Revit → Renaldo: the IFC workflow with the right export settings.
Revit exports a lot correctly on its own – window sizes, wall function, storeys, stable GlobalIds. Two checkboxes in the export setup and three modelling conventions decide the rest: rooms, apartments and the entrance door.
What Renaldo needs – and where Revit puts it.
| Renaldo needs | Revit feature | What to do |
|---|---|---|
Rooms (IfcSpace) with a meaningful name | Room element | One Room per room with an upper limit (level above). Room Name becomes IfcSpace.LongName – that is the name Renaldo classifies (Bathroom, Kitchen, Bedroom …). Walls must be Room Bounding. |
| Apartments | Room Number | Apartment code in the Room Number: WE01-01, WE01-02, WE02-01 … The number becomes IfcSpace.Name; Renaldo reads WE01 from it and groups. |
| Room quantities (area, perimeter, height, wall areas) | Export setup → Export base quantities | One checkbox (section "Export setup"). Revit then writes Qto_SpaceBaseQuantities from the room geometry. |
| Façade (exterior wall areas) | Wall type → Function: Exterior | Revit maps the function to Pset_WallCommon.IsExternal. Exterior wall types on Exterior, partitions on Interior – gable walls included. If every wall is flagged exterior, Renaldo falls back to a geometric check. |
| Windows and doors with size | Window/Door families | Nothing to do – Revit exports OverallWidth/OverallHeight from the family's width and height. |
| Entrance door (costed differently from interior doors) | Type name or parameter IfcName | A door's IFC name is Family:Type:Id by default. Name the entrance door type with Entrance – or set the shared parameter IfcName to D-AT-01. |
| Roof surfaces, eaves, ridge, verge | Roof tool | One roof per pitch (two for a gable, four for a hip). Why: section "Roof". |
| Balconies | Floor type name or IfcName | Type name containing Balcony, e.g. "Balcony 200 mm" – the type name ends up in the IFC name. |
| Storeys | Levels with Building Story | Only levels with the Building Story property set become IfcBuildingStorey. Name them normally – Basement, Ground Floor, Level 1, Attic. |
That is the whole list. Everything else exports correctly with the default setup.
Two checkboxes that decide everything.
File → Export → IFC → Modify setup. Derive a setup "Renaldo" from the default IFC 2x3 Coordination View 2.0 (IFC4 Reference View works as well):
- Additional Content → Export rooms, areas and spaces in 3D views: on. Without it the file contains no rooms at all – the most common reason for "no rooms found".
- Property Sets → Export base quantities: on. Otherwise area, perimeter and wall areas per room are missing.
- Export only elements visible in view: then export from a 3D view in which rooms, walls, roofs and openings are visible and the right phase is set.
- Units: millimetres (Revit default) are fine – Renaldo converts lengths.
One roof element per pitch.
A footprint roof with several slopes exports as one IfcRoof. Renaldo derives the roof form from the number of IfcRoof elements – one means mono-pitch. Surfaces, eaves, ridge and verge are still measured correctly from geometry, but the form would default wrongly, and it drives roof, insulation and attic quantities.
Each pitch as its own roof
Two footprint roofs for a gable, four for a hip – the form is detected automatically.
Or: keep one roof
And pick the roof form in the import preview – the selector is always shown there.
Gable walls may stay as Revit exports them – a rectangular wall raised to the ridge and clipped by the roof; Renaldo measures the actual area.
Read the control image before you hand over the file.
Import the file in Renaldo (Building data → Import → IFC). The preview shows the model as Renaldo read it: rooms green (recognised), red (name not understood), grey (not imported); windows blue, doors brown, the entrance door orange. If no door is orange, the marking is missing. The legend counts rooms, windows and entrance doors; storey chips cut the model, roof and façade can be hidden.
If something is red or missing, fix it in Revit and export again – re-imports keep what was already recognised. Revit keeps the GlobalId per element stable as long as elements are edited, not deleted and redrawn.
What still comes as a short list: building perimeter, number of stairwells, basement perimeter and height, apartment entrance doors, roof windows, dormers, balcony railing lengths.
Import your first Revit model.
Start free, upload the IFC, read the control image – and see immediately what Renaldo read from the model.