Extracting COBie data from Revit

Introduction

Construction Operations Building information exchange (COBie) is an exchange specification for the information needed by facility managers. For more detailed information on COBie, please see this page from the buildingSmart Alliance. COBie information can be stored as additional schedules in a Revit dataset and will be read by FME's Revit reader.

This example uses FME Workbench to extract COBie information from a Autodesk Revit file into an Excel spreadsheet, using the standard COBie template.

Source Data

The source data used for this example is the buildingSmart Alliance Duplex Apartment COBie sample. The Revit RVT file can be downloaded from the buildingSmart Common Building Information Model Files page, in Project 1 - Duplex Apartment. Select the file 2011-09-14-Duplex-RVT.

This RVT file has the additional schedules containing COBie information needed for handover.

Exporting the COBie Schedules from Revit

When using the FME Export plugin, be sure to export all of the property sets to ensure that the COBie schedules are written to the RVZ file.

To access the FME Exporter in Revit, go to Add-ins > FME Export. For Revit 2018, click Modify Setup to access this dialogue.

Check the following boxes:

• Export Revit property sets
• Export IFC common property sets
• Export Schedules as property sets

Press ok, and Export.

**Note: The FME Exporter for Revit has been discontinued for 2019+ versions of FME and Revit. If you are using FME 2019.X, export IFC from Revit instead of using the plugin, following the same steps as outlined above. Next, read in the IFC file using the IFC With Data Views Reader.

Workspace

There are several sections in the workspace, corresponding to the different output sheets in the Excel file.

Facility

This section combines the Project, Site and Building features from Revit to create a Facility record. Integrated, the Facility record contains information about the measurement units used in the Revit project, the site location, number of stories, and some ID information.

Floor

This section uses the BuildingStorey information to create Floor records. This will result in three records, one for each level, containing information about height and elevation.

Space and Zone

This section uses Space features to create both Space and Zone records

Type

This section extracts one of each of the the building’s interior components to create Type records, containing information about each type of asset.

Component

This section combines the building’s interior components with the Space and Type records to create Component records.

Results in Excel

The records are written to Excel using a template XLS file to provide the desired cell formatting.

Data Attribution

Data was obtained from buildingSmart Alliance’s Duplex Apartment COBie sample.