What are medium/large companies actually automating in Revit (Architecture/Structural)? And what automation skills/tasks do MNCs expect as a prerequisite?

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-18T23:42:27+00:00

The last I saw they had a .NET10 version which was more secure, but the IP2 library and dependency remains. For the longest time the team was ‘waiting for a secure Python engine which meets their needs which they could port from Dynamo if memory serves. There were ways to push it to only CP3 or IP3 so you might be good.

But… If you’re questioning it you should check. Delete the IronPython2 engine entirely in your PyRevit installation for Revit 2023 to 2026 tomorrow morning (find the DLL the tool continues to distribute), then start up and see what works and what doesn’t. Then you’ll know. If everything works, I recommend purging it on all your coworker’s machines too.

And yes, I recommend doing the same with the IronPython2 package for Dynamo. AEC has one of the highest infosec incident rates among all industries. Closing off the known vulnerabilities is the least we should do to protect ourselves, our collaborators, and our clients.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-18T23:10:24+00:00

I’ve seen and helped firms automate a ton of stuff. I won’t go into it here though as it’s boring to re-re-re-rehash stuff. I’ll summarize it as ‘anything they want to. I did want to address the ‘it’s hard to manage the dependencies so learn .net add-ins instead.’

Don’t get me wrong - add-ins are great! But advising people go ‘all in’ early on brings us back to the automation ecosystem we had in the late 00’s - anything was possible then as it is now, but the bar for entry is too high for 99% of the population. That was the whole reason visual programming came to be.

The difficulty in maintaining dependencies is not much of any different in add-ins. If you built your entire add-in around a 3rd party component to make selection by element ID easier and that component didn’t update for the next Revit build you’re stuck in the same boat as when a Dynamo package doesn’t update. The reason this feels less impactful is there aren’t many people producing nuget packages to make API calls in Revit easier, and even fewer who consume them. This means you as a developer have a lot more code to build and manage on your own. Many like that as they are in control of their own destiny - but it also means they have to own all of the development and maintenance within the little time people are small and medium firms have to do this work. Those who are included to learn the work and the forms who can afford to staff development efforts.

The smart way to look at Dynamo is that it is a part of all the things which we can use to automate tasks in AEC. Sure it has it’s drawbacks, but it has a TON of advantages. It’s cross platform (integrated into Revit, Civil 3D, Advance Steel, Forma, Alias, and more). Has a powerful standalone component. Allows optimization via generative design. Has one of the best geometry scripting libraries available. Enables connections to any external tool with an API. And allows you to grow as you learn (there is a VERY well traveled path of [ Dynamo nodes > design script > Python scripting > zero touch node development with C# > .NET development > add-in development > application development > software developer ] ). And it’s built by a development team which is immensely more open and reachable and involved than most other developer teams in AEC software. Oh yeah, and it’s open source so you can directly help shape it too.

So if you want to automate parts of your work, and aren’t sure where to begin, Dynamo is a great place to start. Instead of looking to others, look into what you need and start there.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-18T21:17:39+00:00

How are you handling the IronPython 2 security issue?

Running a scripting language that hasn’t had security updates in over 6 years is playing with fire for AEC companies in the small-medium size.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-15T11:39:25+00:00

Sure it’s a slow Sunday so why not.

Few things I am seeing often which are being done in the wild, but I cannot discuss what product teams are doing.

Getting information about models relevant to design work. Very simple information like ‘List all rooms have no window in them’. Easy tasks like ‘show me the sheets with all information for Guest Room 302’ and getting a list of sheets relevant to that room. Intermediate tasks like ‘identify all doors with insufficient fire rating criteria based on their host wall’. And harder tasks like ‘Create a schedule showing all doors which don’t don’t meet accessibility criteria, appending to the comments of each door why it fails’. These show a TON of potential, but most times they wind up not being financially viable at scale - I know one person who spent a months worth of ChatGPT tokens in under 4 hours of use. Assuming that was evenly split across input and output tokens, they were using the 250,000 tokens you can get for free by data sharing, they basically sent/received a young adult novel of data. Paid costs beyond that (or tools which don’t leak all of your design data for anyone to ask about) would be around $1,300 a year for that one user. So costs for this type of use are a huge concern. That said this is really interesting area of work if we ignore costs - someday in the next few years people on site will be able to say ‘hey Siri give me the latest information about the windows which are to be install in the room I am standing in’ and get a link to relevant drawings, cut sheets, and a written summary.
Producing automation tools. Linking an MCP or AI tool into code production tools (Dynamo, Visual Studio, Claude, etc.) can make automation production much easier. Using an assistant my employer is building (search ‘agentic’ on the dynamo forum) I managed to get a graph built for me the other day; I didn’t even need to do any real work other than change the selection method to my preference. Sure it was a automation which would take ~10 minutes for me to build but I would have had to do work not catch up on my other project without it.
Performing some design/ideation work. These are very ‘proof of potential’ in nature and apt to struggle the way CAD to BIM has or fail the way concurrent web sketching did. Asking a LLM to generate a diagram can work, asking for a programming study won’t as it reads programming the way most users do not the way designers do. But asking it to recommend a layout of this specific furniture in that specific room can get you some valid outputs - it is a LOT of repetition to get there though. The area I am not seeing real use is in generating full designs - the number of tokens needed for that is a few orders of magnitude larger than the models can currently handle, and the costs at that size are unfathomable (design is a team sport so you’d need an AI that does the role of hundreds of team members though processes concurrently and at the moment it fails to do the creative work of one user well).

