Navisworks Clash Detection: Saving Time and Money by Setting Up Clash Templates

DEEPAK MAINI: All right, let's get started. So first of all, thank you all for coming to this session. I really appreciate that.

I know it's a really busy time, and there are hundreds of classes to select from. So thank you for choosing this class, to come to this session. Really appreciate that.

I'll start with my introduction. My name is Deepak Maini. I'm National Technical Manager of a company called Cadgroup Australia. I'm based out of Sydney. We've got offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth.

One of my colleagues from Perth is here as well. And I was thinking that my flight was long, because Sydney/LA is about 13 and 1/2 hours, and then three hours stopover in LA, and then another hour here. My colleague from Perth had to fly the night before, because Perth to Sydney is a five hours flight. So I was thinking that I'm doing it tough. He was doing worse.

[LAUGHTER]

All right, so welcome to you AU2019. Yay! Are we excited?

Yeah. So a raise off hand one more time, who is attending AU for the first time? Brilliant, fantastic. Congratulations, you guys. I'm sure you are having a fantastic experience.

As I was mentioning earlier, AU is pretty overwhelming, with so many classes to select from and so on. But the good part is, most of the speakers provide you all the material that you can download after the conference as well. So you can go back to your work places. You can download the material and go through that one more time.

All right a quick introduction about myself. I'm a qualified mechanical engineer. Been in the industry for almost 20 years now. I was awarded Best Autodesk University Speaker for the last two years in a row. I also won some awards in a few other conferences as well.

I'm also really privileged that I get to teach at two of the main universities in Australia-- so University of Technology Sydney and University of New South Wales, where I go there as an industry lecturer. I teach a part of construction management course. I've written a few books as well.

So these two up at the top-- if I could get my clicker to work. These two up the top are Navisworks, which is what this class is all about. And the other one is on a software called Advance Steel, which is steel design and detailing package.

We also have our lab buddies here to help us out if you guys get stuck anywhere. So we're going to have some help here. We've got Aaron Coats. Aaron is the national BIM manager at one of the largest architectural companies in Australia.

We've got Nikko. Nikko is the Sydney Studio BIM manager And we have Luciane from Autodesk tech support. Brazilian, but based in the UK. I can't pronounce her middle name, so I'm not even going to try. Sorry.

All right, because I love AU-- because I love you guys, I'm going to give away a few copies of my book. So I'm going to give couple of copies of this book. So this is a comprehensive book. It's pretty much everything that you need to know in Navisworks-- 714 pages.

This is more for BIM and VDC managers-- 219 pages. Pretty much covers everything a BIM or VDC manager needs to know to run coordination meetings. How many of you run coordination meetings?

Brilliant, well, I don't have those many books to give away. I've got two. So the thing is, I'm going to ask questions. And whoever doesn't answer the question gets the book. Because if you answer the question, you don't need the book.

[LAUGHS]

All right, I also want to thank some of my sponsors. I was handing over a few thumb drives, and so on. I've got a few more presents to give away. It's all because of these guys here.

I want to thank them for letting me give away some of this swag. I've got three BIM Track shirts large size. So anybody who's large size, when I ask the question, they can raise their hand and they can get the t-shirt if the answer right.

Draftech is an MEP solutions consultant based out of Brisbane. They are not here. But pretty much everybody else has got boots here. So if you want to go and visit them, that'd be fantastic.

Also, I want to say thanks to Revizto. Revizto actually allowed us to use one of their models in this class. So I want to say thanks to them as well.

All right, also, I want to acknowledge some of these people who work in the background that you guys never get to see. But they make our lives as speakers really easy. So people like Janice and Adam Sopko from content management team, Patricia and Sidney from speaker management team.

These ladies work till 10:00, 11:00 in the night, to make sure that when we come here, we are able to get onto the stage and do our presentations. So a big thank you to these guys. Can I get you to please give them round of applause?

[APPLAUSE]

Also, the tech support team, they are sensational. I had a lab this morning at 8:30 and nothing worked in the lab when I got there. I got there about an hour earlier-- nothing worked.

But the tech support team was able to get the lab running two minutes before people start walking in. So these guys worked tirelessly as well. So a big round of applause to them as well.

