Tatiana Lapina
Explore the Informed Design for Fusion open beta and learn how manufacturers can prepare and publish Fusion-designed products for use in Revit and BIM workflows.
For building product manufacturers designing in Fusion, getting products into BIM workflows can mean recreating content for Revit and maintaining it separately as products evolve.
Informed Design for Fusion helps close that gap. It gives manufacturers a more direct way to prepare and publish Fusion-designed products for use in Revit, helping them define how those products are represented, configured, and shared downstream.
Informed Design for Fusion is now available as an open beta, introducing Fusion-based authoring capabilities to manufacturers who design their products in Fusion.
This allows manufacturers to explore Informed Design for Fusion, test its capabilities with their own products and workflows, and share feedback to help shape its development. As the product continues to evolve, features and workflows may change before the full release.
To learn more about the open beta and download Informed Design for Fusion, click here.
Connect product design and building design
Autodesk Informed Design connects product design, building design, and manufacturing workflows so product information can move between the teams that design a product, specify it in a building, and ultimately manufacture it.
The manufacturer authoring workflow has already been available through Informed Design for Inventor. Manufacturers can prepare and publish configurable building products, architects and designers can use Informed Design for Revit to place and configure those products within manufacturer-defined parameters, and manufacturers can use the Informed Design web app to review project models and generate downstream outputs.
Informed Design for Fusion introduces a new authoring experience for manufacturers working in Fusion, with an initial set of capabilities for preparing and publishing products for use in Revit and sharing product information across design workflows.
This connected approach also supports industrialized construction, where manufacturing principles are applied to how buildings and building components are designed and delivered. By bringing manufacturer-defined product data into the building design process earlier, Informed Design helps teams work with repeatable, configurable, and known-manufacturable products from design through production.
What you can do in the open beta
With the Informed Design for Fusion add-in, you can:
- Define and publish configurable products using Fusion parameters and configuration tables.
- Create simplified product geometry for use in Revit-ready BIM outputs.
- Export the active Fusion model directly as an RFA or BIM Representation RFA for use in Revit.
- Define BIM data in Fusion so Revit files inherit consistent, manufacturer-defined product information automatically.
- Publish updates to Fusion products for use in downstream Revit workflows.
- Generate supported outputs.
The Fusion open beta offers a focused set of capabilities and does not yet include all functionality available in Informed Design for Inventor, such as iLogic-based rules, bills of materials, 2D drawings, custom outputs, or GLB export.
ADD IN: For a detailed comparison, see Informed Design for Fusion vs. Inventor.
Get started with Informed Design for Fusion
Once you’ve installed the Informed Design for Fusion add-in, you can begin exploring the authoring and publishing workflow using your own Fusion products or sample datasets.
Before publishing, the Informed Design service must have Reader permission or higher in your Fusion project. Viewer permission is not sufficient, and the Publish option remains unavailable until access is granted. Project Managers and Administrators can grant access directly from the add-in palette header in one click; other users should ask a project administrator to add the service account. See Fusion Project Access for more detail.
These resources can help you get started:
- Author and publish products in Fusion: Learn how to prepare and publish Fusion products.
- Fusion Project Access: Learn how to grant the required project permissions.
- BIM Definition in Fusion: Learn how to define BIM information for your products.
- Sample datasets: Explore the workflow with sample products before trying your own.
Prepare BIM content while keeping control of your product
Manufacturing models and BIM content serve different purposes. A product designed for manufacturing can contain a level of detail that isn’t appropriate for a building model, while architects need the right geometry, product information, and configuration options to make design and specification decisions.
Traditionally, bridging that gap can require manufacturers to create and maintain separate Revit content alongside their product designs.
Informed Design for Fusion gives manufacturers a way to define how their Fusion-designed products should be represented in BIM, which product options should be available, and what information should move downstream. Revit users can then configure those products within the parameters established by the manufacturer.
This reduces the need to rebuild products from scratch for BIM while giving manufacturers greater control over how their products are represented and configured.
By making manufacturer-defined products available in Revit with relevant product information and supported configuration options, manufacturers can also get their products in front of design teams earlier, while product selection and specification decisions are still being made.
Carry design decisions downstream
The workflow continues after a product is placed in Revit.
As a project develops, manufacturers can use the Informed Design web app to access and review project models containing their products. The product configuration selected during building design can then inform the outputs needed for downstream documentation and manufacturing workflows.
Because product information and configuration choices carry through the workflow, manufacturers can spend less time recreating information as a project moves from design toward production.
This creates a more direct path from a product designed in Fusion, through its use and configuration in Revit, to the information manufacturers need downstream.
Help shape Informed Design for Fusion
The open beta gives building product manufacturers an opportunity to try Informed Design for Fusion with their own products and workflows.
Your feedback will help us understand how manufacturers want to prepare Fusion designs for BIM, work with product information, publish and update product information, and connect building design decisions with downstream manufacturing workflows.
<<Download Informed Design for Fusion>>
As you try the open beta, share your feedback and product ideas through the Informed Design IdeaStation. We’d like to hear what works, where you encounter friction, and what would make Informed Design more useful for the way you design and deliver building products.