I find it quite funny that one of the ‘solutions’ to this problem is…don’t lock your computer (“you can prevent this behavior by not locking the computer when printing or exporting”). Thanks a lot! Revit is now telling us what we can and can’t do people! (Or, more correctly, the Revit support staff are telling us.)

This shows that you must give Revit What Revit Wants – or it will make your computer unresponsive!

Issue
You print or export your project in Revit and lock the computer during the progress to find Revit is unresponsive when later unlocked.

  1. Solution
    This occurs when Direct3D® Hardware Acceleration is enabled and the computer is locked > Ctrl + Alt + Delete > Lock Computer. There are two options to prevent Revit from becoming unresponsive when printing or exporting:
    Disable Hardware Acceleration through Options > Graphics > Graphics Mode. Un-check Use Hardware Acceleration (Direct3D). This will prevent Revit from going unresponsive when the computer is unlocked.
  2. If disabling Hardware Acceleration is not an option, you can prevent this behavior by not locking the computer when printing or exporting.

From http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13855078&linkID=9243099&CMP=OTC-RSSSUP01

You may be unfortunate enough to have to translate a BIM model from ArchiCAD into Revit. I have done this in the past (with limited success) using IFC.

However, I was browsing the AUGI Forums today and came across this post, which recommended the use of Solibri IFC Optimizer. This is a free Java utility that launches from your browser (you do need to register first). You then feed your IFC file into it, and it, well, optimizes the file.

I gave it a go and it reduced an IFC I recently worked on from 21.6 mb to 13.7 mb – so it actually does work.

Check it out if you are using IFC…

No doubt there are a few utilities that you just can’t do without. Here are a few of my absolute favourites:

  1. CutePDF Writer – just brilliant, and its free!
  2. 7-Zip – best archive utility (in my books), and again, its free!
  3. IrfanView – very fast and very functional image viewing and editing
  4. FolderGuide – if you are still on 32 bit Windows, this is the best way to navigate folders (in my opinion)
  5. CCleaner – great way to clean up after yourself
  6. FileZilla FTP Client – open source FTP client
  7. FREE PDF Tools – these are simply awesome, and yet again, totally free!

That was just a shortlist. I may post some more in future. In the meantime, what are your favourite utilities? Feel free to comment and share them with all of us…