Autodesk Fabrication: Connector Matching – The Feature Nobody Knows About & Why You Should Use It.

Do you know what ‘Connector Matching’ is as it relates to Autodesk Fabrication? It’s been in the product since the 2020 release. Yet most people I run into have no clue what it is.

There’s a good reason for that. It’s hidden from view. That is to say, there’s a good reason you don’ know about it. There’s no good reason it’s hidden from you besides Autodesk is pretty slopping (lazy?) when it comes to product design in recent years.


What is Connector Matching?

Connector Matching only works in Revit w/Fabrication Parts. If you’re not using Revit, you need not worry about it but setting it up won’t cause any issues either. It’s designed to place a matching connector on pipe after you cut in a fitting when modeling in Revit. CADmep, ESTmep and CAMduct will simply ignore the settings.

As an example, if you’re drawing a welded piping system and want to break it with a Grooved coupling, Connector Matching places the proper grooved connector on the end of the pipe when the Coupling is placed. This helps us build a system with Welded Pipe Spools that’s assembled in the field with Grooved Couplings…a very common activity in mechanical construction.

When Connector Matching isn’t configured, you’ll have issues cutting in things like a Grooved Coupling into a Pipe that’s part of a welded system.


Configuring Connector Matching

The reason many don’t know about connector matching is because it’s hidden. None of the 3 views (Manufacturing, Costing & Drawing) display this option.

To set Connector Matching, you Right-Click on a connector that’s configured for the Item you need to match. In this case, it’s a Victaulic 77 Coupling.

You can see the Matching Connector is set to “Same” by default. That’s certainly not what we need so select that menu option.

You can see now the Matching Connector is set to a Grooved Connector. So every time an Item with the “VIC_Coupling 77” connector is cut into a piece of pipe, the pipe will get a “VIC_Groove” connector.


Added Configuration to Make it Work

Above, you set the matching connector. Unfortunately, that’s not enough. There’s some added configuration to verify to ensure that it works.

One of the requirements of Connector Matching is to make sure the Pipe’s Connectors are NOT locked and defaulted to the connectors they should use. In other words, ‘Set’ but not ‘Locked’.

Here’s what your Pipe ITM most likely looks like…

What I recommend here is, Unlocking only 1 of the Connectors and Clicking OK. After you do that, go back and edit the ITM again and take a look at the Connectors.

You can see here that after Unlocking one of the Connectors and Clicking OK, going back to edit the ITM the Connector changed to “None”. This is a tell tale sign that there’s yet another thing you have to change to make it work.

In some Configurations, people have the Specification set to drive the Connectors. This is most commonly done for Sheetmetal but you see it in Piping as well. In the following image, the Piping Specification is configured to set the Connector to “None”.

What we need to do here is set the Connectors in the Breakpoints to “Not Used”. Note, if the Connector you unlocked earlier didn’t change to something other that what it was, you most likely don’t have this issue but still could…it could just be configured to use the Connector the ITM was set to.

You might have to hunt around for which settings apply. It could be on the ‘Any’ material or a specific material the ITM is using. The ‘Valid For’ could have it in ‘All Types’ or ‘Straights Only’. It’s possible too that you don’t have any breakpoints in the Specification at all. If that’s the case, then your Specification is likely already good. But if it’s not, simply ensure the Connectors are all set to “Not Used”.

Once your Specification is setup correctly (if it was a problem in the first place) you can go back to your ITM for the pipe and unlock both connectors but leave them set to the Connector it typically uses.

Once everything is set properly, Revit will then let your Grooved Coupling be placed in the run of pipe.

If you Double-Click on one of the pieces of pipe, you can see the Connectors are now set to a Groove for the end where the Coupling is.


A Final Word

Note that these settings were added in 2020. If you’ve had your Database configuration a long time, they’re likely not set. Even Autodesk’s ‘Out of the Box’ configurations that shipped with 2024 don’t have these set. So you’re pretty much on your own to make it work.

If you do ANY Administration of your Database Configuration in 2019 or earlier, these settings will be lost. As I’ve advised many times earlier, pick a version for Administration and stick to it. If you have Admin permissions and use 2019 or earlier, all those settings get lost and because they’re not displayed, you won’t really know.

You can use these settings for all kinds of things. They don’t have to be limited to Grooved Couplings. Changing the end of Steel pipe to Threaded when Cutting in a Threaded Coupling, Threaded Adaptor, Threated Tee, Threaded Valve, etc. All of these things should have their connectors looked at and Matching setup. Just about any of those types of fittings in all materials should have Matching set.

Hope this helps improve your Revit workflow.

Autodesk University 2022 – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Autodesk University 2022 is a wrap. First live event since 2019. This year, it moved from Las Vegas to New Orleans. Folks had a lot of mixed feelings about this event. Including victimization of some attendees. I won’t rehash what someone else has done so for a good review of how the “Event” went, give this 20 minute recap a watch. Neil Cross does a bang up job recapping this poorly organized event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StEtDbUxHV0


New Orleans – The City

I’ve been to New Orleans before. Stayed at the same hotel in fact. New Orleans Hilton Riverside. It was about a decade ago. Really enjoyed the city so I was looking forward to going back.

Honestly, I really like the city….much more so than Las Vegas. The Architecture is amazing. Neighborhoods rich with character and culture. Great music and most of all, some of the most amazing food I’ve ever had. I find the people in general are warm and kind. I think my ride from the airport was the the best Lyft ride I’ve had of any city. Linsey was a pleasure to converse with during the trip.

While my Monday arrival was warm, the weather the remainder of the week was pleasant. A result of Hurricane Ian pulling cooler air from the north. I think we lucked out that it wasn’t hotter and more humid.

Now while I personally like the city, it is well known as a corrupt and violent city. If you listened to the video link above, you’ll know this crime affected several attendees. People drugged and mugged. Robbed at gunpoint and knifepoint. One attendee was stabbed. Even the legendary God Father of Autodesk Fabrication CADmep had someone try to pick pocket him. You can see his post here.

Knowing all this, I would go back to New Orleans…the city. Perhaps I’d view it differently if it happened to me. But while I grew up very rural, I did grow up with a lot of violent crime. By the time I graduated high-school I’d had over a dozen connections with people being killed. While I don’t make excuses, I do have an understanding of the effects of poverty. Perhaps that’s why I still felt comfortable in New Orleans. I grew up around people like this. The good and the bad. Frankly, I felt WAY more safe walking around in New Orleans than I do in Seattle. For me, New Orleans is an upgrade. Your mileage may vary.


New Orleans – The Convention Center

The New Orleans Convention is the 6th largest in the US. Despite that, I don’t think it was built to host a single large event…rather multiple smaller events at the same time. Halls were narrow leading to over crowding. 20 minute line to get up the escalator the first day. Remaining days people seemed to self adjust.