[APPLAUSE]

I'm sorry, I don't have your name on the slide. But I'm sure you're part of tech supporting. Thank you.

All right, so this is the fun part. I'm going to get everybody to stand up. And we're going to take a pledge. Can I get everybody to stand up please?

All right. Are we ready? So this is going to be a fun part. I-- so you've got to repeat. I--

AUDIENCE: I--

DEEPAK MAINI: --take a pledge--

AUDIENCE: --take a pledge--

DEEPAK MAINI: --that I will not--

AUDIENCE: --that I will not--

DEEPAK MAINI: --have alcohol tomorrow.

[LAUGHS]

I was just kidding. I was just kidding. You guys are like, seriously?

AUDIENCE: You got me twice.

DEEPAK MAINI: Yeah, I got you twice. You guys, seriously? Like, no alcohol?

Well, actually, there's no pledge. The reason I do that is because this is my eighth year at AU as a speaker. But I did not do labs in the past. It's only my second year doing lab, because I was always afraid of doing lab.

It's really hard to have almost 100 people in the room, having them at the same level. Anybody who's done labs in the past, they would know what I'm talking about. Jeff knows what I'm talking about.

So the funny thing here is that I thought, you know what? I'm going to get into it. I'm going to start doing labs as well. But it's a challenge for you as well, as for me, to make sure that we are able to do everything in this lab.

So what I want you guys to do is, there's no pledge, but a pinky promise. You guys know what a pinky promise is? So a pinky promise that I am first going to show you what you're going to do on the screen. And then I'll give you time to try it on your machines. You guys promise that that's going to happen?

Fantastic. Thank you. By the way, I've got a nine-year-old son. And he said dad, pinky promise is old. It's pinky lock now.

So you've got to do pinky lock. And I said, what's pinky lock? And it says it's the upgraded version of pinky promise. So-- wow. Upgraded version. And he's 9,

Anyways, so there are a total of five sections, plus there's a bonus section that I've covered in the handout. I sent all of you guys an email last week. So AU is a paperless moment.

So there are no handouts. You have to accept the handout on your tablet devices or through the website. Is everybody good with that?

You know what I'm going to do. Let's see if we can run this lab without you guys even looking at the handout. Let's see if you can do that. You guys ready? You guys ready for the challenge?

All right, brilliant. So there are a total of five sections to be completed, plus there's a bonus section. We've got more like 75 minutes to cover everything, because we need to leave some time for questions. So I'm going to show you all the steps first.

I promise I'll not speak for more than five, seven minutes. And then I'll let you guys do some hands-on stuff. I don't want to stand here, talk for 15 minutes, and you guys get bored. That's not going to happen.

All the datasets are on your C drive. So when we are opening files, we have got to open them from C drive. Have you guys taken lab before this AU? Yeah, so all the datasets are on C drive datasets folder. As I said, we've got great lab buddies here to help you guys out as well.

All right, as I said, that's going to be a bit of a challenge. Hence, we took that fake pledge, but we did the real pinky promise. All right, let's get started.

So why do we need to run clash tests? To avoid issues like this. This is in Perth. I could not believe that. Or to avoid issues like this.

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

So this is funny. The caption of this photograph was, "Don't worry about the structural integrity of the design. The plumbing would always work."

[LAUGHTER]

And this is what Aaron sent me last week. So went to see one of their customers. And he took a photograph there. He sent me this last week. Now, one thing that I always tell everyone is, no matter how good a technology we use, it's not idiot-proof.

[LAUGHTER]

So if someone has to do something crazy, they'll find a way to do it. One really important thing. So back home in Australia, we do a lot of presentations with some lawyers who work in the BIM industry.

And they were talking about a massive litigation-- anybody from Australia here, by the way? Just the three of us? I've got a class I'm doing tomorrow morning. Out of 100, there's about 15 Aussies in that class. It's like doing a class in Sydney.

So there's a massive litigation going on back home on a massive hospital job. And what happened was, whoever signed on the BIM contract, the BIM contract said we need a fully-coordinated model. The important thing is, fully-coordinated does not mean clash-free. It means clashes detected and reviewed.

