Frequently asked questions

Add SAT + IES, then open the editor on that fixture row. Fixture housing (Manufacturer, IP Rating, Cut-out Size, Finish) and Light & mounting apply to every family in the row. Open Additional product data for voltage, frequency, driver, dimming, lifetime, weight and protection class. Use known catalogue values with units; leave unknowns empty. Quick Tutorial · Every field explained.

Select an IES in Product variant, then edit its Model / Type, Product Code, Lamp and Output file name. Switch files and repeat: each IES keeps its own edits. An empty filename uses the IES filename. Grey suggestions are inherited when an editable box is left empty. Housing edits still apply to the entire row. Variant examples and field guide →

These are the selected IES file’s photometric values: lumens, CCT, watts, CRI and beam angle. Upload the correct tested IES to change them; missing figures cannot be typed into the locked boxes. Product text edits never rewrite the IES. Read about IES and editable product data →

Start with Auto: the six controls below sit together in Light & mounting. Light source body chooses the emitting part; Mounting and Mounting foot choose the connector side and fixing part. Both part lists show your SAT parts with their sizes; Type a name or #number… takes a name or a position such as #3, and you can click a part in the drawing. Model up axis corrects a housing that stands incorrectly. Light aim overrides aim; Beam side chooses the exit side using the exported CAD axes. Check the result’s warnings and View 3D after Generate. See when to use each control →

Families are produced on the Revit 2025 engine, and Revit files are forward-compatible — so they open in Revit 2025, 2026 and every newer release. (They can't open in 2024 or older; that's a Revit rule, not a BIMMER one. If you specifically need an older target, contact us.)

No Revit licence is needed to convert or preview a family in BIMMER. Convert in BIMMER’s cloud, then inspect the model and available light distribution in the interactive 3D preview. Revit is needed to edit the RFA or use it in a Revit project.

Your SAT and IES files are validated on our server and converted by Autodesk's cloud Revit engine (Autodesk Platform Services). If you're signed in on the website, each conversion is saved to your own private product library (original SAT + IES + delivered .rfa), up to your plan's storage (500 MB on a free account), so you can re-download, edit and re-issue it later — those files are stored in a private Amazon S3 bucket in the EU (Ireland), downloadable only behind your account, and you can delete any of them at any time. If your library is full, the conversion page says so and you download the .rfa from that page. We never share your files, we don't train anything on them, and your photometry stays yours: the IES is embedded in your family and nowhere else. The Founding Edition desktop app is different again — it runs on your Windows PC and converts through your own Autodesk account: the SAT and IES you choose go only to Autodesk's cloud under that account, so your files never reach BIMMER at all. Where everything lives, who processes it and how long we keep it is set out in the privacy policy, with the questionnaire-grade detail in Security & data.

Four validation gates check your files before and after the cloud does any work. Only a file BIMMER cannot use stops a conversion (a corrupt or unsupported SAT or IES, a file over the size limits or a wrong file type), and it stops before anything is charged, with a plain-English message (e.g. "this SAT must be exported at ACIS version 7.0"). Everything else is delivered: where BIMMER had to guess a setting, such as the part that gives the light or the mounting foot, the result lists it under Delivered — please check, with the setting to change. If a conversion does fail in the cloud, you get the exact reason — and a failed conversion never uses up a credit, on the free trial and on every paid plan alike. The credit goes straight back into your balance automatically; there is nothing to claim and nobody to email.

2 conversions, free, no card. Create an account, confirm your email and make two conversions to keep. Signup confirmation uses a six-digit emailed code, and every later new web session requires a fresh code after password or Google sign-in. Everything runs on BIMMER's own Autodesk cloud — there is nothing for you to set up. Up to three accounts on the same company domain can each start a trial, so a team can evaluate together. The allowance is also counted per network and per browser, which stops one person restarting it with a fresh account — so a team sharing one office connection may reach the limit sooner than three accounts implies. Run out mid-evaluation? Email us — a human answers.

BIMMER requires two-step email verification for every new web session. After your password or Google sign-in BIMMER sends a six-digit code to the verified account email and creates the session only after the code is accepted. Existing verified sessions stay signed in until you log out, they expire, or you revoke them from Account → Security & signed-in devices. This protects against many reused-password attacks without prompting on every page or conversion. Email verification is not phishing-resistant; passkeys, authenticator-app codes and organisation SSO remain the higher-assurance roadmap for customers whose security policy requires them.