But the convention center is LONG and narrow. Not stacked like in Las Vegas. Took forever to get anywhere. With room attendants not letting people in early, it led to even more crowded halls.

Even the rooms themselves were typically smaller. Much harder to “Sneak” in or out if the class wasn’t what you wanted. A more frequent even this year than most.

While convention center food is never top notch, even in Las Vegas, it was particularly low quality here. A surprise considering the quality of feed elsewhere in the city. One morning, the breakfast burritos were so starchy it made a McDonalds seem like a Michelin 5-Star Restaurant.

Bottom line, if they continue to have AU at this convention center as it’s rumored to be, it’ll have limited success. This just is NOT the venue to host Autodesk University IMO. The facility and services are just not up to par.


Expo Hall

Expo hall was what you’d expect. I’d venture to say half the space was utilized by Autodesk. Mostly wasted IMO. There’s only a couple places where I’d typically go to meet the product teams. The rest is of no value to me. Taking meaningless surveys or other low value activities Autodesk marketing thinks are worth while. Letting users think they’re impacting direction while nothing meaningful changes. Nothing that’s going to improve your professional life IMO.

Expo hall ran out of food within the first 30 minutes of lunch on the first day. No refills of the buffet tables like you see in Vegas. As lunch started 1/2 hour before the General Keynote ended, everyone came out to an empty food line. This means the remaining days people left the Keynotes early to ensure they were fed.

One disappointing thing was finding the UA’s Trade Exhibit was micro managed. They wouldn’t let them operate much of it. GTP’s Stratus booth was right down the row. Both with people walking by not quite getting the connection unless you were from the MEP Trades yourself. Not sure if this was the Convention Center Legal or Autodesk Legal but it was a missed opportunity in my estimation. Especially considering a few years back Titan’s of CNC were throwing chips from their CNC equipment. Had they showed the Tigerstop running from Stratus and hearing the buzz of copper or PVC cutting….it would have drawn people to the back where they were stuffed and really connected the dots IMO.

For the most part, any booth worth seeing was hard to see as they were very busy. I tried going to DiRoot’s both multiple times only to find them overwhelmed with interest. Other booths seemed pretty slow. I stopped by one booth from a vendor from Finland. After 15 minutes of a demo and them talking, I still didn’t know what they hell they did or what he was saying. Ironic considering I grew up in a part of the Michigan listening to Suomi Kutsuu (Finland Calling) on Sunday morning television as a kid. The US’s only Finnish language programming.


Classes / Sessions

Sessions this year were absolutely abysmal IMO. That said, the speakers were generally high quality and presented well. It was just the topic selections were utter rubbish. To the point I almost didn’t bother attending AU at all. Ultimately, I remembered that its the networking and face time w/Autodesk product managers not the classes that have me coming back.

Still, every AU there’s some good classes. This year, anything worth taking was full. As one long time Autodesk University speaker told me, they’ve never had their sessions repeated before. Their take was there was nothing worth taking so everyone signed up for theirs.

Another former coworker texted me…

“I felt Tuesday sessions were sub-par so went on a walking food tour of the city instead”

I ended up either skipping or walking out of all but 4 of the sessions I had scheduled not counting the panel I was on.

In years past, a group of industry insiders would help select sessions. This year, I’m told it was Autodesk Marketing. This meant that most sessions were beginner or sales focus. As Neil Cross put it…”Thought grandstanding”. Even the descriptions were misleading on many. This is the type of tone many set…

“As a company, it’s our mission to help solve the global climate crisis…..” followed by a lot of nonsense and the last sentence being something like “Learn how we use Autodesk Docs”.

Part of the problem is also the session “voting” after the original RFP’s. Those self promoting their sessions with a large LinkedIn network get voted up vs. voting merely based on merit. I was added to an Autodesk Panel at the last minute this year. None of my proposals were selected. I’m ok with that. I actually don’t like “teaching” the sessions. I do it as I feel it’s important to give back to an industry who’s helped me. If others don’t feel my content is worth while, I’m ok not teaching. But the way some instructors self-promote…they’re clearly in it for their ego in teaching at AU and less for the attendees. I think this contributes to a decline in session quality. You really want someone’s session selected because their Grandma voted it up?

If you look at many of the sessions, clearly the San Francisco Bay area “Woke” crowd and Autodesk Sales Idealism was who and what Autodesk Marketing was targeting. Here’s some of the key phrases you saw littered about the titles and descriptions….

Evolution of Roles” – “Remote Collaboration” – “Sustainable Mfg” – “Saving the Planet” – “ESG” – “Multiverse” – “Carbon Impacts” – “Digital Transformation” – “Society First/Social Value” – “Happiness” – “Leadership” – “Women in BIM” – “Gender, Diversity” – “Inclusion” – “Belonging” – “Global Environmental Challenge” – “Net Zero” – “Strategic Workforce” – “Decarbonization” – “Omniverse” – “Business Models” – “Convergence Customers” – “Talent Trends” – “Productivity Crisis” – “Digital Future of Work” – “Onboarding” – “Upskilling” – “Climate Footprint” – “Reconfiguring for the Future” – “Hybrid Workforce” – “No Planet B” – “Growth” – “Metaverse” – “Enabling Nations” – “Satisfying Places” – “Greenwashing” – …etc…

Not that these aren’t good topics….but this is a Tech conference is it not? It’s now primarily a “Beginner” and “Sales” conference. Very little on how to actually do things. A session of how the software/services can fall short and what to do about it is clearly not on the table any longer.

And lets get real…after 2-1/2 years…we’ve all figured out how to remote work or we’re likely out of business. We don’t need another class on Remote F’ing Work.

All I can say is that if you attended half of this crap, you were are guaranteed to be well prepared to solve everything from World Peace to Feline Leukemia this next year.

Oh, and not to mention, there were no computer labs. Given they handed all registrants a Covid tests to self-report, I can only assume the lawyers shut down the hands on labs.


Reviewing My 4 Good Classes….

As I said, there were 4 sessions I didn’t walk out of. I’ll review them here….

FAB502677 | Design, Develop, Deploy: Create Revit Content from Inventor Designs

This session was presented by Mark Flayler of IMAGINiT. Mark did a fantastic job explaining the options for Revit and Inventor interoperability and how it’s changed over the releases. If you’re working on toward industrialized construction or manufacturing for construction, this session is a must.

While Inventor and Fusion 360 don’t have the user base programs like Solidworks have, you’re just not going to be able to touch the functionality Inventor has with Revit interoperability. You need to reference Revit inside Inventor to design something going into a building? It’s there. Want to export what you designed in Inventor to use in Revit? It’s there.

