Revitize - Another Revit Blog

Experiments with AI - 03 - Looking into the future - Premortem

2026-09-23T23:12:00.000-05:00

While making a tech based innovative proposal, I used AI to understand the potential flaws/pit falls in my proposal.
We often fail to identify potential pitfalls in our proposal because of our own biases. AI has access to a much broader knowledge base and can recognize patterns, risks, and failure modes easily.
With online help, I used the following prompt that reduced 10 hours of analyzing my proposal from various view points.

Prompt:

Role: Act as a strict, risk-management consultant. Do not be polite or sugar coat your feed back.
Task: Perform a pre-mortem analysis. Imagine it is six months from now, and this project has completely and publicly failed.
Context: My proposal is attached as the ppt.
Instructions: List the 5 most likely, high-impact reasons why this project failed. Identify the specific blind spots, bad assumptions, or operational mistakes that caused each failure. Provide concrete, actionable mitigation strategies we can execute right now to prevent them.

Experiments with AI - 02 - Prompt sample to render/edit images

2026-09-21T01:15:00.000-05:00

This is a continuation of the post: <<previous>>

Prompt to Chatgpt:

I want you to refine the prompt below so that copilot can create a view of a residential tower: I want you to render a residential tower. The tower has 5 podium levels of parking, 1 level of fully glazed clubhouse level and 26 levels of residential units above. The footprint of the building is like a rectangle of dimension 100m by 80m. The floor to floor height of the is 3.3m. The total height of the building is 106m. The podium paking levels should have partial glass and openings with interesting patterns. The clubhouse level should be fully glazed and should act as a break between residential floors and the podium floors. The residential units should have partial curtain wall, partial jaisalmer stone cladding, balconies need to be arranged interestingly. The building should have plants sparingly to create interest. The ambience of the view should be dusk with lights in some of the residential units turned on. If you need any other info to create the view, please ask one by one.

Prompt given by Chatgpt:

This is already a strong prompt. However, it reads more like an architectural specification than a prompt for an image generation model. Firefly (and Gemini) generally produce better results when the prompt is prioritized, descriptive, and less constrained by numbers. The most important visual features should appear first, while technical details should support the description.

Here's how I would rewrite it:

Create a photorealistic architectural visualization of an iconic 110-metre luxury residential tower in a refined tropical-modern architectural style. The design should be elegant, timeless, and premium, comparable to award-winning residential towers by WOHA, Kerry Hill Architects, DP Architects, and SCDA. The architecture should emphasize clean geometry, refined proportions, rich materiality, and sophisticated façade articulation rather than futuristic forms.

Overall Composition

The tower should be expressed as three clearly identifiable architectural zones:

Five-level luxury parking podium
One double-height, fully glazed clubhouse sky lobby
Twenty-six residential levels above

The total height is approximately 110 metres. The residential floor-to-floor height is 3.3 metres, while the clubhouse is 6.6 metres high, creating a dramatic architectural transition between the podium and tower.

The building has a broad rectangular footprint of approximately 100 × 80 metres, giving it a confident, elegant presence.

Podium

Design the podium as a luxury architectural feature rather than a parking garage.

Include:

Sculptural perforated façade screens
Large geometric openings with varied patterns
Deep reveals creating dramatic shadows
Partial glazing revealing glimpses of parking behind elegant screening
Integrated warm architectural lighting
Bronze-toned metal fins and textured panels
A premium residential arrival experience

The podium should appear solid, sophisticated and beautifully crafted.

Clubhouse Sky Lobby

Create a striking double-height glazed clubhouse that acts as a luminous architectural break between the podium and residential tower.

Features include:

Floor-to-ceiling curtain wall glazing
Warm interior lighting
Visible luxury amenities
Floating lantern appearance
Transparent and elegant expression
Strong horizontal emphasis

This level should become the visual highlight of the building.

Residential Tower

The residential tower should feel luxurious, calm and highly livable.

Primary materials include:

Warm golden Jaisalmer sandstone cladding
High-performance low-E curtain wall glazing
Champagne bronze aluminium framing
Dark metallic architectural accents

The façade should use alternating stone and glass surfaces to create warmth and refinement.

