Dynamo Tutorial - Rotate Multiple Elements on Their Own Axis

A reader (sorry, I lost your email and name!) emailed in and asked about rotating a series of elements by something other than 90 degrees.  She referenced an OLD post I published (circa 2011) about selecting columns and rotating them all 90 degrees using the space bar.   This was an interesting little task to think about.  When you select more than one element and use the "rotate" command they rotate about one axis:

After attempting to place some reference planes and use the space bar method without success I decided to fire up Dynamo... Here is the simple script...

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Practical Dynamo - Following Topography

Snap an object to your topography in Revit... I dare you to! Oh, you can't?

Accurately following topography is one of those things Revit just has not evolved to yet.  There are many objects you may want to follow topography: trees, pipes, fences, roads, etc...In the past, there have been a few different workarounds (one of them required exporting your topography as a DWG and the importing it so you can select edges, etc...!).  Well, now that we have Dynamo accurately following topography can be as easy as a single click... really...


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Practical Dynamo - Apply Parameter Values (Using Saved Selection Sets)

For the next installment of the "Practical Dynamo" mini-series I am going to expand on the last script (which utilized Dynamo to apply parameter values to multiple objects).  The previous script worked but you have to manually select the elements and add them to your node in Dynamo.  This can be cumbersome and also cause you to select elements twice if you are trying to add something like a building area parameter.

My first solution was creating save selection sets... Then using those sets to isolate the elements, select the elements in Dynamo, run the script, un-isolate, and repeat... Yeah, I know...  It sounds ridiculous.  Well, my first rule of thumb in Revit (and now Dynamo) is if it seems like its taking too long there is probably a better way to do it... So I found a better way...


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Practical Dynamo - Apply Parameter Values

(Image: Dynamo Primer)

I have been posting little screenshots on Twitter of current Dynamo scripts and people seem to love them.  One of the cool things about Dynamo is you can see a simple snippet of all the nodes and recreate the script pretty effectively.  Its a method I have used when learning Dynamo.  It helps me to use different nodes, search for packages, and understand logic.  Well, I thought it would be a good mini-series here on the blog.  The first script I am going to show you is very simple but includes some nice booleans, logic, and nodes.

Continue reading for a practical use of Dynamo, applying a parameter value to all selected elements...

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Revit Tutorial - Show the Area of a Filled Region in a Tag (Using Dynamo)

Dynamo in the Real World...

Tack this one up as a "real-world" use for Dynamo.  A very good friend emailed me and asked if I knew how to send the area of a Filled Region into a tag.  For example, he had some filled regions on elevations for a planning and zoning submission... Those filled regions needed to show the area.  Obviously, you can click the region, look at its area in square foot (or meters squared) and then type it into a text note/tag.  Well, that would be pretty painful if there were hundreds of them!

Other than actually modeling the signage as a 3D box family that can report the area I decided this sounded like a job for Dynamo.  Repetition, reporting parameters... I mean, come on now!

Continue reading to learn how to create your own Dynamo script that will report a detail items parameters....

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The Dynamo Primer : First Edition is Live!

Dynamo is gaining some serious traction in and around this BIM space we live in.  For example, the post I published with a series of updated links to Marcello's ongoing Dynamo series has been getting slammed with Google search traffic over the last month.  Additionally, I have also found Dynamo useful for automating some every day tasks at the office:

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