If you’re doing fabrication or manufacturing drawings and models outside of Revit for construction, you need to review this material. That said, Fabrication Parts in Revit don’t import worth a shit inside Inventor. That wasn’t discussed in this session rather that’s my contribution. But for everything else, it should work great.

AS502502 | Autodesk Forge Data APIs: Standardized Granular Data Extraction to Reduce Code Base

This session was presented by Robert Manna of dRofus and James Mazza of Stantec. If you read up on any of Autodesk’s big announcements regarding their rebranding Forge to Autodesk Platform Services, this session was a good preview of the direction Autodesk is headed regarding your design data. Robert and James gave a great overview of how you’d go about using the Data API’s.

Not a coder? No worries. This session wasn’t full of syntax and code snippets. It was higher level discussion how you would use the API’s not demonstrating actually coding them. If you’re not a coder, there was still a lot of value here IMO.

IM502087 | Model-Based Definition: A Key Value Driver for Future Product Development

This session was presented by Eugen Taranov and Melanie Thilo both of Autodesk. It covered the topic of Model Based Definition. As Manufacturing typically leads a lot of trends you see in AEC by 2-3 decades, I’m always game for a good Manufacturing session.

If you’re new to MBD (Model Based Definition), it’s about embedding the manufacturing data within a model so that it can be fabricated without a human needing to read a drawing.

What interested me about this session is that I’ve long stated that I thick AEC is headed the wrong direction be jamming every piece of data within a 3d model. Revit is not SQL server after all. You can read one of my prior posts here about this. MBD seems to contradict my view of where AEC is headed. As such, it created a dilemma in thinking that I wanted to sort out.

Having sat through the session, I now have a more firm view of MBD and I don’t see any conflict with my thinking. MDB isn’t about embedding ALL data within a model, rather manufacturing specific information that needs to be communicated. My view that AEC is placing TOO much data within models is not in conflict with MBD in my eyes.

One realization I came to is that MEP is already doing “Lite” versions of MBD with tools like Stratus, M-Suite, Allied BIM and Connect2Fab. I say “Lite” because MEP doesn’t need high-precision tolerancing descriptions like GDT or finish information communicated the same way manufacturing does. None the less, it’s important to realize it is a form of MBD which is a validation on the direction we’re headed. The only real disappointing part is Autodesk themselves is not enabling Digital Fabrication for MEP. They’ve done their best to fragment the workflows and it’s 3rd parties providing these services. Most of the fabrication data Autodesk creates for MEP is not even accessible in Revit and is completely ignored in the Construction Cloud let alone their Industrialized Construction initiatives.

BES502491 | Beyond Fabrication: Using Revit Fabrication Parts for Spec-Driven Design

This session was presented by Claudia Calderon Quintero and Josh Churchill both of SSOE. This was literally the ONLY session at AU that covered anything related to Autodesk Fabrication. I wasn’t expecting much. Autodesk Fabrication has a pretty tight knit community of experts who’ve known each other for decades. Anyone speaking on Autodesk Fabrication that isn’t a known name is highly suspect.

That said, I was very surprised at this session. From an A&E perspective, they covered the topic very well. I’ve listened to Autodesk Fabrication presentations over the years with a lot of partial or incorrect information. But Claudia and Josh had a really rock solid presentation. Everything I heard was detailed, accurate and presented very well. I’m really impressed as well in their ability to get up to speed with Fabrication Parts as it’s not an easy thing to learn on your own when there’s not a lot of resources.

The essence of their presentation was using Fabrication Parts to create a “Specification” for industrial or process piping. As they said, anyone can make a “fabrication” level model with Revit Families…but anyone can also mess with those families. By using Fabrication Parts in Services, it get’s Revit a lot closer to a “Spec” driven design like you’d typically see in industrial piping with Plant3d with the content a little more protected from incorrect manipulation.

The key learning point here for me was the value of Fabrication Parts for a firm who’s NOT actually fabricating. I’ve struggled to see the value of Fabrication Parts for an Engineering only firm. Claudia and Josh easily explained this value to me. Something that having my head stuck in the actual “fabrication” and “construction” prevented me from seeing. Great job and great class.


Things We Can’t Do

Despite all Autodesk’s self proclamations of greatness and the legions of fans, there’s more holes in Autodesk’s strategy than a block of swiss cheese if your an MEP contractor. Here’s a few highlights of my observations from an MEP Contractor’s perspective….some will apply more broadly to other trades/domains.

Industrialized Construction, Inventor and Revit

One of my highlights of Autodesk University is to see the “Manufacturing Informed Design” team at Autodesk in the Expo Hall. I’ve spent 30 years straddling Construction and Manufacturing asking for this. It’s finally coming. Everything Autodesk has done to date seems to have been “Design” focused….pushing unbuildable design to Fabrication, Construction and Manufacturing. The Manufacturing Informed Design group flips that around…putting the PRODUCT front and center. This allows the Manufacturer or Fabricator to control how their product is used in Design….the way it always should have been.

Sure you can make a Revit family that represents a product. But anyone and everyone can mess with the RFA. You’ve can’t receive this model back and have any sense of reliability that’s it’s something you can manufacture from. What the Manufacturing Informed Design team does, is to make sure nobody in Revit can mess with your product. If your product is configurable, the consumer (Designer) is directed back to Autodesk’s web portal where they can control ONLY the aspects of the product the Manufacturer allows.

While the initial release will focus on Products produced in Inventor, there are plans to expand the “authoring” to other platforms like Fusion 360, Revit…perhaps even Solidworks and others. They want to make the logic authoring agnostic using code blocks similar to Inventor’s iLogic for configuration. In my opinion, this is the single most important step they could make toward “Productization” in construction.

So what’s the catch? Beta is estimated to be next year. That likely means 2024 Revit will be the first version (if not later…or even at all) that will have this capability. Except that means we’ll realistically be able to use this about 2027/2028. This industry loves to stay on old Revit versions and Autodesk now allows use up to 5 versions back. This means it’ll be 2028 by the time you find defects or functional limitations of 2024 versions. Except they won’t fix 2024 four years later…those fixes will come in 2029/2030 versions which you’ll start using about 2033/2034. That’s a 10 year development/feedback cycle. It’s just not sustainable. Keep this in mind when they tell you the industry is going to completely transform to products within a few short years. The tools just aren’t there to facilitate this in a wide scale manner.

Industrialized Construction and Fabrication Parts

As you can tell from the Inventor/Revit interoperability class I reported on earlier and the Manufacturing Informed Design group’s initiatives…Inventor is a key part of Autodesk’s Industrialized Construction Strategy.

