Making Grid More Flexible - Replace Columns with Walls in Dynamo

Revit
1

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a Dynamo script for Revit that creates a parametric grid of structural columns and floors. Currently, it generates columns at all grid intersections based on user-defined spacing and counts in the X and Y directions. However, I’d like to make the grid more flexible by allowing users to replace specific columns with walls—for example, replacing columns with a continuous wall spanning between grid points.

Current Workflow:

  • Inputs: Number of columns in X/Y, spacing, floor heights, column/floor types.
  • Outputs: Grid of columns and associated floors.

Desired Improvement:
Selective Replacement: Replace columns at specific X or Y indices with walls.

Challenges:

  1. Filtering Grid Points: Identifying which columns to replace based on user-selected indices.
  2. Wall Creation: Generating walls between points dynamically.

Open to Suggestions:
I’m fully open to restructuring my workflow if needed! For example could a “grid line selector” node help?

Attached: My Parametric_Model.dyn (70.9 KB) file for reference.

I’d greatly appreciate any guidance—whether it’s a node-based solution, DesignScript snippet, or a completely different workflow. Thanks in advance!

Parametric_Model_2025-04-27_01-59-46
Parametric_Model_2025-04-27_01-59-463670×2470 803 KB

2

Hey,

Good work on your graph!

I think that your main problem is how difficult it would be to make an intuitive interface for your users with Dynamo, to allow users to tell you which things they want to switch…

  • To me, it feels difficult to make a graph to for them to say ‘I want a wall between points 2,3 and 5,6’.

  • It also feels difficult if you have a user who wants to change 1 wall, but another user wants 15…

I can imagine that if you were building an Addin, you would have a preview window and they could click to change between walls and columns… But that’s going beyond what Dynamo can give you, I think.

So my suggestion would be to keep this graph as it is, but build another graph…

  1. Your existing graph
  2. Graph to switch columns into walls

So 1 generates the columns in Revit.

Then they navigate around in Revit and use 2 to convert pairs of columns to walls

The code for 2 is fairly straight forward, select columns, extract the column location points, levels, construct a line, etc. etc. generate a wall.

I hope that helps,

Mark