Do U Revit?

Spooky Spiders

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:17:00 +0000

I’m a day late to a Halloween-themed post, but that’s ok because what I’m talking about are the four-legged kind. Or three…Or two…

My good Italian friend Diego Minato of RevitLandia together with C.G.C. Tec, an Italian company specializing in glazed aluminum curtain wall systems, have released free Revit families of their products. They can be downloaded from here. You need to register for a free account before doing so.

Then you’ll be asked to fill in your name, last name, email address, re-enter the email address, password, re-enter the password and then scroll all the way down to the bottom to check the typical checkbox to accept the privacy policy. Finally click “Prosegui” (Proceed) to finish up registration. You’ll get an email confirmation with a link to activate your account.

At some point you’ll get to the download screen, where you’ll find a PDF tutorial (one in Italian and one in English), a video that shows how to put a system together (no audio or subtitles; also shows you how to schedule components), and a Revit project file containing all the bits and pieces – curtain walls, glazing, sealants, spider connectors and structural supports.

The system was put together very nicely. You have to model the glazing separate from the structural support system. This was done to circumvent the limitation posed by custom panels, which can only be rectangular. Hopefully you can still understand how to use it even though parameter names are in Italian. Spooky!

Who’s dragging my stuff??

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:24:00 +0000

Today was the second time this happened to me in 2010. When I select an object in the canvas, the Options Bar (docked under the ribbon) seems to double itself between 2 to 4 times, then the ribbon refreshes and the duplicates disappear. A side-effect of this though is that whatever you selected in the canvas gets dragged vertically automatically. Very annoying and causes tons of issues as it happens with every object selection. This issue seems to happen on a laptop with a docking station and second monitor setup (mine was set as main monitor).

Yesterday I plugged the laptop into a projector and this seems to have made Revit freak out. So today I couldn’t work on my usual setup. Moving the Options Bar to the bottom puts an end to the madness, however I don’t like it docked there.

Thinking it’s a Ribbon issue, I decided to reset my QAT using the vbscript that Autodesk released earlier. That didn’t do it either, so I restored it back from the backup.

I finally got it to behave again by undocking (still logged into Windows) while Revit was open, then I closed Revit, re-docked (still logged in) and re-opened Revit. I had previously done a series of shut-downs, restarting without docking or attaching a second display etc. but none worked. Not sure what is going on but the above got the job done. I have not filed this with support yet.

Online help

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:18:00 +0000

Oh boy I’ve slacked. Sorry, but I’ve been very busy. I promise to keep writing, even though frequency is an issue at the moment with so many personal things going on.

Enough excuses, let’s talk about Online Help. Autodesk recently introduced an online version of the documentation for all 3 flavors of Revit. You can find direct links to them on this blog’s sidebar.

I tried using it this week to help a colleague through email by sending a link to a topic (Note Blocks). It’s very useful to have this tool, however it’s lacking an important piece of functionality: sharing the link easily! Unless I’m missing something, it seems very convoluted and can surely be improved a lot. Think about when you share a link from Google maps or Bing.

Right now you have to search for the topic and then find it in the contents. Since the last time I tried it, a new button showed up at the top-right (or I missed it the first time), which opens up the topic in the contents. So the typical workflow goes something like this:

On the left, click Search
Type the topic and click the Search button
Select from the list and the topic opens on the right
At the top right, click the button to open the topic in the contents
Alternatively you can navigate to a topic directly from the contents.

But now what do you do? The easiest (relatively speaking) way I found is to right-click on the topic in the contents and open in a new tab or window, so you can then copy & paste the link/hyperlink into an email or document. But wait!! If you’re using IE7 (not sure about IE8), it seems to get into a vicious circle and it doesn’t finish opening the topic. So this seems to only be possible with other browsers such as Firefox. So instead when you right click, go to Properties and copy & paste the address shown at the bottom. In a world dominated by cool gadgets and the iPhone, this is not very elegant.

Mirroring workflow on the Ribbon UI

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:42:00 +0000

The mirror tool used to be awesome. You click the icon and it defaults to the Pick option. You changed your mind in the middle of the command? No problem…just click the pencil button on the Options Bar to draw your mirror axis.

In 2010, this beauty gets thrown out with the bath water. You change your mind in the middle of the command? Tough, start over…pick your elements from scratch and re-mirror with the correct option. Clearly a step backwards and frankly I’m tired of it! It can be easily corrected because a similar approach already exists when using the Dimension tool.