Except that the vast majority of large MEP Fabricators are using Fabrication Parts. Fabrication Parts can be exported and brought into Inventor….except they look like shit and are unusable for manufacturing in the Inventor environment. Inventor and Fusion 360 are Solid Modelers. Fabrication Parts are NOT Solids…they’re surfaces. Poor quality surfaces at that. That was intentional…to keep AutoCAD/CADmep performant. Because Fabrication Parts know what they are (Pipe, Elbow, Tee, Valve, etc.) they have the proper data to fabricate from and don’t need heavy detailed graphics. You can place 10x more Fabrication Parts in Revit than RFA’s before seeing the same performance impact.

Until Autodesk bolts Fabrication Parts into Inventor (and I have no knowledge they’re even considering this) you’ll have to wait for the Manufacturing Informed Design team to allow Revit Authoring of Product. Who knows when that will be and when it does happen…what are the chances they even know how to manipulate a Fabrication Part? Most of Autodesk’s own Revit experts don’t even know what a Fabrication Part is let alone comprehend their value. Of the hundreds of data points Fabrication Parts hold…even their own Construction Cloud knows virtually nothing of the data. In short, the firms who have digitally fabricated from 3d models for nearly 30 years (MEP Contractors) are largely shut out of all Autodesk’s Industrialized Construction technology strategy.

Speaking of Fabrication Parts…

I asked about the MEP Fabrication Data Manager Sync. The Technical Preview of Autodesk’s Cloud based Fabrication configuration manager. A 7+ year initiative that’s still not usable in any practical capacity. I asked when it would be “Done”.

“Who’s to say it’ll ever be done. Perhaps it keeps evolving.”

Fair enough. So I followed up…When will it evolve enough that MEP contractors will willing use it?

“Who’s to say it’s even going to be for that type of customer?”

That speaks volumes. Add to that the ONLY session at Autodesk University on Fabrication Parts in Revit was from an A/E firm that doesn’t build or fabricate, it’s another data point suggesting Autodesk doesn’t have a plan for MEP Contractors. Or they simply think they’ll all cease to exist in a “Productized / Industrialized” construction economy. Certainly MEP Contractor’s will need to evolve…but we’re not going away. Great opportunity for someone else to enter the market IMO.

Data Exchanges

Another focus of Autodesk is Cloud Enabled Data Exchanges. You don’t download or export a spreadsheet to order from Amazon.Com or to book a flight. This makes a lot of sense in many if not most ways. It’s the first step of breaking down those old obsolete concepts and barriers like “files” which have long outlived their usefulness. With so much work to do in this area, it’s unlikely Autodesk will make Fabrication Parts part of these data exchanges anytime soon….if ever. Products like GTP’s Stratus jump through huge hoops to mine the data they do. These exchanges aren’t anywhere close to possible in Autodesk’s Platform Solutions today. It’s my hope that these Cloud based data exchanges evolve enough to start breaking down those “version incompatibility” walls between Revit versions which will shorten that 10-year development cycle. At least that’s my hope….if I were to have any.

A Bridge to Nowhere

One of the Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) highlights is it’s “Bridge” functionality. It allows you to link/sync multiple ACC Accounts between customers. Except that it only works on “published” models in Docs. It doesn’t work on “Live” models with BIM360 Collaborate Pro like it needs to. It also doesn’t work on the “Data”, just the “files”. This limits the effectiveness of ACC which is why most BIM360/ACC projects I see are complete train wrecks in terms of their use of existing functionality and configuration. People using Desktop Connector to access non-collaborated models or host Central Workshared models that aren’t in Collaboration.

Rumor has it Autodesk is reworking Desktop Connector. I’m sure that’ll inject just as many problems as it solves. Autodesk simply doesn’t have robust feature sets in their products any longer. Merely enough features to keep you on the hook as they have guaranteed annual revenue now.


Future Speculation

Given everything I’ve seen and heard….and 30 years of observing the industry and correctly predicting much of what has really transpired, I have a few predications…

  1. Autodesk’s Cloud enabled Exchanges will eventually be monetized. You’ll pay for everything eventually. Pay to author…pay to report…pay to export.
  2. Autodesk will become the “Facebook” (Meta) of Design/Construction/Manufacturing data. That means everything you think of when you think Facebook….the good and bad.
  3. An API first strategy is NOT in the cards. Data Exchanges will always be limited compared to what Autodesk can do with them. This will allow them to control and maintain their market position limiting what others can do or and controlling how much they must pay.
  4. Old school data exchanges will eventually go away and everything will be required to use the Cloud to facilitate data exchanges. I don’t like it on principal but it makes sense and needs to happen.
  5. 3rd party developers traditionally thought of as Autodesk competitors will some day be customers to facilitate their interoperability with Autodesk.
  6. Industrialized Construction will not be as wide spread or come as quickly as Autodesk says. Autodesk will be the biggest limiting factor in this due to products suffering a drought of features and depth.

No need to cover the positive predictions….I touched on them earlier and Autodesk does a good job promoting them all on their own. They don’t need my help. My value is providing a more realistic perspective and timeline….IMO. Let’s hope I’m wrong on many of my predications.

Review/Warning – MEP Fabrication Data Manager Sync (Technical Preview)

On March 23, 2022, Autodesk released the “MEP Fabrication Data Manager Sync – Technical Preview”. That same day, I posted to several sources a warning regarding a risk in using this tool. In this review, I’ll go over the risks shortcomings as I see them along with what background I can share that’s not covered under NDA. I’ll also address Autodesk’s public response to my warning.


What is the MEP Fabrication Data Manager Sync?

Let’s start with a little background. What is the MEP Fabrication Manager Sync? This is a tool designed to Sync your Autodesk Fabrication configuration from the Cloud to your local system.

But Configuration isn’t in the Cloud you may say. Well, that’s part of the plan too.

Why would we want to do that?

The Autodesk Fabrication configuration is complex and powerful but also fragile and bug ridden beast. Because of this it’s difficult for Autodesk to make changes and fixes. If you recall, in their last big restructuring, they terminated many of the developers who were customer advocates and knew the code. So attempting to advance just about anything it to the ‘Next Level’ risks injecting a LOT of defects into the products we use. If you’re a Fabrication user, you all know what I’m taking about. You’ve lived it.

Enter their ‘Cloud’ strategy to put the Configuration in the Cloud. There, they can put it in a safe environment, refactor it, rewire it and surround it with digital bubble wrap to product it’s integrity.

This has actually been on the “Public Revit Roadmap” for a long time. I believe it even predates the existence of the public roadmap.

This strategy is one reason why Revit Fabrication parts had had little added development other than token improvements since about 2018. Lets face it, if they were to build it from scratch today, they’d do it differently then it was 20 plus years ago when CADmep came out. Makes complete sense what they want to do.

But as anyone with even the slightest electrical charge in their skull knows, you can’t put the configuration in the Cloud and have a Desktop product access it and hope to have any shred of performance. Hence, the “sync” tool to pull it back down.

