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How to create a new HoloBuilder project with Location Markers with the Autodesk® Revit® Add-In
How to create a new HoloBuilder project with Location Markers with the Autodesk® Revit® Add-In

With the HoloBuilder plugin for Revit, you can easily create & name the location markers to plan and organize your JobWalks even better.

Anna-Azize Adami avatar
Written by Anna-Azize Adami
Updated over a week ago

IMPORTANT: To do the following steps and create a new project with Location Markers, you need to have a subscription and role that allows you to create a new project on HoloBuilder. Alternatively, you can also add the Location Markers to an existing project already having a subscription with HoloBuilder.

In order to export your Revit viewpoints as Location Markers for your tour on HoloBuilder, make sure to have the latest HoloBuilder Add-In for Autodesk® Revit® installed correctly. To confirm the successful installation, check for the HoloBuilder toolset in the “Add-Ins” section in your Revit working environment.

  • Create a HoloBuilder project only containing the floorplans and Location Markers automatically for all rooms defined in the 3D model in Revit.

  • Automatically name the Location Markers according to the defined room names in your 3D model - no post-editing required.

HoloBuilder Plugin Toolset in Revit

Uploading sheets of your 3D model including the Location Markers for on-site capturing from Autodesk® Revit® (no 360 renderings exported)

There are 3 steps to create and upload a HoloBuilder project only containing the Location Markers for JobWalk planning from Revit:

  1. Switch to the sheet view: Open the in Revit already available 2D Floor Plans of your 3D model to later place the viewpoint locations on - jump to section.

  2. Add 360 viewpoints: Set the locations on the sheet view to determining where you want to place the Location Markers for future capturing on the 2D floor plans - create each location manually or generate them automatically - jump to section.

  3. Export to HoloBuilder: Upload the sheets and Location Markers to HoloBuilder as a new project - jump to section.
    Alternatively, you can also add these sheets with Location Markers to existing HoloBuilder projects.

  4. Optional - View/edit project in HoloBuilder: Edit, share, and view your project in the web editor, web viewer, or with the JobWalk app, e.g. to add on-site progress documentation -jump to section.

- Step 1: Switch to the sheet view -

  1. Open the 3D model in Revit.

  2. In the model, open the 2D floor plan of a floor
    Note: These 2D floor plans will also be used in the HoloBuilder project as sheets.

Switching to sheet view in Revit

- Step 2: Generate the 360 viewpoints for the Location Markers -

The Revit viewpoints can be generated automatically for each defined room of the 3D model. In addition to this option of automatically creating viewpoints, it is quite useful to add extra custom viewpoints, e.g. for larger rooms.

1. Select the tab ‘Add-Ins’ at the top.

2. In the HoloBuilder section, click the button Add 360 Viewpoint.

3. A dialog box opens. Choose the option for your needs:

  • ‘Automatically place views in all rooms’ - This option will automatically generate the viewpoints for all defined rooms of the selected 2D floorplan of the 3D model. The viewpoints will be automatically placed in the middle of the defined room boundaries for each room.
    Note: If needed, the viewpoints can be manually dragged to a different position in Revit or later as Location Marker in HoloBuilder.

    Optional: Choose whether you want to automatically name all viewpoints according to the in the 3D model predefined room names.
    Note: This will save you time later in HoloBuilder as all your waypoints will already be correctly named (according to the names of the rooms in your 3D model in Revit).

  • 'Start manual placement (PRESS ESC to exit) - This option allows you to manually place the viewpoints for generating the Location Marker positions on your 2D floor plan. You will need to select each location individually.
    Note: This is a nice addition to the automatic viewpoint placement, however, it can also be used as a standalone solution without prior automatic viewpoint placement.

Adding 360 viewpoints with the HoloBuilder Plugin in Revit

4a. Option 1: Select ‘Automatically place views in all rooms’ - no further steps are required.

  • Select this option to have the add-in create a 360 view for each defined room on the sheet.

  • The views will be created automatically and placed on the sheet accordingly.

  • Once all views have been created, you can find the list in the Project Browser panel. All 360 views of a sheet are listed below the sheet under 3D Views.

  • Depending on the number of rooms, your sheet has, this process can take a while to create the 360 views.

4b. Option 2: Select ‘Start manual placement (Press ESC to exit)

  • Select this option to determine each location for individual 360 views manually.

  • On the 2D sheet, click each location you want to be captured as 360 view. No visible marker will be placed on the sheet. You can check the locations afterward if you are unsure about them (see step 7 below).

  • Each newly captured 360 view will be listed directly in the Project Browser panel below the selected sheet under 3D Views (if the option ‘Automatically resize crop-box of active view to include all rooms’ is selected).