Every conversion keeps the fixture's parts separate in the family: each body is individually selectable with its own material, so a heatsink can be black anodised while the bezel stays white — set per part, straight in Revit. The light source and the electrical connector are included.

The light source is placed on your fixture's emitting body to the millimetre and bound to your IES photometric web. The family carries the real datasheet: Initial Intensity, Initial Color, wattage, lamp, Manufacturer, Model, Product Code, CRI, Beam Angle, IP Rating — read from the IES (you can review and complete them before converting). Every delivered file is re-opened and measured by the output gate before you get it.

You do. You keep all rights to the files you upload and to the families produced from them — the geometry, the photometry and the .rfa itself. Sell them, publish them, hand them to your clients, put them in a BIM library: there is no royalty, no attribution requirement and no licence back to us. We use your files for exactly two things: producing your family, and keeping it in your library until you delete it. The one restriction is the obvious one — you may not resell BIMMER conversions as a competing conversion service, and you confirm you're entitled to convert the geometry and photometry you upload. Both are in the terms.

A plan belongs to your company workspace, and everyone on it draws from one shared pool of credits — no per-person allowances to juggle. Each tier includes a number of seats (Starter 2, Growth 5, Scale 10); you invite colleagues by email from Account → Team. Full? Just keep inviting — you'll be shown the price and asked to confirm an extra seat at £39/seat/month. Remove the teammate later and the paid capacity stays available for a replacement until the current billing period ends; BIMMER then removes the extra recurring seat before the next renewal. Invited teammates sign in and convert against the same balance; the workspace owner manages billing. Reselling conversions or sharing sign-ins outside your company isn't allowed (see the terms).

Credit-based plans — one credit converts one fixture. Three tiers, Starter, Growth and Scale, billed monthly or annually (annual saves 20%), with a monthly conversion allowance that refreshes every month and team seats sharing one pooled balance. Everything runs on BIMMER's own Autodesk cloud — nothing to set up. See live prices on the pricing page.

Conversions stop until your allowance refills. Nothing is billed silently, and no work runs unpaid. From a monthly plan, you can move up a tier—the larger allowance applies only after Stripe confirms the exact prorated invoice paid; a decline or incomplete 3DS leaves your current plan unchanged. Every change from an annual plan, and every downgrade, is scheduled for renewal instead. Or wait for renewal, when the monthly allowance refreshes. One thing worth knowing before you budget: every run is a genuine fresh conversion — re-converting the same pair spends another credit.

No. One credit converts one fixture, however many light sources that fixture contains — the credit is per delivered family, not per head. A multi-head luminaire is one upload, one conversion and one RFA. Confirming the heads in the review step is free and spends nothing.

The fixture row offers IES use only when BIMMER measures that a fitting's 2–10 heads are not all alike, and only where that option is available on your account. One family per IES file (product variants) makes one family per IES file, and the whole family uses that one file — keep it when your files are product variants (for example 3000 K and 4000 K) or your IES was measured for the whole fitting. One family, an IES for each head (heads differ) makes one family for the fitting, one credit, with a light source at each head and the file you choose for each head — recommended whenever BIMMER reports that the heads are not all alike. The row's You get: line states the outcome of the selected option in families, light sources and credits. A single-source fitting, or one whose heads are identical, has nothing to choose: several IES files make several families.

In Review light sources, the One head only card says this when BIMMER cannot place a light in each head of that file with the option you are on — for example globes without a CAD part named socket, lampholder or lamp holder, or heads of different sizes. The notice under the cards says in CAD words what BIMMER cannot tell, then offers the ways out as buttons: Use All heads together (1 family, 1 light source at the centre of the fitting — right when the IES was measured for the whole fitting) and, where the row also offers One family, an IES for each head on your account, Use this IES at every head, which switches the row to that option and opens the assignment window with the reviewed IES already set on every head. Without that option the notice names the CAD parts to correct before uploading the model again. Continue stays off until you pick a way; nothing is spent.

