Ready for a deep dive into how to use Ideate Annotate to support Revit design documentation and quality control activities through enhanced browse, review, and intelligent tagging workflows? Watch the recording of this webinar.

In this 45-minute webinar, which we developed to provide a thorough lesson for both new and experienced users, we demonstrate how to use each of the three tabs in Ideate Annotate:

1. Browse – Browse all 2D annotative elements, align and distribute text, create powerful rules to isolate the exact elements to see, and more
2. Review – See problems with annotation elements, such as clashes, blank tags, duplicate tags, orphaned tags, and elevation marks with no elevations
3. Tag – Implement powerful intelligent tagging, such as tagging duct work that is over or under a certain length

After this course, you will have the information you need to expedite production documentation work with easy access to all annotative elements and to reduce liability by ensuring the legibility of tags, text, dimensions, and other annotative elements.

Visit our Events page for more opportunities to connect with our team in person and online.

Since we launched Ideate Annotate in June of 2022, so many customers have let us know that this tool, which is part of the IdeateApps collection, has dramatically reduced the time they spend on documentation work and helped them ensure that clients and other stakeholders who review the 2D documentation can clearly see all annotative elements. 

In our last release of IdeateApps, we made Ideate Annotate even better. Now, users can batch add tags to Revit projects, decreasing the time it takes to manage tags and improving their accuracy.   

With this feature, users can: 

• Tag elements that are only in the new construction phase
• Tag or ignore nested elements
• Assign different tags to different element types, even within the same data category
• Exclude elements based on family and/or type name
• Tag elements based on their properties, such as length or area
• Control the location of tags relative to the tagged element as a default or an override
• Tag the active view or all open views. This also works for tagging elements from linked files!

Watch this short demonstration video to see how easy it is:

Read this detailed Help file for more information.

Subscribers can get the latest version of IdeateApps from the Download page. Non-subscribers can learn more on the Ideate Software website and download a free 30-day trial.
 

With a history of developing Revit addins that goes back to 2009, Ideate Software has a proven record of addressing real issues experienced by real Revit users. In addition to working tirelessly to ensure our products work as promised, we work hard to ensure they are easy to access, install, learn, and use. One way we do help interested parties find and try them is by making them all available at the Autodesk App Store.  

Ideate Software on the Autodesk App Store

Autodesk App Store is an online marketplace provided by Autodesk where users of its products can, among other things, find and download third-party addins. As an Autodesk Authorized Developer, we make all our products available on the site, including our five Autodesk Revit addins, presented as a trial bundle. We also make available our desktop solution for automating Revit tasks, Ideate Automation, as well as our Cloud Connector to the Autodesk BIM360/ACC environment. You can access the Ideate Automation trial on the Autodesk App store page.

Keeping with our promise to make it easy for people to use our products, as we have expanded our presence around the world, we have also increased the number of languages in which we deliver our information. That includes the way in which we present our information on the Autodesk App Store. As of today, on the App Store, you can find information about Ideate Software products in English, German, Spanish, French, Chinese (simplified), Japanese, and Korean

To check out our products on the App store, we recommend that you go to the Ideate Software Bundle – Trial page. From there, you will get:

1. Brief descriptions of all our Autodesk Revit addins. (Note: This page does not include information about Ideate Automation, which is our scripting solutions that runs time-consuming Revit tasks in the background. Find information on Ideate Automation):
    
   • Ideate BIMLink – Use it to push volumes of information from a Revit file into Microsoft Excel for easy editing, and then pull the updated information back into Revit with speed, ease, and accuracy.
   • Ideate Explorer – Get lightning-fast data discovery and manipulation features through its easy and intuitive way to search, filter, quantify and select elements in a Revit model. 
   • Ideate Sticky – Elegantly link and easily update non-BIM data into a Revit project from Excel to Revit, Word to Revit, or PDF to Revit. 
   • Ideate StyleManager –Addresses the challenges of unorganized and duplicate Revit styles that can cause publishing errors, end-user confusion, and even performance issues.  
   • IdeateApps – Streamlines common Revit tasks through set of applications that increase the productivity and efficiency of the entire project team. The IdeateApps collection includes Ideate Renumber, Ideate QuickSelect, Ideate SmartDelete, Ideate XRay, Ideate SpellCheck, Ideate Annotate, Ideate SheetManager, Ideate Clone, Ideate Align, and Ideate ViewCreator.
      
2. A Description of the Trials
   • No cost
   • 30 days 
   • Includes access to each of the five products. Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, IdeateApps, Ideate StyleManager, and Ideate Sticky 
   • All are full functioning, except:
     • Ideate BIMLink has a 25-row limit to the data export
     • Ideate StyleManager is limited to testing these three styles: Line Patterns, Materials, and Material Appearance Asset styles
        
3. Access to the Getting Started Guides for each of the five products included in the bundle. Click the link to “Read Help Document” to get to these guides.
    
