Image Credit: Julian Munoz @julian.karate
Workflow Advantages
Certain products and objects are very difficult to be modeled in Revit and sometimes impossible without external plugins or tools
There have been multiple instances when I was asked to bring certain products into Revit so that they can be rendered in Enscape from Revit. Many times I would spend time to parametrically model these products if they did not include rfa’s from the manufacturer
This workflow allows a quick way to bring in mesh based elements that would otherwise not be shown in Revit due to time restrictions for modeling and the unnecessity of these geometrically complex models to be parametric. There are many components that have either use a low poly estimation in Revit or a placeholder element. This no longer needs to be the case with Helix’s DXF importer from SketchUp to Revit.
1 | Bring the 3D Warehouse Component into the SketchUp Model
Search SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse for the “Cadeira Classic by Square Móveis” model (or use link: Cadeira Classic by Square Móveis | 3D Warehouse)
Load the model into SketchUp
2 | Map the Components as Mesh (DXF)
Create a tag called Furniture Using a tag based method allows us to batch map the components by placing them on that tag
Place the chair onto the newly created tag and map the tag as a Mesh (DXF) + Furniture category in Helix
3 | Import SketchUp Component Into Revit
Click the Send To Revit button in the Helix window
Click the Load Model button In Revit under the EvolveLAB Ribbon Tab
NOTE: the texture in SketchUp was colorized, which is why it’s a different color in Revit. We are planning to add a setting that keep the colorized texture or the original. We can also make the default be colorized without a setting in the interim. Let us know what’s preferred in the comments.
NOTE 2: the clip maps do not get automatically set in the converted Revit material. We will update this in a future release.
4 | Change Revit Materials of the Imported Objects (Optional)
The chair will be imported in Revit with SketchUp materials and textures converted as Revit materials
You can further change these material in Revit
Click the Object Styles button under the Manage Ribbon Tab, and under the Settings panel
Go to the Imported Objects tab
Set the Material under the Material column by clicking the “…” button that appears when selecting the currently assigned material
5 | Render the Scene
Render the scene in Enscape (or other rendering solution)
NOTE: Enscape does a good job at smoothing the mesh normals that appear faceted in Revit
Image Credit: Julian Munoz @julian.karate
Ideas & Feedback
Let us know how we can improve this workflow. Are the ideas below important to you for this workflow?
supporting clip maps
setting for colorize textures
creating a new Revit material editor for these components
other ideas that could be useful to this workflow
To download or try Helix, you can click this link.