So like your valid penetrations, you may not want to resolve those clashes. But you are saying, all right, that's where the pipe goes. We understand that and we have reviewed this. So they sign on the contract where it said fully-coordinated, it means clash-free. There is no way the contractors can provide a clash-free model of a massive hospital.

Now, they applied the model, and there's this massive litigation going on on that. So please be mindful of this when you're signing your BIM contracts. Fully-coordinated model does not mean clash-free. It means clashes detected and reviewed. Like I said, valid penetrations and so on.

Makes sense? All right, anybody who does any kind of clash detection here, they would understand what I'm talking about. It's hard to say we are running a model that doesn't have any clashes.

All right, so clashes in the BIM Vault are divided to three categories-- level one 1, level 2 clashes, level 3 clashes. Level 1 are the most critical clashes that we have to resolve on a priority basis. So for example, clashes with mechanical ductwork and structure and other services, and so on. So they are our number one priority clashes. They have to be resolved first.

By the way, anybody taking photographs? I'll have to charge you extra. No, I'm just kidding.

Take as many photographs as you want. All this is also in the presentation that I've uploaded for you guys. It's all in there as well.

Level 2 clashes are the second priority. They're given the second priority. These are mainly with the fire sprinklers and cables trays versus structure, and so on.

And the least priority is given to electrical. Anybody electrical here? Well, I feel for you, man. You're at the bottom of the food chain. One

Of my mentees, she is an electrical subcontractor as well. And that's what she was complaining. Because they're at the bottom, they have to move for everybody else.

Anybody structures here? You're at the top of the food chain. You don't worry about anybody else.

[LAUGHS]

All right, so what we're going to do is, in this section, a section 1, we are going to open a model. So what we're going to do is, we're going to go to Navisworks. Where's the file open command and available in Navisworks?

On the top here, that's the Open command. I've seen some people, they would go and click on this N icon. And they'll go and say open. And then they'll open the file from here.

Why do you want to burn your calories doing all that? See how many calories I had to burn? I have to go up there and then click, and then click and then click.

Why wouldn't we just click here? So we're going to go to the Open command here. I'll let you do that with me, please. So if you click on the Open command, we're going to go onto the C drive.

So on the C drive, there's a folder called Datasets. In the Datasets, folder, if you just click anywhere and type in C, it'll take you to the folder starting with C. And there's a folder called CS31784 Navisworks Clash Reduction. Did you guys find that?

In that folder, there's NWD files. So what you've got to do is, down at the bottom, if it is not set to All Files, it should be set to All Files by default. And you will see Building Federated.nwd file here.

Can everybody see that? So if you double-click on this file, it will start to load this file. But it will also display this dialog box here.

Now, every time I publish my NWD file, I use the NWD out command, because it lets me create this dialog box where I can punch in some information about who owns the copyrights and so on. We're going to click OK. You're going to click OK in the solid box. And it's going to load this hospital model.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Sorry, can you guys help them?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: OK, so if you can't do that, click on that list, and scroll all the way to the top, and click NWD. And then now you'll be able to open the NWD file Building Federated. Is everyone able to do this? All right.

So this is a question for pretty cool sunnies. Do you guys like sunnies. By the way, the criteria is whoever gets the sunnies they'll have to come on the stage and do a little dance. How do we spin the model around in Navisworks?

AUDIENCE: There's a couple of different ways you can do it, actually.

DEEPAK MAINI: Without burning your calories.

AUDIENCE: What's that?

DEEPAK MAINI: Without burning your calories.

AUDIENCE: You can hold Shift and middle click.

DEEPAK MAINI: Spot on. So you can hold down the Shift key and the wheel mouse button to orbit the model, which is what you do in Revit and other programs as well. But Navisworks has got one advantage over the rest of the programs.

So if I hold down the Shift key and the wheel mouse button, see how it lets me orbit the model? And do you see the green pivot point at the center of the screen? This is amazing in Navisworks because when you are inside a building-- let's say you are sticking your head in the ceiling space, and you want to spin maybe around a piece of equipment or something.

In Navisworks, you can simply scroll on any element and that element becomes your pivot point. So for example, if I scroll somewhere at the corner here, now that becomes my pivot point. As I said, it's really handy when you're looking at the services.