4. Links to Videos
   
   As of the date of the publishing of this document, we had links to these videos on the site:
    
   • Clients Discuss Ideate Software Solutions for Revit
     
     
      
   • What’s New in Ideate Software – May 2023 Release
   • Ideate Explorer Overview
   • Introduction to Ideate Sticky
   • Why Ideate StyleManager for Revit
   • Introduction to IdeateApps
   • Ideate BIMLink – Overview on Data Management
      
5. Customer 5-Star Reviews
   
   Titles include:
    
   • “Autodesk, Take Note”
   • “Can’t Revit Without It”
   • “Productivity Tools that Deliver on the Promise”
   • “Essential for Every Revit User”

Stay Connected

Want to learn more about our top Revit plugins? Visit our website. 

You can also check us out and follow us on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

If you have any questions, reach out to us. We are here to help you understand and use our Revit plugin solutions. 

Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software tools help Revit users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables, and elevate design. You can give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to our addins for Revit, which includes Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months. You can also get a free trial of Ideate Automation to experience how it can help you automate BIM tasks. 

Customers often comment on how easy we make it for them to download, learn, and use our software. This blog post makes looking up the answers to common workflow questions even easier!

Throughout 2023, we tracked the number of visits to each of our Help file pages. Below are the top Help pages sorted by product. You can bookmark this page, or simply search for “Most Viewed Help Files” for quick access to the content.

For added convenience, we included links to other popular pages at the bottom.

Top Help Files in 2023

IDEATE AUTOMATION

• Schedule Revit File Opening
• Create a Health Check Report
• Export to PDF

IDEATE EXPLORER

• Purge Imports in Revit Models
• Delete a Hidden DWG
• Scope Boxes and Plan Regions
• Using the Refresh Button for Revit Modeling
• Zoom In and Out for Precise Revit Modeling

IDEATE BIMLINK

• Manage Revit Sheet-based Revisions
• Manage Duplicate Type Marks
• Revit Schedule Import Results

IDEATE STICKY

• Known Issues
• Editing in Revit
• Errors and Warning Messages

IDEATEAPPS

• Duplicate Floor Plans to Ceiling Plans with Ideate ViewCreator
• Annotation Crop using Ideate XRay 
• Number Parking Along a Path in Revit with Ideate ReNumber

IDEATE STYLEMANAGER

• Delete Imported Object Styles
• Clean Up Title Blocks

Other Frequently Viewed Pages

• Ideate Software
• Ideate Automation
• Ideate Explorer
• Ideate BIMLink
• Ideate Sticky
• IdeateApps
• Ideate StyleManager
• What are BIM Tools?
• Relinquishing a Workshared Model on BIM 360/Autodesk Construction Cloud
• Licensing
• Setting up the FlexLM Licensing Server
• Autodesk Desktop Connector

Have a question about a different workflow? Chances are the answer is on our website. You can also contact our Support team. 

San Francisco, CA, January 11, 2024 – Customers of Ideate Software will be pleased to learn that IdeateApps has been updated to include more customer-requested features as well as some fixes and improvements.

“The recent updates include several new workflows related to Ideate Annotate, the 10^th tool added to the IdeateApps collection that streamline common Revit processes,” said Glynnis Patterson, Director of Software Development, Ideate Software. “Subscribers automatically get the updates at no additional cost.” 

New Workflows

With the new version, users can now use the new “Tag” tab in Ideate Annotate to: 

• Intelligently batch-add tags with customizable rules such as only tag rooms greater than a certain area
• Control tag locations relative to the tagged element as a default or override
• Tag the active view or all open views

Fixes and Improvements

In addition to the new workflows, Ideate Software added some fixes and improvements to Ideate Annotate and Ideate ViewCreator, another tool in the IdeateApps collection. 

• Ideate Annotate
  • Added customizable display filter
  • Increased speed of review process
  • Added Ideate Query
  • Fixed bug related to tags with two calculated parameters that reference each other
• Ideate ViewCreator
  • Improved elevation crop size for duplicate level or thick floor conditions
  • Fixed bug in the Room View method related to room names with colons
  • Improved handling of text casing within the Room View method
  • Added support for sequenced letters/numbers for elevation views within the Room View method

Subscribers can get the latest version of IdeateApps from the Download page. Non-subscribers can learn more on the Ideate Software website and download a free 30-day trial.

About Ideate Software - Ideate Software, Autodesk® AEC Industry Partner and Autodesk® Authorized Developer, empowers Revit users to gain unprecedented control over their data. They developed Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, IdeateApps, and Ideate StyleManager to solve persistent problems in architecture, engineering, and construction, and owner-operator (AECO) workflows. They 
developed Ideate Automation as a scripting solution to easily automate repetitive Revit and Ideate Software tasks for consistent and repeatable results.

Autodesk and Autodesk Revit are trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries