Creating a Project using Revit
VIM Enterprise projects using Autodesk Revit as the source require a local installation of Revit and access to the Revit.exe executable. You will also need to have an Azure Storage Account configured.
Creating a Revit Project
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In VIM Enterprise, on the Projects tab, click New Project.
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In the New Project dialog, type a Name for the project.
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Under Source, select Revit Local and click OK. The new project name is listed on the left panel and the project settings are displayed.
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On the project settings panel, click the folder icon beside the Revit File Path field, select the Revit file for your project, and click Open.
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In the 3D View field, type the name of the view you want for your VIM file. The name must match the view name in Revit.
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Click the folder icon beside the Revit.exe field, select the Revit.exe file (usually C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit <version>), and click Open.
noteThe text above the field will update, displaying the Revit version and whether the VIM for Revit plugin is installed.
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Under Options, define the following settings as required:
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Export Mode — Enabling Parallel mode may significantly decrease the export times of larger projects. Additionally, you can define the number of processes (default is 4).
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Show Dialogs — Displays any message or warning dialogs, for example links not found, during the export from Revit. You will need to close these dialogs for the export to complete. By default these messages are not displayed during the export.
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Export Rooms — Exports all the rooms in the document.
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Export Area Info — Exports all the area information in the document.
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Export View Sheet Set Info — Exports all the view sheet set information in the document.
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Export Parameters — Enabled by default. Exports all element parameters from the Revit project. If unchecked, no element parameters are exported, only the geometry data.
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Skip Empty Parameters — Skips all empty parameters to streamline the export process.
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Parameter Allow List — Enables you to define a list of parameters to include in the export. This can save time when exporting larger projects. The Parameter Names must match the Family, Instance, or Type parameter names in the Revit project. You can save parameter lists as text files and load lists from saved text files.
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Click the folder icon beside the VIM File Path field, select a folder in which to store the exported VIM file, and click Save.
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(Optional Test) At the top of the project settings panel, click Run to verify the project source and VIM file destination settings. The VIM file is exported from Revit and saved in the specified folder. You can inspect the exported file in VIM Flex by clicking the Open icon beside the VIM File Path field (see below).
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Scroll down to the Parquet section. Click on the folder icon to select a folder in which to store the processed Parquet files then click Save.
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Obtain the Azure Blob SAS URL required for the next step and copy it to the Windows clipboard. The Blob SAS URL is generated on the Microsoft Azure Container page. See Creating Shared Access Tokens.
noteIf your IT department created the Azure Storage Account, you will need to contact them to obtain the Blob SAS URL
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On the project settings panel, right-click in the Container Shared Access Signature (SAS) URL field and choose Paste. The same SAS URL can be used for all of your VIM projects. Important: this SAS URL has an expiry date and must be refreshed based on your chosen expiry date.
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Click Save.
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Scroll to the top of the project settings panel and click Run.
When complete, the project Status will say "Done!", and a green checkmark will be displayed beside the project in the projects list.
The fields in the Power BI section of the project settings are populated automatically from the Azure Blob Storage settings.