I saw this message from Revit today and I wanted to share it with you:
RVG files used to be Revit’s way of saving Groups out, until RVT became the standard for saving Groups. From the message, it looks like this occurred circa version 9.
Text-only: The .rvg file you have attempted to load is no longer supported by Revit. If you wish to use the data in this file, you need to load it as a group into release 2008, where it can be saved out as an .rvt, or load it into release 9.1, where it can be saved out as an upgraded .rvg file. If you need help, please contact Autodesk Support.
So, if you have any old-school RVG files kicking around, you probably should upgrade them before it becomes too much of a pain to do so!
What Revit Wants finally hit 1000 subscribers on 7 June! Interestingly, I also made my 1000th post during the past week. Thanks for all of your comments too, I enjoy the interaction. I hope you are enjoying the blog.
There are 75 posts in my Drafts folder – so there is plenty of Revit goodness still to come 🙂
And let me know if there is something interesting you would like me to post – message me on Twitter @lukeyjohnson .
“From an industry perspective, we have really been expanding BIM across the lifecycle, starting with architects when we first moved Revit, and then with the engineering disciplines, and now we are pushing out from the design disciplines into construction with the MEP fabrication application MAP that we acquired last year,” Lynch said.
“And from a technology standpoint,” Lynch continued, “Autodesk is very clear about our direction to increase the services we deliver through the cloud, through infinite computing and mobility. Vela is all cloud based and runs on mobile devices and is tightly aligned with our focus on mobility to the cloud.”
If you want to know more about Vela: Vela Systems provides Field Management Software for construction. Unlike carrying pads of paper and tubes of drawings on the jobsite, Vela Systems combines mobile technologies and BIM at the point of construction with reporting for management. http://www.velasystems.com/
Revit MEP users have had access to Embedded Schedules for a while now. However, the Revit 2013 OneBox version gives everyone the ability to easily utilise Embedded Schedules. Have you used them yet?
Embedded Schedules are available for the following Categories: Rooms, spaces, duct systems, piping systems, or electrical circuits (do you know of any others??)
Architecturally, it makes the most sense to use a Room Schedule or a Space Schedule. If you opt to use a Space Schedule, this means you will need to add Spaces to your model (Subscription users may want to take advantage of the Space Naming utility). Once that is done, you can then Schedule Rooms IN the Space Schedule (first image below), and then create an Embedded Schedule for Doors, for example. This will show you which Doors are in which Rooms.
Check out the images below. In the third one, I use a calculated text value of “” to ‘indent’ the Embedded Door Schedule, to make things a little bit easier to understand.
A nice little benefit of adding Spaces is that you can also take advantage of Zones (HVAC Zones). Architectural users may re-appropriate Zones as a way to sort and group Spaces when doing a multi-building, single file RVT model.
Railings: When you create a railing in an Autodesk Revit 2013 project, new railing types are available that include top rail and handrail properties. When you upgrade a project, if the new rail (top rail and handrail) properties do not display in the railing Type Property dialog, duplicate the existing railing type, and the new rail properties will be available in the duplicated type.
I actually don’t need to transmit RVT files too often (yet). However, I often want to archive a ‘snapshot’ of all the data associated with a project. eTransmit for Revit makes this possible – and relatively easy. I recently used it to archive a project, and the resulting folder contained 235 files!
Obviously, you need to be on Subscription to download. Here are the links:
Looks like the BIM (model) of the Earth is going to be built by computers, not people: Google is using a new technology to automatically generate 3D buildings from 45-degree angle aerial photography made by overlapping passes of aircraft. Each airplane has five cameras: four that point at 45 degrees, and one that points down.
You want to make a Keynote Schedule (or Legend) that is manually populated (you pick which Keynotes show in the Schedule). Given that your filtering options are limited, here is one way:
SHORT VERSION Place Detail Components in a Legend View, tag them with User Keynotes, and use a Keynote Schedule filtered by Sheet. Place Legend View and Keynote Legend (Schedule) on the sheet…
STEP BY STEP
Create a Detail Component family with some geometry in it (eg. a circle) and load it into your project
Create a Legend View in your project, call it KEYNOTE POPULATION view or something
Place a bunch of instances of the Detail Components from point 1 into the Legend View
Using Keynote Manager, create a list of notes that you want in your Keynote Schedule, preferably under a suitable TopLevel note
Apply the appropriate Keynote file to your project
Start tagging the Detail Components in the Legend View using a USER Keynote – select each item in your list of notes from your Keynote file
Create a Keynote Legend and select ‘Filter by Sheet’
Place the Legend View AND the Keynote Legend on the Sheet that you want the Legend to appear on
Turn off Model and Annotation elements using the master switch in V/G of the Legend View
The manually selected (user) Keynotes have been shown, but the actual Detail Components in the Legend View are hidden!
Extra tips: The Legend View is used so it can be placed on multiple sheets. You will need to place the Legend View AND the Keynote Legend on each sheet that you want these notes to show on (because we are utilising the ‘Filter by Sheet’ setting).
Create a View Template (2013) for KEYNOTE POPULATER ON/OFF and apply it to the Legend View. Using this Template, you can quickly switch the Model and Annotation categories On and Off for these tricky Legend Views.
Make a Keynote Tag that actually includes the Key Value and Keynote Text, with a suffix like ‘user keynote’. This is just to make your life easier while tagging in the Legend View.
Keynotes are one of the least-understood and most-ignored tools in Revit … but they can be awesome if used correctly.
On a slightly unrelated note – Keynote Schedule and Keynote Legend are interchangeable terms (to me). The actual term is really ‘Keynote Legend’, but it looks exactly like a Schedule, so … confused yet? These are different to KEY Schedules …
