SPREADSHEET POWER

So what did I get out of going to RTC in  Atlanta? One of my favourite sessions was Michelle Leonard from Auckland NZ showing off the power of linking Excel & Revit together. Most of the credit for this post belongs to her.  Thanks Michelle.  I was inspired enough to go out and buy myself a copy of Revit Excel Link, a bargain at $95. 

My first experiment is basedon a rectangular array of curtain panels.  It was meant to be 10x10, but by mistake came out as 11x11.  No matter.  I edited the curtain panel family to make "Thickness" and instance parameter.  Now it's easy to select individual panels, or whole rows, and change their thickness.  X & Y parameters will make it easier to locate the panels once exported to excel.  They are all set up as shared parameters so they can be scheduled (and exported to Excel.

Within excel, the parameters come through in vertical rows.  It will be easier if we can see them in a rectangular grid that matches the curtain wall.  I did this by creating another worksheet called "Source", and linking the cells to the "Thickness" column based on their X-Y values.  A1 to A1, B1 to B1, etc.  You can use your excel skills to drag down the little black square at the bottom corner of a cell.  This will propagate A1 down to A11 and give you the relative links you need.

Apply conditional formatting to colour cells so that you get instant feedback on the range of values.  My first trial uses a simple formula that simply adds 50mm to the cell on the left. 

Now import this back into Revit and the curtain wall updates to match.  So it works.  Now for something more interesting.

I learned from Michelle that Excell has a function called RANDBETWEEN.  A little more Excel trickery and the entire array is populated with Random numbers between upper & lower values specified in two cells to the right of the array.  In this case, between 100mm & 3 metres. 

Import back into Revit & you get a nice little message saying all 121 panels have been updated successfully.

Recalculate to get another random array.

Change the values to create an effect that is more subtle or more extreme.  This is fun.

Next I set up a series of vertical stripes with different upper and lower values.  Again these are controlled by cells to the right.

Now I can try out all kinds of permutations and combinations. I can also make the curtain wall into a group and copy it on either side to simulate a building facade.

Then I can use the randomly generated pattern to suggest changes to the material parameter (also changed to be instance based)  I like this, a mixed approach: partly random, partly ordered (the vertical stripes) partly intuitive choices input manually.

The end result is not a real building, just an idea, an impression, a visual fantasy.  But you get the idea.  Link the power of Revit to the power of Excel, throw in a bit of judicious manual intervention ... lots of interesting possibilities.