MEP
ELEVATIONS
ACC shows your pipe elevations as decimal feet. The field doesn't read decimal feet. One button writes bottom / center / top for the start and end of every pipe, duct and conduit run — as feet-and-inch text the viewer can't mangle: 12' - 3 17/32", on web, on mobile, in Navisworks.
Version 1.6.0 · Revit 2022–2026 with pyRevit · Free — no account
Work email in, ZIP out — no account to download. Every build’s SHA-256 is published.
Prefer to read first? Grab the how-to guide (PDF).
The model knows the elevation. The viewer butchers it.
Publish to ACC and your bottom-of-pipe shows up as 12.29427 — raw decimal feet, no viewer setting to fix it. Nobody hangs pipe off that number.
Coordination lives or dies on elevations, and the people who need them — foremen on a tablet, detailers in Navisworks, the GC scrolling a Forma view — get them through a viewer that re-interprets every Length parameter into decimal feet. So someone keeps a calculator open, or someone models from the wrong number.
MEP Elevations sidesteps the viewer entirely. It computes the elevations in Revit and stores them as text — pre-formatted feet and fractional inches the platform has no choice but to display verbatim:
- Bottom, center and top — at the start and end of every run, so sloped pipe reads right
- Relative to the element's own host level, at your precision — 1/64" down to whole inches
- Per-discipline parameter names — Bottom Of Pipe, Bottom Of Duct, Bottom Of Conduit — so the trade reads clearly in any viewer
- Modeled and fabrication parts: Revit pipe/duct/conduit plus MEP Fabrication pipework and ductwork
Same element. Two very different reads.
Left: the raw decimal feet the viewer makes of a Length parameter. Right: the text MEP Elevations wrote. Exact same numbers — watch it walk through a pipe, a duct, and a conduit.
One button. Params bind themselves, values write themselves.
No shared-parameter file to manage, no schedule gymnastics. The button does the setup and the writing in the same click.
Run the installer
A signed, double-click installer — no admin rights — puts the extension into pyRevit. Reload pyRevit and the MEP Elevations button lands on the Fulcrum VDC tab, alongside our other Revit tools if you have them.
Pick precision and mode
Choose the rounding — 1/64" to 1", default 1/32" — and whether to overwrite values from a previous run or skip elements that already have them.
Params bind themselves
The shared Text parameters — fixed GUIDs, per discipline — are created and bound automatically, and only where missing. Nothing to load by hand, safe to re-run forever.
Every run gets written
Bottom / center / top at start and end for every straight pipe, duct and conduit — plus the info snapshot. A summary counts everything written and everything skipped, with reasons.
Publish
Push to ACC and the strings show up exactly as written. The values are a snapshot — re-run the button before each publish so they track the current model.
The whole story of the run, in text the field can read.
- True outer face. Bottom and top use the real outside dimension — pipe and conduit OD, duct height — never the nominal size, with fabrication sizes read off the part's own connectors.
- Identity snapshot. Alongside the elevations, every run gets its name, material, system name and abbreviation, insulation thickness, size, overall OD (outer face plus insulation, both sides) and slope — copied as Revit displays them.
- Duct extras. Duct also gets its bare dimensions (height × width, or diameter), run length, and liner thickness.
- Duct fittings too. Elbows, transitions and taps — modeled and fab — carry the identity fields plus a Fitting Length copied from SysQue data where your content has it.
- Workshare-safe. On a central model the tool batch-borrows every target element up front, so Revit's checkout dialog never fires; anything another user owns is skipped and counted.
- Never crashes a run. Flex, conduit runs, fab containment — anything without a single straight run is skipped with a reason and counted in the summary, not crashed on.
Because the field shouldn't need a calculator.
We built MEP Elevations because our own crews were reading decimal feet off tablets and converting in their heads. That's a coordination gap you can close with one button, so we did — and it's our way of giving the AEC community a hand.
Free, no card, no sign-in inside Revit. A work email at download lets us support the tool and tell you about fixes — that's the whole ask.
For construction. By construction.
Questions, answered.
Do I need pyRevit?
Yes. MEP Elevations is a pyRevit extension, so it needs Revit 2022 or newer with the free, open-source pyRevit installed. The download is a signed, double-click installer that puts the extension into pyRevit's extensions folder — then pyRevit → Reload (or restart Revit) and the button appears on the Fulcrum VDC tab.
Why text parameters instead of real elevations?
ACC and Forma display a Length parameter as raw decimal feet, and the viewer has no setting to reformat it. Storing the elevation as a pre-formatted text string — 12' - 3 17/32" — means the platform displays it verbatim, on web and mobile. In Navisworks the parameters appear under the Custom property tab.
Do the values update when the model changes?
No — the values are a snapshot. They don't track elements that move, re-slope or resize. Re-run the button before every ACC publish; a run takes one click and existing values can be overwritten or skipped.
What gets processed, and what gets skipped?
Every straight pipe, duct and conduit run — modeled and fabrication parts. Duct fittings (modeled and fab) get the identity fields plus a Fitting Length copied from SysQue data where present. Flex duct/pipe, conduit runs and fabrication containment are skipped by design — there's no single straight run to report — and everything skipped is counted in the run summary, never crashed on.
Does it work on workshared models?
Yes. On a central model the tool borrows every target element in one batch call up front, so Revit never raises its "checking out a large number of elements" dialog. Elements another user has checked out are skipped and counted; have them relinquish and re-run.
Is it free? Do I need an account?
It's free, and there's no sign-in inside Revit at all. Enter a work email at download so we can support the tool and let you know about fixes — that's the whole ask.
Will antivirus or SmartScreen complain?
The installer is code-signed as Fulcrum VDC, LLC, so Windows names us as the publisher instead of showing "Unknown Publisher." SmartScreen can still flag a brand-new build until enough people have downloaded it — choose More info → Run anyway, and confirm the signature under Properties → Digital Signatures. What the installer places into pyRevit is plain Python source you can read before you run it.
Give the field real numbers.
Feet-and-inch elevations on every run — in ACC, Forma and Navisworks, exactly as written.
Download freeAutodesk, Revit, Navisworks, Autodesk Construction Cloud and Forma are trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. SysQue is a trademark of Trimble Inc. pyRevit is an independent open-source project. Fulcrum VDC, LLC is not affiliated with or endorsed by Autodesk, Trimble, or the pyRevit project.