When mirroring, the Modify contextual tabs are obviously different than the Place Dimensions tab, and will further differ based on the combination of selected objects. Once you start the Mirror command, the panels grey out, but I suppose they could give us another panel with different mirror axis options or present us with the old buttons on the Options bar. Clearly, this is another UI problem that needs addressed.

Editing Linework

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:26:00 +0000

Objects in Revit are shown in a view based on the Object Styles settings. Each view can then have its own overrides as defined in the Visibility/Graphics dialog and finally, each object can also be overridden at the instance level.

Revit also allows us to further refine how the different object edges are represented by using the tool on the Modify tab. In essence, you select what line style you want a particular edge to be and simply click on it to override. In some cases you’ll notice a blue grip at the end of each overridden line, but in other cases you don’t get them.

What do the grips do? They let you refine even further! By moving them along the edge, you can define where you want the override to apply. In other words, you define the start and end of the override.

Here are the basic rules for grip availability:

If the edge is a projected line, grips are available
If the edge is a sectioned line, grips are not available

I don’t know about you, but I find myself needing grip control in section views all the time. The current implementation makes it unnecessarily difficult to embellish sections when trying to utilize the model elements. Instead you end up having to draft & mask over more than should be necessary because you cannot adjust linework extents for sectioned elements. Am I alone on this?

Visibility mystery

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:23:00 +0000

Picture this…you have a Site project linked into an Architectural project. You go to a 3D view and nothing from the site file shows up. The treasure hunt begins.

It could be as easy as the workset assigned to the Site link being turned off. Or the link being turned off in the view. Or all the object categories that exist in the Site project file being turned off in the host view. Or having the link visibility being set to “custom” and all categories being turned off. Or the link being overridden in the view and turned off (yikes!). Or a filter’s visibility being unchecked. Or a particular workset in the Site project was closed when initially linking it in. Or a hidden section box was clipping the site project elements out of the view. Phew, I’m out of breath!

However, there is a condition where none of the above are the cause of the problem and could leave you scratching your head for some time. It’s a condition that exposes another little Revit shortfall which makes us beg for even more visibility control.

The problem is a workset in the Site project file that is set to not be visible by default in all views. In this particular case, the users were able to see the information in a plan view set to “By Linked View”, but in 3D views the Site project was invisible. It turns out that all site elements were on one workset set to not be visible by default. We don’t have control over the visibility of worksets in linked files and I think we really need to. The fix was to create a new workset that is visible by default in all views, delete the offending workset and move all objects to the new workset, and then rename it back to what the original one was. Mystery solved!

More on the UI – Text Leaders

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:07:00 +0000

Minor thing perhaps, but they all add up, don’t they?

The text leader option buttons in 2010 can be a lot better. First off, it’s hard to visually tell the difference between them and you have to read the label. The old ones were better at communicating their function.

Location is also an issue. Why stack them? It’s not intuitive at all. If you have left and right options, place them in left & right positions and not top and bottom!

Finally, if you’re reading this post, make sure to visit this other post and submit your feedback immediately. You’ll be helping yourself and others as well.

PS: Oh look! Seems like better leader icon placement is in the works. However, that ‘A’ is obnoxiously big and distracting. Make it smaller please!

Revit 2010 – UI oversight?

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:53:00 +0000

Prior to 2010, when you selected one or multiple views in the Project Browser, you were able to click the Properties button to bring up the View Properties dialog. However in 2010, there is no Properties button on the Options bar and no context menu is activated when views are selected. The View Properties button in your QAC stays grayed out nonetheless, so was this an oversight? I tend to think it was.

However, don’t freak out. The View Properties are still accessible via the right-click context menu.

Revit Training

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:06:00 +0000

During hard economic times, most firms commit the grave mistake of cutting their training budgets and support staff. It’s the easy way out and the easiest line item to justify. If I had my own firm, I’d figure out a way to keep it going and instead of laying half my staff off, I’d retain the good guys and invest in them so they’re even stronger when things turn around. You’ll need them more than ever when a wave of work hits your office.

This blog isn’t intended to advertize, but every once in a while something worthwhile comes by and you can’t help but pass it on, especially when asked nicely! So here goes a little bit of an ad for those who believe in the importance of training.

