Understand the use of Autodesk Model Checker for Revit

00:06

The model checker automatically checks Revit models

00:09

and assist with verifying compliance to the BIM requirements and or the BIM Execution Plan.

00:16

The add in is designed to quickly identify possible conflicts or areas of noncompliance in a model

00:21

by running several standard checks which can be viewed or exported for analytical review.

00:28

The model checker can be found on the BIM Interoperability Tools tab of the ribbon.

00:34

Here, within the Model Checker panel, we'll do a three step process, will simply Set it up.

00:41

We'll Run it and we'll Review the report.

00:45

So let's select Setup.

00:48

Here, it's as simple as selecting which configured check set you want to use for this model.

00:55

We can browse to one,

00:56

we can access our Recently used one or we can grab them from the Public Library.

01:02

Let's go ahead and browse to an xml.

01:04

Select the one that we setup here. I'm gonna hit Open.

01:08

Gonna hit Okay,

01:10

I'm just gonna Save it and Close it,

01:15

simple as that.

01:16

We've identified the checkset that we want to use in the model checker.

01:20

Next step is to run, so we'll select the Run here.

01:26

This is gonna run the models check right now.

01:29

It is the current model that we have open but we can Add Models to it, so we can add this to a list of processed files.

01:36

We can check all the links. We can uncheck the links,

01:39

we can remove all models. I'm gonna leave it as is.

01:43

I'm select Run Report.

01:47

We're gonna give it a moment.

01:48

It's gonna go through all of those checks that were created within that check set

01:51

and it's gonna give us a final result here in a moment.

01:59

Okay and up pops the report. This is the summary here.

02:02

So we've got the Check Summary, it ran 13 Checks,

02:15

Down here gives us a little bit more information.

02:19

I can drill down into the Sections here to get a little bit more.

02:24

I can copy this information.

02:26

I can view an html or I can export this out to Excel.

02:33

If I export that out to Excel, it's just gonna go to the location, I've got it here.

02:37

I'm gonna hit Okay.

02:39

It says it's been exported successfully, do you want to open it?

02:42

Let's go ahead and take a look at it.

02:45

There's the Excel, there's the Files, there's the Checks that were ran and there's the Elements and the report.

02:54

Okay, while we're here within this summary, I'm gonna also choose HTML to show you that option.

02:59

Let's just throw that on our Desktop and very similar to what we see, here.

03:05

This is the HTML. It's gonna tell us about that checkset a lot more information.

03:12

I'm gonna Close this down.

03:15

Okay if I'm out of that and I want to view that report again, I'm just gonna select View Report and right back into it.

03:22

So even if you close that, when you first run that report,

03:26

you can always go back view the report, re-export it, close it down.

03:30

Re-run it if you need to run it against another checkset. Very simple.

03:36

So once configured we can set it up, we can run it.

03:39

We can review and export out those reports.

00:06

The Model Checker configurator is a standalone Windows application that allows you to create

00:11

and edit your own configuration files to use within the Model Checker.

00:16

The configurator can be found on the BIM Interoperability Tools tab of the ribbon, and on the Configurator panel, you'll see Launch.

00:27

All we need to do there is select "Launch".

00:33

And this is the Navigation toolbar.

00:34

We'll go through each one of these one by one.

00:37

But this first page is the General settings.

00:39

This page allows you to open an existing configuration file for editing or create a new configuration file and change the checkset properties.

00:49

So if I come here to open, it's going to launch the open checkset XML.

00:54

Here, we can browse to a file.

00:57

We can look at our recent checksets and we can also look at some of the publicly available checksets that are prebuilt for us.

01:06

So in this case, we've got airports, we've got general, we've got Revit best practices, we have the USACE stuff,

01:13

a lot of things in here that's a good starting point or that's already been set forth by the client.

01:21

If I select one of my recent ones, I'm going to select the Revit Model Checker for USACE, I am going to select that.

01:27

I'm just going to hit "OK".

01:29

Okay.

01:29

And this is, again, if one has already been built for you or you want to edit an existing one.

01:34

So I'll come down here to the preview checkset just to show you what this checkset consists of.

01:39

We're going to build our own in a moment.

01:41

So I come down here.

01:42

I can just look at this preview.

01:44

You can see all the model checks that are included in this checkset, the element checks that are included in this checkset.

01:51

I can edit that if I want to, so I can kind of drill down in here to what those checksets are, and I can look at them.

01:57

So for example, this model checks here.

01:60

Let's look at the warnings.

02:02

And here in this warning, it says description, reports and lists all warnings in a Revit model.

02:07

The result is count and list of matching elements.

02:10

So we could edit that even further if we need it.

02:13

But let's build our own checkset.

02:15

Let's create one real quick.

02:16

We're going to come here to the general settings and I'm going to simply select New.

02:21

Let's just call this Test Set, author is going to be me, Me, give a description if we want.

02:30

We could give it again a dialogue image, that could be a logo, that could be the project image, it could be anything you want there.

02:36

It's just an image file.

02:38

We can save this or we can do a "Save As" if it's something we've edited.

02:41

I'm going to say "Save" and I'm just going to save that to my desktop.

02:44

I'm going to call that Test Set XML.

02:47

So let's look at what it takes to build a checkset.

02:50

There are three pages here in this dialog box that support the creation of new checks.

02:56

There's the advanced check builder, there's the wizard check builder, and then there's the pre-built checksets.

03:04

Checks created in any of these pages can be added and organized into the checksets on the Structure Organization tab

03:11

and previewed on the Preview Checkset tab.

03:16

So let's look at the advanced option here.

