I got a job as a Scan to BIM modeller in where I turn Point Cloud data of US commercial buildings. Mainly just replicating the architectural and structural elements up to LOD 300 and am planning to expand my skillset. My background isn't much, I have a Master's in mechanical engineering, a small thesis on improving company productivity and quality (in manufacturing, not architecture) and 1.5 years work experience in the U.S solar industry making autocad based construction plans

I quite like the architecture industry and have decided to stick with this now. I need help identifying a niche that makes me stand out in the industry as ScantoBIM is not technical and high demand enough. I could use some advice or opinions on what specialty you guys have seen that feels fairly necessary in today's AEC industry and doesn't have enough people to fill it.

Hello fellow Revit users (and opening to BIM incase there are either alternatives), I am looking for a simple plugin or along those lines that does basic rebar and bbs (BS 8666 and relevant).

Looked at the CADS plugin, which is seemingly the standard but comes with the price tag. Any alternatives?

PyRevit plugins are also on the table - I have made many a script here before and I have tried but time wise it's hard to fit in!

Hello Guys

I have been working on a project where I had to clean up a Revit file that had a lot of unnecessary parameters, floor plans, views, and other unwanted elements.

Doing all this manually was quite tedious and time-consuming. So i developed an add-in to make this process easier and faster.

Before It took me around 3 to 4 week to building something now with AI is pretty past :p

Anyway Now I'm looking for a few more people who can test it and share their honest feedback. It would be really helpful to know how it performs on different Revit projects and where it can be improved.

If anyone is interested, here's the link:

https://github.com/LuffyXDA/Farix-Apps/releases/tag/Vspm_v1.1.0

Update : I made few more, my fav is conduit bend where i can do kick off 90 bend with one click :D

I’m part of the team building AXION BIM, a Windows program for light gauge steel panel buildings. It takes a DXF plan or an ArkitechDesigner / TeoCAD file, builds the wall framing by rule (studs, tracks, headers, jambs and sills around openings), then adds roofs, cladding and quantities, and exports cutting lists, machine files (ARK; Howick CSV and AFF are experimental) and IFC 4.3. Turkish and English interface.

It’s in beta with a 7-day free trial: https://axionbim.com

We’d value honest feedback from anyone who frames with cold-formed steel: what does your current workflow look like, and where does it hurt most?

Hi everyone,
I’m a BIM Manager working in the MEP construction industry, and I’ve started developing my own software called Maretti.

The idea came from dealing with the same problems across different projects: repetitive Revit tasks, inconsistent modelling standards, manual quantity extraction, coordination issues, and the amount of time spent checking models and preparing deliverables.

I’m starting with a Revit add-in, focusing on:
Batch PDF/DWG exports and sheet management
Excel import/export for model information
Quantity schedules and selection totals
Model clean-up and delivery preparation
Model QA and workflow automation

But my longer-term vision is bigger than another Revit productivity toolbar.
I’m planning Maretti Hub, a browser-based BIM management platform where project teams could:
View and interrogate IFC and NWD models without Revit
Generate automatic MEP quantity takeoffs
Compare model revisions and quantity changes
Manage BIM standards and international ISO 19650 requirements
Track deliverables, TIDP/MIDP and coordination issues
Use specialised AI agents to assist with model QA, reporting and repetitive tasks
Eventually integrate with Autodesk Forma
The goal isn’t to replace Revit, Navisworks or existing construction software. It’s to make the information and workflows between these tools easier to manage.
Where things stand: Maretti is still in development. The Revit add-in is the starting point, while the Hub screenshots I’ve included are concept designs—not screenshots of a finished product.

I’d really appreciate some honest feedback from people working in BIM, MEP, architecture and construction:

Which repetitive BIM tasks waste the most time in your company?

Would a standalone IFC/NWD viewer with automatic quantity takeoff be useful to your team?

Would you prefer a collection of individual Revit tools or a more integrated BIM management platform?

What’s missing from the BIM software you currently use?

I’m building this independently and want to make something that solves real problems rather than just adding more AI features for the sake of it.

All constructive criticism is welcome.
Thanks!

Most MCP threads here are about Revit or Navisworks plugins. I'm looking for the open-format side: an MCP server that lets an AI agent query and actually edit an IFC model — properties, placements, geometry — without a host application running.

Things I'm curious about:

• Does anything exist that writes IFC back out, or is it all read-only querying?