Let's say I'm looking at this here and I want to pivot on this. I'll just crawl, and that becomes my pivot point. How cool is that?

Do you guys want to give this a quick try? Is anybody here who's not able to load the model yet? Everybody able to load the model?

All right, so in Navisworks, we've got a number of different windows that we work with. But when we fire up Navisworks, see how we can't see any of those windows? We don't have a selection tree or any of those windows, or any properties windows. That's because Navisworks works on the concept of workspaces.

Workspaces is where I can define how my screen should look like, what window sits where, and I can say it with the name. Normally, I've got, like, about three, four workspaces I work with. The main one is-- because inside my office, I might be working with multiple monitors.

So I could have windows sitting on all these different monitors. But I also go on-site to do coordination meetings. So I create a workspace for my office environment, where I've got Windows sitting on different monitors, and then a workspace for site meetings, where I've got everything sitting on one screen.

What I've done is, to make it easier for you, I have already created a couple of workspaces and provided you those. So I'll let you load those workspaces. How do we do that? We'll go to the View ribbon tab. So can I get you to please click on the View ribbon tab?

And then under Workspaces, click on Load Workspace. And down at the bottom, click on More Workspaces. Is everyone able to do this? And now, go to the C drive, where the dataset folder was-- so C drive datasets.

And then go to this folder of this lab. And there's a folder there called workspaces. And double-click on AU Lab Workspace.

What this will do is, it will reset the Navisworks environment. And now it shows you all these different windows. Makes sense?

As I said, you can also create all these different workspaces by simply going into the Save Workspaces button in the same location. Is everyone able to do this? Anyone here who is not able to do this?

All right, so we have completed the first section without looking at the handout. That's a good start. Is it a good start? Yay. All right, what I've done is I've actually created a viewpoint for you guys called Overview. When you click on it, it restores the overview viewpoint for us.

The next section is the most important part of Navisworks. When I teach Navisworks, I normally tell people that if you get two concepts right in Navisworks, that's half the job done. One is understanding different file types. Two is getting your search sets right. So in this section, we are going to create search sets.

What are search sets? In Navisworks, if there are certain elements that we select on a regular basis-- like all structural steel, all mechanical ductwork, all plumbing pipes, all ceilings. So if we select these elements on a regular basis, we can select them once, and we can save them with a name.

Now, when we are selecting them, there are two ways we can select them. One is where we manually pick them on the screen or in our selection tree, or the second one is by searching them based on their properties. And when you search them based on their properties, and you save them, they are called search sets.

Once you get your search sets right, as I said, that's probably half the job done in Navisworks. I got a call from one of our mechanical consultants a few months back saying, oh, we ran clashes between mechanical ductwork and structure. We have now updated our mechanical model.

But it's not picking the new ductwork to run clashes. That's because, instead of creating search sets, they manually selected ducts and they saved them with a name. Which means when they added new ducts, the selection set did not work, because it did not pick the new ducts. Makes sense?

So what we are going to do is to create search sets. The search sets are created using this window called Find Items window. I'm going to click on the Find Items window and I'm going to pin it on the screen. And I'll resize these columns.

Can I get you guys to please do that? So click on the Find Items window which is sitting at the bottom of your screen. Click on the Pin icon on the top right. And then resize these columns. Is everyone able to do this?

All right, so how many of you mainly work with projects that are Revit-based? How many of you work with projects that have got a lot of IFC files in it as well? Quite a few of you.

Right, so the concept we are talking about is Revit-based. But it's exactly the same for IFC files as well. So what do we want to do is to start with selecting all the structural elements, which include structural columns, structural framing, and structural foundation.

Now, remember, we did the pinky promise. So you're going to look at the screen when I'm showing you this. Remember that? All right.

So what I normally do is tell people to find out what we need to search based on. We go and select the element and look at the properties. So for this case, if I go to the structural file, I'll right-click on it and I'll say Height Unselected. What this does is hides everything except for structure.

Now, if I pick on one of these structural columns, in the properties, there's a tab called Element Property. That's because this design was done in Revit. If this was an IFC file, there would be tabs up there with some IFC names in them. If it was a civil file, like pipe work coming from civil, it would have some tab that says Civil.