03:18

This allows you full control over every aspect of your check.

03:22

This is recommended for those that have created checks before.

03:25

So if you're familiar with it, you can kind of create your own checks through this advanced page or if you need a modifying existing check.

03:32

When editing a check, even if created with the wizard, you'll always open it in this interface.

03:39

So if we want to create a new one or add one in here,

03:41

I'm going to say add this to the check to the library of unused, but I'm going to fill this out first.

03:47

So I'm just going to name it here.

03:48

Let's just do Duplicate Model Elements, check result.

03:59

You have a few options here for check result.

04:01

I'm going to say "Fail when model elements are found".

04:05

So when it sees duplicate model elements, that's going to fail or give us a report of failure.

04:14

We can describe it if we want, so checks for any modeled elements that are duplicates.

04:28

Okay.

04:29

And a failure message.

04:30

This is whatever you wanted to say, you could simply say failure.

04:33

You could say Failed Duplicate Elements, whatever you want to put in here.

04:46

And down here in the filters, we can create filters.

04:49

So this is what's going to run against the model.

04:52

So I'm going to say add filter.

04:56

Category - this can be anything.

04:58

I'm going to do API type, full class name equals.

05:03

And then we can put in some information here.

05:10

I'm going to say user defined.

05:15

And default value is, let's see, Autodesk Revit.DB.FamilyInstance.

05:28

Again, this could be anything here.

05:30

We can add more filters here.

05:32

So I'm going to add another filter.

05:34

I'm going to add it to category is view, is defined, and maybe the code here is False, expand my window a little bit, False.

05:52

To add another operator.

05:58

Okay, and is redundant.

06:03

Location equals true.

06:05

We're good there, okay.

06:07

I'm going to add this to the checkset.

06:11

Check added, I'm going to hit "OK".

06:14

So you can go through there, you can rearrange these filters if you want.

06:18

So, you know, it's going to now check the location first where it's going to check the view first.

06:23

Different things you can do in there.

06:24

You can organize these filters however you want.

06:28

I'm going to save that again, just to make sure we saved it.

06:30

This could be a very lengthy filter list here.

06:34

Whatever you wanted to check there, based on the properties here, add filters.

06:39

Pretty straightforward.

06:40

We could do new ones.

06:42

So this is where you begin to build your checkset one check at a time.

06:48

And then we have the Wizard Check Builder.

06:51

So if you're just starting out, this is a very simple way to walk through this dialog box.

06:55

The wizard is going to prompt you with a series of questions

06:58

that will guide you through the creation of a check with the appropriate configuration filters already set.

07:03

So for example, let's just choose one of these.

07:07

Let's choose "This check will count matching elements".

07:11

Okay? And in here, I'm going to choose, "I am checking on views in my model".

07:19

Again, whatever option we want to choose here, I'm checking on model elements in my model, architectural, MEP structural, checking annotated elements,

07:27

whatever we want to choose.

07:30

The categories you want to check, again, whichever one you want to choose.

07:33

Maybe we'll just do Views, View Ports and Sheets, and hit continue here.

07:41

I want to add filters or this check only checks if there are instances of the categories place in the model.

07:47

I'm done building this check and ready to name it.

07:49

I'm going to choose that one.

07:50

Again, we could add additional filters to it.

07:53

We're not in the wizard or if we like what the wizard created, we'll select that.

07:58

The name of this check is "MatchingElements" and you can give a description describe.

08:12

Okay? I'm going to simply select "Finish".

08:16

Okay? So we've got the advanced check builder, we've got the wizard check builder.

08:21

And again, this is all being done in one checkset.

08:26

We then have some prebuilt check.

08:28

So if I select the prebuilt checks, you can simply select "Add Here".

08:32

So warning count reports all warnings in a Revit model.

08:36

You can list those warnings and report.

08:38

Sure, why not? Going to hit "Add".

08:44

And then all these prebuilt checks.

08:46

So we can add a prebuilt check to the checkset.

08:48

So let's just say we want to check for file size, file size, add.

08:57

Maybe you want a list of the largest families, add.

09:01

Okay, prebuilt checks.

09:03

So if there's something in there, you want to check this model, check your linked files,

09:07

whatever it is that you wanted to check, you can check for version.

09:11

I know that's a very popular option here to check for version if some models are not on the same version, some linked models or something.

09:19

But easy to build out this entire checkset.

09:21

So three options, again.

09:23

Advanced, Wizard, and now some of those prebuilt ones.

09:29

Now if we switch to the checkset structure and organization page,

09:33

this allows you to reorganize the checks into different headers and sections and subsections.

09:39

You can add some headings, you could add sections.

09:41

This is just how the structure of that report and that check is going to look and feel.

09:47

We could add a heading.

09:48

I'm just going to leave it Heading 1.

09:50

We can describe it.

09:52

We could add a section that could be section for modeled elements.

09:56

A section could be a checkset based on families or something like that.

09:60

Anything you want to add, Heading 2 or Section 2.

10:03

It could also refer back to a spec book, however you want to set that up.

10:08

I'm going to come here and I'm going to open one that we're going to use.

10:11

I'm just going to go to open, so we can look at something that's a little bit more complete.

10:14

I'm going to open this Revit Model Checker for USACE, going to hit "OK" here.

10:20

Okay? So pretty simple to create or configure those Checksets.

10:24

Again, open or create a new one and then walk through the three very easy-to-use options here to create.

10:32

You can use all of them, you can use one option, whatever you feel comfortable with using.

10:38

And from there, we'll move over to Model Checker and we will set up, run, and view the report from Model Checker.