X-RAY Help Reference
Audience: Residential BIM Design & Estimation
Software: Autodesk Revit Architecture™ and Revit Building Suites
The Pipeline X-RAY Add-In is a rules based key measure take-off tool for Autodesk Revit designed to produce consistent
quantity information from project to project. While segmenting quantities within Design Options, X-RAY can publish all
project materials directly to Pipeline for integrations with various back office systems or to Excel with the push of a
button. Rule statements are extremely flexible and can simplify results that would otherwise be complex using Revit
scheduling capability.
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Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................................................. 2
System & Project Requirements ....................................................................................................................................... 2
X-RAY Ribbon .................................................................................................................................................................... 3
X-RAY Settings ................................................................................................................................................................... 3
X-RAY Conditions............................................................................................................................................................... 4
Preview Selected Item Parameter ................................................................................................................................ 5
Buttons .......................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Fields ............................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Preview and Validation ................................................................................................................................................. 8
X-RAY Export ..................................................................................................................................................................... 9
X-RAY Door Handing Management ................................................................................................................................. 10
Door Family Requirements ......................................................................................................................................... 10
X-RAY Design Option Naming Conventions .................................................................................................................... 11
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Autodesk Revit Architecture or Revit Building Suite 64bit (Version must align with X-RAY version)
Microsoft Windows 7 64bit
Microsoft Excel or .XLSX capable editing software
Requires at least One Design Option be present in the Revit Project or Template
Requires the following 4 Project Parameters exist in the Project Information and have values that coincide with
your Sales naming conventions:
Pipeline House Code
Pipeline House Name
Pipeline Community Code
Pipeline Job Code
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The X-RAY ribbon interface will appear under the Add-Ins tab. This interface allows
access to the Settings, Conditions and Export features as well as a Help Reference and
additional information about your X-RAY license and CG Visions.
The X-RAY Settings panel is the first panel you will need to visit after installing the Add-In to ensure the tool is configured
properly. Please follow the steps below as they apply to your particular workflow.
1) Set the location for exporting Pipeline or Excel based
material reports (.XML and .XLXS files).
2) If you wish to re-path to another Excel Conditions
Playbook other than the one installed with the X-RAY,
define that new location at this time. The default
location for this file is in the Revit Add-In folder:
.. \Addins\2014\data\
3) The Main Model keyword will be defined as “BASE” by
default and should only be redefined by your Pipeline
Manager. This will tell Pipeline that all quantities within
the Main Model are to automatically be considered as
part of the “Base” condition.
4) Quantity Rounding controls the global rounding
precision to be applied to all quantities prior to material
export. The default value is set to 2 decimal place
precision.
5) If you wish to re-path to another Conditions Database file other than the one installed with X-RAY, define that
location at this time. The default location for this file is also found in the Revit Add-In folder. In some cases, it may be
desirable to re-path to a network location which will allow multiple X-RAY users to reference the same database. The
conditions database and conditions playbook should always be located together in the same folder. When re-pathing or
renaming your conditions database you must restart Revit in order for X-RAY to operate predictably.
6) If your Company is already using Pipeline, your Pipeline administrator can create a Draftsman level Login and this
information can be defined here. This feature is designed to automate the upload of the .XML material reports after
creation by pressing the “Pipeline BOM Upload” button found on the X-RAY Export Panel.
7) The Database Upgrade feature will only be used when changes have been made to the Add-In
that affects the formatting of the database in some way, usually with the addition or removal of
Revit categories or output fields. If the need to use this feature occurs, an upgrade file will be provided. The Database
Upgrade button will then be used to locate this file and preform the update.
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The X-RAY Conditions Panel is where the rules for quantity take off are defined and managed. All of this information is
stored within the X-RAY Database which has been prepopulated with examples of condition statements designed to
work with the Residential QuickStart content. Please be aware that changes to this database will affect the results of
your material reports so while learning how to use this tool, it would be a good idea to create a copy and a backup of the
database provided.
X-RAY currently supports most family categories available to Revit Architecture and some additional categories available
to Revit Structure and MEP. These categories can be accessed through the drop down menu located at the upper left
portion of the conditions panel. Each category will have its own set of conditions unique to that category. The categories
and the conditions can have their own rounding precision overrides which behave just like the global rounding feature
found within the X-RAY Settings panel. If these settings are left with “No Rounding” defined, they will be controlled by
the global rounding settings.
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This feature will allow you to select any family item
inside the Revit Project or Template and preview all
of its associated Type, Instance and Material
parameters.