Balconies

Avoid repetitive stacked balconies.

Instead create:

Staggered balcony compositions
Alternating projections and recesses
Deep shadows
Elegant rhythm
Strong façade depth
Carefully balanced asymmetry

The façade should feel dynamic without appearing chaotic.

Landscaping

Use restrained tropical landscaping.

Include only:

Selected balcony planters
Podium-level planting
Small rooftop gardens
Elegant entrance landscape

Avoid a "vertical forest" appearance.

Architecture should remain the dominant visual element.

Lighting

Time of day: Blue-hour dusk

Create a warm, luxurious atmosphere with:

Approximately one-third of apartments illuminated
Brightly glowing clubhouse
Warm façade lighting integrated into the podium
Soft reflections on glass
Warm street lighting
Rich contrast between interior and exterior lighting

The building should feel inhabited, welcoming and exclusive.

Camera

Dramatic three-quarter corner view
Camera approximately 25 metres above ground
Entire building visible
Slight upward perspective
Two façades clearly visible
Strong composition suitable for the cover of an international architecture magazine

Context

Place the tower within a premium urban residential district.

Include:

Wide tree-lined boulevard
Luxury drop-off court
High-quality paving
Contemporary street lighting
A few luxury cars
Small groups of residents
Clean public realm

Keep surrounding buildings low and understated so the tower remains the focal point.

Rendering Style

Ultra-photorealistic architectural visualization

International architectural competition quality
Luxury real-estate marketing image
Physically based rendering (PBR)
Natural colours
Accurate materials
Crisp detailing
Cinematic lighting
Realistic reflections
Soft atmospheric depth
8K quality
Highly refined architectural photography aesthetic

Keywords

Luxury residential tower, tropical modern architecture, Singapore condominium, Jaisalmer sandstone, curtain wall glazing, staggered balconies, architectural visualization, premium materials, blue hour, cinematic lighting, elegant façade, timeless architecture, sophisticated detailing, contemporary high-rise, luxury real estate.

Negative Prompt

Cartoon, anime, futuristic sci-fi, parametric architecture, twisting tower, excessive greenery, vertical forest, repetitive balconies, exposed parking decks, cluttered façade, heavy ornamentation, low-resolution textures, flat lighting, exaggerated HDR, oversaturated colours, distorted proportions, unrealistic reflections, fog, rain, construction site, cranes, text, logos, watermark.

Using AI to produce rendered Views - My experiments with AI - 01

2026-09-18T01:11:00.000-05:00

Our trials with AI rendering are outlined below. There must be better ways of doing this

Created a descriptive para of the building:

footprint dimension, no of podium, clubhouse floor, no of residential floors, etc.; floor to floor height
A note about the building massing - glazing proportion, stone cladding and balcony arrangement; greenery/plants on the elevation
Ambience of the view/lights
Instruct the AI to ask for any needed additional details.

Post this in chatgpt and ask it to create a proper prompt for Co-pilot

ChatGPT details the prompt - including the type of architectural style to follow, etc.

Post the prompt back in Co-pilot

First Trial:

This is the rendering we got in Gemini AI without any plans, but with only descriptions. We prompted podium floors + infinity pool + landscape. However, Gemini AI didnt create the requested number of floors for some reason. After the production of the first rendering, Gemini could not understand our prompts to increase the number of floors. Apparently, as of today, Gemini AI is not image aware.

Since then the architects changed the footprint of the proposed building to a proper rectangle (instead of the L shape)

*****Please note that Gemini AI is not allowed to be used with BEPL data per our IT policy - for privacy + copyright + intellectual property reasons. ****

Second Trial:

The view was dark. Again, Gemini AI could not add 10 more floors. We could not use the image. Gemini AI didnt work out.

Third try:

By this time the architects had shared the following rendered image:

We didn't like the view. The sky was not good and there wasnt much sciography effects.

