eLearning - Upcoming Revit and Ideate Software Classes

Join the Ideate Tech Experts for eLearning – live online classes that provide your entire organization with easy access to premium education. 

4.2::Revit 201:
Making Titleblocks and Drawing Lists

4.3::Revit 201:
Residential Construction in Revit Architecture

4.7::Ideate Software:
Ideate BIMLink for Revit MEP Projects

4.8:Ideate Software:
Revit Project Management with Ideate BIMLink

4.14::Revit 201:
View Properties - Controlling Visibility

4.21::Revit 201: 
Stairs and Railings in Revit Architecture

4.22::Ideate Software:
Introduction to Ideate Sticky

4.23::Ideate Software:
Revit Auditing with Ideate Explorer for Revit

Each class is designed to give you specific, improved results in a particular topic. You can interact with the instructor right from your own office, while eliminating travel time. Because the class schedule rotates, you can easily select your topics of interest and choose the day which best meets your schedule.

Click here for class descriptions, times and registration link. Questions? Contact education@ideateinc.com

Get It. Know It. Use It.

Ideate, Inc. Launches Ideate Sticky, a New Autodesk Revit Add-in Software Solution

San Francisco, CA, 2/3/2015–Ideate, Inc., a multi-decade veteran Autodesk Developer Network member and Autodesk Gold Value Added Reseller today announced the availability of a new Autodesk Revit add-in Ideate Software solution, Ideate Sticky for Revit, designed to work with Autodesk Revit 2015 and Autodesk Revit 2014. 

Ideate Software is a set of far-reaching Building Information Modeling (BIM) data management tools that help the Revit community clean up models, delete problem items, analyze files quickly, improve speed and accuracy in data flow, increase collaboration and overcome repeated workflow interruptions. 

Ideate Sticky combines the ease and flexibility of Microsoft Excel spreadsheet editing with the convenience of pasting a sticky back note. This unique utility enables users to create and post Excel worksheet contents within the Revit project while matching the Excel table cell content, format, and style with highest possible visual fidelity. 

“Revit schedules are the perfect tool to represent the data behind Revit elements, but until Ideate Sticky for Revit, organizing and formatting essential non-BIM data was frustrating and time consuming,” says Ideate Director of Software Development Glynnis Patterson. “Ideate Sticky provides a live link to Excel inside of Revit, along with a convenient way to display tabular data inside of Revit. Our customers’ needs for an ahead-of-the-pack text editor capability motivated our development of Ideate Sticky.” 

“More and more our Revit-using AEC customers need ways to present and share information for cross-discipline collaboration,” says Bob Palioca, President, Ideate Inc. “We are delighted to introduce Ideate Sticky, another important solution to help our customers succeed.” 

Ideate Software developers surveyed customers who tested Ideate Sticky about how many stickies they anticipated using on a per project basis. Dan Dankert, CAD/BIM Manager, Mead & Hunt, Madison, Wisconsin, answered, “10 to 30.” Similarly, when asked about ways customers envisioned distributing Ideate Sticky within their companies, Nancy McClure, BIM Consultant, Aperte Design, San Francisco, California said, “…Network license available to all users,” and Glen Walson, BIM Manager, Interface Engineering, San Francisco, California, said, “…distribute to all Revit power users… the individuals who do the most production work per team.” 

A non-commercial trial of Ideate Sticky software is available at http://ideatesoftware.com/download/. For more information, call 888.662.7238, or contact sales@ideatesoftware.com.

About Ideate, Inc.
Ideate, Inc. is a leading Autodesk Authorized Developer with 25+ years’ experience in software development and specific focus on Building Information Modeling (BIM). As an Autodesk solutions provider, Ideate has offered quality software, training, support and custom consulting services to the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industries since 1992. Headquartered in San Francisco, California and operating Autodesk Authorized Training Centers (ATCs) in California, Oregon and Washington, Ideate is recognized as an Autodesk Gold Partner for Architecture, Engineering and Construction, one of Autodesk’s highest levels of authorization.