This feature is very useful when developing
condition statements from scratch and will let you
know what parameters you have to work with. XRAY condition statements can target any available
parameters seen using this tool.
New – Used to create a new condition statement.
Add- Used to confirm or add the new condition to the database.
Update – Used to confirm and add any changes made to an existing condition statement. If you make changes to a
statement and move on without pressing the Update button, the database will not record your changes.
Delete – Used to remove a condition statement by deleting the entire row of information from the database.
Preview – With a condition statement highlighted, this button will show you the results returned positive in the
“Preview and Validation” pane near the bottom of the conditions panel.
Select All / Unselect All – You can select one or multiple results within the Preview and Validation pane to highlight the
geometry in the Revit Project. This will allow you to validate the results of the condition statement to ensure the correct
items are being targeted.
Active Condition – This checkbox is used to toggle a condition to be active or inactive.
Condition
This is where the logical statements are created in order to target certain Revit objects by either general condition or
very specific condition. The Syntax used to formulate these statements is similar to that of Microsoft Excel. The
conditional value is used to check if an object or material needs to be adjusted in any way and will look to the Instance
parameters first followed by the Type parameters second. Type can be used to isolate by Type and Material can be used
to isolate by Material – Both of which are recommended qualifiers. Any of the parameters found with the “Preview
Selected Item Parameter” feature can be concatenated here to make the condition more specific. This field is syntax
sensitive so operators and parameters should only have one space between them.
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Some acceptable operators that can be used for condition statements are:
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
and
or
= (equals)
!= (does not equal)
> (greater than)
< (less than)
* (wild card)
Examples:
Key Measure ID
The Key Measure ID is the code that will be used to bind the Revit Key Measurement to an orderable product within
Pipeline. The QuickStart Revit families will contain a Pipeline parameter with a Key Measure ID preassigned. This Pipeline
parameter can be targeted to produce the desired value automatically. You can also concatenate any number of
parameters using the ampersand character or you can force a value by wrapping it in double quotes. Calculations cannot
currently be done in this field. This field is syntax sensitive so be careful not to include more than one space between
parameters and string values.
Examples:
Description
This is where the source of the key measure description will be specified by one of
three different methods available in the drop down list. The “Custom Description” is
the default method which allows the user to add a custom description at the condition
level. The “Use Item Description” will target the Description parameter of the Family
for this information and the “Use Item Type Comment” will target the Type Comments parameter for this information.
Examples:
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Quantity
This field will tell us how much of a particular item must be ordered and is a vital part of the key measurement. It is
possible to create a calculation using multiple Revit parameters to achieve the desired output however these
parameters must be wrapped in single quotes. You can also type a value here if you do not wish to use an existing
parameter, like 1 when defining unit based key measures. This field is also syntax sensitive so be careful not to include
more than one space between parameters and formulaic elements.
Examples:
Unit
This is where the unit of measure for the key measurement is defined in abbreviated format.
Examples:
Additional Pipeline Parameter
This is a feature created specifically for Pipeline which allows certain quantities to be sorted into various Building Phases
depending on which level of the House they belong to. For example, this feature is typically used for placing Walls that
are bound to the 1st Floor level into the 1st Floor lumber phase and Walls that are bound to the 2nd Floor level into the
2nd Floor lumber phase.
There are 2 fields that work together to make this function properly and both are inactive by default. The “Additional
Pipeline Parameter” drop down will reveal the key word of Level which will be used by Pipeline to classify the value for
this feature. The “Value” field is used to specify the constraint or property of the object that will tell us what Level to
bind this object to. Depending on which family category is being targeted, the constraint names may vary.
Examples:
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This lower portion of the Conditions Panel is used for previewing and validating the results of the condition statements
above. To do this, highlight a condition statement and push the “Preview” button to the right. This preview not only
shows us the resulting information specified in the highlighted condition, but also shows us which Design Option and
Option Set (or Option Group) this information belongs to. By highlighting one of the Preview items, you can also highlight
the model object that pertains to that Key Measure so that you can visually validate that the correct object is being
targeted by the condition.
Playbook Management
The Conditions Playbook functionality was created to provide an alternate workflow for creating and editing large
amounts of database rules using Microsoft Excel. Simply “Export to Excel” to make your changes and when you are
finished, you can “Import to Database” to complete the X-RAY changes.
Each Revit category will be assigned to a specific component ID. Enabling filtering inside of Excel will allow you to target
and isolate a specific category to work with.