You surely heard of famous author Paul Aubin. Just don’t hold it against him for writing about AutoCad and AutoCad Architecture! He’s been teaching at Autodesk University for a long time and always has a very busy schedule. His Revit classes are very popular and so are his books. Lately he has been conducting online training and I’d highly recommend you to consider this option for your training needs. Here’s the pitch…I’m waiting for my cut Paul ;)

Paul F. Aubin Consulting Services began offering online live training classes earlier this summer. Several classes have been conducted and the reviews have been very positive. So far we have conducted a two-part Revit 2010 Conceptual Modeling Introduction (recorded sessions available for purchase now), a Tips and Tricks class and we are now in the midst of a five-part Family Editor Series (space still available).

I am writing today with exciting news. Session 1 of the Mastering the Revit Family Editor five-part class was attended by nearly 70 people! Initial feedback on this first session is very positive. We have switched to a new version of GoToMeeting software for this event that allows up to 200 registrants! Therefore we still have plenty of space available. Session 1 has been recorded and is available to all registrants now! Therefore, there is still time to sign up. Register today and view the recorded session to catch up before Thursday’s Session 2 airs.

These classes are conducted using GoToMeeting software. They are LIVE classes, not recorded and will be conducted by Paul F. Aubin using advanced materials from the latest edition of Mastering Revit Architecture (available August 7).

All registrants receive a 44 page handout and downloadable dataset with complete class notes and step-by-step tutorials from the class. These materials are not available any other way.

Mastering the Family Editor Series Class Information:

Five sessions will be taught in 50-minute segments every Thursday for the next four weeks.

A registration page has been posted containing complete details on each class. Please visit: http://www.paulaubin.com/GoToRAC/

Complete details are provided including, schedule, class size, pricing, registration information and secure checkout via PayPal.

Class Size:

The class size has been expanded to 200 participants! A registration is required for each computer that logs into the meeting. However, you are welcome to login on one machine in a conference room and use a projector. If you have any questions, please visit: http://www.paulaubin.com/contact.php, or reply to this email.

If you are interested in seeing the new release of Revit Architecture first-hand without having to leave your desk, sign up today for one or more of these information packed sessions. I Look forward to "seeing" you there!

Interested in what goes on behind the scenes in the publishing of CAD books? Visit: http://paulfaubin.blogspot.com/

Places

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 04:52:00 +0000

I’m finally back from going places…slowly :) So this post about “Places” seems timely. Now that I’m going to start working on a project in 2010, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of constructive criticism on the UI and other things.

This isn’t a new issue, but something that should have been fixed a long time ago. And if Autodesk’s main focus for the 2010 line was the UI…how on earth do you let something like this slip?

Some versions ago, we got “Places” in the Save and Open dialogs. Big deal, right? They have existed in other applications for quite some time, such as in Autocad. As is often the case, we get a half-baked solution in Revit.

Places are stored in 2 locations: the Revit.ini file and the Registry. Links stored in the Places dialog are stored in both the Revit.ini file and the Registry. Links added via Tools>Add Current Folder to Places or Right-Click>Add Current Folder are only stored in the Registry. This allows firms to push certain Places to all users through the Revit.ini file, while also allowing each user the ability to add their own unique links directly from the dialogs, which get stored in the Registry only.

What’s really annoying is the fact that you cannot rename the Place inside of the dialog if you add it via Tools>Add Current Folder to Places or Right-Click>Add Current Folder, since these do not show in the Places dialog. So imagine you want to add a link to 3 projects and they all follow your firm standards. There is a good chance the folders are named the same (say, “Central File”). So now I get 3 shortcuts for 3 unique projects with the same name and I cannot edit it. Brilliant eh? Oh, in Autocad you can rename the link straight through the UI in the dialog (right-click and select “rename”). This option does not exist in Revit.

However it’s possible if you edit the registry entry directly. Please be careful when doing this! Below is an image from a Vista 64 machine, so if you’re running a 32 bit OS, the location might be slightly different. Simply rename the value of the key to what you want it and restart Revit to see the changes.

Come on Factory, how hard can this be to fix once and for all?

AUGI | AEC EDGE

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:21:00 +0000

AUGI has done it again! Thanks to the efforts of its members, a new digital publication targeted to the AEC industry is now available for your viewing pleasure. It is so hot off the “press” that a link hasn’t even made it yet to the Publications section of the AUGI website ;)

Click the image above to view the in-browser digital edition, or if you prefer a copy for offline viewing, click here for further options. Thanks to all the volunteers and contributors that made this a reality, especially to esteemed Editor, Steve Stafford. Here’s what you’ll find in this inaugural edition, focused on Revit:

Revit Cross Discipline Articles:

How Can the Introduction of Business & Software Systems Affect your Business?
How To "BIM-Enable IPD"
A Little Help From My Friends Collaboration Between Consultants
Extending BIM Design Value Using The Revit API
A Trainer’s Perspective: Key Requirements For A Successful BIM Implementation
A General Contractor’s Venture Into BIM And VDC

Revit Architecture

Revit In A Large Firm: A Tale Of Implementing Revit
Getting Oriented With Revit’s Coordinate System
Make Room For Revit: Key Requirements For A Successful BIM Implementation
A Tutorial For Line Based Families
Revit In High School: Meet Two Progressive Teachers And Their Program

Revit Structure

Growing Revit Structure
Integrating Analysis Programs With Revit Structure
Revit Ready: Looking Back

Revit MEP

How To Play Nice: Sharing Revit Models Between Disciplines
Five Steps To Success With Revit MEP: The Reality
Putting The ‘I’ In Your BIM Content: Revit MEP Families That Capture Design Intent
Revit MEP Implementation At CTA Group: A Struggle With Promise

Departments

Contributed White Paper: Conceptual Design Modeling In Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010
Autodesk Insiders: Revit: An Autodesk Design/Build Project
AUGI Local Chapter Focus: South Coast Revit User Group (SCRUG)
Attorney At Large: Achieving IPD In 3D
Inside Track: The Latest Autodesk AEC Related Information!
Head's Up: Recent Known Issues And Problems Documented By Autodesk And AUGI Members

Streamlining Local File Creation – update (x64) v4

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:39:00 +0000

Hi all, please accept my apologies for not posting much lately. I’m currently on an “expedition” in Eastern Europe and spend most of my free time blogging about that instead of Revit! I’m sure you’re smart enough to find it if you want to know more ;) I’ll hopefully be able to return to the usual weekly schedule in July/August.

Anyway, I’ve completed the update of the Local File Creation script a month ago and forgot to post about it here. So this will be an easy post for me! With the new functionality built into Revit 2010, there’s less need for such a script. However we still intend to keep on using it as we have other functionality built-in which doesn’t exist in the Autodesk solution. So this is tailored specifically to our needs.

In the future I will be making changes to this script to include a GUI option and have the application make desktop shortcuts automatically. The application will also be centralized (either on a network or local drive…your choice). This means that you won’t need to keep placing a copy of the exe file in each project folder like you do now. This will make updating the app much easier. But that will be released later and most of the functionality will be very similar to the current version. These are the main updates:

Compatible with 2010 (32 & 64 bit) and works all the way to 2009 (32 & 64 bit) and 2008.
Adjusted some of the logic so now when creating a Detached copy, the Central is not copied to the C drive. You can also create a detached copy of a project while a local file for the same project is still running. This wasn't possible before.
The script ends properly and the splashscreen should not persist after it finishes. Please see the Known Issues section in the Readme.txt file for one case where you might still notice this problem.

Note that for both 32 and 64 bit versions, the installation folder is assumed to be C:\Program Files\ and that you’ll have a 32 bit version of Revit on a 32 bit OS and vice versa for 64 bit. As always, you can download the zip containing the documentation, AHK script, the compiled executable and icon from this AUGI thread (first post with version history). Enjoy!

Autodesk Announcement

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:11:00 +0000

Here’s a little nudge about something that you might consider as value-adding to your professional career in these tough times.

Autodesk Professional Certification

Take the 2010 Beta Exam and Upgrade your Certification

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Autodesk Professional Certification program is pleased to announce the release of the 2010 beta exams. The release of the final 2010 exams depends on your support! We need Revit Architecture 2010 test takers.

Take advantage of these benefits by participating in Beta testing

Exams are FREE for Autodesk Authorized Certification Center staff
Low cost exams for customers - $25 per test by using the consumer shopping cart
Gain a competitive edge by getting Certified on the latest releases

We encourage you to take advantage of this period so that you can update any existing certification or earn your first certification at no or a low cost. Don’t delay!

How can you participate?

1. Schedule your test before May 22. (Call your local Authorized Certification Center.)

2. Check out the preparation material available.

3. Make sure that they are delivered and completed by the end dates of the betas, May 22 (to be valid for 2010 certification status.)

Note: To gain Certified Associate status you only need to pass the Associate exam. To become A Certified professional you must pass both exams.

Why do we beta test our exams?

Whenever a new exam is created, the exam items need to be calibrated and tried out within a testing situation. In order to do this, exams are made available in a Beta format. After the items are tested within the Beta setting, each item is analyzed statistically and reanalyzed for technical accuracy, appropriateness, and readability.