We uploaded this rendering into copilot (Approved AI to be used within BEPL). It cleaned up the sky and the lighting and produced the image below.

Copilot was also able to add floors and cleanup the Gemini AI produced image:

Copilot also gave us options, as below:

Points to note:

Co-pilot adds and reduces the number of floors without any issues.
If we already have a rendering from the architect, we can upload it and ask it to tweak it.
Copilot takes around 5 mins to create the first image.
Free version of the Copilot allows only 4 tweaks per day. (This is a big impediment.)
AI is a fast changing field and new softwares that work better may be launched any time.

I will share the actual prompt and the prompt created by chatgpt in the next post.

AI - Band wagon - Prompts

2026-09-16T11:08:09.512-05:00

Most of us use ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, etc. with simple (vanilla) questions and prompts. However, the quality of the output depends heavily on how we ask the question. A well-crafted prompt can often produce results that are significantly better, more detailed, and more useful.

👉 Better Prompts = Better Results

📌 1. Harvard Kennedy School – Prompt Engineering Presentation (~30 mins)
A concise PPT that explains the fundamentals of Prompt Engineering and how to get better outputs from AI.
Google Online Doc Link

📌 2. Harvard Kennedy School – Full Prompt Engineering Course (~30 mins)
Harvard Website

📌 3. Coursera – Generative AI Prompt Engineering for Everyone (~4 hours)
Coursera link

PS: Chatgpt generated this post based on the links I shared.

Autodesk Forma - Operational Energy

2023-07-13T22:43:00.002-05:00

The software allows you to calculate the operational energy required to run the building. But the availab settings are not enough.

For eg., in the above picture, concrete roof cannot be specified. The options are very limited to wood, etc. This software is not a viable tool to be used to calculate Opex in India.

Autodesk Forma - Temperature Study

2023-07-10T22:15:00.004-05:00

The Microclimate tool shows a image with gradation of temperature around the proposed building.

On the right side, you get options to choose a different time and month. This feature does not seem to be of much use. The microclimate gets affected by lawn, waterbodies, sizes of trees, foliage, etc. The Forma model cannot model these things now.

It will be better to import a Revit or an IFC model with these features into Forma and then do a study like this will help the architect to locate/size/include these kinds of landscape features to modulate the microclimate.

Autodesk Forma - Sun hours

2023-07-09T22:25:00.000-05:00

The Sun hour tool helps us to understand clearly and easily. In the image below, the direct sun light received on a particular surface is indicated on a scale of dark grey to yellow.

This is for a city little bit North of the equator and so during the Summer (June) there is no direct sunlight on the southern facade at all. For the same building in Winter (December), the Sun swings around to lit the southern facade but the northern facade does not get direct sunlight.

Based on the particular climate in your city, you can decide to have fenestration in these areas or not depending on whether you need to bring the direct sunlight or not. In tropical countries, we definitely try to keep the sun away during the summer.

Autodesk Forma - Wind Analysis

2023-07-07T22:02:00.002-05:00

For a simple project, the wind analysis tool, quickly calculates the wind patterns / velocity and presents in a graphical manner.

As you can see, the tunnel effect is being created around our proposed buildings because of the neighboring tall structures. However, our rear garden / open space (with trees) is green - meaning the breeze is quite right. Eventhough, some of these results are intuitive to an experienced architect, it is a wondeerful way to quickly figure out the best location to propose an open to sky space or to orient the windows to catch the breeze.

Autodesk Forma - Daylight Potential

2023-07-06T22:31:00.002-05:00

I created a sample project to figure out the Daylight Potential command. Forma takes it into account the location of the building + the neighboring buildings to give a very nice 3d imagery to figure out the different daylight potential of each exterior element.

The sample project shows that the roof has a potential to receive 87%, one of the side walls has 25% of the Daylight and so on. The feeble shade difference shows the difference in the daylight potential. The shaded colors are based on Autodesk's scale of satisfactory daylight to impossible daylight!