For identical heads, choose One head only in Review light sources: BIMMER repeats that single-head IES at each confirmed head. In the assignment window (Choose the IES for each head, where that option is available on your account), select the file under IES for all heads and click Apply to all heads, then change any head's IES file for each head dropdown if one head differs. Applying one file everywhere records your choice; it does not establish that the heads have identical optics, so check the photometric report. An IES measured for the whole fitting belongs under All heads together, and the window offers Switch to All heads together for that case.

No. A fitting reviewed as One family, an IES for each head makes one family for one credit, however many heads and files it uses (where that option is available on your account). You can use up to 10 IES files, just under 4 MiB in total; a file assigned to several heads counts once. Files you upload but do not assign are listed as Not used in this family: they make no extra family and spend nothing, and a second family with one of them needs another row with the same SAT file and that IES. The free review itself never spends a credit.

The mounting part decides where the family's electrical connector goes and how the fitting sits once installed, so it has to be a real attachment: a canopy or recessed flange for a ceiling fitting, a wall plate for a wall light, a base or the flange at finished ground level for a floor or ground fitting. Under Fixture mounting, Find automatically proposes an installation only when an attachment passes the CAD checks; confirm the installed view, and if the installation is unclear choose Ceiling, Wall or Floor / ground and the part yourself. A single-head IES cannot establish how the whole fitting is mounted, and CAD coordinates or a filename containing “UP” do not establish it either.

The review counts them and switches One head only off with the reason on the card itself: Not available: 12 heads found, up to 10 supported. Convert as a complete luminaire. Do not select just ten bodies to hide the others. Use All heads together only when the IES describes the complete fitting; otherwise ask your supplier for a suitable input. The review is free and this refusal spends nothing.

No. BIMMER delivers a family whenever the files are usable, and lists anything it had to guess under Delivered — please check, with the setting to change; that family is charged as a normal conversion. BIMMER's validation gates still check the family after generation, and a family it refuses to deliver is not charged: the credit is returned automatically. The FAILED card names the reason and lists its warnings under the error, open by default, and they name the control to change — for example Light aim under Edit fixture parameters — so you can correct the row and generate again.

It depends where the credit came from:

• Your monthly allowance and any rolled-over credits are forfeited when the plan ends. They exist because the plan exists.
• Credits you paid for separately — any one-off top-ups bought while they were on sale — are frozen, not destroyed. They stay in your workspace, unusable while you have no plan, and come back in full the moment you re-subscribe. Their 12-month expiry clock keeps running while they're frozen.

Your monthly allowance refreshes each month and does not carry over. If you're unsure which tier fits, ask first.

From Account → Manage billing, which opens Stripe's billing portal. One click, nothing to email us about. Monthly plans: cancel any time — the plan and its credits run to the end of the period you have already paid for, then stop. Annual plans: billed 12 months upfront, so cancelling stops the next renewal and the current year runs to its end. Either way, what becomes of your credits is in the answer above, and the refund policy covers the 14-day money-back window if you're leaving because BIMMER isn't for you. A Founding Edition desktop licence is a different thing entirely — it's perpetual, so there is nothing to cancel.

Your files stay, and stay downloadable. Cancelling doesn't delete anything: every family, together with the original SAT and IES it was made from, remains in your library, and you can sign in and re-download any of it. What stops is making new ones — converting and re-issuing both spend credits, so they need an active plan. You can delete individual entries yourself at any time, and deleting your account deletes everything — files, folders, workspace and any remaining credits — permanently, from Account → Delete account.

Yes — the Founding Edition: a one-time, perpetual Windows desktop app, capped at 10 companies total, forever (£2,996). The app runs on your Windows PC and converts through your own Autodesk account, so your files go to Autodesk's cloud under that account and never to BIMMER — unlimited conversions, no credit system, lifetime updates, up to 5 machines. The app activates with a signed key and needs no sign-in; you collect the key from your Founding Edition page, which opens when you are signed in to a free bimmer.lighting account under your purchase email. See the Founding Edition section — the live seat counter shows how many of the 10 remain.

The same converter, sold as two genuinely different products. The short version: the cloud is a subscription that runs on our infrastructure; the Founding Edition is a one-time licence that runs on your PC and converts through your own Autodesk account. Choose the cloud if you want zero setup, a shared team plan and a bill that tracks how much you actually convert. Choose the Founding Edition if your CAD must never reach a third-party converter's servers (it goes only to your own Autodesk account), or if you convert enough that a one-time price beats a subscription. Both are on the pricing page.

Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit), a free Autodesk account and an internet connection. The app's dependencies and the .NET runtime travel inside the download, so the first launch installs and downloads nothing else (Node.js is the one exception, below). BIMMER Desktop is not an offline tool: file checks run on your PC, but every conversion runs Autodesk's Revit engine in your own Autodesk cloud account, so the SAT and IES you convert are sent to Autodesk under that account (never to BIMMER), and licence activation and the roughly monthly licence check need to reach bimmer.lighting. Four things to check with IT before you buy, because the refund window closes once your key is issued:

• BIMMER needs outbound internet access to bimmer.lighting (licence activation and checks) and to Autodesk Platform Services (developer.api.autodesk.com), using your own Autodesk credentials. It listens only on 127.0.0.1, so nothing is exposed to your network.
• BIMMER itself needs no admin rights. It installs just for you, with no UAC prompt.
• Node.js is the one prerequisite. If the PC doesn't already have it, the first launch offers to install it and Windows asks for permission once — which a standard user on a locked-down machine cannot approve. Ask IT to install Node.js first (free, from nodejs.org) and BIMMER then runs with no prompts at all.
• The installer is digitally signed by Orienjo Ltd. Windows may still show its blue "Windows protected your PC" notice while it builds trust in a recently signed app — click More info and check the publisher line reads Orienjo Ltd (that is how you verify the download is genuine), then Run anyway, once. The notice fades on its own as more machines run the signed release. On estates with Smart App Control or strict application policies, the signature is what allows BIMMER to run at all — unsure about yours? Talk to us before buying.

Use the installer rather than the portable .zip: Windows marks every file inside a downloaded zip as untrusted, so the portable version warns on every launch. Your licence activates on up to 5 machines, and the app itself needs no sign-in. You collect the key from your Founding Edition page, which opens when you are signed in to a free bimmer.lighting account under your purchase email.

The BIMMER licence is one-time: no subscription, no credits and no per-conversion charge from us, ever. The one running cost is Autodesk's, and it goes straight to you — the desktop app converts through your own Autodesk Platform Services account, so Autodesk meters and bills that account directly. We never see it, never mark it up and take no cut. In our own testing a conversion uses about a minute of Autodesk processing, and the free allowance included with an Autodesk account covers roughly 200–280 conversions a month at no cost — enough for most manufacturers' ongoing work without ever paying Autodesk anything. Past that, Autodesk charges your account at their published rates. Because that is Autodesk's price list rather than ours, check the current numbers on Autodesk's own pricing page before you budget a large catalogue — and if you're sizing a several-hundred-SKU run, ask us and we'll go through it with you.

All prices are shown excluding VAT. Any applicable VAT or sales tax is calculated and shown on the secure Stripe payment page, based on your billing country. Business customers: enter your VAT number at checkout. Qualifying cross-border EU purchases may use the reverse charge after validation; domestic UK sales normally still include UK VAT. Stripe provides the VAT invoice/receipt after payment; subscription customers can also retrieve it from Account → Manage billing.

The BIMMER Cloud Plan: 14 days, no quibbles, if you've converted fewer than 10 fixtures in that time. Founding Edition (perpetual desktop licence): a conditional 14-day money-back guarantee — refundable within 14 days only before your signed key is issued; once you hold a working key it's non-refundable. Full details in the refund policy.

Often, but not always — and it's better to find out now than after you've bought. There is no add-in to install in your CAD software and no complex reconfiguration of your model — BIMMER works with the geometry tree you already have. Five checks prepare the export, and most of them are export settings:

• Export ACIS 7.0 or 4.0. Use text SAT, Solid output and mm units. These are BIMMER's supported export versions. SolidWorks: Tools → Options → Export → ACIS → Version 7.0, Output Solid, Unit mm.
• Check the light-source selection. Use accurate part names, e.g. Lens, Optic, COB, LED, Lamp or Glass. Names help BIMMER detect the light source. Label holders as holders, and mounting parts Canopy, Mounting foot or Backplate. Check BIMMER’s selection before Generate. Placing light-source geometry near the top of the model tree is optional.
• Keep the detail you need. Keep the optical parts, housing and mounting parts. If the file is too heavy, remove unnecessary manufacturing detail such as internal wiring and tiny fasteners.
• Keep bodies separate. Leave "Write multi body part into a single ACIS body" unticked (SolidWorks), or the equivalent setting in other tools. Separate emitting bodies help source review. A single merged body still converts, but as one solid: the part-separated output has nothing to separate.
• Assembly export problems? Try a part. Assemblies can work directly. If an export loses bodies or useful part names, save a copy as a part with separate bodies (SolidWorks: File → Save As → Part, All components; other tools: see the guides), then export SAT.