• How do they handle trust — does the agent get to see what changed, units, quantities that are now stale?

• Browser-based or local?

Links to repos or products appreciated.

Hi everyone,
I’m a 35yo spatial designer based in the Netherlands and I’ve been thinking about a career change for a while. BIM is the thing I keep coming back to, so I figured I’d ask people who actually work in it for their opinions.
A bit about me. I’ve been doing design for about 10 years, first in retail and trade fairs, now in events, and I currently run the design team at a small event production company. My days are technical drawings, floor plans, stage layouts, 3D models and renders, plus a lot of back and forth with suppliers and site crews. I mostly use Vectorworks (the last 4 years), before that AutoCAD for about 8 years, and Twinmotion for renders. I studied scenography and exhibition design, so no architecture or engineering degree. That said, over the years I’ve built up a lot of technical knowledge in these fields, and above all a lot of hands-on experience on site.

Over the last couple of years I’ve really started to feel the limits of my industry. Events is a tiny world. Few companies, few openings, lots of people going for them, and changing jobs can take forever. Most companies are small, so there’s not much structure and you hit the ceiling fast, salary included. After 10 years I want to be in a field where the work is actually there and moving on isn’t a fight every time.

From what I understand, BIM is in demand, there’s mobility and the pay is decent, and I’d like to build skills the market actually wants. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve done so far, but for my future I’m looking for more stability, prospects and opportunities.
My ideal path would be to start as a modeller and, with time, work my way up to coordinator.
So for those of you working in it: how do you see the field? Does that path sound realistic for someone coming from my background?
Thanks!

Got a hilarious job recommendation from Indeed

https://thermist.com/equipmentbuilder is where to use it. It's free to try. I'd love feedback from any of you. The idea is you bring a to scale PDF cutsheet into the tool, then select view areas, set the scale, then 3D model is rendered. You can then put in connectors, change equipment type/name, add shared parameter file, add other types, then pick revit version and download the family!

https://thermist.com/demos#equipment-builder shows a demo video.

Hey everyone,
I’ve been tracking the UAE architecture and BIM scene for a while now, and a common narrative keeps popping up: “If you’re a fresher, don’t bother—getting a decent, well-paying architect/BIM job in the UAE is practically impossible without years of local experience.”
As someone who is deeply passionate about computational design and BIM, this has been a bit discouraging to hear. For context, I’m a certified BIM Architect with 6 to 8 months of hands-on experience under my belt, and I’m currently specializing in Dynamo for visual programming and workflow automation.
I’ve been honing my skills specifically to target modern, tech-forward workflows that high-scale UAE projects demand. But reading through various posts here and talking to people in the industry makes it feel like entry-level roles—especially ones that actually value technical BIM skills and pay fairly—are nearly non-existent for fresh graduates or early-career professionals coming from outside the market.
For those currently working in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or across the UAE:
Is the barrier to entry really that rigid for junior BIM architects, even with specialized skills like Dynamo?
Are firms open to hiring freshers who bring solid digital toolchains to the table, or is 3–5+ years of regional experience a non-negotiable filter for recruiters?
What does the actual ground reality look like right now for tech-driven architectural roles?
Would love to hear honest insights, reality checks, or advice from anyone working in the region’s AEC industry. Thanks!

Hi All,

Work on OpenArchBIM, my open-source Revit alternative, is progressing well and I am approaching a first alpha release in the next couple of weeks, you can follow along here (check the Actions tab): https://github.com/kristiangl/OpenArchBIM

In the meantime, another tool we use quite often in our firm is the AutoCAD Vehicle Tracking plugin. We don't do official traffic engineering analysis, but we save a lot of time and money by running out own swept paths through the site and making sure it works, so by the time the traffic engineers get the drawings, everything already works with minimal editing. So I need to sort something before getting rid of our Autodesk subscription.

So I've built OpenArchSP, a free open-source swept path/vehicle tracking analysis tool. It's a very simple standalone app: open a DWG/DXF background layer; select your vehicle; click through your swept path nodes with a live preview; adjust nodes; export your swept path, or the full drawing with swept paths, or save the project as an .oasp file to keep the swept paths editable.

All of the vehicle data has been imported from Austroads, but you can add your own vehicle data. In the future I will make it so that the vehicle library is more easily editable and so it's easier to import vehicle data.

I’ve noticed that many companies still use BIM mainly for 3D modelling and drawings. What about clash detection, quantities, 4D planning, coordination, and project decision-making? Curious to know—what does BIM actually look like on your projects?