  • When all 360 views have been placed for this sheet, leave the editing mode by hitting ‘ESC’.

Manual placement with the HoloBuilder Plugin in Revit

5. Repeat steps 1-4 for any further floor plans you want to place Location Markers for future JobWalks on.

7. Optional: Check the locations for your 360 views by enabling the camera marker on the sheet.

  • Right-click a 360 viewpoint in the Project Browser panel to view the location of the camera on the floor plan.

  • Select ‘Show camera’ from the menu.

  • The location of the 360 viewpoints in the 3D model will be marked with a pink camera icon. Note: The marker icon for the camera might differ depending on your Revit version.

Enable camera marker on sheet map in Revit

8. Optional: Edit viewpoints in Revit before uploading to HoloBuilder:

E.g.

  • Rename views by right-clicking the image in the Project Browser panel and selecting ‘Rename…’.

  • Remove 360 views so that they won’t be exported to the HoloBuilder project.

Note: You can always add more (manual) viewpoints if needed (see steps 1-5 above).

- Step 3: Export as HoloBuilder project -

Once you generated all viewpoints for the selected 2D sheets of your 3D model, you can export it as a HoloBuilder project. The export will include the 2D floor plans with the set viewpoints as Location Marker flags in HoloBuilder.

To export the project to HoloBuilder:

1. In the HoloBuilder menu, click the ‘Export to HoloBuilderbutton to trigger the upload.

2. Configure the "Upload settings".

  • "Export only the currently active plan view as a sheet (skip sheet selection)"
    Optional: If you only plan to export the currently selected floor plan with its renderings, tick this option.
    If you want to export all sheets of the model, untick it.

  • "Override visual style of all 360 views to 'Consistent colors' "
    Recommended: (Not relevant for Location Marker export only) Get a consistent view of your 360 renderings by choosing this option - untick to have personal settings applied for the exported renderings in HoloBuilder.

  • "Export only Location Marker instead of the rendering of the 360 views"
    Must: Tick to NOT also export the 360 renderings as we only want to have the markers for the locations on the floorplans.

  • "Adjust visual style of active sheet to Hidden Line (Improved Performance)"
    Recommended: Get better performance for upload, loading, and visualization by using this setting for your exported floor plans.

    3. In the settings pop-up, proceed with "Select Views to export".

Export views from Revit to HoloBuilder



4. Checkmark the 2D floor plans that you would like to export.
Note: This step gets skipped if you selected "Export only the currently active plan view as a sheet (skip sheet selection)".

5. Select which 360 views to export as Location Markers with your floor plan(s).
Choose either "Select all" or selective viewpoints.

Selecting views to export from Revit to Holobuilder



6. Select "Next" to proceed to the next step for exporting your project.

7. The HoloBuilder Uploader opens. Click on "Create new project".
Alternatively, you can also add the selected floor plans and Location Markers to an existing project by simply choosing the project from the list - the sheet(s) including the Location Markers will be added to this project as a new sheet(s).

NOTE: Make sure you are logged in with your active HoloBuilder account and have a subscription and role that allows you to create a new project on HoloBuilder. You can always switch the account with the "Sign out" option in the upper right corner,

Upload Revit projects to HoloBuilder

8. Add the details for creating a new HoloBuilder project.
Note: You can always switch to a different project with the option "Choose different project" in the upper right corner.

Adding details to HoloBuilder project exported from Revit

9. The project upload starts - The processing of the project for export might take a few minutes depending on the number of renderings and floorplans in your project.

HoloBuilder upload progress tracker

10. When the project was successfully uploaded, you will be asked in the HoloBuilder Uploader modal to choose the Group to add the project to on your HoloBuilder dashboard. - Choose a group to add the project to.

Adding uploaded HoloBuilder project to a group in Revit

10. The finished HoloBuilder project will be opened in your browser after the upload is done. - "Close" the HoloBuilder Uploader or directly "Return to Revit".

Completing upload of Revit export to Holobuilder

- Step 4: Optional - Edit the project -

A HoloBuilder project created from Autodesk Revit export can be edited as any other project in HoloBuilder with both, the web editor as well as the JobWalk app. Simply log into your HoloBuilder account [COM or EU] to access the project on the web or download it to your mobile device to continue capturing progress with the JobWalk App.

View the HoloBuilder project

Once the upload of the exported Revit project was completed, the project will automatically open in a new browser tab. View and navigate the project through the waypoints on the sheets or the Project Panel on the left side of the screen.

Once you have added the TimeTravel scenes, you can also use SplitScreen to compare your 360° rendering from Revit with the real-life captures of the site.

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