Renaming and Renumbering in Revit, Simplified with Ideate BIMLink

One of the more tedious and labor-intensive BIM tasks confronting architects and engineers is the act of renumbering or renaming elements. We’ve had customers who require that all of the system families, for example, are prefixed with their company name. So instead of “Wall: 1-HR” we need “Wall: ABC_1-HR.” Likewise, even simple design changes can set off a chain reaction that requires significant renumbering of details, views, or equipment. Many times furnishings, fixtures, and equipment need to be renumbered in the middle of a project because new rooms or floors have been added, and the equipment numbering needs to align with the room and floor numbering schemas. 

Naming and numbering tasks can also be driven by an owner requirement for external database compatibility. The COBie specification, which is now mandated for federal government projects in the US, is a prime example of this. For those of you not familiar with COBie you can learn more at the Whole Building Design Guide website. The COBie Guide* makes it clear that “During design, the Architect shall be responsible to resolve all conflicts in duplicative naming by their own staff and all consulting engineers.” This sounds like a very daunting task but with Ideate BIMLink you can turn a day-long project into a (5) minute task.

This video demonstrates how Ideate BIMLink can be used to create and manage the unique type, component, and space naming requirements mandated by this COBie specification.



(View video on YouTube)

For information on other kinds of renumber tasks, refer also to our Door Numbering blog post.

A typical COBie project will require at least (4) iterations: 

• one for 35% Design Development, 
• another at 100% Construction Documentation, 
• another at the Beneficial Occupancy stage, 
• and lastly within the As-Built documents

That’s a lot of data entry! 

Whether your renaming/renumbering task is driven by COBie or any other reason let Ideate BIMLink + Excel do the heavy lifting and put your architects and engineers onto higher order tasks.

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Glynnis Patterson is a registered architect and the Director of Software Development at Ideate, Inc. In a previous life Glynnis spent many hours looking at blueprints with a scale, highlighters, and a scratch pad to develop detailed cost estimates.