So to summarize, Autodesk’s Cloud strategy for Fabrication is to push it to the Cloud where it can be protected and enhanced but not used. And then they’ve built a tool to sync it back down locally for use in Revit only….for piping only….only for your company…only if you never need a new fitting…only if you don’t use ESTmep, CADmep or CAMduct.


What’s Wrong with FDM?

There’s a long list of things wrong with what was released. Here’s a high-level overview.

  • Major Issues and Limitations are NOT disclosed.
  • FDM is NOT Disclosed as “Beta” or “Not for Production”
  • Estimating/Labor data easily distributed to others with no ability to recall it.
  • Only a single “owner” of a configuration with no way to change the owner.
  • Anyone can easily upload your Configuration and use or share it with anyone.
  • No new Parts, Seams, Dampers, Stiffeners, Supports, Ancillaries, etc.
  • Once uploaded, no way to “Re-Upload”
  • No interoperability to CADmep, CAMduct or ESTmep
  • Install Errors

Limitation & Issues Disclosure

There’s a lot of limitations with FDM and the Sync tool. Do NOT make the assumption that their list of limitations and issues in the help file are in any way near complete or comprehensive. There’s so little covered that it makes it appear the problems are trivial. They are not. It’s embarrassing how little effort they put into documenting this. You really need to read everything and infer a lot based on what’s said and not said. This is the only way to get a full picture and use this product with minimal risk.


Is FDM a Beta or Complete Product?

You may have seen Autodesk product manager Martin Schmit’s response to my post that FDM and the Sync tool are Beta and shouldn’t be used in production. You can see them here…

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-mep-forum/warning-mep-fabrication-data-manager-technical-preview/td-p/11025492

http://www.xtracad.com/forum/index.php/topic,17023.0.html

That’s flat out bullshit. Here’s why…

  1. The description in the Autodesk Desktop App does NOT say or mention ‘Beta’. So no, it’s not listed as a Beta here. Other Technical Previews in other products didn’t provide ‘Beta’ notices either of the ones I saw.
  2. During install or once installed, review the ‘Terms of Service’ in the Sync Tool. It contains 2,709 characters / 501 words and not a single instance of the term ‘Beta’. Not listed as a beta here either.
  3. The initial help file/Release Notes contained 14,290 characters / 2,698 words and again, not a single instance of the term ‘Beta’ in the initial release. In fact, under ‘What is a Technical Preview’ it stated the following…

    “Tech Preview applications are considered complete and ready for use, but are made available on a preview basis so you can get early access before a broader rollout to all customers.”

    It’s since been updated (likely because I called it out) to read…

    “Tech Previews provide early access to pre-release or beta features for evaluation.”

    But while it now contains a single ‘Beta’ term, it simply states that generically. A “Technical Preview” contains “pre-release” OR ‘Beta’ features. Nowhere in there does it state that this FDM is indeed a ‘Beta’.
  4. The Blog Post also mentions that “Pre-release OR Beta” is what a ‘Technical Preview’ is and does NOT actually state that this is indeed beta. Merely that a Technical Preview may contain some Beta features. That’s a far cry from the entirety of the product being considered Beta.
  5. There’s a link in the terms of service to Autodesk’s general ‘Terms of Service‘. That page contains 67,123 characters / 12,3871 words and contains the term ‘Beta’ merely once. Here in section 12 ‘Trial Versions’ the term ‘Beta’ is listed along “Not for Resale’, ‘Free’, ‘Evaluation’, ‘Trial’ and ‘Pre-Release’ terms. It’s a generic document that does not refer specifically to this Technical Preview. And it merely says that ‘Beta’ is one of many ‘Trial Versions’ that are governed under the ‘Trial Versions’ legal limitations. So yet again, it’s NOT listed as a beta here.
  6. One of the YouTube videos linked the blog post mention using the Sync tool to distribute your database ‘Across Stakeholders’. This is not something you’d suggest for ‘Beta’ software or things you shouldn’t use in production. It implies collaboration…across stakeholders.

Am I being a bit picky? Perhaps. But the fact is that after 6-7 years of work on this, it’s still sloppy and incomplete. And unless you fully read everything and make a lot of conclusions based on interpretation and reading between the lines, the average user has no idea the risks they’re taking.


Where’s the Risk?

The risk is Autodesk’s repeated gross negligence in providing tools that expose your price and labor data. This is the 3rd avenue Autodesk has given users tools that provide easy access to your price and labor data. The other 2 avenues for this occurring still exist today with no acknowledgement from Autodesk.

Giving you a tool and telling you its to help you easily collaborate with users without generic sync tools implies you can collaborate with it. But if you add collaborators, you aren’t told that they have access to your cost and labor data. If you saw Autodesk’s public response to my initial post, you can see them hide behind the rather weak “you’re in complete control of sharing” statement.

I suppose you can give a powerful and dangerous tools to any unsuspecting person and them blame them for the carnage they create. But it would seem to me, any firm that is intent on being your partner would have a responsibility to disclose risks associated with the tools they provide.

Here’s the only warning Autodesk provides…

A mere generic warning upon sharing is NOT enough. There’s no link to details or context. From a user’s perspective a generic message like that could merely be a blanket ‘CYA’ legal statement as virtually anything a user shares could be considered ‘Sensitive’. Further, take into account that the Web based FDM shows no Cost or Labor data, it doesn’t let you add or manipulate it. This would easily suggest to a user that Cost and Labor are NOT included. Especially considering their own documentation says Cost and Labor are ‘Future’ considerations.

FDM Configurations are downloaded to this location…

%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Fabrication

Browse within these folders and into the Database folder and you’ll see COST.MAP, FTIMES.MAP, ETIMES.MAP and SUPPLIER.MAP. Once shared with another user, the Configurations owner can NOT pull them back. All it takes is copying this database to a new location and add it to ESTmep and you’re Price and Labor data is hacked.

This is a Known Issue yet it’s not disclosed in the ‘Known Issues’.


Only One Owner

A Configuration can only have one owner. It also has no way to be changed without Autodesk’s back end assistance….maybe. Again, a limitation you’re not told of. If whoever manages your configuration leaves and you’re up a creek.

Any because Autodesk accounts are tied to Emails, they have full access to your configuration even after they’re gone. It’s yet another security risk for which YOU are not able to manage or control.


Easy End User Manipulation

Again, there’s no control you’re allowed for users. If you install this tool to your user’s system so they can consume a configuration you shared, they can upload and share it with anyone they want. Super easy and you’ll never know. Yes, they could always give your database to someone anyway, but it’s a very intentional act and requires some technical knowledge. This sync tool merely looks like an easy way to collaborate with little warning about what the consequences really are.


