Month: January 2013

From a devoted follower…

Luke Johnson

I wanted to share this with you, because it certainly brought a smile to my face:
Troy Whitehas sent you a message.

Date: 1/16/2013
Subject: Thanks for the add.
I have been a devoted follower of your blog for a few years now.
Excellent stuff! Your posts have helped me to streamline my workflow, and enhance my understanding of the revit back end. Appreciate all of your work! Thanks again.
…

Luke is a true Revit guru. His informative blog “What Revit Wants” is the last stop on my weekly review. As an operator who spends 50-plus living in the Revit-led BIM ecosystem, the importance of understanding the structure and logic of the software is key to developing an agile and efficient workflow. This is what Luke offers, a computational guide to the inner workings of this exceptional and complex program. His results are always interesting, sometimes paradigm shaking, and never lacking in thought.
-Troy White, BIM Modeler

 

Its good to be reminded that the blog is appreciated.  Thanks Troy!  (you can check his profile on LinkedIn)

PS.  I love it that Troy states “understanding the structure and logic of the software is key…”  This is the essence and purpose of knowing What Revit Wants and making it work for You.

Some followups from Twitter (also see the Comments):

Deleting a Design Option Set may prompt to delete View Templates

Luke Johnson

If a View Template includes a Design Option visibility setting, and then the associated Design Option Set is deleted, Revit will prompt you to delete the View Template:

Obviously, you can untick the box to retain your View Template.

Here is another post along similar lines:
Accepting a Primary Option results in Deletion of Drafting Views – explanation

Revit is 5% faster with Hyper-Threading disabled

Luke Johnson

Until we have full multi-core implementation on Revit, it is essentially looking at one core at a time (except for certain uses, such as Rendering).  Mark Cronin has tested whether Hyper Threading helps standard Revit – and his benchmarks indicate that it does not… the number to look at below is 318 (no HT) vs 335 (with HT).

He “averaged the results from the workstation, and the scores can be seen below:
RFO Averaged Results
They clearly show that there is at least a marginal improvement in the model creation portion of the testing, and a substantial performance reduction in the rendering section with Hyper-Threading disabled.”
via
Hyper-Threading for Revit? | betterREVIT

How far has multi-core implementation come in Revit?  Gordon Price on RFO:
File and view open are both multi-threaded, as are exporting of DWGs and images. Pretty sure printing is multi-threaded now too. And I am sure that updating a curtain wall is, just not sure yet if that is a function of curtain walls specifically, or if updating any family in a project is multi-threaded. Pretty sure it is not everything, as I just tested changing a wall thickness and it pegged my dual core VM at 50%. Edits to doors hit 49-50% for just a second. I suspect curtain walls got the optimized code because 1: it was easier and 2: really complex curtain walls kill performance

I recall that the revit.ini used to have a setting for multi-core wall join cleanup.  Steve mentions it in quoting a Revit technical note:
In Revit 2010, multi-threaded methods for printing and wall join cleanup have been made available. Multi-threaded hidden line removal for printing has been enabled by default.
via
Revit OpEd: Multi Core/Processors – Tech Note

So the revit.ini used to have ParallelWallJoins and ParallelPrintProcessing switches.  I’m not sure if these are still implemented in Revit 2013 (my .ini was at “C:UsersLukeAppDataRoamingAutodeskRevitAutodesk Revit 2013Revit.ini” but didn’t include any lines for these multi-core switches … However, it might still be possible to add them.)

Force Design Review to open PDF files using Vector information

Luke Johnson

If you open PDF files using the embedded vector data (ie. lines), you can then use ADR (Autodesk Design Review) to snap to PDF lines in order to measure them.

This may be useful to you if you are using ADR for markup tasks.  In our office, we are still very much PDF-centric, and various PDF readers allow you to measure PDFs anyway, so … you get the idea.

If you want to force ADR to open PDFs as vectors, follow the steps on the following post at RevitForum:
Design Review Tutorial

Some direct links (you will need to login to download):

Attached Files Attached Files

Thanks to Tim West for the post, the training guide and the registry tweak.  Nice job!

From Tim West’s PDF linked above

Manual steps from Instructions.txt:
XP
    Open your system registry editor with command ‘regedit’
    ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareAutodeskDesign ReviewPreferences’
    If there is not a key called ‘PDFImport’ please create it.
    Create a DWORD value whose name is ‘PDF Conversion Method’ and set its value as 2.
    Close your registry editor.
    Open your PDF files with ADR2012
    PDF will be converted to DWF as vector; you can save this DWF file by then.

Vista/7
    Open your system registry editor with command ‘regedit’
    Expand ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareAppDataLowSoftwareAutodeskDesign ReviewPreferences’ or ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareAutodeskDesign ReviewPreferences’
    If there is not a key called ‘PDFImport’ please create it.
    Create a DWORD value whose name is ‘PDF Conversion Method’ and set its value as 2.
    Close your registry editor.
    Open your PDF files with ADR2012
    PDF will be converted to DWF as vector; you can save this DWF file by then.

10 funny quotes from "the 5 most important BIM questions"

Luke Johnson

A recent post from Eat Your CAD that has been getting some interest on Twitter … I think more than a bit of it is tongue-in-cheek:
EYC – Addressing the 5 most important BIM questions

Here are a few quotes that tickled me:

  1. Adopting BIM is a difficult and often unrewarding task.
  2. “Open BIM” is what people on the leading edge are aspiring to and solves all your problems.
  3. You’ll be expected to do extra work at a much earlier stage than you would have traditionally at a much lower fee.
  4. BIM is based on a 3D model and therefore requires everything to be modelled as an exact copy of the final manufactured building component.
  5. the quicker your architects can become qualified in structural engineering, the more benefit you’ll gain from BIM.
  6. Mention that your closest competitors have all migrated to Revit and within a short space of time you’ll be promoted and your bosses will be able to smile smugly over their 5-iron and confidently state “We do BIM. What do you think about them apples?”
  7. You cannot do BIM if you are a civil engineer, as civil engineers don’t build buildings.
  8. To be safe, always leave an empty space at least 300mm clear of another discipline’s object.
  9. Model as much detail as you can
  10. Add every property that you can to every object

Funny stuff 🙂

25 videos for Structural Revit Users

Luke Johnson

AutodeskEd’s Youtube channel has been very busy – I have collected 25 videos specifically relating to Structural users, including information on:

  • Reinforcement
  • Rebar
  • Assemblies
  • Parts
  • Loads
  • Interoperability

Link to playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p1NoxzJz1A&feature=share&list=PLdw8FwXDx_djMvsIrcdzRMyEZ4WSBV4Fj

 

Check out lot’s more at:
Autodesk Building Solutions channel — http://www.youtube.com/user/AutodeskBuilding?feature=watch

WRW HelpDesk – Quickly find path to currently opened file in Revit

Luke Johnson

Question from Alaa El Kabbany:
I’m asking if anyone knows how to show the local file path on the revit file interface (like autocad)…..is there a way?

Answer:
Download the Revved tool package from here.  After it is installed, on your Add-Ins bar you can click on ReVVed — Open Folder to access the “local file path” in explorer.

You can download  ReVVed 2011 or ReVVed 2012 or ReVVed 2013 for free. (via PKH Lineworks)

Query via:
What Revit Wants: Revit 2013 Direct Download Links

Also, check out my recommended Revit add-ins on Pinterest.