of our lifters are and all of our top and form, bottom and form plates, reveals, recesses. And then also when I'm in a isometric view here, you can see that those layers are created at those different elevations that basically represent what the thickness of the piece is. This laser export file that's generated can be used for laser projection to show where elements are on the bed and where your top is cast face materials are as well. Moving on to the next variety of export that we have, that's going to be our insulation export. So with our insulation export, there's actually two different workflows or two different varieties of this tool. The first variety that we're going to go through is specific to individual precast pieces. So what I mean by that is when we run this particular insulation export tool, it is just concerned with insulation for the most part anyway. So with that insulation, it's going to export it per precast piece with this particular workflow. That's what's going to kind of differentiate those two workflows, and we'll get to the other one here in just a moment. With this workflow, again, it is all based on what you have modeled in Revit, and it allows you to go through and choose which assemblies you want to actually extract the insulation pieces from to save to that external file. The export is actually shown in the screenshots on this slide here. The leftmost view is showing one export file, and the image to the right of it is just a zoomed in portion of that same file. So the file that's exported is going to be saved out into a DWG file format, and it's going to contain information about the overall outline of each piece of insulation that was exported. That's the blue line work that you're seeing in the image. It will also represent any cutouts that may exist in the insulation. That would also be shown as blue line work if any existed in that image to the right. It'll also represent any pockets or recesses that may exist in that image. That's the white line work. It's also going to export the pin or tie locations for those pieces of insulation as well. Those are going to be the green lines, and in that image there's a few green lines in there that have yellow diamonds around those. So there's also the ability to export out when additional ties or when supplemental pins are needed. So the green pins might just represent the standard pin layout, whereas if you need to add or supplement to that with additional pins or ties, those can be represented with that yellow diamond shape in the export. And then finally in the middle of the piece there's a number that's circled. That's going to be the mark of each of those pieces of insulation that is also exported and represented in the file as well. So here's just a run through of what that's actually going to look like. You would choose the particular assemblies in Revit that you're wanting to extract the insulation from. You'll run the insulation export tool. It's going to save that file to a specific location, which I've loaded in here. And as you can see, everything we just talked through is displayed here. Each of those blue outlines represents a piece of insulation, and for each piece of insulation it's going to show any cutouts, recesses, reveals, pin locations, and then also the mark for each of those as well. So like I was mentioning with the insulation export, there are two different varieties or two different workflows. So the optimized layout workflow is different from what we talked through previously in that it's not exactly dependent on each precast member. The optimized layout workflow is more concerned about taking all of the insulation that you've told it to process and trying to minimize waste, so to speak. So you will define what the maximum sheet size for an insulation piece is. So if you buy your insulation in a four foot by eight foot sheet, that would be your maximum size. And then for every piece of insulation that you tell it to process, it's going to kind of play Tetris with them and try to rearrange them, rotate them around, and place them within that maximum sheet size to eliminate waste, basically. So with this particular workflow, you'll have the option to either export all the insulation in the entire job, or you do still have the ability to narrow it down on a per assembly basis. This particular export file is going to be a .cid file format. That's what it's saved out to. And it's going to basically export out the same information that we saw with the other file. It might look a little bit different here on the screen, but it's all the same core information. We're going to get what the outline of the insulation is. It's going to show us any cutouts in there that may exist. Any pockets or recesses that need to exist for that insulation will be displayed as well. In that graphic on the right, the pockets and the recesses are shown as those spirals. A difference with this export is it has the ability to also represent mitered edges. So for 30 degree, 15 degree, and 45 degree miters, those can all be represented in this file as well. It's going to show you all of your pin locations. If you use directional markers for your insulation pieces, those will be represented in the export as well. You can also define tool types for each of those different types of cuts prior to running the export and that would be saved to the file. And then also we still get that information about the insulation marks as well. It's saved behind the scenes in the export file, so we're not actually seeing it in those screenshots here, but the information is there. So this video is just going to run through an example of that. Like I was saying, with this particular export tool, you do have the ability to choose whether to run it on the entire model, which would export out all of the insulation in the job, or you could narrow it down to just specific assemblies if you wanted to. Each of the maximum sheet sizes is going to be saved as its own file, so that's what we're seeing here in that long list. It exported out 20 some odd files to represent all of those maximum sheets that it could create. And within those, it's going to kind of optimize the layout of those individual pieces of insulation. So just going through, kind of showing a couple of different examples here. The original export had four sheets of insulation on it, whereas this one only has a couple. But again, that was all based on the optimized layout. So like we went through in the previous slide, you can see that it does represent the outline of the insulation. We're getting all of our contours, our pockets, our recesses, our pin locations. So all of that information is there and saved in that exported file. So regardless of which of