Today we are releasing version 3.3 of BIMSens, and since we haven’t made much of an announcement around the goodies in version 3.2 in January you’ll be getting double the news with this post.
Model Indexing with 3.2
The previous version packed the usual set of fixes and enhancements, including our personal favourite the ability to customize yes/no data columns with checkboxes or switches, but that’s subjective.
It also brought in big performance improvements for the ID matching of large models, as well as the lifting of an historical limitation to the number of components that can be matched in one selection, now unlimited!
On another important note we (finally) implemented a Microsoft SQL Security change for encryption to be activated by default, which is good for the security of your data but bad for backward compatibility, as now you will have to turn the setting off in all your non-encrypted project. You can read a bit more about it here.
But by far the biggest news, was the release of MoQu, our Model Query engine that allows you to batch extract data from models in an entire folder structure into a SQL database, with all kinds of customisation for filtering file types, versioning, automatic change detection etc. We had been working on MoQu for a long time, and after (literally) 10s of thousands of models and billions of attributes indexed, we felt that it should be shared. While MoQu comes with pre-built extensions for quantification, change management, schema/LOI checking and more, its most compelling feature in our view is that once the data is out, you can do whatever you feel like with it. No more vendor lock-in, cumbersome manual maintenance of registers, and versioning headache. it’s all there, waiting for you to build the rules you need.
It was big enough that it got its own installer, doco, and mascot, so if you are curious about all that and want to get started with mass automated data extraction, head over to MoQu’s home page to meet the trash panda that will help you extract value from your BIM models.
Now there is a reason for waiting that long to unleash the trash panda on your desktops, it’s because we are working on an even more amazing web version for it, with the BIMWatcher team. At this stage only the schema checking / data validation module is available, but it’s faster and more featured than the desktop version already, in fact we’re pretty sure its the fastest way to open a model on the web today. AND you don’t need to install anything nor tell your IT, and that, is just pure gold isn’t it? Give it a try over here, all it takes to get started is a model drag and drop.
What’s new in 3.3?
Now onto today’s release, 3.3, this one brings the seasonal Autodesk alignment update with compatibility with Revit and Navisworks 2024.
Revit 2023 has already brought in a new Selection API that greatly improved the interface with BIMSens. We thought that was a good occasion for us to invest a bit more in the platform, so we have now added 2 data transfer between BIMSens and Revit, one to push parameters out into your Data View (SQL, Excel, CSV etc.), and another one to import data from the View into your Revit parameters. The implementation is definitely Mark 001, eagerly awaiting your feedback on edge cases and extra feature you’ll want to add, since Revit transfers have been a frequent request recently.
We also spent a lot of time on the UI, progressively rolling out a more fluid interface for configuring complex part of the app such as Transfers or Actions. Along with the form redesign there are some game-changing shortcuts (in our view at least being users ourselves) to quickly jump between Transfer and Action definition and back.
We fixed a few bugs, not many reported lately, must mean we are doing something right, and improved things like the Command Line integration, colour filters definition and other miscellaneous items.
As always, looking forward to your feedback and suggestions to help us guide development in the most useful areas of your daily BIMers and data engineers lives, at your desk and now on the Web!