In the process of downloading it now @DavidCutler .
I watched the launch webinar yesterday and things didn’t go to plan with regards the new headers and footers. However, the new functionality for splitting areas, combining areas, etc. looks like it could be really handy – so I thought I’d test that out.

Bluebeam released Revu 21.11.0 this week. Has anyone made the move yet? Anyone having any issues? I’m hanging back on 21.10 Complete at this point. Still need to try out Max – waiting for a new project to try it out on…

This is great; it’s a huge advantage when an estimator has constructability knowledge. I like how you use the “Location” column when you have, I assume, utilities and things that don’t fit completely inside a “Space”. And the “Lift” column is great for many reasons, I would assume. I built a very similar idea with a lumber yard where we…

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@troy-degroot all of my workflows have something built in for collecting data for use at valuation time.

For drainage, I use a “Location” column to allocate markups to plots or groups of plots. The lasso tool gets used for the allocation part. Once the csv gets imported into my spreadsheet using Power Query then all of the measures are…

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I never went any further with the 50 Shades @DavidCutler but this one may be worth a revisit at some point – I’m sure it can be improved upon.

I always tell my students, as estimators, they are actually data collectors; it benefits everyone if you can pass the baton to the next person downstream rather than have them learn everything again, or worse yet, miss it.

Great topic @troy-degroot !

A few of our Superintendents and Foreman use our marked up takeoff sets for reference, but I don’t think they are using them for progress tracking.

Our Project Manager definitely uses the takeoff sheets to understand the project/see how we developed the quantities, but again, I’m not sure how he is using them…

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Nobody talks about this enough: the follow-up measuring on payment applications.

The first takeoff on a job gets all the attention. Tool Chest built, colors set, everything organized. Then the project starts moving, and every billing period you’re back in that file trying to figure out what actually got done since last time,…

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Full credit to @isaac-harned on that part. I know when to bring in the right people!

The JavaScript for the rental company sounds impressive @troy-degroot !

I could probably flood this thread with examples and never run out, but I want to hear what everyone else has built too.

Just in the last month, I’ve built custom Bluebeam Revu profiles for a high-end cabinetry shop in Montana, a commercial framing contractor in California, and an industrial piping contractor in Dallas. I’m about to start one for…

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Are you referring to the number shortcut assigned in My Tools? You can now click on the properties gear on each toolset and enable number shortcuts. Not sure if that helps or not. One thing that has made a huge difference for me is that we can rearrange the order of the columns in the Tool Chest now. Label is easier to see when you put it…

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Love it, just requires a little creativity to end up with additional value.

That is a very interesting topic. Sadly (or fortunately) I don’t belong to a niche. In the Contract Administration side of things I’m involved with many aspects of the buildings.

I thought about creating different profiles, but then I can’t really leverage on tool-chest shortcuts because those are universal across the profiles and I can’t…

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@Vince hit the nail on the head with this on @troy-degroot – it’s not that the tool is special, it is the data that you collect with the tool that make’s it “niche”.

When I started here we had a tool for “8” DIP Cl52″ and it measured the length. The current tool is “6070 Water Main – 8″ D.I.P. CL52”. While it still provides the length it…

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I think custom columns might be the most fun part of Bluebeam. It’s like a puzzle when everything falls into place.

Not really niche tools @troy-degroot but, I do have 5 different profile for measuring groundworks alone. Not only to limit the number of tools in the tool chests but mainly in order so I can collect as much info in the custom columns as possible – automatically wherever possible.

Spent parts of last week building tool chests for a couple of customers’ niche scopes, and it reminded me that Bluebeam’s default libraries are built for the most common trades, not every trade.

If what you do is mainstream markups or general architectural work, you’re mostly covered out of the box. But get into something more…

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This is one I watch trip up sharp people constantly: two markups that look completely identical on the page land as two separate line items in a legend. Same tool, same measurement, same everything you can see at a glance.

Nine times out of ten it comes down to something the legend checks that you can’t, color, subject text, or a label field…

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I use Microsoft To Do – with working for lots of different people there are so many tasks to remember but To Do works really well.

Great idea to set the monthly reminder @Vince 😎

That’s a great practice, and having a reminder would help as the weeks quickly fly by. Especially for someone like you with so many profiles and advanced setups.

I have a monthly reminder to do a complete backup of Bluebeam – not had to use it yet but don’t want to risk somehow losing all of thse profiles.

Every few months I hear from a student who lost real time: a customized toolbar, a Tool Chest, a batch of hyperlinks they carefully built out, all gone because a profile got overwritten or a project file got rebuilt from scratch.

It’s almost never a software problem. It’s that nobody built a habit of backing up the pieces that took the longest…

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There’s a link to the submission page in the upper right hand corner of the page.

I wasn’t aware there was an application already. Thanks for letting us know. I agree you have to learn the basics before you get overwhelmed with the possibilities. I’ll have to find the link and start brainstorming a course or two.