Autodesk Forma - First run

2023-07-05T22:50:00.001-05:00

Tried to import property boundaris but the "Component Crashed" You can easily create a simple building on a specific plot/site and add trees, etc. When you run the sun analysis, it gives interesting and useful information to take the design to the next level. The study shows the direct sun hitting on the facade areas + on the ground + shadow regions for neighboring buildings. These are quick studies and help to locate the fenestrations + create and locate open to sky garden areas / balconies + be sensitive to the overall urban fabric and the neighbors access to the Sun. The Day Light analysis shows the quantum of light on the facade of the building. This will help to locate and size the windos. One can access the trial at https://app.autodeskforma.com/

Copy Spreadsheet cells from Excel / LibreOffice / Open Office to Autodesk Revit Schedules

2021-03-21T01:43:00.006-05:00

Copy Spreadsheet

If you want to copy data from Microsoft Excel (or Open Office or Libre Office spreadsheet) into Autodesk Revit schedules.
Since, the Revit schedule is made of elements within Revit, copying and pasting data from any other spreadsheet is not allowed. In order to alleviate this issue, we have coded the Copy Spreadsheet for Revit utility. We are in the process of updating this utility for all Revit versions.

Trial Version

The trial versions that work with older versions of Revit is available here. Trial versions are for evaluation purposes only. You should not use this for commercial purposes. This evaluation version is restricted to copying only (3x3) 9 cells at a time.

Fully Functional Commercial Version

The full version allows copying of unlimited number of cells. Currently we have versions till Revit 2015.
You can buy the fully functioning version by:
1. Registering here.
2. Paying here.

Copy Spreadsheet for Revit 2015 - version

2014-08-28T10:50:00.002-05:00

It has been another year, another Revit version and another release. We have released the most awaited 2015 version of our "Copy Spreadsheet for Revit"
If you want to copy data from Microsoft Excel (or Open Office or Libre Office spreadsheet) into Revit schedules.
Since, the Revit schedule is made of elements within Revit, copying and pasting data from any other spreadsheet is not allowed. In order to alleviate this issue, we have coded the Copy Spreadsheet for Revit utility. This does just
We have updated the popular copy spreadsheet for Revit utility for the 2014 version. The trial version is available here. The trial version is limited to copying only 3x3=9 cells at a time.
You can buy the fully functioning utility from here.
The full version allows copying of unlimited number of cells.

Copy Spreadsheet for Revit 2014 - released!

2013-05-01T03:39:00.000-05:00

Revit Schedule is quirky. It is fantastic in many aspects, but lacks in one specific simple manipulation.
For eg., if you maintain a set of data in Microsoft Excel (or Open Office or Libre Office spreadsheet) and want to copy and paste it into a Revit schedule, it is not possible.
Since, the Revit schedule is made of elements within Revit, copying and pasting data from any other spreadsheet is not allowed. In order to alleviate this issue, we have coded the Copy Spreadsheet for Revit utility. This just does that!
We have updated the popular copy spreadsheet for Revit utility for the 2014 version. The trial version is available here. The trial version is limited to copying only 3x3=9 cells at a time.
You can buy the fully functioning utility from here.
The full version allows copying of unlimited number of cells.

Autodesk Revit 2014 version released

2013-04-23T21:57:00.000-05:00

Autodesk has released the 2014 version of its products recently. Hats off to the Autodesk team for their continual development of the software.
You can download a trial version of Revit here:
http://www.autodesk.com/products/autodesk-revit-family/free-trial
The trial is valid for 30 days and is a fully functional copy.
If you are a student, you can also download a fully functional 3 year license. (however, any print taken from the software taken from the Educational version, will have a Educational version text border. This border happens even if you link a RVT file made with the educational version inside a RVT file made with a commercial license software and print from the commercial license software!)

Removing Educational version trace in AutoCAD

2013-02-25T20:43:00.004-06:00

We had a problem with AutoCAD last week. One of the surveyors had sent us a drawing showing the change in site extents. This person didnt have a proper AutoCAD license and used an educational version. When we tried to insert this small site boundary change into our legal version of the DWG, we got a warning indicating that inserting that object will bring in:

Educational version banner all around the sheet for all prints.
While opening our file, AutoCAD will warn that we are opening a file created by an educational version.
Any other file that references our file will also carry this educational version tag!!!