What you should expect when participating in Beta testing?

The exam may contain small errors (this beta is to catch and correct these any errors.)
Exam questions may or may not be the same ones that appear on the final exam (this is why your feedback is important.)
Scoring may not be immediate, but will most often take place 6 weeks after taking the exam (score reports will only be delivered directly to the test takers.)
You will be asked to provide feedback on a short survey at the end of the test (thank you in advance.)
Test takers will be notified via email when their score is ready so valid email addresses are important.
The exams are free to your staff and very low cost to your customers.
You have the chance to provide feedback via a survey at the end of the test to help influence a better test.

If you have any questions about the Beta testing program, contact us at certification@autodesk.com.

Best regards,

Autodesk Learning Team

Some thoughts about Revit files

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:49:00 +0000

So now with the new feature built into Revit that recognizes the “DNA” of a central file and automatically checks the option to create a local file with the appended username, adding the word “central” at the end could actually cause confusion when your local file is named myproject_Central_dbaldacchino.rvt. This is why we’re probably going to stick with a script for creating local files like in the past, so we can control the naming conventions, besides some other benefits. Hopefully we’ll have an even better user-friendly version, which is still in the works.

That brings me to the purpose of this post: Why don’t the developers implement a file extension system that identifies what type of file we’re dealing with? Perhaps .rvc for Central files, .rvl for Local files and leave the .rvt for non-workset enabled files. This would make it totally clear what you’re dealing with, eliminating the need for arcane naming conventions. A unique, easily identifiable icon for each file type would also be a very welcome addition.

Illegal Immigrants

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Mon, 11 May 2009 03:48:00 +0000

No, this post won’t discuss such political issues. We’ll leave that to Lou Dobbs on CNN.

A lot of users enter symbols in Revit or any other application, by typing Alt + a series of digits. For example Alt+0178 results in ². In Revit 2010, this will work for the first character you type after using this technique for the first time since installing the application. After that, your screen will be taken over by foreign characters with each subsequent try.

It seems to keep changing with each try, even though you use the same digit combinations. I hope this gets fixed soon! In the meantime the workaround is to go to the Character map and copy & paste the symbol from there.

No Ribbon cutting at AU2009

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Fri, 08 May 2009 03:20:00 +0000

I was hoping we would celebrate the return to Phil’s outstanding classes this year at AU after his absence last year. But that doesn’t seem likely.

If you’ve ever been to AU and attended Revit classes, you HAVE to know what I’m talking about. I remember my first AU in 2005 and he made a huge impression on me. He inspires positivity in his approach to solving problems/shortfalls/perceived limitations and his classes were the ones that every power user yearned for.

I don’t believe anyone at Autodesk marketing knows about Seth Godin. Their marketing department is redundant and a colossal waste of money. They’re useless. You want to cut costs? There, I just solved one of your major problems; fire the whole department and turn the office space into a game room or something. Let’s make it even clearer: your users are your marketing machine. Sadly, you don’t seem to get it. Too bad.

I don’t necessarily agree with Phil’s views on the Ribbon UI, however I listen to him with big, wide-open ears as I don’t pretend to even measure up against his knowledge and insight. Personally I thought he was a bit aggressive and surprisingly “negative” perhaps in his criticism of the UI. But that’s the beauty of the world we live in: we can speak our mind and agree to disagree. I’m not working in production right now so I cannot express judgment of the new UI based on working experience with the product; I’ve only tested since January and agree on most of the issues outlined with tool placement, etc. If one factors in the increased amount of clicks, then I’d say there’s potential for decreased productivity. But one cannot infer that the productivity hit is linearly related, because we’re not interacting with the tools 100% of the time.

Anyway, I don’t want to delve on this because that’s not why I posted. I just wanted to express my utmost dismay at how this matter was handled. Sure, let someone else handle the Power Track. But reject perfectly legitimate class proposals? That’s as childish, unprofessional and immature of behavior as it gets. How sad.

Sites worth noting

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:44:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write about these for a while so here we go:

revitstore

Ian Howard is the main force behind this site. I didn’t know, but Ian used to work for Revit Technologies before Autodesk’s acquisition. This is a great website hosting good quality Family Content from UK Content Autodesk Consultant/Content Developer. It also contains lots of Tips and Tricks that are gradually being added, time permitting.

buildz

Zach Kron from Autodesk has started a great blog. Zach is a wizard with the new curtain panels in the new massing environment (those that Beta tested Revit know this!). I highly recommend subscribing.