Learn the basics then experiment. You may have a specific output that you are initially trying to generate but, if you do those two things first, then you might discover that you can produce a whole load of extra data that will help you, all with very little or no extra input.

Who has already looked at the submission guidelines for Unbound 2027?

I did and something is bothering me about them.
Everything is focusing on the end result. Nothing is focusing on the beginning.

Everything they’re looking for is about data, standards, integrations… but its all about the end result.

The NUMBER ONE thing you can do to improve…

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One of the most common questions I get from newer Bluebeam users: why do my markup settings keep following me from one profile to the next when I don’t want them to?

Here’s what’s going on: Bluebeam’s markup defaults live at the program level, not the profile level. So when you use “Set as Default” on a font size or color, it applies…

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Here’s something I end up telling people when they ask about marking up drawings on an
iPad in the field:

Flatten the layers you don’t need before you walk out the door. The file loads faster, your
session syncs cleaner, and you’re not hunting through markup layers that have nothing to
do with what you’re looking at on-site.

Seems obvious…

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What I know of your system Doug, the integration is so fine-tuned, they couldn’t function unless they completely committed to the workflow.

Sometimes it just takes one time-saving feature to blow their mind and convert them. The trouble is figuring out which one will trigger them. When I was a BIM Manager transitioning 70 employees across 7 offices to 3D design, I would print 3D images from my models, and purposely leave them on the printer to hear people talk about them and…

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All three members of my team use the same toolchest.
They’re designed around our Estimating software so its pretty critical that everyone is using the customized tool chests.

At this point 2 of the 3 of us on our estimating team are using the custom tools that I have built. This is working well for the 2 of us that are using them. Still trying to get our head estimator to use them… 😎

Here’s a pattern I keep running into when I talk to companies about their Bluebeam setup:

Someone on the team put real time into building a custom Tool Chest. It’s solid, for them. Organized around how they work.

And then nobody else uses it.

Not because it’s bad. But because it was built around one person’s workflow, not around how the whole…

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I’ll keep you posted @troy-degroot !

I’ve attached a quick preview of what we have created in Sketchup. Goal is to take this into a 3D PDF to share with our extended team and our customer.

I don’t have any experience with SketchUp, but I would love to see what you come up with.

Has anyone generated an IFC file using Trimble Sketchup that you have been able to use to create a 3D PDF? We’ve been modeling a foundation excavation in Sketchup Free, but would need the “Pro” subscription to have the export capability.

Great to have you in the Brainery @maxskewes

If you haven’t already looked, there might be more tools in my free download that you can apply.

Bluebeam Tool Sets

Another option to learn how to build powerful tools is in my Takeoff and Estimating classes. In 201, you will learn to build the tools,…

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Welcome to the Brainery @maxskewes

I’m not familiar with the window toolset (I work on the Civil side of the business), but you might consider making a few tools of your own that give you exactly what you need for your workflow.

The process is really quite simple:

1. Place a count measurement

2. Update your Subject and Label on the Properties…

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The Windows Tool Set provided only shows windows for elevations. Is there a tool set labeled as something else that has windows for floor plans?

Hi @DavidCutler – yes – at the 2:00 mark I’m using the magic wand to change the new perimeter markup into the kerbs from my Tool Chest.

Your videos are a great introduction to the functionality @Vince !

For those who haven’t seen them yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA8AkXr3rUQ

One question Vince – In the Part 2 video at about the 2:00 mark does the “Ctrl” key launch the “magic wand” functionality? What you are doing here – reusing…

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Not sure how it’ll work eventually, but in the beta, you could only access your custom tools with Convert to via a keyboard shortcut.

All in all MAX is pretty cool if you do a lot of the things that they show you it can do. I think they will probably get a lot of Revit users signed up as well because of the new integrations there.

It will change all of the information to that of the new tool @DavidCutler .

Therefore, you have to be careful of one thing – if you have already entered any information into custom columns then this will be lost.

This is a small price to pay for everything else being changed in one go though.

I’ll try to do some demos of how I’m using this feature soon.

Very cool @Vince !

Something I’m curious to see is how the “magic wand” works with custom columns and such. Hopefully it is more powerful than the current format painter…

@DavidCutler I have tried out a couple of other things as well using Claude – some work but some don’t.

One interesting one, I asked Claude to look at a set of duplicated markets in a 60 page (well that is what I think it was) document. Then, after pointing to the open file, I used a line of code as follows: –

“With the “Area Measurement”…

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Maybe @troy-degroot that will be a future upgrade. Could work similarly to the way you can assign your custom markup tool with dynamic fill.

Until then I think @Vince has the “working” solution with the “magic wand”. Still potentially a 2 or 3 click process, but if you are saving dozens of clicks on a markup by re-using the geometry you…

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