I think, AutoCAD may want to rethink this system. Because of somebody else's problem, we had an issue to be resolved. We could force the surveyor to use the legal version (which we did) however, the amount of time lost in asking the surveyor to send the DWG again from a legal version of the software was a week.

Alternatively, one could "save as" the file created using educational version in the legal version as DXF file and then open it back in AutoCAD, the warning and the tag go away.

BIM Coordinator for AutoCAD Civil 3D / Revit

2012-06-07T20:23:00.004-05:00

The nice guys at the Autodesk Labs have come up with another interesting app. This one is called the Bim Coordinator for Civil 3d and Revit. It is a technology preview and free!
This utility helps to coordinate the UCS / origin points between a Civil 3D drawing and Revit. The reference point between these two softwares is automatically coordinated. Very nice.
The current version is release for 2012 Civil 3D and Revit flavours. You can download and try it here.

Autodesk Exchange Apps for Revit

2012-05-06T19:36:00.000-05:00

Here is another fantastic development from Autodesk. This is touted as one of the new things for Revit 2013. However, it has been available for AutoCAD in the 2012 version itself.
Anyway, Similar to the appstore, this website has some small utilities that aid Revit. Some of them are free. It is worth while to check once in a while. Here is the link:
http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RVT/2013/en/Home/Index
If you are a developed you can visit here to read the guidelines to publish your own app!

Autodesk Revit 2013

2012-04-06T21:23:00.000-05:00

Autodesk has released their 2013 version of software last week. Interesting point to note is that Autodesk has released a new software - Autodesk Revit 2013 - which includes ALL the funtionality of Revit Architecture, Revit MEP and Revit Structure.
Revit is also available as stand alone product per field (Architecture, MEP, etc.)

The pricing for all these software very twisted. As per the link above, all the standalone Revit versions cost around $5,500. However, by paying another $1000, one can get all flavours of AutoCAD + all flavours of Revit + 3DS Max Design.
The combo version that includes all flavours of revit will be very useful for BIM managers while trouble shooting. Well done Autodesk! (I guess, this has been a long time request from the users!)

Copy cells from Spreadsheet to Revit Schedule 2013

2012-04-05T22:28:00.002-05:00

We are very happy to announce that our popular utility "Copy Spreadsheet to Revit" has been released for Autodesk Revit 2013. This version works only for Revit versions of 2013, but for all flavors of revit, vis a vis, Architecture, MEP, Structure and Suite. This version works in both the 32 bit and 64 bit version of Windows.
The trial version can be downloaded from here but it copies only a maximum of (3 x 3) 9 cells at a time. You can buy the full version (which does not have any restrictions on the number of copied cells) here.

Etransmit for Revit

2012-02-15T04:18:00.000-06:00

Autodesk had an in-built nice command called 'Etransmit' for AutoCAD. Using that command was the only correct method to transmit / send files to consultants and clients.
It might be heartening to know that Autodesk is working on a similar command / utility for Revit too. Their etransmit technology preview can be viewed / downloaded here.
However, it works ONLY with Revit 2012 versions. You need to have an autodesk user id (free) to download the utility.
The best part is that it collects all the DWG / RVT files that are linked into the Revit file. It does away with all the error messages we used to get when we COPY the Revit Central File using Windows explorer, etc. You can download the preview for free until June 30th.

Payment options for Copy Spreadsheet utility for Revit

2012-01-26T00:08:00.000-06:00

We are very happy to announce that we have incorporated payment services to buy the fully functional Copy Spreadsheet utility for Revit versions 2010, 2011 and 2012 and the "Where is my command in Revit 2010?" in our website. The paid version does NOT have any restriction on the number of cells being copied at a time. You can pay for the licensed version here.
The utility does NOT come with any support and is sold "as is" with no warranty. Please check the evaluation version first before paying.
Cost: The pricing is based on the size of the firm, rather than the number of installed machines. The idea is that bigger firms can afford to pay a little bit more.

