PODIUM Revit Plugin

Introduction

Podium allows you to load your created designs into Revit.

You can load a Podium scenario into Revit as a reference, to create 2D docs, or to just keep building on your design.

Supported Building Objects

Podium’s library of building typologies keeps expanding. The current version of the plugin supports the following building types:

Building Type	Direct Shapes	Native Elements
Data Centre	✅	✅
Residential	✅	✅
Industrial	✅	✅
Basement	✅	ㅤ
Podium	✅	ㅤ
Generic Building	✅	ㅤ
Warehouse	✅	ㅤ

Installation

Prerequisites

In order to use the Podium plugin for Revit, you require the following:

Revit version 2025, 2026 or 2027 is installed on your local computer.

You’ve got a Podium license.

Download

You can download the Podium plugin for Revit from the Podium website.

Depending on the security settings of your browser, you might have to confirm that the installer file should be downloaded to your local machine.

Setup

Close your Revit application if you have it open.

Execute the installation file podium-revit-plugin-vX.X.X.msi (‘X.X.X’ are placeholders for the latest release version).

Read the description and click ‘Next’ if you want to install the plugin.

Confirm if you want to install the plugin just for you or for every user on your computer. Accept the default installation location or specify a new one. Click on ‘Next’.

Confirm to proceed with the installation, by click on ‘Next’.

Once the plugin has been successfully installed, you can close the setup.

Start Revit on your computer.

When you first start Revit after the installation of the plugin, please confirm that you’d like to ‘Always Load’ the plugin, or choose ‘Load Once’ if you would like to confirm this on every start.

Automatic Updates

After the plugin is installed, Revit checks for a new version each time it launches. If an update is available, it downloads and runs automatically - no action required on your part. This ensures you're always running the latest version, with the newest features and fixes.

Launch Podium Revit Plugin

Open an empty metric project template.

Access the Podium plugin in the ‘plugins’ ribbon panel.

Load Podium

The ‘Load Podium’ function is the main tool in this plugin. It’s like a magic wand that lets you pick one of your Podium projects, choose a scenario, and then load it straight into your active Revit session. Now, here’s a tip: it’s best to run this function from a freshly created metric project. This way, it can take care of managing levels and floor plans, and it’ll also create new geometry content in your file. But if you run it in a project with existing content, there’s a chance of some unexpected changes. So, keep that in mind!

Authentication

To access your projects and scenarios in Podium, you’ll need to let the Revit plugin know who you are. It’ll ask you to provide your Podium login details, which are your:

organisation Url to access your Podium environment,

Podium username and

Podium password.

But don’t worry, you can tick the ‘Remember Me’ box so you don’t have to enter your credentials every time you use the plugin.

If you don’t have a Podium account already, click on the ‘Get Podium.io !’ button, which will direct you to our website, enabling you to reach out to our team.

The Podium Revit plugin supports Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication. If you have SSO credentials, simply click the SSO button in the plugin to sign in.

Select a Podium Project

Once you’ve authenticated yourself, the plugin user interface will guide you to the next step. You’ll need to choose the project you want to transfer into Revit. To make it easier for you to find the project you’re looking for, the list will display the project name and the date of its last modification. The list is sorted by last modified date, so your most recent projects will be at the top. Pick a project you’d like to transfer data from and click on the ‘Open’ button to proceed to the next step.

You can also click on ‘Logs’ to review the captured logs of your previous sessions.

Select a Scenario

Once you’ve chosen and opened a Project, the user interface will show you all the different scenarios for that project. Just like projects, you’ll see a list with the name and last modified date of each scenario.

Once you selected a scenario, the following functions get enabled and can be accessed via the corresponding buttons:

Access Building(s) - Enables access to elements of a specific building in your scenario

Generate Direct Shapes - Loads site view elements into Revit as direct shapes

Generate Direct Shapes ++ - Loads site view elements into Revit as direct shapes, maps element parameters to the direct shapes and automatically adds room tags to floor plans

The page also enables you to ‘Return’ back to the project selection page.

Load Site View Content

Generate Direct Shapes

The ‘Generate Direct Shapes’ button allows you to import your solved Podium scenario geometry directly into Revit as direct shape objects for reference.

Object Categories

In Revit, a Direct Shape is a special type of element that enables you to store externally created or arbitrary geometry within a Revit project or family. Unlike “native” Revit elements like walls, floors, or windows, which have specific built-in behaviours and properties, Direct Shapes are containers for geometry that Revit can display and recognise, but without parametric functionality.

