Data Exchange and Informed Design: A Game Changer for PD&M and AEC

DANIEL LUTZ: Hello, and thank you for watching the AU class Data Exchange and Informed Design-- A Game Changer for Product Design and Manufacturing and AEC.

Before we go in the next step, I want show you the safe harbor statement. It's important. The reason is we talk about better software and future roadmap. And it's not sure if all correct or it's coming like we discussed here in this session.

So we start with a little agenda. We start with the introduction. And in the first step, we take a look into the Data Exchange capabilities, into the connectors, the workflows, and the product roadmap. And in the second step, we go into the deep dive of the Informed Design software, the new BIM definition, and the modeling.

So let's start the introduction about us. My name is Daniel Lutz. I'm a senior solution engineer in Germany. I'm based in the south of Germany. And I'm over 13 years in Autodesk and responsible for the integrated factory modeling and the factory design utilities.

JOCHEN TANGER: Yes. And my name is Jochen, Jochen Tanger. I'm also a senior solution engineer, but as you can see, Daniel is on the D&M field. I'm on the AEC field, so I'm more the engineer. I'm a civil engineer from my background. And this is how we split. So we have one person who's more the mechanical engineer and one more the building engineer, civil engineer.

And yeah, I also have a long background at Autodesk. So I started here over 20 years ago. And I was responsible technically wise when we marketed Revit into the market here in the German market, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And since then I have been working there. And it grew a lot from just being one product to building information modeling. And I'm responsible now for all those different products. And yes, I guess that's all from my side.

DANIEL LUTZ: Then let's jump into a technical introduction. We have on the market a couple of goals and challenges. We have a lot of new product launches, demand changes. We must to have cost reductions, quality initiatives, and changes in the procurement.

And for that, we need a 3D model of all our layouts, include the MEP stuff, and the building. And with that, we have a complete 3D model from our factory. So the first topic is the Data Exchange.

JOCHEN TANGER: So the first topic is Data Exchange. And it is kind of a-- let's say it's a new product. It's a new platform. No, it's more like a new product that we have, and it's called Autodesk Data Exchange.

And our idea about that is that we want to avoid file sharing. This is always painful because you never know which file format do you want to share. Is it IFC? Is it DWG? Is it an Inventor format? Is it a STEP format? Is it-- whatever. So it really depends on what the other side reads and can read.

And how do you need to reduce the files that they can read it? How big is that file size? So it usually can be like it is 500 MB, maybe one gigabyte. And you don't want that, and you don't want all the information.

So with Data Exchange, you can share just your design data across all different applications. And with all, I just mean it is not only Autodesk products. Oh, just stay a little bit on the page here.

I don't mean just Autodesk products, I mean all different products that are on the market. So we are-- as you can see, maybe there's Grasshopper. We also have different, like Rhino and so on. That's what we really want to do.

And what we want to exchange is just the data and only the data that you need and only the information that you need and not the whole file size. And with that, you really reduce the data exchange to a minimum of size, also to a minimum of effort. And that's really what we want to achieve. And yeah, please go to that page that you just opened.

And here you can see all the data exchanges that we have released already. But release means we are still in a beta, but those you can test already. And you can see there is the typically on the upper left side, it's the typical Autodesk products, the Autodesk connectors like Revit, like Inventor, AutoCAD, Civil 3D, and so on.

Then in the middle, let's say, it is Rhino, Tekla, SolidWorks, so all the other products where we want to exchange more even in the future. And those are available already. But you can see on the lower hand, there is connector ideas, and you can even vote for those. So if you have a product you would like to exchange data with, then just vote for it or come up with a new idea.

Then on the upper right hand, we have the feature ideas. That's kind of interesting because it's not only about the products that we want to exchange data, it's also about new possibilities, so like better exchange coordinate systems, exchange not just geometry, but native elements, and create native elements in the other product, like properties, material, and so on. So there's a lot of things that we even can develop or we want to develop in the future.

And the lower right was just in process. Those are the ones we are just-- we are working on at the moment. So you might see them, yeah, I don't know, maybe short-term or mid-term. It really depends on the one that you have.

DANIEL LUTZ: So we see here one of the examples. In this case, we share the data or exchange the data between Revit and Inventor. And we see here that direct plugin in Inventor. And see on the browser, the Revit model is coming from the cloud, from the ACC directly from Revit. So then let's jump in our first video.