And same thing with Plan3D. Anybody here uses Plan3D? Yeah, so Plan3D has a tab called AutoCAD, where it will have all the plan properties.

So in this case, if I look at the Elements tab, it's telling me that this column is a family W, wide flange column, and type is W14 by 145. Now, the question we've got to ask ourselves is, do we want to only pick W14 by 145, or do we want to pick all the structural columns? It normally depends on what your search set will be used for.

If it is for clash tests, we want to pick all the structural columns. But if you're doing construction simulation, like 4D simulation, then you might want to further filter them based on levels and so on. Makes sense? In our case, we're going to run clash tests. So we want to pick all the structural columns.

So what I'm going to do is to search for Element Category equals Structural Columns. So the tab under which the properties sit would be your first selection in your Find Items window. You guys with me? So if you're looking for IFC properties, your first selection in your

Find Items window would be the tab called IFC properties. Makes sense? So if I could get you to quickly look at this here, I'll click on the Category column here and I'll type in E for element.

It takes me straight to Element, and the property we are looking for is Category. So C for Category equals. If I click on this, it shows me all these categories.

Now, in some cases, if it hasn't loaded all the categories, it would show you these three dots here at the bottom. That means it hasn't loaded all the categories. But in our case, it's loaded structural columns.

So I'm going to pick Columns. I'll go and unhide everything. So I'm looking at the entire design. And I'm going go and say Find all. It goes and finds 249 columns.

And if I say Height Unselected, these are all the columns. So what we did was, we selected a category called Element, Category equals Structural Columns. Makes sense?

All right, now the question we got to ask ourselves is, are we going to include framing and foundation in a single search set, or do we want to keep them separate? Generally for clash reduction, we combine them. We can create a single search set called Structural Elements. And then that way, we pick structural, and we can run clashes. But if you want to keep them separate, that's pretty easy as well.

For example, in this case, once we have found structural columns, we can go to the Sets window and we can save this with a name. And I can call it as structural columns. The whole idea is, next time when I need to pick structural columns, I can simply click on this name here. The key was to pick the second binocular icon here. And I'll come to that in detail in a sec.

But in my case, I want to keep all structural in one search set. So column, foundation, and framing. And if you look at framing, I'm going to go and look for E for Element, C for Category equals Structural Framing. Now, this is a question for a bottle. If I said Find All, what am I going to find?

AUDIENCE: Nothing.

DEEPAK MAINI: Somebody answered here. Nothing. Why would we not find anything?

AUDIENCE: You're not going to find [INAUDIBLE]. It can't be both of those things.

DEEPAK MAINI: Exactly. So the two rows of search here are AND conditions. There are no elements that are column and framing. You all with me? So if I go and say Find All, it says no, nothing found. So what we've got to do is click on the second row here, and we have to change this to all condition.

Now, when I say Find All, it finds all the columns and framing. Does that make sense? And now if I want to include foundation as well, I can create a third row and call it as Element category equals Foundation, and make it our condition.

But you know how I like saving my calories? I don't want to add three rows. Is there an easier way to do this? The answer is yes.

What I'm going to do is, I'll right-click on the second row and say Delete Condition. And stop saying Element category equals Structural Columns. What if I say Element category contains Structural? So that will pick column, framing, and foundation. Makes sense?

So I'm going to go and say Element category contains S- T- R- U- C- T- U- R- A- L-, Enter. All right, so this is the question for a large-size shirt. What am I going to find now?

AUDIENCE: Nothing.

DEEPAK MAINI: Nothing. Why would we not find anything?

AUDIENCE: Match Case.

DEEPAK MAINI: Exactly. See, we've got the tick box turned on that says Match Case. And when we find structural column, foundation, and framing, they're uppercases. Makes sense?

So I don't like clearing match case, because we are creating these generic search sets that we can reuse all the time. So I'm going to say Element category contains Structural with uppercase S. And now when I say Find All, it finds all columns, foundation, and framing. How cool is that?

And now I can save this as my search said by clicking in my Search window the second icon, which looks like a pair of binoculars. I'll call this as Structure. The whole idea is, whenever I need this, I can simply pick Structure, and it picks the entire structure model. Does that make sense?