To help you review and navigate the imported geometry, the created objects are mapped to their corresponding Revit built-in categories. This happens based on the configuration controlled through the plugins ‘Settings’. This way, you can control which object categories are visible in your Revit view, either through the ‘Visibility/Graphics Override’ interface or by using the ‘Temporary Hide/Isolate’ with categories.

Graphic Display

By default, the graphic display option is set to ‘Hidden Line’. To make the geometry colours match the ones you saw in Podium, simply change the graphic display option of your 3D view to ‘Shaded’.

Generate Direct Shapes ++

The ‘Generate Direct Shapes ++’ button allows you to import your solved Podium scenario geometry and parameters directly into Revit as direct shape objects. This tool not only creates the geometry but also automatically generates your scenarios’ levels, floor plans including room tags.

Mapped Properties

Podium’s generative design engines return building components with rich parameter values. The Podium plugin for Revit enables you to map selected properties from the solved data model to the generated Revit geometries, which are controlled via a configurations mapping file. The plugin settings are preconfigured by Podium, leading to preset properties being mapped to the generated direct shapes. The image below shows an example of mapped properties for elements of the category ‘Structural Columns’.

Floor Plans

When loading your selected Podium scenario into Revit, the plugin automatically creates levels and floor-plans, as per the solved model data. In addition, room-boundaries get created and rooms and their tags get placed into every floor plan. This enables you to review and create schedules from room data, like area, perimeter, unbounded height or volume.

You can also place a legend into your floor plans to indicate the meanings of colour fills for your room areas. To do this, simply go to your ‘Analyze’ ribbon panel and select the ‘Color Fill Legend’ tool.

Load Building View Content

Access Building(s)

Provided you have solved one or multiple buildings of your scenario to elemental level in site view, you are able to access these buildings in order to load their elements into your Revit project.

Generate Direct Shapes

The ‘Generate Direct Shapes’ button loads the building view elements of the selected building into your Revit project as direct shapes (non-parametric geometry).

Generate Native Elements - Per Discipline

If you intend to load your solved Podium scenario into Revit in order to continue with the design process, the model is to be created from chosen, configured and positioned family type instances. Whilst the direct shape method offers an entry level reference, the use of native Revit elements takes the value of this plugin to the next level.

Currently, automated creation of native family type instances is enabled for specific Podium product types. Future releases will support additional product types. The table below provides the current state of native element support, utilising default loadable families.

Type	Product Type	Discipline	Native Element Support
Pile	Bored Pile	Structural	✅
PIle Cap	RC Pile Cap	Structural	✅
Column	Precast RC Column	Structural	✅
Column	Steel UC Column	Structural	✅
Column	Steel HD Column	Structural	✅
Column	Steel WC Column	Structural	✅
Column	Steel HP Column	Structural	✅
Beam	Precast RC Beam	Structural	✅
Beam	Steel UB Beam	Structural	✅
Beam	Steel WB Beam	Structural	✅
Beam	Steel HE Beam	Structural	✅
Beam	Steel HL Beam	Structural	✅
Beam	Steel IPE Beam	Structural	✅
Slab	Cast In Situ Flat Slab	Structural	✅
Slab	Precast Solid Plank	Structural	✅
Wall	Precast RC Wall	Structural	✅
Pipe	Distribution Element	Services	✅
Cable Tray	Distribution Element	Services	✅

Elements of your scenario that aren’t supported as native types yet, will get generated as direct shapes.

You can load Podium building elements as parametric family instances per discipline, instead of having one model with all three disciplines (Spatial, Structural, Services). This enables you to either keep them as individual models and federate them into one main model, or you can decide to load them all into a single model. In order to have seperate discipline models, please create a new project before loading the elements of a discipline.

Logs

When processing requests, the plugin automatically logs certain information and warnings. This helps power users to review process steps and can also be used by our support team if you should experience some unexpected results when loading your scenarios into Revit. The default location of your logs is ‘C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\20xx\Podium\Logs’. Please provide the most recent log to our support team if you run into an issue.

Load Model Id

The ‘Load Model Id’ is a shortcut to directly load data of a specific Podium model in order to create direct shape geometry, without going through the process of selecting a project or scenario. This function is intended to be used by power users or if our Podium support team provides you with model id instructions.

Load Model Json

The Podium support team and power users are able to export solved Podium models in json file format. The ‘Load Model Json’ enables these users to select a locally stored json file and directly trigger the process of generating direct shape geometry in the active Revit document.