those two varieties of the insulation export that you're utilizing, the intent there is to be able to feed that file into a CNC machine to automate the milling of each of those insulation pieces. And lastly, we have our EDGE4CAM export. The EDGE4CAM export is a more broad or a more generic version of export. So whereas with the laser export and the insulation export, those are very tailored to either laser projection or CNCing of insulation, the EDGE4CAM export is more generic in the sense that it's multipurpose. It can be used for creating files to feed into rebar bending machines, or it could also be used to create a file to automate mesh fabrication. So it's not as narrowed in scope as those other exports we've discussed so far. One commonality between EDGE4CAM and the other tools that we've talked about so far is the fact that it once again is going to be dependent on your Revit model. So this export is going to be as detailed and as accurate as your Revit model is. It's just extracting out what you've actually placed in there and what you've modeled. The EDGE4CAM export at present, we support two different file formats that you can export out to. One is going to be Progress Group's PXML file format, and the other is Unitechnic's UXML file format. And there's a few different versions of each of those that we support, but those are the two main file formats themselves. With the EDGE4CAM export, since it is so broad or generic in terms of what it can ultimately be used for, when you actually run this tool, it's only going to export what you tell it to, essentially. So you can create views that have filtered out specific elements. So if I have a wall panel that has reinforcing and embeds in it, if I create a view that is just showing the geometry of the precast member and maybe just the reinforcement and embeds and lifters are hidden, if I tell it to export just what's visible in the view, it's only going to export what's visible in the view. So you can create those custom views to kind of tell it what exactly in your model you're actually concerned about exporting into that file that it's going to create. Along those same lines, you can also use visibility and settings within Revit to control what exactly each of those members looks like as well. So for example, if I were to just export a wall panel that has a plate in it, the default behavior, that plate is going to be represented as a bounding box that basically just shows a block of the extreme extents of that particular plate. If I wanted that plate to be represented as maybe a line or a point instead of that bounding box, you can accomplish that as well. That's all going to be defined by kind of how you configure your view within Revit. So you have pretty much full control over not only what actually gets exported, but also what each of those members ultimately ends up ultimately ends up looking like in the exported data. With the Edge for CAM export, there's a few different groupings of information that are exported, and it's split out into those different categories that you're seeing on my screen there. There's lots, mount parts, and reinforcement. Those are the three main groupings. So for a lot, that's going to contain information about the actual precast piece itself. So it's going to define what the geometry of the precast piece is. Does it have any cutouts in it? Does the perimeter have any changes in the shape? Are there any finishes on that precast member? What is the weight and the volume of it? What's its overall dimensions? The lot portion of the exported file is going to contain all of that information. The mount parts portion of the export exported file is going to contain information about all of the materials that were exported except for rebar and mesh. Those come a little bit later. So this is going to be things like maybe embeds or lifters. Mount parts are going to be exported as a bounding box that defines what the extreme expense of that particular material or element is unless you've done that additional work to tell it that maybe plates should be exported as a line or a point. But the default behavior is just going to be a bounding box to represent this. And then lastly we have our reinforcement grouping. So this is going to represent each and every rebar that is modeled within that piece and was exported. It's also going to represent your mesh that was in the piece. And we'll get into some more specifics about those types of elements a little bit later on, but generically speaking those are the broad categories or the broad groupings of elements or of information that the exported file will contain information on. So with the exported file, one thing that's going to be important is how should all of that data be oriented within this exported file that we're creating. So when it exports out a rebar or a plate, how should that be positioned in space essentially in that exported data? And how should that relate to the other information that was exported out? So that's when the assembly origin is going to come into play. So for every single assembly that you create within Revit, it's going to have what's known as an assembly origin. It's kind of what lets Revit know where that assembly lives in the project environment, and it's also going to define its directionality because that assembly origin has an x-axis, a y-axis, and a z-axis. And for each of those three axes, there's a plane associated with them. That's actually in that top image, that's showing the assembly origin, the three arrows, the green, blue, and red. Those are the x, y, and z-axis. And then the blue planes there, those are the planes associated with each of those axes. Where those three planes come together, that defines the assembly origin. And the direction of each of those axes is also going to come into play. So the assembly origin, its position, and the direction of all of those axes is utilized by the Edge4CAM export as well to basically tell it how everything should end up being oriented within that exported file. So that's what's driving the orientation of all of those members that get exported and represented in that file. So the next couple of slides are going to run through two different examples. This first one is going to run through an example that exports out to Unitechnics UXML file format. And then the next video we're going to look at will again just be another export, but that time it's going to be Progress Groups PXML export. So we're running the same tool, it's just going to be different views that we are, or different file formats that we're exporting out to. So for this particular piece, I'm going through and I'm actually going to hide all of those plates in the view. So I'm creating a view