Sorry, just give me-- can I get you guys to do this now? I want you to create a search set that says Element category contains Structure with uppercase S. Yes, Jeff?

AUDIENCE: If you do Match Case, and just do Structural, it'll find it?

DEEPAK MAINI: It would still find, yeah.

AUDIENCE: It shows up in our--

DEEPAK MAINI: Yeah, so you've got to click on that button. And that's when it creates it. See, he's already a champion. So we are creating a search set Element category contains Structural.

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. It's bugging out.

DEEPAK MAINI: Is it?

AUDIENCE: See how it won't--

DEEPAK MAINI: Sorry about this.

AUDIENCE: That's fine. [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Thank you for letting me know. Really appreciate that. Did you guys answer that question as well?

AUDIENCE: Yes I did.

DEEPAK MAINI: OK, all right. You want some cool sunnies?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Yeah. You said no to my sunglasses? Nobody ever says no to my sunglasses. Oh my gosh.

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

I've got a little koala for you

AUDIENCE: Oh cool.

DEEPAK MAINI: Yeah, you can actually stick it to your lanyard. How are we going guys? Is everyone able to create the search set? So pin this on-- sorry. OK.

AUDIENCE: You're fine.

DEEPAK MAINI: You guys good? So what we'll do is-- let's pin it on the screen, so it makes it easier. So we'll say Element category contains Structural, not columns, because we want to pick everything. So Element category contains Structural.

Now we're going say Find All, and it kinds of them. And then we click on this button here. That lets us save the search set.

All right, anyone here who's not able to do this? How about here? Everybody able to do this?

So my right side is stronger than my left side. Ooh. You guys good? All right.

Next, I want to create the second most important search set, which is for mechanical ductwork. So anybody who does any MEP modeling here? So when it comes to mechanical ductwork, I can show you this on the screen.

But I'll first tell you, when it comes to mechanical ductwork, we've got mechanical ducts. We've got duct accessories and duct fittings, plus mechanical equipment. The important thing is, if I go to the HVAC file here, and if I say Height Unselected, if I look at the duct elements here, it says Element category equals ducts, with an S. But if I go to a fitting, it says Duct Fitting. So that subtle difference with an S is going to be important.

Now, why do I say this is? Instead of me creating a search set that says Element category equals Ducts OR Duct Fittings OR Duct Accessories, you're going to say Element category contains Duct, D- U- C- T-. Makes sense? This is where we've got to make sure that we do not type in D- U- C- T- S-, because if you type in D- U- C- T- S-, it is not going to pick Duct. It'll pick Ducts.

So it's not going to pick Duct Accessories. So I'm going to go and say Element category contains D- U- C- T-, Enter. Let's do Unhide All.

Now, if I say Find All, it finds 9,195 elements. And these are all those elements here, which includes duct, duct accessories, and duct fittings. Now, does this look OK to you, or is there something not right in this?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Sorry?

AUDIENCE: Push down on [INAUDIBLE] boxes [INAUDIBLE].

DEEPAK MAINI: Correct. But what else?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: So forget about equipment. What else is missing. Or what else is there that should not be here?

AUDIENCE: Flex Ducts.

DEEPAK MAINI: Flex Ducts-- exactly. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen these clash results where people create rules to ignore flex ducts. We don't have to do that. We've got a really smart tool inside search sets. This is one of my favorite parts.

So watch this. What I'm going to do is, flex ducts in Navisworks are displayed as Element category equals Flex Ducts. So I'm going to go and say Element category equals Flex Ducts.

And the best part is, I can now right-click on the second row and I can send a get condition. What this will do is find all the ducts, but it will remove flex ducts after finding them. How cool is this? So we pick ducts, duct accessories, duct fittings, but remove flex ducts. Makes sense?

And now I'll add one last row here, which will be Element category equals Mechanical Equipment. Make this as an OR condition. Find All.

Now, we have got our VAVs. We have got our terminals. We have got pretty much everything that we need.

And I can now save this as mechanical duct work. So click on the second binocular icon, Mech Ductwork. Can I get you guys to do this, please?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Sorry?

AUDIENCE: When you right-click, [INAUDIBLE]?

DEEPAK MAINI: Negate condition. I think it's third from the bottom.

