Coming from Revit
Linework has a building model of its own: walls, slabs, roofs, stairs, windows and doors with layered types, and drawings and schedules that follow it. It is much younger than Revit and does less. Here is what carries over, what is missing, and how to use both.
What works today
- Building parts with types.
- Walls, slabs and roofs with layered build-ups and materials, windows and doors, stairs, columns, beams and curtain walls. Change a type, and everything of that type changes.
- Drawings are views of the model.
- Floor plans, sections and elevations sit on sheets as viewports and are drawn afresh from the model. Sections label heights, stairs and roof pitch themselves.
- Phases.
- Every part is existing, demolished or new. The existing, demolition and new-build plans come from one model.
- Schedules.
- Rooms and areas, a room book with finishes, window and door schedules by position, quantities per cost group, as tables on sheets and as CSV.
- IFC in both directions.
- IFC 4 out with storeys, layered walls, slabs, roofs, stairs, openings, rooms, types and georeference. IFC 2x3, 4 and 4.3 in. Issues travel as BCF.
- Your own parametric parts.
- A component is a recipe of Linework commands with parameters. Duck can write one. There is no graphical family editor.
- On the Mac.
- Native on Apple silicon. Autodesk lists Revit for Microsoft Windows only.
What is missing
- RVT files and Revit families. Exchange goes through IFC and DWG
- From IFC, only straight walls and slabs come back editable; roofs and stairs arrive as solids
- Structural analysis and energy certificates. Linework supplies drawings, quantities and IFC for them
- Building services at the depth of dedicated programs: calculations are preliminary sizing, and duct networks are not calculated
- Parametric constraints between parts, and a graphical editor for components
- A team server you run yourself. Sharing and working together are in test operation on ours
- Windows. It is in preparation
Working side by side
- Export IFC from Revit or Archicad, or DWG views in the 2018 format or older.
- Open the file in Linework, or attach it as a reference to look at and check against.
- Model, draw and check there, with Duck if you like, and send IFC 4 or DWG back. Open points go as BCF.
Where it goes
Linework ships often. The changelog shows what each version brought and what is in progress. The changelog
Revit and AutoCAD are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., Archicad of Graphisoft. FrameMind Linework is an independent product, written from scratch, and not affiliated with them.
Download Linework and open one of your drawings.
The app is free, for professional work too, without an account or a licence key.
- Product
- FrameMind Linework
- Version
- 0.19.2
- Date
- 13 November 2026
- Platform
- macOS, Apple silicon
- Windows
- in preparation
- Price
- free