Concrete column design (Etabs or RAM) to Revit for scheduling

[Jkirkpatrick]

We've been using graphical column schedules forever and we're starting to switch to a tabular excel style column schedule.

Currently we just do hand mark ups for the concrete reinforcing and give it to cad to do.

Is anyone having any luck integrating either of those programs with revit?

I've seen the CsiXRevit pluggin but we've not really had any luck with it.

We do use addins for importing excel so that's possibly an option. I don't think there's any applicable use for dynamo in this scenario.

Thanks,

KP

 

[Celt83]

Dynamo would be any option the process would be:
1 determine a way to map etabs/ram columns to the revit columns
2 dump the design summaries to a spreadsheet
3 using dynamo read in the design data and populate the appropriate parameters in the associated column

step 1 is the hardest part as the coordinate systems are usually different and etabs/Ram ID's may change with some modeling operations.

 

[driftLimiter]

I will jump onto the Dynamo train with Celt83 here. I have had little luck using proprietary integration tools.
But dynamo puts the process in your hands and you get to make the decisions.

If you can create a dynamo graph that reads in the automated output of your Structural analysis software, then you can start filtering out data, add names, and eventually populate parameters to elements in the family.

 

[Jkirkpatrick]

@Celt83, From what I've seen from etabs it orders the columns based on how they were drawn. So there's not really a column location mark like what revit uses, it just groups them how it sees fit.

@driftLimiter, I've created several dyn graphs for my company but I'm guessing a graph to read the analysis software is more along the lines of like a zero touch node? I've read some stuff from Marcello Sgambelluri, that dynamo can actually work with other programs. But I've never thought about trying it myself.

 

[driftLimiter]

Im not sure about more sophisticated use of dynamo directly using an API of another program.

What I would do is setup a report in Etabs that has stores the necessary data into a CSV file.
Then its a matter of using a graph to open up the CSV and start pulling data into lists.

With these lists you can start creating parameters to be pushed to the elements.

Might have to do some kind of naming convention to map the columns from Etabs over to Revit, I've done this by using common coordinate systems, or by using a simple naming scheme that can be relied upon.

Not exactly sure what 'zero touch node is' but I have had to use multiple graphs to kind of preprocess the revit model or the output data first.

If you have everything setup I think you could simply run a graph that attempts to process the data stored in a csv. Sometimes I find its a little better to break it out into steps and maintain control in between certain stages.

I'd be interested to see what you come up with

 

[Celt83]

So there's not really a column location mark like what revit uses, it just groups them how it sees fit.

exactly, I've had decent luck in the past by normalizing the column x,y coordinates based on a common column and using a vectored distance tolerance to account for round off or modelling errors.

 

[bookowski]

I've set up etabs to xls to cad for column schedules but basically by brute force, nothing as sophisticated as others are suggesting.

Etabs will number columns C1, C2, etc in the order you draw but you can overwrite this label - using your columns numbers or grid indicators etc. Etabs also has an "unique name" for all elements and you cannot change the unique name. What I've done is renamed the columns (change the label) to match what I need. You can do all floors at once, so for example grab column B/7 on all floors and change them all to "B7" at once so it's not quite as bad as it sounds. Then you need to dump the data. For each column and floor I have xls go into the data dump tab and search for the etabs "unique name", i.e. maybe column B7 at floor 4 is unique named 7413. From there xls goes into the other data dump tables and for element 7413 finds what you need - size, loads, etc. It's not pretty but this methodology is useful for lots of etabs to xls designs. For example concrete concrete coupling beams. Once you get it set up you can be in xls and have a drop down where you choose floor = 9, beam = B3 and it'll grab the data you need and you can do your designs in xls, print to pdf, and then pull data for a new beam. For columns I only use this etabs process for steel jobs. For concrete jobs we are usually designing the floors in safe vs etabs and I've got a similar but slightly less ugly link from safe to xls for col outputs.

 

[snipit]

I had my set up exactly like Celt83, including all other markups

 

[Trenno]

Agree with Celt. In the past I used this mapping method for a RAM Concept load run down tool.

 

[RobertHale]

Are there any Primers for dipping my toes into using Dynamo?

 

[Jkirkpatrick]

I started learning dynamo from youtube, mainly AussieBimGuru. Also there's the actual website for learning it,

https://primer.dynamobim.org/

We're going to see what we're able to do with the relative location for columns and see what we can come up with.

 

[snipit]

@Trenno

sorry, what do you mean by load run down?

 

[Trenno]

Perhaps it's called load take down in other parts of the world.

Essentially summing the column reactions sequentially from each floor's ram concept model using location coordinates to map columns. Definitely build in a radial tolerance though.

 

[snipit]

@Trenno

Sorry, I do understand that you meant load take/run down. But I'm not quite sure why you're doing load take down using concept. I'm sorry, not much experience here.

Essentially summing the column reactions sequentially from each floor's

To put into column schedule or something similar? To get total load at the lowest level? Wouldn't RAM Structural System do a better job with less effort?