Massing Pro Tools

Massing Pro Tools

Builds the massing geometry Revit can't make on its own — splines along paths, true offsets of curves and surfaces, shapes found by simulated physics, a library of mathematical surfaces and classical curves, and vaults you can draw, form-find or check — all as native massing forms you can divide, panel and edit later.

How to use

1. Open a conceptual mass family (File ▸ New ▸ Conceptual Mass) or an adaptive component family in Revit. If the mass is already in your project, select it and click Edit Family. Then launch Massing Pro Tools from BimCode — the window shows which kind of document is open.
2. Pick the tab for the job:
   • Path to Spline — pick edges, lines or imported CAD lines, accept the recommended number of points, and click Create. You get a divided path with a smooth spline threaded through its points.
   • Offset Curve — pick curves, choose normal or X / Y / Z, type a distance and click Offset. A negative distance flips the side.
   • Offset Surface — pick faces, choose normal or X / Y / Z, type a distance and click Offset. Each face becomes its own new surface.
   • Deconstructive Mass — pick a surface or some lines, press a behaviour button (Hang & sag, Soap film, Shatter & settle…), click Relax, adjust the sliders while it runs, then Build it in Revit.
   • Open Surface — choose one of forty mathematical surfaces or the five Platonic solids, move its sliders, watch the preview, and click Build.
   • Curve Composition — choose one of thirty-five classical curves, set its sliders, turn on Repeat the curve to make a composition, and click Build.
   • Parametric Vault — Draw one builds any of fourteen vault types with their real creases and ribs; Find one form-finds a vault that stands in pure compression from your plan and supports; Check one measures an existing vault, tells you what it is, and whether a line of thrust fits inside it.
3. Everything a tab makes is a single undo step — build it, look at it, and press Ctrl+Z if it isn't what you wanted. Nothing here edits or deletes what you already had.
4. Open the Help tab for the full manual, tutorials and exercises.

Good to know

• Each tab keeps its own picks, so moving between tabs never loses a selection or a half-finished setup.
• When you press a pick button, the window waits while you click in Revit. Press Finish in Revit when selecting several things, or Esc when clicking lines inside a CAD import — the banner in the window says which.
• Shapes from the libraries and the vault tab remember their settings. Find them under Already in this file, press the pencil, change a slider and click Update — the shape is replaced in place, and this works weeks later, in a project too.
• Surfaces of revolution (catenoid, torus, sphere…) are revolved from their true profile, so the result is exact and seamless. Everything else is lofted through spline profiles; if Revit refuses a shape, lower the segmentation first, or build it as a spline network instead.
• Modifiers — bend, twist, taper, stretch, squeeze, shear, wave, noise, spherify and a free-form lattice — apply to anything the library tabs and the vault tab build, and the result is still one smooth native surface.
• Leave Cap it off for a skin you can panel and divide; tick it for a closed solid that schedules a volume and cuts and joins other masses.
• In a project file, Deconstructive Mass, Open Surface and the vault tools build their result as a new conceptual mass family and place it for you. If it doesn't appear, turn on Massing & Site ▸ Show Mass. Path to Spline and the two offset tools need to be inside a family.
• Form finding tells you when a plan cannot balance in pure compression, and the vault check reports a geometric margin — how much thinner the vault could be and still stand — which is not a load factor.