As usual, keep an eye on my blog’s sidebar for the latest links to various resources of interest, as I don’t write about every link I add ;)

Help me please!

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:42:00 +0000

This is the feeling every new user experiences when getting into Revit (or any other app. for that matter). Revit comes with a decent set of datasets and tutorials which have been improving over the years. However when we open the Tutorials section from the Help menu/button, we are presented with a page that tells us how we download the content. It’s not very helpful if you’re asked to do a bunch of stuff before you get help now, is it?

Your office might have taken care of this for you by downloading the content on the network, fixing your Training Files paths, etc. How nice of them! But that’s not always the case with everyone or you might be the BIM Manager taking care of this. It’s relatively easy to download and unzip everything to the correct folder. However in Vista 64 (this could also apply to Vista 32, not sure), the tutorial chm files might not work correctly unless you click a hidden button. This is what I got when I installed mine for the first time:

So with AUGI to the rescue in this post, William explains how to fix the issue by right-clicking the chm file and clicking the Unblock button. Sweet!

Training content for Revit Architecture can be downloaded from here. And for the benefit of our Engineering colleagues, here are the links for Revit Structure and Revit MEP.

Revit 64 bit? Don’t use IE8!

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:59:00 +0000

I’ve been experiencing crashing events with both Revit 2009 and 2010. I finally narrowed it down to Internet Explorer 8. The funny thing is that these problems started with the released version of IE8 and not the Beta! This was filed this with Autodesk Support and turns out to be a known issue. Their response perfectly describes the symptoms I was experiencing. You have now been served!

“Thank you for choosing Autodesk Support.

Internet Explorer 8 is not recommended to be installed when used with Revit 2009 64 bit. There is a known issue with the recent files screen. The Recent Files menu is an HTML based window and uses Internet Explorer and has not been designed to be used with IE8.

IE8 is also not recommended to be used with Revit 2010 as it has not been designed or tested with it. The same problem does not exist with the recent files screen in the same way but it is apparent that if you have the recent files window up and TAB+CTRL between your windows while using 64 bit and IE8, it will crash. You can use IE8 if you do not have the recent files window open.”

Conditional formatting

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:52:00 +0000

So Steve stole the thunder this week and you already know how to do conditional formatting in Revit schedules. That Steve is one quick guy but after all, his readership eclipses my little corner here! Jokes apart, we were talking about how I stumbled across this hidden tool when trying to activate the Manage tab with shortcuts in Revit 2010. Now I just hope Autodesk doesn’t close the loop-hole. And guys, if you’re listening, please just add a button as we can use this tool in Architecture!

The main shortfall I noticed is the fact that you cannot do conditional formats based on other parameters. That would be high on my list of enhancements for this tool. To get around this bump, one has to leverage the power of calculated parameters in schedules to perform the number crunching. A simple Yes/No parameter could be used to raise a flag and your condition would just look for the value and format the cell accordingly.

We can actually add multiple conditions to test for, but it is very limiting because it assumes an “AND” operator between them. What if I want an “OR” (which is what one needs when testing to see if a parameter falls between certain values and criteria….they can’t all apply at the same time! An “AND” operator expects all conditions to be satisfied and would thus force the overall condition to fail). It also took me a while to figure out how to add or remove conditions from the list. By the way, why does this dialog use the label “Field” when referring to a parameter? Seems to lack consistency with Revit’s terminology.

So I’ll stop rambling now and discuss how I plan on using this new find. The first two things that spring to mind are to check for human errors (egress calculations) and for room area comparisons between actual and target area.

Checking Occupancy

Unfortunately Revit cannot do calculated parameters in tags (my jaws are hurting repeating this one!) and so we have to resort to a “stone age” method: use a calculated parameter in the schedule and then manually type a copy of the result into a shared parameter that is added to both the schedule and the room tag so you can display the information in plan. PS: You cannot use the built-in Occupancy parameter because it is Text….DUH!

Yes, yes I know, the API can be used to copy values for you probably, but WHY do I need to resort to this for something that is a required task on every job by every firm? I’m getting side-tracked again….

So at least now we can use conditional formatting to help us identify values that don’t match the calculated values, which would happen when room sizes change. Here’s an example calculated parameter:

In the schedule Formatting tab, select the parameter you want to add the condition to and type Alt+N to reveal the hidden gem:

Here’s an example of what the schedule would look like when values don’t match up.

Note: You can check the option Hidden field in the Formatting tab to hide the calculated parameter used for the condition and it will still work just fine.