Database Coverage Limited

There’s not a lot you can so with FDM at this point. You can make new services, templates, materials and specifications. But you can’t copy an ITM or make a new one. You can’t edit the product list of an ITM. Can’t make Ancillaries, Kits, Dampers, Supports, Stiffeners, Notches. Support Specs, Service Types, etc. You can’t edit Labor or Price. You can’t edit service types, custom data, oval stretch outs, etc. So there’s not a hell of a lot you can do. You can’t really manage your database. Additionally, there’s no capability to bulk edit even those things you can edit in FDM. It’s certainly not going to be faster to edit your database. At best, trivial edits are allowed. Any other use is going to be burdensome.


No Way to ReUpload

Once you upload a configuration, you can make some limited changes there. But not everything. Everything else you need to edit in CADmep, ESTmep or CAMduct. And once you do, there’s no way to upload your changes. Your only option is to delete the Configuration on FDM and loose any changes you made there.

So now you have 2 independent vectors for editing your database. One partial (FDM) and one complete like you always have. And there’s no way to reconcile those.

Now Autodesk will tell you they’ll be adding more. But judging from how they’ve implemented Fabrication Parts in Revit, they’ll never finish it according to YOUR expectations. They’ll get it to where they’re happy and call it good.


No Fabrication Interoperability

There’s NO interoperability with CADmep, ESTmep or CAMduct. And there’s no plans to near as I can tell. Read what they’ve pushed out. Their sole focus is on Revit. If they get to Cost and Labor it’ll be under the assumption that Estimators will use Revit to quantify their estimates. I can’t imagine a world where a mechanical estimator will use Revit to take off estimates. Another stupid half baked idea.

To add insult to injury, Revit does not report ‘Node to Node Length’ in Reports…it doesn’t work. So Autodesk’s official solution is to export an MAJ and run your reports from there as outlined in this KB Article. So for products they don’t want to support, they seem to be the solution to everything wrong with Revit as well as FDM.


Install Errors

I’ve had far more systems produce install errors than those that actually install properly. They knew of the error I reported it before release.

The released anyway. There’s a generic KB article that explains how to fix it.
“An error occurred while preparing the installation” when installing an Autodesk product | AutoCAD | Autodesk Knowledge Network

But there’s an easier way to get this installed if you encounter the error. Simply browse to the below file, Right-Click on it and select “Install”.

%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Temp\Autodesk_MEP_FDM_Sync\x64\MEP_FDM_Sync\MEP_FDM_Sync.msi


What’s good About FDM?

Well, a couple things. For starters, when you upload a configuration you can see the errors it contains. Ironically, they’re things that are perfectly allowed in Fabrication, just not FDM. You can use the Invalid Data portion to review the data errors. Autodesk’s own Configurations (all of them) are not even compliant as shown here…

One of the other good things about FDM is the ability to more easy visualize how your data is connected. Using their Relationship Manager you can see how your data is connected. This is good for new users as well as existing users who want to see things like which parts are connected to a material or connector or service template.

What else? Well, I can’t really think of anything. FDM is just not ready. And until you can edit your entire database in FDM, it can’t really be used. But that falls on deaf ears. They want input on what to “do next”. But that won’t increase usage. And if this takes another half decade, it’ll likely never get completed. That’s a LOT time in Autodesk years to have a project survive and get funding if it’s not used.


Summary

The Fabrication Database in the cloud has been done before. It was there and much more complete. I saw it. It was previewed at Autodesk University years ago. But it never saw the light of day. They killed it. It wasn’t built on Forge. So they did it again and built it on Forge. But Forge wasn’t ready or capable. So it took 6-7 years to get where we are today. Half assed and incomplete. A year into the project they said it would take another year. I told them it would be at least 5. I was wrong. It took longer. And it’s still not usable. It’s poorly documentation and so disjointed in their messaging that it risks your data.

They have no strategy or end game for how to work in EST or CAM. Now they want your input into what to do next. Except it’s obvious if they listened to everyone they ignored for the last 5 years. Their exclusively Revit based strategy has no promise for you any time soon. Worse yet, it lacks vision and doesn’t even strategically align with where Autodesk is going. That’s not just my opinion, it’s that of several insiders I’ve spoken with too. Their strategy is based on a 20 year old software called Revit.

So kick the tires if you like. But don’t install this garbage for anyone else. And for the love of God, don’t share your configuration with anyone else.

Lastly, if you want to know what you should or should not do with it, you can’t rely on the documentation. Apparently Autodesk’s official guidance and policy is buried in a single blog post per their response to me.

Autodesk Fabrication 2022 Updates

Autodesk Fabrication 2022 marks a decade that I’ve been updating various documentation for the program. As usual, in recent years not a lot has changed but there are a few changes. Here’s a review of the changes for the data I track…

Renumber Revit Fab Parts – No Purchase or Coding Required

Most MEP contractors moving to Revit with Fabrication Parts at some point wrestle with renumbering parts. You can purchase tools or add-ins to make this easier or even write your own with Dynamo or C#.

But most contractors aren’t coders. And buying more software can also be a challenge. The good news is that those are not your only options, There’s some well written FREE Revit Add-Ins that make this a breeze.

Required Tools

Head over to DiRoot’s web site (https://diroots.com/) and download the OneFilter Add-In found here and the ReOrdering Add-In found here.

Once installed, you’ll find the tools in the DiRoots Ribbon in Revit along with any of their other tools you may have installed.

Getting Started

The following image shows 2 runs of Rectangular and 2 runs of Round duct work drawn in Revit using Fabrication Parts. One is drawn in a +2in WG service and the other -2in WG service. All duct has a tag configured to display the Fabrication Part’s Item Number property.

First Up – DiRoots OneFilter

Using the DiRoot’s OneFilter Add-In, you can easily select not just Fabrication Parts, but also select them based on their properties.

Once selected, you can see Revit selects the specified items in your model.

Next – DiRoots ReOrdering

Now that your desired parts are selected, you can use the DiRoots ReOrdering Add-In to renumber those parts.

After applying your renumbering parameters, you can see how Revit then displayed the updated Item Numbers for the Fabrication Parts.

Wrapup

As you can see, with a couple free (well written) utilities you can quickly and easily select and renumber your fabrication parts in Revit.

There’s a lot of other reasons beyond renumbering to use some of these Add-Ins. They’re very functional for a lot of workflows. Those uses are beyond the scope of this post but feel free to explore these Add-Ins or some of the other DiRoots tools when you get a chance. They’re some of the highest quality free Add-Ins for Revit than you’ll find anywhere.

Fix – Revit Fabrication Parts Suddenly Become Invalid

If you’re using Revit 2018 or 2019 with Fabrication Parts, you may notice that upon loading or reloading your configuration some (or many) of your parts become “Invalid”.

