What RayCAD does and doesn't do

RayCAD is a Revit plugin that does the tagging on MEPF shop drawings. You give it a view and your firm's standard. It places the tags, and your drafter reviews the sheet. This page sets out exactly what it does, what it does not do, and what it is often confused with.

The facts

What goes in

• Your Revit model. The ducts, pipes, terminals, and equipment already modelled.
• A view. A floor plan or a section view.
• Your tag families. The ones your firm already uses. RayCAD does not ship its own.
• Your placement standard. Where tags sit, how leaders behave, inside or outside the duct, how often a tag repeats. Set once in a preset.

What RayCAD does

• Works out which tags the view needs. It tags where the information changes, such as size, elevation, or direction, and repeats a tag where a run gets long. It does not tag every element. See information-based tagging.
• Finds a clear place for every tag, the way a drafter would: off other tags, off the model, with straight or single-elbow leaders. See placement.
• Writes the tags into Revit with your families and your standard.
• Sends any tag it is not sure about to a review panel, instead of guessing.
• Retags only the elements you select after a design change, so you do not start the sheet over.

What comes out

A tagged Revit view, using your families, that looks like your own drafter tagged it. Plus a short list of flagged tags to review.

What stays with the drafter

• Modelling. RayCAD does not draw, route, or size ducts and pipes.
• The data. The tag shows what is in your model. RayCAD does not check that the model is right. Engineering checks stay part of your QA. See fewer RFIs.
• Review and issue. The drafter reviews the flagged tags and signs off the sheet.
• Everything else on the sheet. Coordination, clash detection, schedules, and title blocks are not part of RayCAD.

What RayCAD tags today

HVAC and piping: ducts, flex ducts, air terminals, mechanical equipment, generic models, duct fittings, fabrication equivalents, pipes, pipe accessories, and pipe fittings.

Electrical and fire protection are not supported today. Both are coming soon. See MEPF tagging for the full list.

What RayCAD doesn't do

• It doesn't tag electrical or fire protection yet. Both are coming soon.
• It doesn't write tag text. Values come from your model and your tag families.
• It doesn't change your other work. Auto-Tag adds tags. It leaves your existing tags and the rest of the model alone. See stability.
• It doesn't send your model anywhere. It collects usage counts and timings only, and you can opt out. See security.
• It doesn't tag the invert of a gravity pipe. A sloped line has no single elevation, so it gets size and system instead.
• It doesn't run outside Revit. There is no separate app, and it does not work in AutoCAD or Revit LT, which does not run add-ins. See RayCAD and AutoCAD.
• It doesn't need scripting. No Dynamo, no pyRevit, no code. Setup happens in RayCAD's own windows in the Revit ribbon.

What RayCAD is not

• Not RayCAD Inc. RayCAD Inc. of Tyngsboro, Massachusetts makes optical design software. It has nothing to do with Revit or with us.
• Not a CAD program. The name says CAD, but RayCAD is a plugin inside Revit. You still draw in Revit.
• Not an Autodesk product. It is an independent add-in listed on the Autodesk App Store.
• Not a chatbot. You do not type prompts. You run Auto-Tag on a view.
• Not a Tag All button. Tag All puts a tag on every element at a default position. RayCAD decides which tags the drawing needs and where they read best.
• Not a click-saver or leader-alignment tool. Those speed up one step of tagging by hand. RayCAD does the whole tagging job and leaves the drafter to review it.
• Not Bimrock Autotag, BIMLOGIQ, or Tagitize. Those are separate products from other companies.
• Not priced per seat. One price per company covers every user.

Try it

Download RayCAD and try it free for 15 days on your own drawings. The Docs walk through setup, and pricing has the details.