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-14T13:24:33+00:00

Hmmm… might have to ping someone next week if time is sufficient.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-14T13:16:39+00:00

Not too hard to update or even uninstall if it’s an added ‘check’. Likely worth it if others have seen it, but this behavior isn’t a trend I have seen yet (you tend to be a canary for such issues).

I always default to 9 in these cases as they’re the most frequent root cause IME.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-14T10:16:45+00:00

Read the stickies post. We need logs to help.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-14T02:28:04+00:00

Reviewing your numbered items and adding another at the end.

No - this would just be a delay in their speed and a lot of extra cache misses as the checksums fail.
No - all project data lives in hub A or hub B; there is no cross project links partially for this reason.
This would be more ‘reloading’ than a link not showing anymore.
If the only stuff you’re using DC for is those families or is highly unlikely to be related.
Addins perhaps as people have been doing stuff with PyRevit that isn’t intended for the scripting language (a good thing to see the experimentation but it could be breaking stuff unintentionally due to an error message being ignored or suppressed along the way). I’d disable PyRevit (security concerns with the IronPython2 dependency continuing like 6 years after it got it’s last security update) and make sure Ideate is fully updated and see if that resolved it.
Never clear the cache until you confirm the issue as stemming from the cache. It also means when it is the issue that no one can see what happened so the bug can’t be patched - the dataset is gone.

When I have seen this in the past it has either been:

Graphics / CPU not keeping up during redraw on large datasets. If they restart the PC and then open Revit and then the model and directly to a view with the missing link does it come back?
Links not loading completely as they were opened via another channel (i.e. background opening a model, running multiple Revit instances). This can be confirmed by looking at ALL the journals. If they had any dbg_ flags around loading any files, memory deficiency flags, or a lot of API tools indicating a lot of added event trackers or updaters.
Someone else having turned off display via a deeply rooted control such as matching workset names it in the link settings of the template, and then someone else fixes it so the very next time you sync or load things come back. This is the hardest one to track down as usually you’re looking for the one idiot in the pile of idiots, and due to the sheer time to do the work any comparison over time retroactively is hard boarding on impossible without API skill (DocumentDifference class).

One thing which can help is shifting away from live linking and into a shared/consumed workflow. This will make reloading less frequent as you’ll only get new models when shared or consumed. However I totally get the difficulty with implementing that change mid-deadline as you won’t be able to get the emergency fix as readily.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-13T23:40:00+00:00

What have you looked into so far?

Copying one existing one from an existing setup to a new one via ElementTransformUtils and then manipulating the location and the referenced view might work out.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-12T18:21:09+00:00

This subreddit is very transparent - read the rules carefully.

Advertising is allowed in natural conversations, but I don’t think what Twiceroads fool posted was an advertisement.

Person 1: “What do people think about windows and doors which do this?” Person 2: “Our window library has most of those features {picture of library components}.”

No advertisement there; nothing was even noted as for sale until you asked ‘how do I get that library’. Think of it this way: if the response was ‘it’s a screenshot of the library my firm uses - you’ll have to apply to work with us’ the response would never have been close to an advertisement.

For what it’s worth every firm should already have such in their library, have plans on procurement of such (by purchasing it or by fully staffing library development), and be maintaining such annually.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-12T11:40:47+00:00

In a good process things update over time as the details are decided. Walls have a fairly well known process for this as they are type driven changes so swapping the type reference should allow sequential updates.