JOCHEN TANGER: Yes, and we are in Revit at the moment. And what is interesting for Daniel is just the installation space for the machines. So he doesn't really need to have all walls and so on. He just needs that installation space.

So you click on Data Exchange, and here you create the first data exchange with just this view with all those installation spaces. And then it is being created and on Docs. Also in the Construction Cloud, you can just look at my export that I created. So this is the installation space. You see there's even the different spaces that I have. And those are being exported or imported now into Inventor.

DANIEL LUTZ: Yeah. And now we are in Inventor, and I load directly with the Data Exchange. Here's the model from Jochen. I have also here the preview. And if I double-check all the data, I load this model directly in Inventor.

And the beauty is the model is automatically on the origin point. The orientation of the model is correct. And in this case, I hide production environment B and C and include my factory layout in the production A environment workspace and upload back this model to ACC for Jochen. I select here the same folder in this case and create also a data exchange.

And then you see here again the preview, the figure, in Autodesk Docs. We have the complete environment. And we could select here in the structure of this file all included machines, conveyors, and so on.

And now let's jump again back to Revit.

JOCHEN TANGER: Back to Revit. Now I need those because I want to see all those machines in my Revit model. But like I said, I don't want to have a huge inventory file loaded somehow via, I don't know, IFC via Revit via DWG. I just want it very small and very clean.

And with Data Exchange, you just see it's at the same position now. I don't need to care about the coordinates or anything. So all the material, all the information, is here. And with that, I now have the chance to go into MEP, for example, to have all the piping and the ventilation, and so on. And I can adjust them and I can connect them to the machines and to the systems, existing systems of the model.

And that's really what it's for. And as you can see, you don't need to see where is the data located. You just have one folder, one sharing folder. And in there you can really exchange the data with everybody. And this was just an example between Inventor and Revit.

DANIEL LUTZ: Yeah. And without Revit export, without STEP or IFC export. So it's really easy going based on the ACC.

JOCHEN TANGER: Yes. And this is another example because we said it is not only about Autodesk products itself. So here we are, for example, in Tekla. And in Tekla, you see we have just created-- it's kind of a plant, a huge plant facility. And I want to exchange the pipes here to Revit.

So it's just selecting those elements. So you see there's the Data Exchange functionality or tool in here as well. So you can load that as an application, as a third-party application. And then again, I just go to that Construction Cloud, project I and send those pipes again as Data Exchange, not to Revit itself, but to the Construction Cloud. And from there, everybody can read it.

And so you can use the jump marks if you like to so that I jump a little bit further in the video. So we just have a look, and this is fine now. So now I load exactly those pipes into Revit. And I do get all those pipes in here. I do get information. You see the properties of those pipes. So there's some comments, like pipe in this case. And it will change in a little while.

And then I just go further on. And a lot of times some things are being created in Tekla, like the steel construction. In this case, I created the steel construction in Revit. And you can see here, now I do another exchange because I want to send this steel construction, this rack, back to Tekla.

So again, I selected elements. In this case, I didn't just select them. I chose the whole model, but I just selected the categories I wanted to export. So that was kind of easy. And also we will have a look at the properties afterwards.

So now I want to have this rack here in Tekla. So again, you always have to preview and select which elements I would like to import, or just select all of those. And now the rack is in here.

And so with that, now I can even work further on my pipes. But here you can see in the properties we have a lot of information that is coming out of Revit. And now I can see I want to extend those pipes to the real length. So they should be longer than the rack in this case. And I give some more information to it. So you can see it was pipe before. Now it's pipe_1.

And after I've changed or I've edited that, then I just go ahead and save it again. So I save it again as Data Exchange. I create another version out of it. So up to now, we just had the version one. And you can see now it's version two that I will view on the web again and that I will use in Revit as well.

So in here, I just do the update and load the latest element. And you can see now it's version two, and those pipes have the real length that I just adjusted. And you can see all those comments that I created, like pipe one or modified type. Everything has been updated.

So that's really kind of vice versa. So you really go ahead, change everything. Now I change the rack again so that it really fits to the pipes. And then it goes back to Tekla again. So it's always the same idea. It's just a different versioning that you have.

And if you jump a little bit more to the front ahead in the video, Daniel. So here I still have the properties again that I changed. And so the next-- oh, you need to still need to run the video. Just go to Play. Yes.