Ideate Software is a comprehensive set of far-reaching BIM data management tools. Ideate BIMLink powers the “I” in BIM, allowing users to pull data from an Autodesk Revit file into Microsoft Excel for fast and precise editing, and push the data back into Revit with equal ease. Ideate Explorer for Revit lets users search, filter, quantify and select to easily manage the 100,000+ elements in a Revit model. Ideate Sticky for Revit combines the ease and flexibility of Excel spreadsheet editing and the convenience of posting a sticky note. All three solutions help Autodesk Revit users solve problems in AEC workflows and help the Revit community leverage BIM to its fullest advantage.

Autodesk, Autodesk Revit and ATC are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. Microsoft Excel is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

This post was originally published on the Ideate Software Blog.

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Introducing Ideate Sticky

Ideate Software is proud to announce the launch of our newest Revit add-in, Ideate Sticky. 

What's a Sticky? 
Did you ever want to link an Excel file into a Revit project? Ideate Sticky is the answer. 

The name "Sticky" harkens back to the ancient (i.e. late 20th century) technique of duplicating printed tables or details onto translucent adhesive-backed plastic film ("sticky back paper") and applying it to a drawing sheet. 

Why did we create Ideate Sticky? 
Back in 2009, we had an inkling that many of our clients were using or trying to use Microsoft Excel as part of their BIM toolkit. 

Researching our past support issues, we confirmed that many of our clients were looking for tools that could connect an Excel spreadsheet with a Revit project. Looking closer, we realized that there was two broad use cases for these tools. 

In late 2010 we released Ideate BIMLink , which handles the first use case - linking data in an Excel spreadsheet to the data in a Revit model. Think of this as using Excel to extend and edit the Revit building information model. 

Newly released Ideate Sticky handles the second use for connecting Excel and Revit - linking formatted text in an Excel spreadsheet to formatted text in a Revit project. Think of this as creating and formatting tabular text in Excel, then displaying the results on a Revit sheet. 

Creating and linking a Sticky is somewhat akin to linking a DWG drawing into a Revit model - the information is created and stored in a file external to the Revit project, but the results are linked and displayed in the Revit project.

Ideate Sticky - Formatted Code Requirements

What will you Sticky? 
Ideate Sticky can be used to display many types of non-BIM tabular text in Revit including: 

• building codes specifications 
• general notes 
• consultant data 
• abbreviation lists 
• document issue records 

How did we do it? 
With lots of hard work! Ideate Sticky has been over a year in development and builds on all the technology and knowledge gained by the Ideate Software team over the past 8+ years of developing add-ins for Revit. 

Under the hood, a Sticky is actually a Revit schedule - with a twist. The Ideate Sticky add-in creates an empty Revit schedule (i.e. a schedule with no body text) and then manages the cells, formatting, and text within the schedule header. The result? A lightweight, native Revit object that supports formatted tabular text as in Excel. 

Ideate Sticky Help

What are the features? 
Excel spreadsheets rendered with native lightweight Revit schedules 
Excel formatting preserved with high fidelity 
Revit updated automatically or manually when Excel spreadsheet changes 

How can I learn more?
Download a free trial, view helpful overview videos, see the detailed help files, get the overview on our website, or contact sales today!


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Ben Bishoff
Senior Software Developer
Ben has been a software engineer for over 25 years. With a Bachelor’s degree in Physics, he has worked at several software companies developing applications for the AEC industry including Sage Timberline (construction accounting and estimating) and ArchT (architectural drafting for AutoCAD). He also worked at Microsoft creating AEC and other diagramming solutions for Office Visio. Ben has been with Ideate Software for over 8 years developing add-ins for Revit including Ideate Explorer and Ideate BIMLink.

This article was originally posted on the Ideate Software blog.