Some observations: Null values are ignored in calculated parameters (see the yellow cells above) and in conditional formatting. My condition “Flag = No” is not being met because the value is null, yet Revit is not coloring my cells. This needs fixed!

Room Area

For this scenario, I want to ensure that Actual Area:

Is never below the Target Area
Is never more than 5% of the Target Area
Never varies by more than 100 SF from the Target Area

So the formula for parameter Flag would be something like this:

or(not(abs(Area - Program Area) < 100 SF), % Area Variance < 0, not(% Area Variance < 0.05))

where Area is the Actual Area, Program Area is the Target Area, & % Area Variance is (Area - Program Area) / Program Area.

Here’s what the resulting schedule would look like:

In the above example I added a conditional format (in orange) to highlight cases when the % Area Variance was below 5%, but the area difference was 100 SF or more.

Some observations: It would be really valuable if we could specify the boolean between multiple conditions instead of having Revit assume an “AND” operator. And we should be able to specify different colors for the various conditions instead of just one!

If that were the case, one would be able to highlight rooms with areas above the target with one color, and others below the target with another color. Finally, I also noticed that for Yes/No parameters, the Conditional Formatting dialog would let me change the value of my parameter Flag to “Yes”, but it would revert it back to “No” when I clicked out of the dialog or clicked on something else. Not sure why.

All in all this tool is of great value and I’m sure lots of you will find various ways to use it. Let me know how you intend to implement it!

Houston RUG

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:46:00 +0000

When: Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Where: This month's meeting will be hosted by SHW, 6:00pm - 7:30pm

1st Floor Koch Building Classroom

20 East Greenway Plaza

Houston, TX 77046

Click here for map and parking instructions

This Month's Topic : What's new in Revit 2010.

Please RSVP to hrug@gensler.com no later than NOON on Tuesday, April 21st, if you plan to attend.

TotalCAD will be providing pizza and refreshments.

Open Discussion
Bring your questions, answers and solutions to the table to discuss and resolve or forward relevant topics for future meetings to hrug@gensler.com

The Houston Revit User Group will meet on the fourth Wednesday of each month. In order to make this a success this will need to be a group effort. All topics, presentations, and discussions will be generated by the group, so come ready to discuss!

We welcome change of scenery! If you would like to host a future meeting or have a topic of discussion, please send an email to hrug@gensler.com

BIM Workshop organized by TSA

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:01:00 +0000

Last Friday, 3rd April, the Texas Society of Architect’s BIM Task Force hosted the first in a series of BIM Workshops at the University of Houston. The intent is for these workshops to be held around the state, so if you’re in Texas, make sure to check the TSA website for upcoming events. It was a beautiful day outside and even though this workshop was open to students, not a single soul showed up.

Most of the attendees were still trying to wrap their heads around BIM, but there was a good representation of firms and individuals that were already in the implementation and maturity stages. This workshop is perfect for a big-picture overview of BIM and I encourage PM and Management/Ownership level staff to attend. I was disappointed that I was only able to go with my usual “choir” (the ones that already know the song and are ready to move to the next stage), as no one in our office other than Architectural production was able to make it. This was the perfect opportunity to have Designers, Structural, MEP and PM staff to all hear the same song from external sources, which they might deem more “official” and “believable”. You know, if your dad tells you to do something, you’re prone to ignore it, but if you hear it from someone else, then it’s a law of nature ;)

If there was any doubt that Revit was the most popular BIM solution, after the presentation those doubts would have cleared up. The presentations were kept as vendor-neutral as possible and the presenters did not engage in marketing talk, which was great. However the screenshots shown as part of the case-studies were unmistakable. At the workshop, three software vendors were available (Graphisoft, Nemetschek and Autodesk) to discuss their products and services.

For those that have never seen the now infamous graphs of productivity declines in our industry, together with the “saw-tooth” diagrams of data loss in the delivery process (can’t find a link to this on the web; please paste one in a comment if you have it!), and how we should shift our focus to the early stages of a project in a BIM environment (link to attachment on AUGI forums; page 8), you probably formed a perfect mental picture now and are able to sketch them in your sleep!

One topic of discussion that came up was how to use Interns in an office practicing BIM, given the fact that BIM requires a higher understanding of construction and we typically don’t need as much drafting help such as “picking up red-lines”, which is very prevalent in the traditional CAD process. The solution is to simply not look at interns as “cheap labor” and make CAD monkeys out of them, but to mentor them into becoming the designers, architects and engineers of the future. Sadly, I see very little mentorship going on from experienced people (especially partners) in the firm. Granted that their time is billed at higher rates and all, but how do we expect to nurture the next generation of professionals if we keep our young ones doing casework plans, toilet layouts and parking schemes for an entire year?