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

You guys in the back good?

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

DEEPAK MAINI: Brilliant. Nikko? Oh, sorry. Can you help the gentleman there? Are we good here. Yes, please. Sorry.

AUDIENCE: How do I start a new one?

DEEPAK MAINI: Just click here and type in D- U- C- T-, with uppercase D. Enter. You don't need that. See, what happens, as soon as you click on this, it deletes that value. So make sure you don't-- Enter.

Right, and for the second one, we'll say Element category equals Flex Ducts. So if you click on that list, it'll be-- OK, Enter. It hasn't-- [INAUDIBLE] for a sec. Let me just click it for a sec.

Let's resize the columns separate. OK, yes. And then right-click on the second row. And click Negate Condition. Brilliant, and now add the third one, Element category equals Mechanical Equipment

AUDIENCE: Equal--

DEEPAK MAINI: Equal Mechanical Equipment. So if you click on the list, it should be there. You don't have to type it in. So sometimes, we need to make sure.

And then enter. Right. And now Enter. And then you can right-click on this third row and make it OR condition.

AUDIENCE: OR.

DEEPAK MAINI: Yes, just about negate. Yep, that's it. And then click on Find All. And then if you click on Height Unselected, There we go.

AUDIENCE: It was the Find All.

DEEPAK MAINI: Yes. Correct. Exactly. Are we good? You guys good?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: OK, the reason Find All wouldn't come up is because it has not registered. This will-- actually, let's do this. We'll just Delete All.

AUDIENCE: And start again?

DEEPAK MAINI: Yes, E for Element, C for category, contains-- let's type in D- U- C- T-, Enter. So maybe something happened while you were typing in. Now you should find it. Yeah, man.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: All condition, correct. Yes, so the idea is get all duct, remove flex ducts OR mechanical duct.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Yeah, yeah. Correct.

AUDIENCE: I just wanted to make sure it was the right one.

DEEPAK MAINI: Yes. Fantastic. You guys good? Brilliant. Is there anyone who's not able to do this yet? Does anyone need a hand with this?

So just to make sure I get it right, all of you guys were able to do all this without looking at the handout. Good job. But somehow-- well, that's why we're here. Sorry. Yeah, man.

AUDIENCE: So how do I isolate everything so that [INAUDIBLE] the example?

DEEPAK MAINI: OK, so first of all, this category, Contains Structural Column, we are not looking for Structural Column. We are looking for Ducts. So type in D- U- C- T-, Enter.

And then right-click on this. And that's an OR condition, because we are looking for duct, remove flex ducts OR mechanical equipment. And now, if I want to find all-- and then to isolate them, we've got this thing called Height Unselected.

AUDIENCE: OK.

DEEPAK MAINI: And if you don't want to see the grids, you can cut off the grids by going here. And now you can save it as Mechanical Ductwork. All right, are we ready to move on? All right.

All right, let's move on, guys. The next one that I'm going to create is pretty cool as well. That's for plumbing. So for plumbing, we need to pick all sanitary pipes. And we need to pick plumbing fixtures.

So if I go into my plumbing file, and if I say a Height Unselected, and we look at these pipes-- so these are different pipes and fixtures. So I'm going to right-click here and also delete all conditions to make sure that I'm starting from scratch. And I'm going to go and say, now, this is going to be cool. I'll say Element, category.

What should we look for? What category should we look for? I'm going to start with Pipe. So let's find all the pipes.

And again, I'm going to say Pipe, not Pipes, because again, going back to the model, pipes are displayed as Pipes, where pipe fittings is Pipe Fitting, not Pipes Fitting. Makes sense? So similar to Duct, we are going to go and say Element category contains P- I- P- E-.

Now, one thing that I've sometimes noticed is, when you type something in, if you do not press Enter, it does not register what you type in. So please make sure you press Enter when you type something in. Because on some machines, it doesn't work when you press Tab or anything. So make sure you press Enter. That's when it registers it.

So I'm going to go and say Element category contains Pipe, find all. It has gone and found all pipes. But how do we know if these are plumbing pipes or everything else? What do you reckon it's picked?

It's picked all pipes. They could be electrical. They could be mechanical. They could be anything. So this is where we now need to filter plumbing pipes from the rest of them.

