Goal

In this tutorial we will use Parameter Link to find matching elements using Octo points and room solids. When set up properly, ParaLink will go through each room in the model, find each Octo point inside it, and match the element with the room. Matching elements will have parameters copied between them, according to the Parameters list in Parameter Link.

Keep in mind that ParaLink will copy parameters from a single element to another single element. If you have several Octo points in an element, in several named storages, you have to set up a task per named storage. Also, each of those tasks should not write to the same parameter, because then the tasks will just keep overwriting the parameter values. ParaLink will not aggregate parameter values together. In this case, a solution is to make one parameter per named storage in Octo and have each task write to the corresponding parameters.

In this tutorial you will learn how to copy a single parameter from a room to elements with Octo points inside the room.

Prerequisites

• A license or trial of Reope’s Toolbox
• Make sure Toolbox is properly installed in your Revit version
• A model where you have set some Octo points created with the Octo tool in Toolbox

Steps

1. To start, just open Parameter Link from the Toolbox toolbar.

2. Make a new settings file by clicking on the Browse / Open button in the upper right corner.

   1. Name the file octo*.json*

3. Make a new task by clicking on the [+] button on the right side of the task list

4. Now, in the Task Settings, let’s start with the From column:

   1. Set Element Selection to Category
   2. Select Rooms in the dropdown menu in Category / Filter
   3. In Method select Solid

   <aside> ☝ Please make sure that Area and Volumes are enabled in the Area and Volume Computation settings → More information here

   </aside>

5. Let’s move over to the To column.

   1. Set Element Selection to Category
   2. Select the category of the elements you have Octo points on in the dropdown menu in Category / Filter
   3. In Method select Octo_Point
   4. In Octo Storage Name type in the named storage of the Octo points you would like to use. Make sure that you type in the exact name of the storage.

6. Now you have a basic ParaLink task which will go through each room solid and search for all elements of given category which have Octo points at name storage located inside the room solids. It should look like this:

   

7. To erase parameter values in non-matching elements, do this. This will make sure that elements of given category with no matching room will have their parameters blanked out.

   1. Make sure Comparison Source is set to <Current Document>
   2. Enable Blank Non-Matching by checking it
   3. Leave Blank Value empty

8. Now, **let’s set parameters to be copied. Before doing this, you must make sure that you have parameters to write to in the target elements, for example a parameter called Room Number. For now we will write the room number to the target elements. The Parameters section follows the same logic as the Task Settings. From is the parameter name on the element to copy from, in this case a room. And the To column is for the parameter to write to, which would be the elements with Octo points inside the room.

   1. In a new row in the table, write Number in the From column
   2. On the same row, write the name of your to parameter in the To column

   Finally it should look like this:

   

   To copy more parameters, simply add a new line in the table with other From and To parameter names.

9. Save the settings and click Run. ParaLink will make a report for you summarising how many parameters have been copied. Any errors will also appear.