Automating the boring half of steel detailing in Revit

Steel detailing for a portal-frame shed splits neatly into two kinds of work. There’s the judgement work — connection design intent, tricky junctions at fan walls and end frames, anything the engineer marked “typical U.N.O.” that turns out to be anything but. And there’s the repetition: hundreds of purlins, girts, cleats, brackets and bolt sets that follow rules you could write down.

The second kind is exactly what software is for.

What we automate

3Daro runs purpose-built Revit tooling that handles the rule-driven portion of shed detailing:

• Member population — purlins and girts placed from spacing rules, with laps and bridging resolved automatically.
• Connection components — cleats, brackets and bolt sets generated from the connection type assigned to each joint.
• Numbering and scheduling — assembly and part marks applied consistently, with schedules that update as the model changes.

What we deliberately don’t

Automation earns its keep only if the output is trustworthy, so every judgement call stays with a detailer:

• End-frame and fan-wall framing, where equipment penetrations drive the steel.
• Anything that deviates from the engineer’s typical details.
• The final check — every sheet is reviewed by a person before issue.

Why it matters on multi-shed sites

The payoff compounds with repetition. When shed variant A is detailed and the tooling has its rules captured, variants B and C inherit the same logic — so a three-variant, ten-shed site doesn’t need ten sheds’ worth of detailing hours. Faster turnaround, and more importantly, consistent documentation: the workshop sees the same mark conventions and the same details on every shed.

That’s the quiet advantage of automation. It’s not the speed — it’s that shed seven is documented exactly like shed one.