So in most cases-- and this is where, when you're working with IFC-- anybody here works with 12D? Nobody works with 12D? OK, so when you're working with IFCs and 12D's it's really important, because the category that lets you filter these pipes may not be on the same tab.

It could be on a different IFC tab, and so on. That's why, while working with IFC, what you might want to do is click on the pipe, and then scroll through different IFC tabs to see what tab has got what property. Makes sense? So if I go and pick one of these pipes here-- let's pick this black one, most of the times, pipes would have a property called system classification.

So if I scroll down here, there would be a property called System Classification. That would normally classify what type of pipe it is. And again, I know this because this is a Revit element. If it's an IFC, as I said, you have to go through different tabs to find out what property you can use to separate this from the rest of the pipes. Makes sense?

So I'm going to go and say Element System Classification equals Sanitary. So E for Element. So it's funny. If I type an S here, there are about 15 different S categories.

So I'll share a little tip with you. I don't type in S. I type in T

So it takes me down, and then I just need to go a couple of items up the list to get the system classification. So if I type in T, my system classification is right here. If I would have been typed in S, I would have to go all the way from top of the S to System Classification down here equals Sanitary.

Now, if Sanitary doesn't appear here, that means that it has not loaded all the values. So I can click on these three down arrows, or three dots here, and I'll say that's Sanitary. But when we clicked on Sanitary, see how there were a few different Sanitary options here.

So instead of saying equal, we're going to go on say contains S- A- N- I- T- A- R- Y-. Now, this is a question for another large-sized shirt. Should it be an AND condition or an OR condition?

AUDIENCE: AND.

DEEPAK MAINI: AND condition. Somebody answered here. Who answered? You did? Oh, you-- Large-sized shirt?

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

DEEPAK MAINI: OK, right. Yes, it has-- you're going to catch.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Oh. How did I miss you? My gosh. So it has to be an AND category because we are saying pipes that are sanitary as well.

We are not saying all. We are not saying pick pipes or pick anything that is sanitary. We are saying pipe that are sanitary. So it will do this. And do we also want to include plumbing fixtures in this?

So I'm going to go and say E for Element, C for category equals Plumbing Fixtures. So here we go. And now when I say Find All, it finds no object. Why?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: OR condition, yes. We are looking for sanitary pipes or plumbing fixtures. So I'll have to right-click on the third row and make it OR condition.

Now when I say Find All, it picks all the plumbing pipes and plumbing fixtures. Does it make sense? So I'm going to save this as Plumbing. Can I get you guys to do this-- yes, please.

AUDIENCE: What was the click that you used [INAUDIBLE]?

DEEPAK MAINI: Just right-click in that area and say delete all conditions.

I think you answered the question. Sunnies, koala, or thumb drive. Koala?

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

DEEPAK MAINI: OK. Catch. Cool. Nobody wants my sunnies. These are such cool sunnies. My gosh.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Sunnies? Here you go.

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

You guys good? All good? A little koala for you. You can stick it onto your lanyard. See, it takes courage to come all the way to the front row.

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

So we go to create a few more of these search sets-- ceilings, floors, cable trays, and walls. So cable tray is pretty much very similar to what we did earlier. You're going to go and say Element category contains Cable, not Cables. Because cable trays-- again, they've got cable trays. They've got cable tray accessories and fittings and so on.

But I want to quickly show you floors, because floors is really interesting. So how many are structural here? Architecture? Right, so you know how we have got floors in architecture, as well as structure? What separates the two floor types?

AUDIENCE: Slabs.

DEEPAK MAINI: Slabs, yes. But--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: But when we are modeling them in Revit, how do we tell it's a structural floor or a structural wall or an architecture wall?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: There's a little pink box there that says Structural or Not Structural. So that's how we can separate them here as well. We can say Element category contains Floors or equals Floors.

And then if you want to separate architectural floors from structural floors, we can say Element structural, yes or no. So there's a yes or no category inside Revit, where we can say whether this is a structural item or not. So if I go and say E for Element C for category equals F- L- O- O- R- S- or F- L- O- O- R-, maybe make it contains, depending on what we are doing. Find All, it finds all these floors.