Abstract—The use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has become more popular lately. In the beginning, BIM was considered an alternative for 3D building drawings with the innovation of doing so in a parametric fashion. Nowadays, using BIM in design and construction seems to be unlimited. Since the first versions of the software for BIM, users are allowed to develop extensions in order to customize and enhance these tools, using their corresponding Software Development Kit (SDK). In this paper, a model for developing extensions on Autodesk Revit is presented. This model uses a hybrid approach which combines isolated external commands that are linked to a controller class that exposes all the extension functionality. A class diagram was created which depicts classes and associations of the model. Finally, the process at runtime on interaction between Revit and extension is described. The proposed model allows the development of an extension that gives several operations through the Revit user interface.

Index Terms—BIM, 3D modeling, Autodesk Revit, Revit extension, Revit user interface

Cite: Jesus N. Zaragoza-Grife, Romel G. Solis-Carcaño, and Gilberto A. Corona-Suarez, "Hybrid Model for Developing BIM Software Extensions," Journal of Advanced Management Science, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 227-232, September 2015. doi: 10.12720/joams.3.3.227-232