I’m an independent interior designer (commercial projects - hotel, restaurants, bars). I have pretty good Rhino skills but zero understanding of Grasshopper, and I don’t think I have the brain capacity to learn it.
I need help with setting up a workflow or system of transferring geometry between Revit & Rhino and back.
Is there anyone out there who offers a service to help me set up this workflow (paid, of course)? Or is there a plug-in or piece of software I can download or purchase?
My ideal workflow is this:
Receive a Revit model from the architect for the base building (walls, floors, ceiling, windows, doors)
Use Rhino Inside Revit to transfer this base building Revit geometry into Rhino so I can build my interior design within (create millwork, add furniture & lighting, add cladding to walls, columns, change floor & ceiling materials etc.). (IMPORTANT - the architect will sometimes make updates to the Revit model and send me a new version, which I’ll have to re-update in Rhino, and then adjust my interior to match)
Once the interior design is completed, send the interior elements back to Rhino so I can start documenting it all.
There’s often a back & forth with models for both the architect’s geometry and mine, so I would need a workflow that allows for these changes to seamlessly update in both directions.
If so you won’t need a tremendous amount of brain power, knowledge or contractors to do the process you are describing. Our guide and forum support should be all you need.
Lets start by installing Rhino.Inside.Revit. Please close all relevant applications and run the Rhino.Inside.Revit plugin installer.
Next we’ll do step one of your request.
Receive a Revit model from the architect for the base building (walls, floors, ceiling, windows, doors) and use Rhino Inside Revit to transfer this base building Revit geometry to a Rhino model
Please see the attached Revit 22 file and Grasshopper definition. It may be a newer Grasshopper version than yours and will throw an error. A save of the grasshopper file will fix that.
This defintion gets all the Windows, doors, walls, floors and ceilings and brings them into Rhino as blocks on the Category Layer.
I would recommend creating a new rhino file to work in, then Worksession the attached Rhino file.
As @Japhy mentioned, it doesn’t take tremendous amount of brain power to transfer geometry back and forth. If you are not comfortable with sharing your files publicly, just send a DM and I would be happy to help you.
This may be a dumb question, will the Rhino geometry I create automatically appear in the Revit file because it’s linked via a work session? Will Rhino links also show up? And is there a way to assign Rhino geometry to specific Revit categories? For example, if I build a piece of millwork, can it show up in Revit as ‘Casework’ category, or furniture piece show up as ‘Furniture’ category?
About the rhino geometry appearing in Revit:Yes. It is possible but not preferable in my opinion. First I would want to finalize my design then transfer that into Revit.
Assigning Rhino geometry to specific Revit category, absolutely.
I don’t know much about Rhino links. So I am gonna leave that to @Japhy .
The worksession is a Rhino workflow, similar to autocad Xref. I’m recommending this because it creates a cleaner workflow in Rhino. All that is in your working file is geometry that will go into Revit.
How we go into revit will depend on what you need to do with it there.
The most simple is a direct shape with the proper category. More complex is making families.
I would prefer to see examples of your geometry to demonstrate the workflow. Revit can be particular on small objects, tolerance (small edges) that model fine in Rhino but may fail to go into revit.
Keeping things in layers or blocks is helpful, as well keeping unwanted working geometry on separate layers.
Also, how do I add more Revit categories to this Grasshopper file? I need roofs, curtain walls, columns to come through. I’m sure more categories will pop up in the future. Is there a list I can copy from?
Thomas, you can go directly into the Category Filter from the Built-Category Picker (or get its name from the category identity component)
I didn’t realize you could search like that in the Picker! You are officially a Gh User now and will always be learning something new if you stick with it.
Ok. I think I have this working now from Revit to Rhino. Now I need to go in the reverse. Please let me know if you received my support email and sample files ok?