And then last but not least, after I have changed all that, I want to go in another product, for example, in AutoCAD. And you can see we also have Data Exchange in AutoCAD. And I just do exactly the same. I just go to the project. I go to the pipe rack in this case, so it's the first step. I want to have the rack as well in AutoCAD so we have not only 2D information. You know about that, that there's possibilities of 3D in AutoCAD, of course. So I import all those elements in AutoCAD.

And the second step is I don't only take the rack that is coming from Revit I also import the pipes that I have created in Tekla. So all the different software solutions and all the objects of those solutions come together in a final version, in this case in AutoCAD.

And that's just to show you it doesn't really matter in which software you are. You can just import/export with Data Exchange quite easily. And like we said, you never need to care about any file format. You never need to think about, how do I need to reduce the objects, the file size, so that anybody else can use it without having a lot of trouble? Great. That was Tekla-- Tekla, Revit, and AutoCAD.

DANIEL LUTZ: So that was the first game changer. And then let's jump to the next game changer, the Informed Design. So with that, it's a workflow between Inventor and Revit. In Inventor we create an assembly or a part based or driven with Informed Design to create all applications and all products.

Then we share the data based on Autodesk Docs with the architect designer in Revit. This designer using these models and publish back again the used models in ACC. And the product engineer get this, then, the whole bill of materials and models.

Here a little bit more detailed. The product engineer published the model to ACC. The designer in Revit discovered the model, placed the model, and published back the model with the building in ACC, and back to the product engineer. The product engineer consumed data and get all models and all information for production of the products.

So at first you have here the software available in the Autodesk account. You could download the software for free. And we have here two plugins, one for Inventor, one for Revit and for the version 2024 and the version 2025. The BIM definition is the new plugin. It's included. And it's not a separate download.

So let's take a look here. In example, we have here the staircase. I have different model states in Inventor, a simplified and a detailed model state. I have here a logic form for all the variants of this stair. Now I change here the number of steps, for example

And now I jump into the BIM definition. And in BIM definition, I define at first the behavior time of the stair-- behavior type of the stair in Revit. And in this case, I select the floor-based and select the insert point. And that helps Jochen later to place this stair in the Revit model.

In the next step, we place a UCS. But that's only important if the model not in the right set direction. In this case, it's correct and doesn't need this option or this UCS. And the place of the UCS is not relevant. It defines only the set direction of the model.

And then next we define here the Revit categories. We see here all Revit categories are available in Inventor in BIM definition. For the family type name, I'm using Inventor parameter. And that's defined a unique description of the stair for the family in Revit.

In the next step, I select the OMNI class. And this description of the stair, that's also a parameter from Inventor. And in the last step, we export or publish a couple of dimensions of the stair. And all these parameters are available in Revit later. And we see here in the IFC parameters, we have defined also the IFC parameters.

Now we could publish the product and define the root folder, the Inventor project file, all available drawings. And now we select all parameters for the form in Revit.

What we see here that our parameters from Inventor with an underline. And in this case, I redefine the names of the parameters and update the form. And now we see here the form looks better, and it's much more clearer.

In the next step in the rules we have here [INAUDIBLE] blocking. It's very easy to configure a couple of things. In this case, I define here the dimension, the whole dimension of the stair.

And it's like LEGO. I could create here with mathematics, with numbers here, all dimensions. I click this all together and speed up a little bit. It's really easy to define here a parameter or another value.

Now it's finished. And I update the form again. And we see here the stair height, but it's calculated of all other parameters of the models.

And in the last step I define the output files, the bill of material, the neutral files like step or set, and the detailed model and the simplified model. And then we could publish the model into the ACC in a selected folder. Folder Stairs, Publish. And the part of the Inventor of the engineer is ready. And now we could jump to Revit.

JOCHEN TANGER: Exactly. We hand over to me. I do the exactly same. So I do have the installation here. And I go to Informed Design, and I just go to Product and insert that product. Again you see I'm selecting the same account, ACC account. I'm in the same folder. And now I can select the size that I want to have, the stair width, and so on and generate those ideas.

And so it takes a little bit of a while to generate all those different parameters or those different stair types. And then you can see I just insert it. And in this case, I used the floor plan to insert it. You can see it's kind of perfectly fitting.

You could see the insertion point before. But you see, I just missed the real height, so it's a bit too tall. So I just replace that stairs. So I go back to Replace. I select another one of those generated options that I wanted to have.

