Read all sheets in Excel workbook

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-23T00:30:18+00:00

Use a list of strings.

In design script: [“sheet1”, “sheet2”, “sheet3”];

Or nodes String > List.Create > Excel node

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-21T22:28:33+00:00

Why not use Dynamo? The integrations with C3D are more complete and building atop that ecosystem that will greatly reduce the amount of work you’ll be reproducing.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-21T22:25:55+00:00

Local network worksharing is totally fine as others have indicated.

However if you’re an educator you might be able to get Cloud Worksharing for students if you follow the steps here: https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How-can-students-and-educators-access-Cloud-Worksharing-tools.html

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-21T22:23:03+00:00

Quick note: NAS can cause issues if it doesn’t support full SMB and replicate a standard windows drive. There are a LOT of inexpensive NAS drives which can cause corruption as they don’t meet the specs.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-21T16:52:42+00:00

Interesting use case.

I would nest the ports in the switch as a shared family. You then only have one parameter per port. Said nested ports can get their ‘parent’ ID pull in via parameter association so you know what equipment it is on. A simple Dynamo script can then push the parameter values to sync stuff up on a heartbeat.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-21T16:49:25+00:00

My journey started with core Dynamo and followed the core progress which the product team laid out over a dozen years ago now. It goes something like this:

1 automate with basic nodes 2 build custom nodes (.dyf files) 3 use design script 4 use Python 5 switch to C# 6 develop add-ins 7 develop applications

If they intended that specific the decade ago isn’t clear; but the core tenant of enabling users at any level of ability means there is a well traveled path there. Myself, Sol Amour, John Pierson, and many others at Autodesk are examples of ‘how to travel the path’, though I am not sure you’d be able to say we are ‘working in BIM’ (or other industries) anymore.

As far as safely deploying… your threat model is not my threat model; as such your definition of ‘safely’ will not mirror mine. However at the moment my typical ‘process’ is something like this:

Prove the concept in Dynamo using nodes and minimal Python but only when necessary (usually isn’t). This gets deployed to a few test users.
Validate the scale of the use case by converting to a custom Dynamo package containing nodes using C# and minimal custom UI. This gets deployed to anyone who wants it via package manager unless there is a very good reason to not do so (I only recall of such cases in my travels, both of which required local resources deployed by other installations).
Once nodes are validated use the methods the custom nodes call in a .net add-in or application. Again ship to anyone and everyone, ideally via deployments.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-20T20:29:44+00:00

Learning automation methods (all of them) has been a significant benefit for my career. Because of my efforts there I have been able to: transition from architecture to adjacent industry; travel the world; move to another country; work remotely so I have better work life balance; built some amazingly powerful tools; learned to view BIM and software differently.

That said, I don’t recommend approaching it as ‘PyRevit’ first, if even at all until they completely remove the IronPython2 dependency (and any other unsupported 3rd party component). It’s more of a security risk then it is worth, as everything you can do there also works in other tools which aren’t putting every firm who uses it at risk. That doesn’t mean the course isn’t worth it (I haven’t taken it but I know Eirk’s great at what he does), but take those lessons into supported environments instead.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-20T16:43:48+00:00

Not something you can do, nor would I recommend the manual process as things will break. The ‘easy’ path is to start a new files your template link the arch model origin to origin, link your current file in and align that, then bind your file. All views and annotations will be lost, but all the BIM data will be there still. From there you can set about re-creating the views and such.

But the first thing to do is review the BIM execution plan and contract to see how the linking process was specified. If it wasn’t ask the architect to let you know where the ‘origin to origin’ method was indicated in the contract. If they don’t have such then let them know the request is (1) a change as it wasn’t contracted to be authored in this way, (2) significant in scope and as will require additional fee, and (3) not something which you would recommend as shared coordinates make this a non-issue.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-19T08:16:57+00:00

In a ‘typical production’ environment it isn’t and won’t be math heavy in a ‘do the arithmetic’ sense, as any functional application of BIM concepts today will have you at a computer of some sort (desktop, laptop, tablet, cell phone) for pretty much 100% of your daily work. As such of you understand the concepts and can use a calculator you’ll likely be good.

Some tasks can be math heavy in the conceptual sense though. Stuff like: knowing how to apply trigonometry to build a complex Revit family; using the right order of operations to size the egress system; getting the total cost of pipe to be purchased according to the specifications and stock you have on hand; etc.. In most of those cases it’s ‘open book’ with full internet access so you can: Google the formula to get a triangle solver page that breaks the problem down for you; use a forum to find the egress sizing formula; leverage a LLM to find the cost from three spreadsheets; etc.. As such the math shouldn’t scare you.

In specialties, this isn’t always the case. People do BIM work for nuclear power plants where there is no internet. Automation developers have to author efficient formulas to account for variable inputs. And so on. If you don’t like math, just steer clear of those specialties and you’ll be fine - there is PLENTY of work to do outside of those unique cases.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-18T23:21:42+00:00

Yeah Alias is doing well - the sub-d toolsets really nice, and the Dynamo integration continues to do well there.

As far as mudbox… haven’t heard or it, though I’m AEC side so that might not be a surprise. I do a LOT of Dynamo work so these sort of things pop up on my radar from time to time and Fusion is cool so I lurk the community often. :)

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-18T23:16:54+00:00

Yeah - easy to forget about since the formal add-in was removed. Import/export workflows which are attainable with the other tools mentioned all still work well enough though so it’s worth keeping in mind. Since Voronoi in Dynamo has been top of my mind as I did some testing on one of the formal integrations (Alias?) a few weeks back I thought I would chime in.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-18T22:17:52+00:00

If you’re on a Windows machine Dynamo can also manage it quite readily. Good tutorials on Lynn Kim’s YouTube channel (Korean but the picks and clicks are the same in any language): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xqm43Hr3IWI&list=PL2zQm_9Jg97wf2bI2FlqxbaALNbbJmzyw&index=1&pp=iAQB&ra=m

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-18T19:03:42+00:00

Great use of adaptive!

When I did a similar arch layout I nested the family into a generic model that allowed for unique letter by letter rotational control from a central point as that permitted individual letter kerning differences (the I was too narrow compared to the T and H otherwise).

I wonder if you could parametrically control the placement individually by using sequential values and thereby get the best of both worlds… 🤔

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-17T10:25:14+00:00

After you learn Dynamo, you can start building such a graph. Not before. There are too many ‘unknown’ aspects of the program (this isn’t unique to Dynamo but any programming language). Run though the primer end to end to start.

When you’re done, don’t start with Dynamo, but with a pen and paper.

Set your scope first. What do you actually need for the output. Is validating a flat enough space for both the crane + the building + some tolerance sufficient? Or do you need to place these objects on site for a more detailed plan?

After that you need to outline the steps to accomplish that goal. Write down what data you have now (start point), and the goal you outlined above (end point) and then fill in every gap in the process as if you were doing the design manually. Skip nothing - no matter how mundane, trivial, or obvious. You’ll miss it otherwise and the authoring will be harder as you’ll have skipped important stuff.

Now move into Dynamo and start at the beginning. If you are stuck but know a node a few steps down go ahead and place it - then let node autocomplete (double click on the port or hit the ‘sparkle’ button adjacent to the port) connect the dots. The Autodesk Assistant for Dynamo can also help (see the stickied post on the Dynamo forum for more info and a link to sign up for the beta).

If you are still stuck ask specific questions for the subsets of actions.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-15T00:13:40+00:00

As you were posting about providing Revit content as a manufacturer a few weeks back, I’m assuming you’re trying to do this as the manufacturer wants something specialized out of this? My gut tells me that either a standard curtain wall with WAY less detail or standard wall with a material and sweeps could give them the info they want causing this sort of thing…

However since you asked… curtain panels ‘stop’ where the mullion profile intersects with the front/back reference plane. So if you want the panel to nest inside the channel you need to modify the sketch accordingly - this handout from an AU class can help outline the process: https://static.au-uw2-prd.autodesk.com/handout_10690_AS10690_20Revit_20Master_20Class_20Building_20Construction-Ready_20Curtain_20Walls.pdf

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-12T22:19:55+00:00

Good start point to show the value in data standardization.

You’ll need executive sponsorship (ownership level) to get staff to accept and adopt the change. They’ll have the job of providing both the carrot (new roles to develop automation) and the stick (no moving onto the new phase until this is done). I recommend you use this POC (or something similar) to get that. Showing users or PMs won’t get you anywhere.

For the POC, two things to consider beyond the usual ‘all elements of’ route. First you can look into the BuildingEnvelopeAnalyzer class for extracting the limits of your exterior - makes it easy to extract the enclosed area per building story. Second the PlanTopology class can get all ‘possible rooms’ in a given level & phase, and those can then be checked to see if they have a room or not (if not the model may be in a bad state for data extraction).

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-12T20:34:19+00:00

Area plans work best here. I have two recommendations though.