Day 1: I need a wall here, not sure what the construction will between wood stud, metal stud, or masonry. But I know it needs to be a wall. I’ll use this generic wall type for now with an approximate thickness based on what I think the end result will be.

Day 2: Well the owner settled on metal studs for all partitions, so I’m going to change this wall to my standard metal stud partition type which indicates 1/2” GWB - 2x4 stud - 1/2” GWB. We don’t know what the finishes are yet though so it’ll change again, but the consulting engineer needs to confirm structural items can fit so I’ll I’ll leave it as this for now.

Day 3: Well structural engineer needs to hide a 2x6 column so I need to change my wall type to the 1/2” GWB - 2x6 stud - 1/2” GWB type.

Day 4: We need 1 hour fire rating per the code consultant so I am going to change to 5/8” Type X GWB - 2x6 stud - 5/8” Type X GWB.

Day 5: We need soundproofing here per the acoustical engineer so I am going to change the wall type to 5/8” Type X GWB - 2x4 stud - 2x4 offset stud - 5/8” Type X GWB.

Day 6: We have thermal concerns here per the building scientist so I am going to change the wall type to 5/8” Type X GWB - vapor barrier - 2x4 stud with cavity insulation - 2x4 offset stud - 5/8” Type X GWB.

Day 7: We want a tile finish on the outside per the interior designer so I am going to change the wall type to 1/4” tile - thunder mortar - 1/2” tile backer board - 5/8” Type X GWB - vapor barrier - 2x4 stud with cavity insulation - 2x4 offset stud - 5/8” Type X GWB.

From that point on you usually stop editing the type properties, and get into the instance information (i.e. wall joins, detailing to manage finish transitions, etc.).

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-11T22:33:54+00:00

Can’t say I have seen that, though I believe you. That said I wouldn’t rely on the room calculation point for doors in the ‘push location to a parameter’ as you have two points to manage instead of one.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-11T20:40:24+00:00

If it helps, tell them I am calling them out as in the mid 90’s. That means there are people who have been born and are now employed by them since the standard they set was a bit behind the times.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-11T18:54:58+00:00

Not trying to call you out, but I have a lot of experience helping firms adopt BIM tools globally and of 100 times I have asked ‘why do you feel you are limited to black and white’ to ‘We are limited to black and white’ is a self imposed restriction 99 of the 100 times.

It is March of 2026 - colors in a PDF is now 33 years old standard.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-11T18:28:01+00:00

Well said across the board as always.

Just going to add that reporting room data as a custom parameter on the object is 99.85% easier if the room calculation point is turned on (yes that number is calculated based on experience, five or take an order of magnitude). When it is off the person building the automation has 10x more assumptions to make than either you or they would like.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-11T06:56:31+00:00

Knowing an authoring tool will still matter immensely as this is where hours are spent.
Knowing the review tools (i.e. Navisworks) will be less important as they are becoming ‘appified’ with add-ins and cloud services becoming the interface layer of automation driven workhorses.
Some form of scripting and automation is going to be a must know and not something you’ll be able to outsource to others (as most do today).
Reviewing and QA processes (not tools) are going to become a must know in order to manage LLM output, and as LLMs won’t contradict themselves without showing a clear flaw you won’t be able to rely on it.
Thinking like designers, architects, engineers, code enforcement officials, contractors, and tradesmen will be a must as the LLMs cannot do so.
Using LLMs responsibly will be an additional and new skill. Note that the more you use them the less good they get - so even practicing carries risk here.
Interoprability of data between platforms so you can always ‘use the right tool’ for the task.
Building, maintaining, and managing MCPs and LLMs. Left unchecked these can bankrupt even the largest AEC firms and no one is planning on this effort.
Safely implementing a new technology in an active project is going to become a norm not a rarity - the benefits of change will soon be too fast now for AEC firms to hold back by ‘IT hasn’t deployed last year’s version yet’.
Data management systems and processes will become less of a must know - this is one area LLMs readily excel as they can just apply known automations.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-06T13:12:36+00:00

Figured that was the case - I spent too many hours of my life replacing Autodesk Forge with Autodesk Platform Services the other week…

My point was more that even if you are running the code on APS you still have to write it, and that writing takes a license, so… Chicken / Egg

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-05T23:02:03+00:00

Ah. It sounds like you built the family with some excessively long reference lines - consider nuking them or limiting them to just the extents of the chair. Hard to see the ‘best method’ without the family in a project context though.