There were a couple of really good presentations that dealt with the people side of the implementation process and offered some tips about how to select pilot projects, debunked some myths about “which project should be in BIM vs CAD”, and offered some great advice on how to manage teams to help them succeed. Overall it was a great workshop and if you’re in Texas, make sure to send your non-believers to the next event, which will be held in another city.

Revit 2010 to ship with Classic UI

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:00:00 +0000

I’ll probably get in trouble for divulging this information, but I’m very excited about some last minute changes to Revit 2010. The new Ribbon interface will come with the option to change it to Classic Mode and we will have a couple of additional tabs and buttons.

But the Factory didn’t stop there: they gave use new revamped text tools that will be the envy of all text editing features out there. I’m finding it hard to contain my excitement! We should be getting Revit 2010 soon and I can’t wait to take advantage of these great features. Here’s a sneak peak:

EDIT: What started as a pure joke turned out to be true. Psychic? Absolutely...not! But hey, I'll take credit anyway ;) So to enable Classic mode, follow this link. To make it easier to switch back and forth, use this utility, courtesy of Greg at Revit3d.com.

Volume Frenzy

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:14:00 +0000

In my last post I made mention to some behavior I ran across when scheduling volumes. The reported figures varied when scheduling Volume or Material: Volume, so I set out to study Revit’s logic. Note that Material: Volume is available in a Material Take-Off schedule, which is the schedule type used for these tests.

To understand the behavior, I ran 3 scenarios by creating a simple family made up of a 1’x1’x10’ solid and then scheduled it. Here are the first set of findings based on the solid’s LOD (Level of Detail):

Next I added a 1’x1’x1’ “control” solid to further understand how these two volume parameters look at solids in families. This control solid was set to Fine only for now (in the same family).

Lastly, I set the control solid to both Coarse and Fine.

As you can see, these values vary depending on the LOD of solids within your families. So you have to be very careful how you build them if you intend to use them for quantity take-offs. I guess you can now understand why I used the word “Frenzy” in the post title ;)

I personally think this logic is a little crazy, but I’ll be eager to read your comments. At least now you have an in-depth study of Revit’s “logic”. Now on to a summary in words:

For an object to schedule in a Material Takeoff Schedule, there HAS to be a solid set to Fine detail. A regular schedule doesn’t have this requirement.
Material: Volume reads the Total of Fine solids.
Volume reads the Total of Fine solids if no Coarse and or/Medium solids exist. Otherwise, it first reports the Total of Coarse solids and if there are none, it reports the Total of Medium solids.
There's no clear cut winner of which is the most reliable parameter. My suggestion? If you want to schedule the volume of particular solids, make sure to set their LOD to Fine and then use Material: Volume. Why? Because it has less obtuse rules!

So I ask myself: instead of these “fuzzy” rules, why not have parameters built into each family template which we would use to control what and how volume is scheduled?

PS: Thanks to Daniel for the extensive brainstorming ;)

Scheduling the Unschedulable

d.baldacchino@sbcglobal.net — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:26:00 +0000

The more we venture into BIM (taking real advantage of our Revit models), the more this subject is starting to tick me off. You’ve been warned!

Let’s take a look at what caused this “rant”.

Here you can see the family parameter “Structural Material Type”. I want to use this really bad because I’m doing quantity take-off schedules for all elements, which include structural framing elements residing in a linked file. So I want to create a framing schedule for steel and another for concrete. The reason is that I want to find the total weight of each material in the job and as you know, concrete and steel have different densities.

So to calculate this, one can create a calculated parameter in the schedule and voila. I would prefer to expose the density used in the schedule (so everyone can see it. I don’t like to bury assumed values in formulas if possible). However since the families reside in a linked file, you cannot add this information to your project via a project parameter, so you can only have one formula with a fixed value (one density value). So the only way to do this is to create schedules for framing members with different densities. I know, I can get into the linked file, but that’s beside the point.

Unfortunately, you cannot schedule the above highlighted parameter, which would typically raise the question, then why the %^&**&?!!@? do we have it? How can I filter views/schedules of my insanely intelligent model? I cannot even filter by family name or type either!

This is only one little thing I came across and is very irritating. I found more issues when calculating volumes, but that will be another very lengthy post, so stay tuned.