A file that misses a check usually still converts: a single merged body carries the light at its centre, and a multi-body model whose light part BIMMER could only guess from tree order carries a review warning. These checks, with the SolidWorks export settings, are on the home page, and the app's pre-flight check reports preparation problems before anything is converted or any credit is spent. Evaluating a large catalogue? Send us two or three representative exports and we'll tell you straight whether they need re-working: jiq@bimmer.lighting.

SolidWorks, Inventor, Fusion, Rhino and Creo export text SAT directly. BIMMER needs ACIS 7.0 or 4.0, closed solids and millimetres.

• SolidWorks: choose ACIS 7.0 or 4.0.
• Inventor: export SAT 7.0.
• Fusion: SAT 7.0 requires an eligible licence; there is no ACIS version selector.
• Rhino: use the Default preset for ACIS 4.0.
• Creo: open Options and choose Version 7 or 4; the default is 5.

For CATIA, follow the documented STEP → SAT route through a SAT-capable CAD tool. No BIMMER add-in is needed. BIMMER reads text SAT, not native CAD, STEP or binary SAB. See the CAD export guides for version-specific steps.

Per file, the upload boxes state it: Maximum 64 MiB per SAT (67 MB) and Maximum 4 MiB per IES (4.2 MB). Per batch, up to 100 files in one go — about 50 products when each row is one SAT and one IES; a batch with more files than that is refused as a whole, so split a larger catalogue into batches. Luminaire SAT exports are normally a few megabytes, so the size limit rarely bites; if one of yours does, it's usually a model exported with far more tessellation than a Revit family needs. Converting a whole catalogue? Send it in batches — each row is one product, and you get every family back in a single .zip. No limit on how many batches you run, only on the credits they spend. Where that option is available on your account, a fitting reviewed as one family with an IES for each head takes up to 10 IES files, just under 4 MiB combined, on its row; those files count towards the 100 as well. Fittings with several light sources have two more limits. Fittings with 2–5 heads, fittings with 6–10 heads and fittings set to One family, an IES for each head each convert one light per head in a batch of their own: when your rows mix them, Convert this group above Generate picks the group, and the others stay on the page for the next batch. On the website, one batch converts up to 4 families with several light sources one light per head; any more convert as one light source for the whole fitting (All heads together), and their result says so: generate them again as a second batch for one light per head.

Email admin@bimmer.lighting and a human answers it. That covers all of it: a file that won't convert, a Revit question, billing, VAT, a GDPR request. Send the SAT and IES that failed and you'll usually get the actual cause back rather than a checklist. We aim to reply within one business day, Monday to Friday, UK hours. Founding Edition members are answered first, for 12 months from purchase, plus the 1:1 onboarding session included with the licence — both are claimed from your Founding Edition page. Need a written SLA, SSO, or a data processing agreement? Ask — our Data Processing Agreement is published and applies automatically (we will countersign a copy if your process needs one), and Security & data answers most vendor questionnaires on its own.

Straight answers, and no dates we can't keep:

• STEP and binary SAB — not directly. BIMMER reads text ACIS .sat. Open the STEP in a suitable CAD/intermediary tool, repair and simplify it, then export ACIS 7.0 or 4.0; translate SAB the same way. Direct STEP upload is not a shipped feature and has no promised date.
• IFC — no. BIMMER produces a Revit family (.rfa). IFC is a different delivery format for a different job, and we don't produce it.
• Older Revit — no, and that one isn't ours to fix. Families are built on the Revit 2025 engine, and Revit files only open forwards: 2025, 2026 and newer. If you need a 2024-or-older target, tell us — we'd like to know how often it's asked for.
• macOS — the web app already works. BIMMER Cloud runs in any modern browser, Mac included; there is nothing to install. It's BIMMER Desktop that is Windows-only.