essentially that's been tailored so that I'm only showing the members that I want represented in my export. So once I've tailored that view, I'll run the Edge4CAM export tool. I'll tell it whether I just want to export what's visible or if I wanted to export everything, I would choose the other option. Now I choose whether to export out to PXML or UXML file format. Once I've chosen that, it's going to go through, extract out all of the relevant information, and save it to the appropriate file format. The file then gets saved on your computer, and here in just a second it's going to open up that file that was exported into a viewer so we can actually kind of visualize what all of that exported data looks like. So there's that file that was exported in the viewer, and as you can see here, it is basically a representation of what we were looking at in the Revit environment. It does not include those plates because they were hidden in the view prior to running the tool. We see the outline of the precast member. It's representing bounding boxes for where all of those lifters were. It's also representing all of the reinforcement that was in there. On the left-hand side, that's all of the raw data that's in that file, so doesn't really look like too much on the screen there, but that's all what's driving the geometry that you see on the right-hand portion of the screen. So basically it's just a representation of what we were looking at in the actual Revit model itself. So here's the other example, but this time for PXML. So I have two views here, one where I've customized it to show just the precast member and reinforcing. The other one is just showing the precast member and plates and embeds. So as you can see here, we have the geometry of the precast member and just the reinforcement, whereas with this exported file, it's just the lifters, the plates, and the precast member. So full customization over what gets exported and how it's represented. And in this particular piece, I don't have a great example to show here, but besides some of those lifters, there's lines. Those are actually plates. They were customized to export as line work rather than the bounding box. So that just kind of shows the capability there of having the ability to customize what exactly each of those members ends up looking like in the actual export itself. So with this Edge4Can export tool, one thing that it is relying on is that the precast member needs to be prismatic in the Z direction. So what does that mean? Remember that assembly origin? It has an X, Y, and Z axis. Well, that's the Z direction I'm talking about. The Z direction that's defined there, in that particular direction, your precast piece has to be prismatic. If it's not, it'll still export. It's not going to cancel out of it or anything like that, but the geometry that's exported for it isn't necessarily going to reflect the true geometry. And a double T here is a great example. So double T, if we're saying the Z direction, is it's a depth, the depth of the double T, then it's not a solid continuous shape in that Z direction. You have your stems that deviate, so it's not going to accurately represent the actual geometry of the double T itself. So for double Ts in particular, we have built in some additional capability here for you to tell the export to only extract out information from the flange portion of the double T and basically ignore from the stems downward. So one thing I do want to point out, this cam flange only parameter that it's referencing here, that's going to come into play here in just a second. I'm going to play a video that kind of walks through it. So in here I have this a double T. I'm going to select the double T and it does have that cam flange only parameter built into it. That's what lets the export tool know whether it should just export the flange or if it should export the whole piece. So since with this first go around, I'm leaving it unchecked. That means the export tool is going to export out the entire double T, including the stems and all. And this is going to give a pretty good visual of what I was trying to talk through where it's not going to be an accurate representation of the geometry of the double T. So in my viewer over here, I'm going to open up that file that was just exported. It did export out the the double T and its materials, but notice how the actual geometry of the double T, it's just a big solid block. We don't get the contours for the stems or anything like that because the double T is not prismatic. It's just exporting out the extreme extents of the double T. So this go around, I'm checking the option for cam flange only, which is going to mean when I run the export tool this go around, it's basically going to, from the bottom of the flange down, ignore everything to do with the double T and only export what's within the flange portion of the double T. So if I reload in that updated export file, this time you'll see none of that information from the flange is shown. So there was stem mesh in there, stem mesh was not exported because it's not actually in the flange portion of the double T. So this is truly just exporting what is contained within the flange of the double T with this particular workflow. So with the cam export tool, I mentioned earlier on that it can be used to automate rebar bending. So that's going to be true for the PXML file format, but maybe not so true for UXML. So with Progress Group's PXML file format, which is what these screenshots on my screen here were all taken from, you'll notice that the bars themselves, their true geometry is actually represented here in the exported file. And then you can also create these complex shapes that you're seeing on the screen as well. So PXML, that file format has very robust support for all of these complex and advanced reinforcement layouts. The same is not necessarily true, at least not at this point, for the UXML file format. Just because of how that file format is structured, it does not have the capability to represent reinforcement in the same way that you're seeing on my screen here. So with UXML, most of the time, there are some exceptions, but most of the time, rebar is just going to be exported out as a bounding box. It's not going to show its true shape or its true geometry. It's just going to basically show what the extreme extents are of the bar. So with the PXML file format, you're getting a true representation of what each of those pieces of rebar looks like in the piece. Whereas with UXML, that more than likely will not be the case in most scenarios. In terms of exporting mesh, there are two different workflows that we accommodate with the export. One is a much more simplified version of mesh. So