If you have a Grasshopper document and you want to transfer geometry to Revit, one way to do this is via Excel. Of course, there are other plug-ins available, such as Rhynamo, Mantis Shrimp, Grevit, etc., which can also transfer data. However, Excel is ubiquitous – it’s easy and straightforward to use, yet so powerful. This tutorial explores how you can translate grids from Rhino to Revit via Excel.
Create Grasshopper grids
The first stage is to generate some grids within Rhino/Grasshopper. The example below uses a simple Grasshopper script to create the grids as well as the numbering sequence. The start and endpoints of the grids, along with their mark value, are exported to Excel via the Lunchbox ‘ExcelWrite’ component.
Once exported, the Excel spreadsheet will look something like this.
Create Revit grids with Dynamo
We can now use Dynamo to import this data and create native Revit grids that are numbered accordingly. Using the ‘Grids.FromExcel‘ node from the Parametric Monkey Dynamo Package we need to state which worksheet and columns to read. There is also an input to remove the first line (header) in the Excel file.
If there are already grids in your project, you may encounter an error saying, “the name entered is already in use. Enter a unique name.” The easiest way to fix this is to ensure there are no grids in your project before running the Dynamo script.
Maintained data
The benefit of using the above method over say a simple *dwg export and using the pick line command is that not only is geometry being transferred, but the data as well – Thereby maintaining the ‘intelligence’ of the original Grasshopper script.
