We all know Navisworks mainly as an amazing aggregator of various model formats, but you can also link in data straight to items within the Navisworks file. This might feel like you are editing the data, but you aren’t. It is still simply collecting that data and aligning it, some of that data just happens to be in the form of an Excel file or SQL database.
This is typically handled in some kind of round-trip: you export information from the Navisworks model, you edit or tweak it in Excel or compile into a database, then you link it back in. The reason for this is if you want to connect data to specific elements, you need a key or unique ID for both pieces of software to be able to see and often that key is only in that element. So, you can export data about those elements, including that key, so the external program knows what to match things up with.
We are going to spend a couple posts and focus on exporting some data from a Revit model (in Navisworks) to Excel, making some…