I’m not talking about Fabrication Parts whose CID/Pattern isn’t supported in Revit. I’m referring to perfectly valid Fabrication Parts. Parts that once worked. They may even be currently in your model but are no longer active in your Parts Browser. Here’s a couple examples…

You may even notice valid parts become invalid after unloading a service or that invalid parts become valid again after loading a new service.

What’s happening is that your Fabrication Configuration’s Image Cache has become corrupt. The issue is in Revit 2018 and 2019. Revit 2020 does not experience the issue. Whatever changed in Revit 2020 made it more resilient to a corrupt image cache.

The only known fix until recently was editing your service template. You would have to remove and re-add the part. Reloading the Fabrication Configuration in Revit and it would be fixed. Unfortunately, future database changes would often revert back to the invalid state.

Quick and Dirty Work-Around (Revit 2019 Only)

If you’re using Revit 2019, there is a quick and easy work-around. That’s assuming you only have a few parts that are invalid. To work around the issue, reload your Fabrication Configuration and individually load the invalid part in the Parts tab. The following image shows one invalid part added to the Parts tab.

Once added, the Part then becomes valid in the Parts Browser.

A Permanent Fix (For both Revit 2018 & 2019)

The prior work-around was only available in Revit 2019. This didn’t help Revit 2018 projects which do not have the Parts tab in Fabrication Settings.

To properly fix the issue, you need CADmep. Load your Fabrication Configuration in CADmep. Once loaded, find an open area of your service and press CTRL+SHIFT+Right-Click and select Clear Cache.

Next type the REFRESHALLBTNS command. You’ll see a progress bar while CADmep refreshes your button image cache.

At this point, your button cache should be rebuilt. However I’ve seen instances where you have to “coerce” or otherwise persuade CADmep into saving it back to disk. To verify the changes are saved, go to the Service Editor and click the Apply button then close the dialog.

At this point, you should be all set. If you go back to the problem Revit file and reload your Fabrication Configuration, you should see the Fabrication Part become active again.

Preventing Future Corruption

To prevent future corruption, you first need to understand how it happens. When loading CADmep, you may have noticed the “Button Validation” as shown in the following image…

Because this can be a slow process, most users simply hit the Escape key to terminate the validation. This isn’t a big deal for a user. For a database administrator, this can leave your image cache partially built and corrupt it.

While you can simply stop canceling the process, the better option is to prevent it in the first place. By default, CADmep enables Button Validation. But you can turn it off. To do this, use the Edit Configuration utility that comes with CADmep.

Note that this utility is named the same between versions and between CADmep, ESTmep and CAMduct products. It may be tricky to pick the right one. You need to select the one that comes with CADmep.

You also need to perform this for each CADmep version that’s installed. To help, you may want to choose the Open file location option. This will bring you to the folder with the shortcuts. You can then easily navigate to the proper version of Edit Configuration that you’re looking for.

When you run the utility, it’ll prompt for a configuration. You can pick any, it doesn’t matter. The setting to change is not specific to the configuration, only the product and version for the currently logged in user. The following image shows the Skip Validate Buttons at Start-Up option.

Select this option and the next time you launch CADmep, you’ll no longer see the button validation. This prevents you from canceling out of the validation as well as speeds loading of CADmep.

Credit Goes To…

Special thanks to Martin Schmid and Craig Farish of Autodesk for helping with this issue. We’d been experiencing this issue on and off for over 1/2 a year. Autodesk Support had indicated that nobody else had reported the issue and provided the 2019 work-around. They repeatedly assured me it was fixed in 2020 and not a problem with my data. They had no fix for 2018 which is used by several projects.

After experienced a large volume of invalid buttons, our database administrator spent 6 hours before users arrived rebuilding service templates. The the issue resurfaced within hours of a simple database update. With $5k-10k of lost productivity over 2 weeks with several detailers unable to model certain services, I called in a favor with Martin and Craig. They quickly had their team analyse our data and identify the fix.

I’ve since run into 4 other companies experiencing the same issue and this fix has worked flawlessly for them as well. Hopefully you’ll not need it but if you do, it’ll save you load of time, frustration and money.

Revit Fabrication Parts – Control w/Dimensions

AutoCAD was famous for it’s command line. It was easy to move items and type locations, distances or coordinates. Revit isn’t quite as intuitive for those coming from AutoCAD.

There’s a lot of reasons you need more control of Fabrication Parts in Revit. You may want to align the ends of pipe for a rack. Or perhaps you want to control the spacing between pipes in a run of parallel pipes.

At first it appears like the best you can do is drag items close. Eyeball them up so to speak. The traditional methods used in AutoCAD just won’t work. Methods like drawing construction geometry and using point filter and/or object snaps.

You can precisely control placement and location when moving to Revit from CADmep. In Revit, you simply place dimensions and edit them. Seems easy enough but there’s a couple nuances that can leave users frustrated. We’ll cover how to do this below.

Adding Dimensions in Revit

You can use the Annotate tab on the Ribbon in Revit. You’ll use the Linear, Aligned and Angular dimensions the most.

When you place a dimension between parts in Revit, the obvious thing would be to double-click the dimension to edit it. You’ve likely seen the following dialog…

If you see this dialog, you’re on the wrong path. This is not where you’d edit a dimension to control part placement. For controlling parts with dimensions in Revit, you actually select one of the parts you dimensioned.

The following image shows a Fabrication Part selected. But there’s still a problem. If the dimension text is black, you can not edit it. This is because one of the parts are over constrained. If you find a Lock icon on one of the parts, try unlocking it.

After unlocking the part, you may need to deselect and re-select the part for the dimension text to be editable. In the following image, you’ll see the dimension text is now Blue.

With the dimension text Blue, you can now click on the text to edit it as shown in the following image.

With the edit box for the dimension text activated, simply type the desired value and press <Enter> or click out of the edit box.

You’ll see the part move to the dimension you entered. The key to determining which part moves when editing a dimension is based on the part you select. If you just wanted to align the parts, you can delete the dimension afterward. On the other hand, if you want to maintain that relationship, highlight the dimension. You’ll see a unlocked Lock icon as shown in the below image.

If you click to Lock the icon, this relationship between parts will be maintained going forward.

The below video shows three pipes modeled with various end lengths. We’re using dimensions to align the ends of the pipe. We also delete the dimensions afterward. Moving one of the pipe ends later will not move the ends of the other.

Pipe spacing is set using dimensions just like before only this time, the dimensions are retained and the lock icon locked When one pipe later moves, the other moves to maintain the spacing.

ESTmep Cost Exposed in Revit

If you’re a user of ESTmep and Revit Fabrication parts, consider yourself warned. I’ve recently had some dialog with an industry colleague and the discussion of Cost data in Revit came up.

