Ideate StyleManagerGetting Started
  • Getting Started Guide

    • Getting Started Guide for Ideate StyleManager

    Ideate StyleManager keeps your Revit projects, templates, and families clean of unused object styles, line styles, line patterns, filled regions, fill patterns, materials, material assets, filters, view templates, viewports, scope boxes, text, fonts, dimensions and arrowheads. Understand if and how these are in use so that you can safely delete or merge.

    This Getting Started Guide is designed to work while in Trial mode, which allows the testing of  Line Patterns, Materials, and Material Appearance Assets.

    These short exercises can be used to get acquainted with the usage of Ideate StyleManager. While the two exercises below are specifically about Revit Line Patterns, and Materials, the logic and methods also apply to the other Revit styles that StyleManager can control.

    Line Pattern Exercise

    Revit line patterns are used in many ways within the Revit project, template and family files including, but not limited to: line styles, object styles, view graphic overrides, and phase graphic overrides.

    In this exercise we will use the Revit sample file named rme_advanced_sample_project.rvt to analyze, delete, and merge line patterns to clean-up and bring consistency to this file.

    Analyze

    Our first step will be to analyze Line Pattern usage in rme_advanced_sample_project.rvt

    1. Start Ideate StyleManager and select Line Patterns from the ribbon.
    2. Type "import" into the Search box to filter the list of line patterns within the project.
      • The line patterns are likely the result of an exploded CAD file and should be removed or merged into our standard line patterns.
    3. Use the Shift+select method or Ctrl+A, pick all (42) of these line patterns, then click      Analyze!      to review their usage.
      • Found In File Sort these results by selecting the # header. This shows the occurrence count of the line pattern.
      • Style Info on the right, shows a preview of IMPORT-HIDDEN2.
      • Usage shows which Object Styles reference this line pattern.

    Quickly delete Revit line patterns

    Our next step is to refine our selection and safely delete styles.

    Delete

    Our goal for line patterns is to delete any non-standard patterns that are not currently in use. After completing the Analyze step above: 

    1. Uncheck the ¨ Used checkbox.
      • The þ Not Used checkbox should remain checked.
      • You should see 41 line patterns that are all unused.
    2. Select all the unused patterns by using Shift+select or Ctrl+A, then pick the Delete button.
    3. Review then close the Results dialog.
      • Deleting 41 line patterns all at once is not possible in Revit — congratulations on saving time!
      • Select the   button to clear the search filter and see all remaining Not-Analyzed line patterns.

    Our final step will be to review any duplicate line patterns in the project so that they can be merged if appropriate.

    Merge

    Merging styles with Ideate StyleManager is a great way to quickly move style usages from one or more line patterns to your preferred (target) line pattern.

    1. Check both the þ Used and the þ Isolate Duplicates checkbox. 
      • This will help us focus on any line patterns that have the exact same pattern.
      • You should see two groups of line patterns. The colors indicate which are duplicates.
    2. Select all five line patterns and click      Analyze!     
      • Review the first three line patterns, which are duplicates of each other.
    3. Select these three and click Merge. 
      • For the target style, select Dash as shown below. This will remove the other two styles and ensure that the two usages of the Aligning Line are now using the Dash line pattern instead.

    merge Revit line patterns with Ideate StyleManager

    You’ve been able to quickly delete 43 line patterns with just a few steps and know that with Ideate StyleManager your project has been safely cleaned up. Try the Material Exercise below to do the same with Revit materials.

    Related topic: Line Pattern Management

    Material Exercise

    Before we begin, we should review the difference between Purging and Deleting a Material.

    Purge versus Delete Materials?

    When you delete a material from the Material Browser, what happens?

    It is very difficult to know the full extent of what might happen, but the risk of a dramatic impact on your 2d or 3d documentation is very real. Scary, but true, so promise yourself to never use the Material Browser to delete. You are much better off using Purge, because Purge will only let you delete materials that are not in use!

    Do not delete Revit Materials - use Ideate StyleManager

    So if I have Purge, why do I need Ideate StyleManager for my Material Styles?

    Quite often unapproved materials sneak their way into our Revit projects and families via linked or imported files, or via unapproved custom families, or even when Transfer Project Settings is used. For these reasons you often will want to delete a Material to ensure the team is using only approved content that will yield expected results. Because Revit's Purge command will not work for any Material that IS in use, we need the forensic help of Ideate StyleManager to address this problem head-on. By allowing you to review its usage first, you can assess, and then choose to Merge or Delete as appropriate without risking your documentation and renderings.

    Material Management Exercise

    What should you do when you have (3) or more materials that are essentially duplicates, but they are all in use? How can you safely delete the 'bad' ones without putting the project at risk? In this exercise we'll merge (2) non-standard materials into our preferred standard for cast-in-place concrete.

    Analyze

    1. Open the sample file called RAC_Basic_Sample_Project.
    2. Launch Ideate StyleManager, and select Materials from the ribbon.
    3. Type "conc" into the Search box to filter the list of materials within the project.
    4. Select the (6) Materials in this filtered list, then pick the Analyze button. This will display information about how often the Material is referenced. In the example above there are 13 usages of the Material called "Concrete, Cast In Situ".
    5. Select the # column header to sort by usage.

    Analyze Material usage with Ideate StyleManager

    Review Usage

    1. The concrete Material with the highest usage is the one called "Concrete - Cast-in-Place Concrete". Select this material and review the information at the right in the Usage panel. See that the material is used in families, and as an instance parameter value on many elements.
    2. Review the usage of "Concrete, Cast In Situ" and "Concrete - Cast In Situ" by also selecting each from the Found in File pane.

    Merge Materials

    Realizing that all three of these materials are the very similar, decide to merge them all into the one called "Concrete - Cast-in-Place Concrete".

    1. Use Ctrl+Select to pick all three materials.
    2. Select the Merge button from the Merge dialog, select "Concrete - Cast-in-Place Concrete" as the target material to keep, then pick 'Merge' to execute the command.
    3. Review the results and select "x" to close.
    4. Double click the newly merged "Concrete - Cast-in-Place" or select and Analyze it again. See that all of the usages have been assigned to this approved material.

    Related topic: Material and Appearance Asset Management

    Learn more about Ideate StyleManager: Using StyleManager and How To

    Top of Page

    Submit feature or issue request for Ideate Software

    Thank you for taking time to inform us about a bug or feature request.

    By entering your data above and clicking ‘SUBMIT’ you are consenting to the collection and use of that data to respond to your comments and inquires, as described in our Privacy Policy. We may also transfer the data you submit in the ‘Email Us’ form to our VAR partners for the limited purpose of a sales follow-up. Please review our Privacy Policy for more details on how and when we collect data and what we use it for.