Finally, external stiffeners in Revit!

[cadbyken]

Just saw that they FINALLY are providing these via 2024 Revit families.  Too bad they aren't database driven which could lead to conflicts between the model and the shop.

  Why they did this and not one of the 100s of other things people have been requesting for 10+ years is beyond me.

[DotNet]

Just saw that they FINALLY are providing these via 2024 Revit families.  Too bad they aren't database driven which could lead to conflicts between the model and the shop.

I have been waiting for this. They will be driven via the VM Service DB, and the VM hanger algorithm will coordinate with them as it does with taps and olets. The 2024 SDK has not been released yet however I have done some digging to verify that this can be done. From the internal documentation:

CreateDuctworkStiffener(Document, FamilySymbolId, HostId, DistanceFromHostEnd)

Summary:
Create family based stiffener on the specified fabrication ductwork.

Parameters:
Document: The document.
FamilySymbolId: The id of a stiffener FamilySymbol.
HostId: The id of the host ductwork.
DistanceFromHostEnd: The distance from the host primary end to place the hosted instance. Units are in feet (ft).

Returns:
The new stiffener family instance.

In other news, they've added flow and pressure calculations to fabrication parts:

To integrate design and fabrication workflows, flow and pressure drop calculations have been added to straight segment fabrication parts. These results are only available on straight segments.

[Darren Young]

Their approach to this is BS. This is really going to kill model performance and allow engineers to do stupid things us contractors have to deal with.

Just stupid they didn't do this with existing specs and ancillaries IMO.

This is the first step in them slowly moving away from what made fabrication great IMO.

Andy put the Fabrication database in the cloud at Autodesk. Did it in about a year. Was never released because they didn't do it in Forge.  They're on year 8 with the Fabrication Data manager and it's still a pile of unusable excrement.

Fast forward..Andy's working w/GTP. What did they do? Put the database in the cloud...again (Lightning).

You could literally sit on your @$$ and tectonic plane movement of the earth would move faster than Autodesk.

[DotNet]

I have to agree. It would be optimal to drive as much as possible through the existing fabrication database, however I do not think that Autodesk is up to that task, or wants to be for that matter.

Aside from that, this wouldn't have even been on my wanted features list. Internal stiffeners are far superior. Any cost savings on steel is lost to the coordination/fabrication/installation nightmare that external stiffeners create. So, not only are they diverging from a database driven model more with every update, they're adding things that aren't even on most people's priority list.

[cnash]

From what I understand this is part of a larger project for additional features in Revit. But I don't like that this is available and not restricted in any way. It's going to cause headaches down the line I fear.

[DotNet]

From what I understand this is part of a larger project for additional features in Revit. But I don't like that this is available and not restricted in any way. It's going to cause headaches down the line I fear.

That makes sense. It's just a straight hosted family. I can think of all sorts of things to host on straights, aside from external stiffeners. Sleeves, access doors, smoke detectors, hangers etc... Perhaps they will add this functionality to the mechanical equipment and duct/pipe accessory categories.