So now we have number-- instead of 10, we have nine steps per each run. And it's just been replaced, and you can see. Now this is kind of perfect. That's really what I want. And you can really think about how you insert it.

And one more important point. So you have all the different parameters here, but just be aware, don't change those parameters in Revit now because yeah, it's not possible, and you don't want to change those parameters. That's why we have inventory.

And now we go one step further. So we want to generate the output of my selected stairs that I have. And you can see these are the parameters that I have created. And now I hand over to you. So with the different outputs that you want to create, Daniel, like a DWG drawing and so on and PDF, bill of materials.

DANIEL LUTZ: Now here in this step, we could publish all necessary data for the engineer for create this stair. And let me go here to the output folder.

All these data are available in ACC. We open this folder. And see here all relevant data for the engineer. It's here. The PDF of the drawing. Or, very important, the bill of material for the production. It's all finished. You need not again engineering guide. Or we have here a step file from the stair.

And that's the whole burger workaround or the whole process. We started Inventor, published a model. Jochen using this model and upload this model with the stair. And I as the engineer can use all this data and all this bill of material for production of this stair.

So then let's go a little bit into the details of the application. We see here that it's installing BIM definition in Inventor. We have the BIM definition with the family definition and the BIM properties. And the BIM definition is for Revit. And we here we define here the BIM properties also with all data for Revit and all properties for Revit.

So the family definition is also active in the primary model state. That's important. You must activate the primary model state for defined UCS, the insert point and the placement plane. And we see before the insert point and the placement plan helps Jochen to place the stair on the right level or on the right door.

In the next step, we have here the Revit family categories now. We learn in last days are not all categories available at the moment. For example, the sanitary categories are missing. But I think we get all categories in the next versions of Informed Design.

We see here on the green part all these behavioral types we using floor-based or face-based, for example. Or maybe if we create a window or a door, we need the wall-based definition.

And next we create the family type name and select the OMNI class. The OMNI class table is included, or we have a link to this table and select the right OMNI class. For the family type, I define a property in Inventor based with iLogic. And it's associative. If you change the height, the width, or the number of stairs, this property is each time activated, and you have the right definitions.

In the next step, we have here the IFC parameters. In the PowerPoint, we have the link to the buildingSMART, and you could select the right IFC category. And next step is the family type, again with all dimensions based on the Inventor parameters and based on the custom parameters. You could define each parameter, each necessary data, and publish this data with the BIM property panel.

And then the last step, we have here the MEP connectors. That's also new in the BIM definition. And we could define, in this case, the connectors for the hot and the cold water on this water mixer.

So then before we upload, we have here a couple of tips. If you upload the data, the factory scope in Inventor should be active. All model states should be active.

In the next step, all iLogic rule should have the parameters or the rule for all members for all model states. That's very important. If you change any model states, each other model state should be updated.

And at the end, we define here all-- or we define here the form. We select all necessary parameters for the form and define the output files later for the publishing for the engineer.

And then we could publish the data or the product into the right folder in the ACC. And now I'll get over to Jochen again.

JOCHEN TANGER: Yes. So I just wanted to mention because you talked about it. Is it wall-based, is it ceiling-based, or whatever? And I just wanted to mention that if you are a Revit user, of course you know about that. But if you're not a Revit expert, you might not know that we have different families or family templates in Revit.

And so you can define a family that is, let's say, a floor-based right away or wall-based right away. So whenever you place-- whenever you insert that family and then you only can select a wall to insert it-- for example, if it's wall-based, like a door. So you mentioned the door before, I guess.

And with that, you cannot place a door into a floor or into a ceiling. You just can place it into the wall. And if you have a negative element, a void, then there will be also a hole, the opening being cut through that wall so that it can be placed in there.

So you can change the type of templates for the families. And that's really important. You can see we have ceiling-based. You have floor-based. You have roof-based for photovoltaic, for example. You have wall-based.

And then you can see some of those-- let's call them lamps or whatever it is. It can be just face-based. And in a lot of cases, this can make sense. So whatever face you pick, it will be placed and directed exactly to that face.

So you can see on the wall itself, on the name wall, you cannot even read it because that is one of those faces. And you can just place that element on any of those faces to place it.

So it really depends, and that makes it easier to insert, for example, the stairs that we have seen. In that case, we just used a general placing. But the insertion point was exactly at the level of the door and the latest step, the upper step, so that if you go to the level one, then I could just place it in Revit being in the middle of the door.