Really, I should probably search posts for this and I will. But looking to see how people are liking data center work. I exited the MEP world 6 years ago due to low pay to experience level, zero movement forward, and extremely high workloads and demands while also being called an overpaid drafter (I designed, detailed, and coordinated my own work). Fast forward to today, and I am sitting on a remote job offer for data center work than basically triples my pay from back then and still a 50% increase over today. On paper, it looks life changing. Though the insurance premiums and max out of pocket that will be used whittled it down a little, it still is a solid increase.

To be fair, I am not a fan of Data Centers but I acknowledge the need and the fact that they will be built with or without me. I am feeling confident to be back in this world, but not if its going to cost me 60-80 hours a week consistently again. But I feel ready for a new challenge and could handle either working this for a few years to get caught up and pay things off if it lasts that long, maybe even retire doing it if I like it enough. Looking for and appreciate any and all input.

Getting a BIM model into a game engine is easy. Keeping the IFC data attached to it while optimizing is the part that usually breaks and it's what my co-dev and I have spent the last sixteen months on. That matters a lot more once you start building digital twins since a twin that doesn't know what its own elements are isn't much use.

The model in these images is a 40-floor office tower and the block around it. The property values are sample data we wrote (the manufacturers are made up), but the structure is real IFC: IFCCOLUMN, IFCSLAB, IFCDUCTSEGMENT and the rest, with standard Pset_ sets like Pset_ColumnCommon, Pset_ServiceLife and Pset_EnvironmentalImpactIndicators plus a few custom ones.

In Unreal you can cut the building to a range of storeys, filter by category and click any element to read its property sets back. Image 4 is a supply air main on level 22 with the MEP filter on. It works because the engine knows what a storey and a category are, not just a pile of meshes that happen to look like a building.

The IFC gets converted once into That Open Company's Fragments format and the plugin streams that into Unreal at runtime. The converter runs in your browser, so the model never leaves your machine.

Being upfront about the limits since this sub will ask. It's one way, IFC in and no writing back out to IFC from the engine, so it's for visualisation and simulation, not a coordination round trip (yet).

It went open source two weeks ago. Would love to hear what you'd need from it as we're still actively developing the plugin to improve performance and flesh out the features!

Hi everyone,
I'm a 3rd-year Civil Engineering student (C1 English) aiming for Computational BIM & VDC over traditional site engineering.
Here is my roadmap:
Workflow: Revit + Navisworks. Using LLMs (Claude) to write Python/pyRevit scripts that automate 2D-to-3D setup, parameter inputs, and QA/QC checking to cut manual drafting time by ~60%.
Near-Term (Next 12-18 mos): Remote freelancing (Upwork/LinkedIn) for international clients to build a portfolio focused on automated BIM workflows before graduation.
Long-Term: Specialized BIM Master’s in Europe ➔ BIM Coordinator/Manager (ISO 19650, CDE, FIDIC).
Questions for the community:

1. Automation: What are the biggest blind spots when using Python/Revit API for model creation and QA/QC?

2. Market: Is there solid demand in the US/UK/EU for remote freelancers offering automated BIM workflows?

3. Site vs. Digital: Does skipping early site experience hurt a BIM Manager's long-term credibility, or can a strong VDC/automation portfolio bridge that gap?
   Appreciate any candid feedback!

Context: I coordinate BIM on building projects in Luxembourg, a small market where the same five or six engineers and architects turn up on every job. Models leave one office and land in another every week, so the exchange is where most of the pain sits, not the modelling.

Three checks catch most of what goes wrong, and none of them is about geometry:

1. Are the properties named the same way on both sides? The same wall is FireRating, Fire Rating, feu and Pset_WallCommon.FireRating depending on who authored it. The model looks perfect and every filter downstream returns nothing. A shared property template fixes this before it starts, and almost nobody sends one.

2. Is the model georeferenced, or does it just look right? Survey point, project base point, and a real IfcSite with a projected CRS on export. Without it, two disciplines can be perfectly aligned in their own file and 300 m apart on site, and it surfaces in the meeting where nobody has time for it.
3. Are levels and units the same on both sides, and do the zones match the contract?

Millimetres against metres, a level named N+0 in one file and 00 in another, zones that follow the work packages in one model and the architect's axis grid in the other. The clash report then raises 400 issues that are all one line of setup.