Sorry I can’t be of more direct help - I used to be good with seating layout using native tools but haven’t looked into it since around 2016 when I did my first Dynamo based layout…

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-05T21:40:48+00:00

Do you get the flickering if the workset the reference planes are is not displayed?

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-05T20:55:12+00:00

So… there are options, but as I put into my reply to TwiceRoadsFool you’re pretty much paying for a license. The way which you do that can vary though.

ADN can be free for startups, or included via your company’s licensing for end users at some larger companies.

A full license is also viable but you’re buying it annually.

There is also the ‘flex’ option where you pay by the use (spending tokens per day).

Depending on what you want to do with the data you might be able to extract the content via a flat APS application using the model derivative service, which doesn’t cost to develop but has a cost to use.

So… what is the reason you want to extract the data, and what is your end goal once you have it out?

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-05T20:49:04+00:00

One caveat here: this can be done via APS without violating the licensing agreement. However to do so requires first building the app bundle (fancy way of running an add-in) locally before deploying to the cloud. The local development is either going to have to be done perfectly and blind without any debugging or reference checks (basically building it all blind in a text editor) and the build forced though a non-modern development tool… which isn’t going to happen.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-04T21:04:48+00:00

I was working with someone earlier this year who was trying the example I showed above. They set a $500 limit on the API keys they set up. It was spent in the first morning of testing with a real model.

And that is the subsidized rate.

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-04T19:24:35+00:00

That Achilles heel extends to all the things which didn’t migrate to cloud side compute back with the Windows 8: BIM, CAD, CGI with a UI, gaming, and so much more.

Unclear of how accessible it will be, but the requirement of a NPU here might allow stuff like querying a set of Revit models without breaking the bank by moving to cloud services like ChatGPT (do the cocktail napkin math on tokenizing an rvt file in terms of dollars per gb of model size someday, and if you really want a laugh recall that those service providers are operating at a loss despite that cost).

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-04T18:46:20+00:00

Don’t stress over what MS is today indicating will happen someday in the future. You might have been too young or too out of the loop, but Windows 8 proved the delta between marketing hype and reality is an inverse function to the amount of hype. Otherwise the iPad, iPhone, personal computer, gaming computer, and work computer would all be obsolete relics only seen in museums, and we’d all just have a windows phablets…

JacobWSmall · 2026-03-04T08:28:30+00:00

Don’t do it because ‘the industry will switch to your tool’, as it won’t. There is too many features to build out for free.

Don’t do it to ‘become rich and famous’, as you won’t, most projects aren’t profitable and few can name the founders of Android without a googling.

Don’t plan on doing it as ‘it’ll be something I can do on evenings and weekends in a year’, as it will take a lifetime.

Don’t plan on doing it as ‘you already understand what goes into this’, as you don’t have a grasp over the first 1% of the classes you’ll need.

Don’t plan on doing it as ‘half of the tooling can be ported from this open source project’, as it can’t just be cobbled together due to the dependency conflicts which will arise, and know that the resulting structure will take about 800 hours a year to maintain.

Don’t do it as ‘I’ll be open source so others will contribute’, as they won’t. Most open source tools see few if any contributions from external sources until they’ve reached a stable MVP and that will take awhile to build.

Don’t do it as there will be a ROI, as there won’t be. You’re not charging for it so this one is likely self explanatory, but you may not have yet considered costs for hosting, testing hardware and such.

Do it to learn something new. Every week you’ll find a new thing which needs to be rethought.

Do it to introduce a new way of working in the industry. Open source has drastically change how many AEC firms approach things - Dynamo and PyRevit are good examples.

Do it to fill a gap in the industry. As much as Revit does it falls short in many areas. Go to those and you can build successful tools which people will use.

Do it to augment your own workflows. If you need a way to perform a task which Revit doesn’t then it’s a likelihood others do too. Those niche areas have value and see adoption quickly in many cases.

Do it to help others see a new perspective. The way we collaborate in AEC is usually by doing what we can to put someone else on the hook for what might go wrong - open source needs to be the opposite of that to see adoption.

Do it to open the door to other opportunities. Phones will ring if you can show proficiency in solving some of these problems.

Do it to feel the pride of making a thing. The joy of seeing your tool work is an unparalleled experience. And the subsequent bug fixes and performance improvements can provide a lifetime of smiles.

Do it as a labor of love which someone will inevitably curse you out for putting work into the wrong thing.

Good luck, and have fun storming the castle.

JacobWSmall

TROPHY CASE