And the height was not correct of the stairs, but at least the top position was perfectly aligned. And so we just needed to change the height. And the lower part went up because the insertion point was still the same.

And this is what I would like to mention as well because we do have-- if we use the Data Exchange that we have seen before, you do have some generic families afterwards, but you cannot really edit those families. It's not families that you have in your Revit project.

In this case-- wow, we are fast. In this case, you have external families. And I marked that in green on the left. In this case, Daniel chose special equipment, specialty equipment. And so in Revit, you can see that right away.

The upper left green mark shows that you have different, let's say, types in Revit. It's not really types, it's different families. So you cannot create one family with different types. We know that in Revit, so that you just load one family in your model, and then you just have with other parameters, you just switch between them.

In this case, it is different families that you load. And you can switch between those. Of course, it will be a bit bigger in size. But as we learned before, the size of those families is really very, very small.

So you can change them. So if you load different options, for example, you can always change between those different options without going back to Informed Design. But that's what we learned. You can replace that with a new version, for example. Or if there's none of those versions in Revit, you can just reload or load some extra versions.

And I mentioned that in the video in the live part. If you go to the properties, you can see there is a lot of properties that Daniel has defined before that are being translated or transferred to Revit itself. And you can see the numbers of steps, for example, and we chose nine for the different runs.

And, of course, you could change the number here. We don't want that. But as you can see, it's not grayed out, but nothing will be changed. So this is on us that we still need to gray this out so you cannot change the stairs themselves if you just change one of those numbers. It's mainly for reporting reasons. So if you create a schedule afterwards that you get all the information of those stairs in your schedule. Some tips and tricks that we wanted to give to you.

Last but not least, after we had a lot of PowerPoints, one more live example. So another example, you can see there is a bathroom in here. And I zoom in a little bit, and you can see there's one water tap or water faucet that has been installed. The other one hasn't been installed.

You can see that in the back, we do have all the pipes already. And you can see this faucet is connected already. And in this case on the left, it is it's not connected, and we don't have that.

So we need to insert it, and it's not a regular family. I just go exactly to the same folder, to the same project that we had before. And now I don't use the stairs. I use the faucet that I insert here.

Again, I can open it. There's different types that I can create. And you can see there's different versions, like the flush version, like the bath version, and so on. I can always again choose the representation, if it's fine or if it's medium. And then I insert it.

And like I said, if it's face-based, for example, I can place it on any face that I have. So I can just place it on the top of the sink. I just rotate it, I move it to the right position. Just go to the midpoint here of the opening.

And now I just need my MEP elements, my MEP functionalities, to connect this faucet with the pipes with flex pipe. So just do it for warm water and for cold water. This is warm water now. I just select it, connect it, and everything is fine.

So it is-- and as you can see, if I move it, of course, those flex pipes go with it. And it is really connected. And the thing is that in a lot of cases, you just think, OK, it was just a kind of a dumb element that I imported from Inventor because it's not a real Revit family. But that's what we wanted to show.

And Daniel showed it before, that you have the connections that you can make, can create in Inventor. That's why I could just click on that faucet and go to the plus elements and connect them to the existing pipe system.

And that's really great. And this is just one of the functionalities that we lately got. And just imagine what else would be possible. So the more intelligent the families get in Inventor, the better chances and the more intelligence we can use in Revit as well.

And yeah, so that's kind of a little bit the future as well. So we are working on Data Exchange. We are working on Informed Design a lot. So there will be a lot of changes. And yeah, I think since the last year, a lot has happened, and it's a lot better. And yeah, with that, I give back to you, Daniel.

DANIEL LUTZ: So then one of our last slide, we see here the BIM content from Inventor in the release 2025. I think that most of you know this panel. We have here the old MEP connectors and with the BIM definition in Informed Design.

And at the bottom, we see the new functionalities with the insert point, the placement, and new connectors. And maybe we get this panel in 2026 in Inventor, updated BIM content, but it's different to the BIM definition in Informed Design.

Now it's a little bit tricky, but the guys over the product management from Informed Design going forward can create new connectors, and, let me say, better connectors for better handling of the Revit models in all Revit families in Revit.

And for that, we are at the end. And many thanks for looking this class. And hopefully you have good new ideas with the new software tools.