$2 : Firm with One or two employees
$10 : Firm with less than 10 employees
$25 : Firm with less than 50 employees
$50 : Firm with more than 50 employees

Please add $2 per order towards payment service fees and handling.

Version: Please check the correct version before you buy. The utility does NOT work in different Revit version. Since, this is a digital purchase, we cannot refund the payment, if you select the wrong version of the product.
License: After confirming the payment, we will send you the licensed copy of the utility by email in 48 hours. The licensed copy will show the name of your firm, location and the license type (number of employees).

Draftsight - An alternative to AutoCAD

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

It has been more than a year since Dassault Systemes (the makers of CATIA) have released their 2D CAD software, Draftsight. Their website says that the software is FREE for individuals as a standalone license. (Email activation necessary).
This software is ALMOST same as Autocad. (2008 version) and supports PGP, Plot configurations, etc. Very easy to use. You can download the software here.
This software is highly recommended.
Here are some screen shots:

Copy from Excel to a Revit Schedule 2012 64 bit

2012-01-11T04:17:00.002-06:00

After such a long time (sorry), I updated the script to copy data from excel spreadsheet to Revit Schedule. The updated script is available at:
http://bim.nichitecture.com/copyexcel.html
The evaluation version can be downloaded from the above link. The evaluation version has a limit of 25 cells that can be copied into Revit at a time. You can buy the utility with no restriction in the number of cells to copy (at the bottom of this post!)
The software currently supports 64 bit and 32bit windows environment for:

Revit Architecture 2009
Revit Architecture 2010
Revit Architecture 2011
Revit Architecture 2012
Revit Structure 2009
Revit Structure 2010
Revit Structure 2011
Revit Structure 2012
Revit MEP 2009
Revit MEP 2010
Revit MEP 2011
Revit MEP 2012

The cost of the licensed version of the software:
Single license cost is $2;
Site license cost for a firm with less than 10 employees is $10;
Site license cost for a firm with less than 50 employees is $25;
Site license cost for a firm with more than 50 employees is $50;

I copy and paste from my previous post:
The script works with both Microsoft Excel and Open Office.org Calc.
The script copies a bunch of cells (rows x columns) and pastes them into a revit schedule (contiguous rows x columns).

The script works well if all the fields in Revit schedule are EDITABLE. (A normal schedule has lots of ‘read-only’ fields like Family name, Area, etc where this script will fail.) The cells also need to be 'instance' driven cells (as compared to 'type' driven cells)
The script does not create blank rows for data in Revit (yet). You need to create as many rows as you might need using this button in the Revit option bar before running the script.

You can buy the utility:
1. Register here.
2. Pay here.

Autodesk University 2011

2011-11-28T21:36:00.001-06:00

That time of the year again... Autodesk University in Las Vegas is about to start. If you cannot make it to the University in Las Vegas, dont worry. Autodesk is making most of the classes available online for FREE. All you need to do is to create an Autodesk account and register for the courses here. Autodesk has made the registraton process even easier this time by allowing us to use our facebook or twitter credentials...
Awesome!
If you use Twitter profusely... you can tag Autodesk University 2011 by using #AU2011 ...

ETransmit for Revit 2012

2011-07-29T00:45:00.000-05:00

At last Autodesk has come out with an etransmit tool for Revit. In fact, they have not released it to the market, but the tool is available at the Autodesk at Autodesk Labs Utilities eTransmit for Revit. This is a free download.

The best part of the tool is that it can be used to archive a Revit project. (We used to have a long list of 'to dos' to archive a revit project along with all the DWG linked files, etc. Now this can be done in one step. Nice.

This is an add-in tool and it shows up in the ribbon for easy use. These are the things the tool does:

Copies the central file

Copies all the dependent files

Changes the path for all the dependent to be dependent paths, etc.

Works ONLY for Revit 2012!!

This free download is available only until Dec 31st 2012. Autodesk might make it a subscription update after this date! (They are just crowd sourcing the bug fixing phase!)

Definitely worth a try.