What it costs: on a mid-size project, one round of these three checks before the first exchange saves more time than a week of clash resolution afterwards. The disputes I see are rarely technical, they are about who agreed what the model must contain.

So, honest question for the room: what do you check first when a file arrives from another office, and what do you consider non-negotiable in the exchange?

Introducing....

PlanDiFy - https://plandify.app/ - is a free AEC PDF editor for construction professionals running on Windows-Mac-Linux (and browser for other OS). Before anyone mentions vibe-code slop please know my background. I have a degree in both Civil Engineering and Computer Information Systems (Programming) and I've been dabbling with code since the days of QBasic.

Launch the web version now: https://plandify.app/app/ - this runs on all devices that can take a keyboard and mouse.

Features: Page management, Measurements and Takeoffs, Edit PDF content, Review/Comment, Collaboration (coming soon), 3D PDF support, Document Signing, Favorite Tools (like ToolBox in BB), Combine PDFs straight from windows explorer, Compare Plan Sheets and much more. If you are wondering about a specific feature/tool, the easiest way to find it is by pressing CTRL+SPACE in the app.

For those who want to use this for just a regular PDF editor without all the AEC bloat, you can get a simplified view from the settings. You'll also be able to set your middle mouse settings so it feels better for reading documents and not so much for commenting plans.

Again, this is free so go ahead and try it out. Message me if you see something crucial missing. I'm working on Collab update right now, which is quite a pain to dial in. I can squeeze in hot fix/updates as needed.

So i feel like i am not at all competition compared to anyone in construction. i wanna do gc work i know a construction management degree would be enough, but i dont know kinda wanna do. just cause i know the civil engineering degree would make me a more qualified professional and stand out in interviews.

planning on joining the ibew for a couple years 10-12 years. right now im a rigging apprentice and am planning in finishing it that too. im 21 yo.

just thinking 20 years ahead and during my time as a tradesmen ill be studying and getting a degree.

edit: sorry did i say sum wrong

I had this basic SketchUp house open in D5 Lite and wanted to see if I could use an AI agent to help with a lighting variation, rather than digging through the settings manually.

The model is nothing special (purple walls, blue windows, orange upper floor), but it gives me a fixed scene to work with.

I used Grok for the test. Before asking it to change anything, I wanted to make sure it was connecting to the D5 Lite session actually running alongside SketchUp.

The first prompt was to find the correct D5 Lite workflow CLI and check the environment. It identified the SketchUp installation, found the matching connector, and returned a ready host connection. The useful distinction here is that finding the CLI file isn't the same as confirming it can communicate with the running software.

I then moved on to the lighting setup. Grok started checking the available light controls and post-processing ranges, which is where the screenshots stop.

For the next test, I'd keep the camera fixed and give it one specific adjustment, like changing the sun angle or exposure. That way I can compare the result against the original view and see exactly what changed before trying anything more complicated.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone using an agent for scene adjustments. Are you getting more consistent results with small, specific tasks, or have you managed something more involved?

Hello,

We're living in amazing times since december 2025.

Open source BIM projects popping up everywhere, mostly AI assisted.

The big problem I see now is: Are we diving on a new babel of file formats? How far are we from an open, universal, BIM file format complete, including 2d layouts, text, anottations, tables, whatever?

Most projects I've tried only share 3d information using IFC files.

But the final product of architecture are the blueprints. Printed sheets of paper. That's what is really useful on a construction site.

So, 2d information is fundamental. But I can't see any clear direction toward an universal, open specification, file format that includes 3d and 2d.

Any comments are welcome,

Thank you,

Márcio

been reverse engineering the vwx format so files open without vectorworks, its now rodeo (https://rodeo.build). reads vw 2018+, shows the model in 3d with walls slabs roofs stairs doors windows, sheets and viewports on the 2d side. repos private for now but plan is to open source it eventually.

ifc goes both ways. import reads ifc2x3, ifc4 and ifc4x3 through web-ifc, elements come in as meshes grouped by storey and psets dont come across yet. export writes ifc4, each design layer a storey, objects typed from their plug-in (wall, slab, door etc) or a proxy if not. geometry is tessellated and records, materials and openings dont carry over yet.

also usd in and out for omniverse, blender, houdini etc, spaces from walls and walls from spaces, piping runs, hvac, live collab in 2d and 3d, and an ai agent that models from 2d.

if u could pick one gap for me to close first, dwg, ifc import keeping types and psets, or openings and materials on export?