with the first workflow, the mesh in Revit is just going to be represented as a bounding box that defines what the extreme extents that that mesh should occupy. It's not actually going to show the individual wires or bars within the mesh. It is truly just a bounding box essentially. That particular approach or that workflow is supported by both the UXML and the PXML file formats. So that works for both of those, and I do have a video that I'll show in just a moment to kind of walk through what that looks like. The second approach is going to be a lot more accurate and more detailed. The second approach is only supported by PXML though. It's not supported by UXML. So if you're exporting out to PXML, you'll also have the ability, instead of representing mesh as just a bounding box, you could build a mesh family that actually represents each of the bars or the wires within that mesh. So basically completely representing the mesh as a true mesh. When you export that, the mesh will actually show through in your export as those individual wires or bars that make up the total mesh construct. Something that is going to come into play for that is each of those individual wires, how do they know that they belong to this mesh here and not some mesh somewhere else in the piece? So we've incorporated a parameter called mesh underscore sheet, and you'll see that in the video that I show in a moment. But that mesh sheet parameter is what's going to allow you to kind of tie individual wires or bars together to allow the export to know that all of these wires and bar make up this one mesh sheet and so on. So this video, the first thing it's going to show is that simplified workflow where that dashed box that you're seeing, that is a mesh family and it's built just to basically represent the outer extents that the mesh would occupy within the piece. Like I mentioned before, this particular workflow, the simplified workflow, is supported by both the UXML and PXML file formats. So when I go through an export, I could choose to export it out to either one. And when we actually view those exported files here in just a moment, you'll basically see a similar theme where the mesh is just represented as that bounding box. It's not going to look like a true mesh. So here is the PXML file that was exported. It's just that blue block that you're seeing. It's the same width and length that it was modeled at within the Revit environment. And then for the thickness or the depth, it's just exported with a default value of six millimeters. That's just the default thickness that we use there. So now I'm just going through and opening up the UXML version of the exported file and it looks very similar. It's just an outline of the piece and again it was exported with that same default thickness of six millimeters. So in this video here, this is going to walk through that more detailed approach. So this mesh family, you'll notice it looks quite a bit different. We're actually representing each of the individual bars and it's pointing out that mesh sheet parameter. You'll notice that each of those individual bars have the same value as the total mesh sheet did. Whereas with this one, this is an example of when it's done wrong. There's no mesh sheet value assigned at all. So those bars in that mesh sheet are not going to know that they actually belong to a mesh and we'll see that in the exported data here in just a moment. But when we run the CAM export this go around, remember this workflow is only supported by PXML. So we're just exporting out to PXML this time. I'll go ahead and open up that exported file and you'll actually be able to see those individual wires that make up the mesh here. So over on the left-hand side, it's actually showing each of the elements that were exported from Revit. So all of those single items, it thinks those are just individual pieces or individual bars. Those are the ones that were not associated to a mesh sheet. Whereas this one here, where it actually lists out mesh on the left-hand side, it's identifying all of those bars or all of those wires belonging to that one mesh sheet rather than just being those independent bars like those there. So for the EdgeCAM export, like I mentioned earlier on, it is very multi-purpose. You can tailor it to export out whatever elements within the model that you're really needing. So some of the use cases for it is you can use it for water-soluble bed plotting to plot the elements that are down as cast face on the bed, which is going to eliminate or minimize at least the need for very intensive detailing. You can also use it to automate rebar bending. So remember with PXML, it's going to basically export out the exact shape of the bar that you modeled within Revit. So all of that information that was contained in your Revit model is going to exist in that exported file that you created and it can be fed directly into those automated rebar bending machines. Another use case is to automate mesh fabrication. So when you actually create those mesh solids within Revit, you can model your cutouts in there, you can model any contours in the shape. All of that very detailed information is going to get included in that exported file. So that's going to allow you to create those custom mesh sheets without you having to manually go through and cut out all of those openings or any of those fine details. It's also going to eliminate the need for you to inventory mesh. And a couple other use cases here is to automate the distribution of concrete and also to use for a shuttering robot to automate the placement of formwork as well. All right, well thank you guys very much. If anyone has any questions, you can ask them now. Thank you, Alyssa, for a great and informative presentation. It doesn't look like we've received any questions yet, but I'll give it about 10-15 seconds and see if any questions come through. So like Alyssa said, if you have any questions, feel free to send them in. Oh, we just received a question. How do we get the insulation and laser export buttons? So those are going to be incorporated in our next release of Edge. That should be coming in about a month. And that's just going to be included in the Edge for Revit software. Wonderful, thank you. I'll give about 10 more seconds to see if another question comes in. Okay, don't see another question come in. So on behalf of PCI, I'd like to thank Alyssa for a great presentation. If you have any further questions about today's webinar, please email marketing at pci.org. Thank you again. Have a great day and stay safe.

Revit Data Extraction

Precast Production Automation

PTAG Engineering

Laser Export

Insulation Export

Edge4CAM Export

Revit Parametric Components

Automation Process