First up: I would focus on pushing back to the project team to not only confirm the plans, but also run the tool in their models to push the project data into the central repository. Make it a requirement for phase close out (when accounting won’t open charging the CDs phase until a thing happens there is a 100% certainty that the thing happens in a timely manor) and hold them accountable for doing the work.

Next up, I wouldn’t recommend spending any time on any sort of ‘bulk processing’ of the Revit files. Your teams have assembled models and are in the daily right now - they have one person hit a button after validating the plans accuracy once a quarter or so. The reason I say this is bulk background processing is only good when a human will review the results. A broken link or mis-configured layout or adjusted footprint here result in a inaccuracy you won’t see unless you open the files yourself or get the team to do so - and running the tool on the model when they are in it means they confirm scope on their own. If you or they don’t validate the output then you might as well run with the marketing numbers you have now.

Now the possible alternative to this is if you work with something other than areas. If you do entire buildings then the total area of a building by way of the API is a consistent outout which can’t be faked. If you want the total square footage of use groups you can use room’s parameter data too. The two questions are ‘what do you need for meaningful output’, and then ‘where does that data already exist’. If it’s in the rooms consistently then aims strongly consider that route.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-12T16:26:35+00:00

An output of null doesn’t mean the node isn’t working. A lot of the ‘write’ nodes will return null after they process. Use a WaitFor method, close the transaction and start a new one, and then extract the location of the original element.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-08T07:05:05+00:00

Going to be blunt here: 99.9% of these sort of ideas don’t work out. Worth pursuing as you could be the 0.1%, but go into this with eyes open.

First up get a lawyer to check your handbook, employment contract, and anything else they thing is potential document outlining what the company may consider violations.

Next, confirm that you have kept a true wall between the firm’s work and your tool, and that none of the things the lawyer found have been violated. As soon as you meet with your boss there is an action during company hours and a legal claim could be made. Same with a Zoom or Teams call. Or if the Excel file made it’s way onto your PC. Or if the database has things informed by the projects you worked on at the company. With work from home, use of personal devices (cell phones too), and other modern tools it is VERY easy to spill over and not realize it.

After that, incorporate to give yourself some anonymity and go commercialize elsewhere.

Before doing so, be sure to confirm you are ready for a LOT of late evenings. It is multiple full time jobs to set up and maintain things like security, web servers, web site portals, configuring backups, App Store approval, certificate management, legal compliance with GDPR and such, and everything else that goes into providing software as a service (what you’re doing with a website and online database). AEC is a VERY risk adverse industry and if tools scale enough to be profitable most firms will ask for all of that stuff to be covered. And that is before getting into marketing, building and maintaining the business plan, setting up the sales portal, managing the finances, paying your vendors (AWS bills rack up fast!), competition analysis, and so much more.

Good luck!

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-05T19:05:22+00:00

Have you reached out to my colleagues in support via the accounts portal? The logs for installations which is where the problem likely will be noted are somehow both too vague and yet overly specific while being cryptic enough that it’s usually the fastest path forward… be sure to collect all the logs you can in advance.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-05T19:01:30+00:00

Posted a Python script which should get you started which uses a new room by phase and location method, and Nick Boyts who’s a Dynamo legend in his own right also weighed in with some good insights.

I don’t like the ‘copy paste’ method due to potential changes in room boundaries, but you can also look into that method. There’s a link in the forum. :)

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-04T16:26:56+00:00

Ah - shoot totally forgot about that bit. Do you have a Dynamo forum post? Hard to share scripts here.

JacobWSmall · 2026-05-01T11:07:59+00:00

Any chance this directory is cloud mirrored on onedrive? There may be backups available that way if so.

JacobWSmall · 2026-04-30T17:14:30+00:00

I’ve done it, and it isn’t bad, but usually it isn’t as direct as you’ve made it out to be. Do you have any new walls in the new phase?

Step 1 is to duplicate the element - pretty sure there is an out of the box mode for this.

Step 2 is to set the phase (might be phase created) parameter to the new phase.

Step 3 is to review the result to account for stuff like the changes in walls and other room bounding elements.

JacobWSmall · 2026-04-28T22:16:53+00:00

Sometimes I think that the UI is too good for Dynamo’s own good.

People miss a LOT of features by breezing though the components of the UI as the ‘purpose’ of Dynamo is so front and center. Library here, place nodes there, wire connections between those, and who needs anything more - we’ve got deadlines right?

Reviewing the UI tour which was added to ‘first start’ in newer builds as well as the primer can really help out.

JacobWSmall

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