We know that that a Revit file which uses Fabrication Parts contains a copy of your Fabrication Configuration (Database). We also know that the Fabrication Extension for Revit now allows you to run reports. Those reports can also report on Cost data. That’s generally a good thing in most firms using ESTmep, exposing that Cost data to Revit users can be very helpful.

Now when you send someone your Revit model, they do NOT have access to your database (Unless you send that to them a well). Without your database, the Fabrication Add-In will not find the reports and the option is grayed out.

You also can’t change the configuration either because the drop down is disabled. They need your database to do anything….maybe.

So this sounds like we’re OK but let me assure you that’s not the case. Your database isn’t “available” to the person who had your Revit file but it is contained within the Revit file itself. And even though the Revit API’s don’t give you access to the costing data, it can be extracted.

I won’t go into details for the sake of security in our industry but rest assured, there is a process where as a user can extract your cost data. This includes being able to figure our your vendor pricing multipliers.

What To Do?

That leaves the question about what to do. Some may be familiar with the option in Edit Configuration that disables the storing of EST tables in DWG files. This has NO effect or control of Revit. Sure would be nice if it did nit that’s not the case.

So there’s really 2 options that I can see….

  1. Remove or Rename the COST.MAP, ETIMES.MAP, FTIMES.MAP and SUPPLIER.MAP tables from your database. These are where labor rates, times and costs are stored. Without these tables,, Revit can not store this information in the model. If you’re previously had a Revit model with this information saved, rename/remove the files and reload your configuration and the data will be removed. The down size is you’ll no longer be able to use ESTmep.
  2. Make a copy of your database without the COST.MAP, ETIMES.MAP, FTIMES.MAP and SUPPLIER.MAP tables and have Revit point to that. Each time you update your Fabrication database, you’ll need to refresh this copy. It’s fairly easy to script this process and have those files removed. The down side is you’ll no longer have access to Cost data in Revit but at least you can keep using ESTmep internally.

If you feel this is unacceptable, please submit a support ticket with Autodesk. The more people that raise the issue, the more likely that it will be addressed in a future release or update. To date, all they told me is the option I’ve outlined are the ONLY way to address the issue.

Revit Fabrication Parts – Pattern Support Analysis

It no secret that not every Autodesk Fabrication pattern is supported in Revit. I’ve recently finished a more in-depth analysis of which patterns are and are not supported in Revit. Each of the 703 different pattern types were tested in each version and each update of Revit.

On the Fabrication COD Scripts page, you can find a Revit Support Report script. That script will analyse your ITM library and generate a CSV report of the status of every ITM in your Fabrication Configuration.

You can also find the complete results of my testing on the Revit Support page. Here’s a summary of the the testing…


Tested Version

Each of the below versions of Revit were tested with all the the 704 different patterns:

20162016R22061R2SP7
2017.02017.12017.2
2018.02018.12018.22018.3
2019.02019.12019.2

Testing Criteria

“Supported” for purposes of this testing is based on whether Revit allows a particular pattern to be used in the Fabrication Part Browser.


Testing Results

Testing results will have one of the following status descriptions.

  • No – No Revit support
  • Varies ({verison}) – Revit support varies between Revit version
  • Yes (Risk) – Revit does support but use NOT recommended due to issues
  • New ({version}) – New Pattern supported in later Revit versions
  • Yes – Pattern is supported in all Revit versions with no significant issues

Support Status = No

No – Parts not supported by the Parts Browser are obviously listed as having “No” support. There are a total of 84 different patterns listed in this category. They are as follows…

125126127
128129130141158202203
204205206207208209210211212213
215216218220221228230301302308
503505521530764765803804805806
833873910913928960961964966969
974980983985994996999104911021106
1114114211501152115711611162116511681169
1181119411961198218521892190219121922199
2200287331083873

Support Status = Varies

Varies (version) – In some cases, Fabrication Parts were initially allowed or supported in earlier versions and later were restricted. These parts have a status of “Varies” followed by the version where the change occurred. It’s recommended you avoid use of these patterns even in versions where they work as they will not be supported in later versions. There are 17 patterns that once worked in Revit but are no longer supported. They are as follows…

0182222381845853855864876898
903912915971110511701175

Support Status = Yes (Risk)

Yes (Risk) – Patterns that list “Yes (Risk)” are technically supported in Revit but I highly recommend avoiding their use. Patterns with this status have issues like inserting at the Revit’s Project Base Point and not the cursor location. They also have a tendency to crash Revit if you attempt to grip or edit them. As a result, I highly recommend avoiding their use. There are 29 patterns in this category. They are listed here…

119189317346347348349350351352
353368369390392397398415810828
922930962963968973115911601176

Support Status = New

New (version) – Some patterns were not around in earlier versions of Revit but later added and supported in Revit. These patterns are listed as “New” followed by the version of Revit they became available in. These patterns are generally safe to use for Revit. There are 19 patterns in this category which are listed here…

217120612071238123912401241124212431244
124512461247124812491250219721982217

Support Status = Yes

Yes – Parts allowed by the browser that work across all versions of Revit are listed with e “Yes” status. There are 555 patterns in this category. They are listed here…

12345678910
11121314151617181920
21222324252627282930
31323334353637383940
41424344454647484950
51525354555657585960
61626364656667686970
71727374757778798081
82838586878889909192
939596979899100101102103
104105106107108109110111112113
114115116117118120121122123124
132133134135136137139140142147
148149150151152153154155159160
162163165166169170171172173183
184185186231250251252253254255
309311313314315316318319320321
322323324325326327328329330336
338340341342343344345354355356
357358359360365366367376377378
379380382383384385386387388391
393394395399401410411412413417
420421430431440441450451460461
470471472480501502504506507509
514515518519522523524525526533
535555556557580751760761800801
802807808809811812813814815817
818819820821822823824825826827
830831832834835836837838839840
841842843844846847848849850851
852854856857858859860861862863
865866867868869870871872874875
877878879880881882883884885886
887888889890891892893894895896
899900901902904905906907908909
911914916917918919920921923924
925926927929931932933934935936
938939940941942943944945946947
948950951952953954955956957958
959965967970972976977978979981
9849869879889899951000110111041107
1108110911101111111211131115111611171118
1119112011211122112411251126112711281129
1130113111331134113511361137113811391140
1141114311441145114611471148114911511153
1154115511561158116311641166116711711172
1173117411771178117911801183118411851186
1187118811891190119111921193119711991200
1201120212031204120515221972204020412042
2044204720512060207120722082209721082148
2149215521602182218321842186218721882193
2194219521962326238623882522252325242751
2814282128572868286928752881288228832884
2885288628992900290129022903290429052906
2907291629382965296629672979304130513060
30713386352235234522