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The X-RAY Export panel is for publishing material
reports for the open Revit Project. The Revit categories
available for export are shown to the upper left. You can
choose to add or remove these categories individually
or all at once to your material report. There are two
different export styles available to choose from. Pipeline
Exports are formatted specifically for working with
Pipeline and will always produce an .XML file. Excel
Exports will produce the same information as above but
will always publish to .XLXS format. You can choose to
publish one of each simultaneously if desirable. For each
Export Style, there are two choices available – Master
Model or Lot Specific.
Master Model
The Master Model choice is for publishing “Plus/Minus”
Material Reports from a Design Option enabled Master
Project. Master Projects typically support all of the
preprogrammed option combinations available to the
Home Plan.
Lot Specific
The Lot Specific choice is for publishing the “As Built” Material Report from either a Job Start or a Custom Home Plan. A
Job Start refers to the client specified option configuration of the Home Plan.
Once the Export selections have been made, simply click the Generate BOM button to begin the process. X-RAY will now
compare every active condition statement against every placed object within the Revit Project. This could take up to
several minutes depending on how many objects are present and how many active statements are being used. When
complete, the files can be found wherever their export location was specified in the X-RAY Settings panel.
After a Material Report is generated, the Pipeline BOM Upload button will be highlighted. If the Pipeline Settings portion
of the X-Ray Settings panel has been completed, this button can be used to upload the material report directly to
Pipeline which will place the .XML file in the Quantities Import area.
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The Door Hand management functionality was created to dynamically track the handing of swing doors for the purposes
of Estimation. Revit does not currently offer this functionality out-of-the-box. There is no interface required for this
functionality. It will automatically work behind the scenes as long as the Door Families meet the requirements described
below.
The Door Handing management feature currently only applies to the Doors Model Category. In order for a Door Family
to be subject to this feature, the following conditions must exist:
1) An Instance Parameter of Swing with a default value of L (for Left Hand) or R (for Right Hand) must exist.
2) Every swing door with a Swing parameter must be modeled with the same default handing and have the same
default swing value. If half of the door library starts left handed and the other half right handed, then half of the
doors will end up reflecting the wrong information inside the project.
3) The Door Family must have at least 1 flip controller present. Each time the flip controller is clicked, the Swing
parameter will cycle between L and R.
Known Issues with Door Handing Management
If a Door is mirrored instead of using a flip controller, the value of the Swing will no longer reflect an accurate value. This
is also the case when preforming a Mirror Plan operation or opening an older project that has not had the doors
adjusted yet by X-RAY. To correct this, the inaccurate Doors must be flipped by the flip controller twice; once for X-RAY
to refresh the value and once again to restore the Door to its proper orientation.
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The Design Option Sets represent the geometric partitions of the Home Plan that will be changing to best reflect the
Sales choices available to that plan such as Elevations, Garages, etc. Design Option Sets are typically named something
logical but do not necessarily have to match any Sales information.
The Design Options represent the specific geometric conditions that change based on a customer’s selection. There are
specific naming conventions to be used for these Options depending on what type of Option it is or how it is to be used.
A “Sales Option” stands by itself with no conditional specification, like ELEV-C.
A “Conditional Option” is a Sales Option with an additional condition
specified between parentheses, such as 3CAR_SIDE (ELEV-C). When
supporting multiple Elevations, any Sales Options that are directly
impacted by the Elevation change will be duplicated to support the change
per Elevation. Notice how the 3CAR_SIDE Garage Option is listed 3 times
to support the A, B & C Elevations. Sales only offers one sellable Option of
3 CAR SIDE so by adding a condition of (ELEV-A, B & C) after the Sales
Name, the Estimator will know which variation of that Option gets
associated with the Elevation Options available in Pipeline.
A “Conditional Default” is not a Sales Option at all but represents a starting
condition prior to activating a Sales Option, like Default (ELEV-B). Sales
Options should always be capitalized and Non-Options should always be
lower case.
The Main Model refers to the project geometry that never gets assigned to
an Option or what is “left over” after all of the Optioning is complete. Main
Model geometry will always contribute to the overall final customer
selection and will also be used to determine “Base” quantities. The Base
condition of a Home Plan typically represents its standard or “base line”
sellable condition. It also often represents the Home Plan in its simplest or
non-upgraded state.
Notice how the first Option of each Option Set uses the name Default. This is done to identify the Base or “Pure Default”
for each Option Set and allows Pipeline to automatically associate these Options with the Base condition for this Home
Plan. So in this example, Main Model + Elevations\Default + Garages\Default (+ any other “Default”), will automatically
be combined to create the overall Base Condition in Pipeline.
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