Streamlining Seismic Mitigation Work with Ideate BIMLink

• Eliminated manual data-entry errors
• 65 facilities, zero naming issues
• Faster, more accurate data transfer

Aurecon's structural engineers design seismic mitigation systems that rely on components like sliding hinge joints and Ringfeder friction springs, each requiring precise, project-specific configurations calculated in spreadsheets before being represented in a Revit model. Entering this engineering data by hand meant re-keying dozens of values for every connection, with each transcription step introducing a chance for a mismatch between the calculated design and the modeled building.

Aurecon selected Ideate BIMLink because it connects Revit parameters directly to spreadsheets, letting engineers move calculated seismic mitigation data straight into the model without manual re-entry. Engineers could update spreadsheet values and push them into Revit in one step, keeping the model synchronized with the engineering calculations behind sliding hinge joint and Ringfeder spring designs across every building the firm modeled this way.

Manually transferring seismic mitigation values from spreadsheets into Revit put Aurecon's engineers at risk of introducing errors that were hard to catch. A single mistyped dimension in a sliding hinge joint connection or a Ringfeder spring configuration could go unnoticed until later in design, or even during construction, when correcting it would cost far more time and money than getting it right the first time.

The manual process also meant double handling the same source data: engineers calculated values once in a spreadsheet, then re-entered them a second time in Revit, and often had to cross-check the two versions against each other to confirm nothing had been dropped or transposed. On projects with dozens of connections across multiple building types, this verification step consumed time engineers would rather have spent on engineering analysis than data entry.

Before adopting Ideate BIMLink, Aurecon's engineers calculated seismic mitigation values, such as sliding hinge joint dimensions and Ringfeder friction spring configurations, in spreadsheets and then manually typed each value into the corresponding Revit family parameters. Every connection on a project required its own set of entries, so engineers re-keyed the same spreadsheet data project after project, checking each transferred value against the source spreadsheet to catch typing errors before the model could be trusted for coordination or documentation.

Ideate BIMLink let Aurecon's engineers push seismic mitigation data from spreadsheets straight into Revit, removing the manual re-entry step and the errors that came with it. On one project spanning 65 emergency response facilities across three different New Zealand office locations, the tool automatically carried naming conventions through from the spreadsheet into the model. As Clinton Maulder, Associate – Buildings at Aurecon, explained: "It worked a treat, with 65 emergency response facilities ready for people to populate and we didn't have to worry about naming consistency, because Ideate BIMLink had taken care of it."

Beyond that single project, eliminating double handling of source data became one of Ideate BIMLink's most valued benefits across Aurecon's seismic mitigation work. "Being able to effectively deal with source data and eliminate 'double handling' saved time and reduced the chance of errors," Maulder said. "Ideate BIMLink is structured to leave a lot to the individual's imagination. It is hard to come up with a finite list of things it can do."