I was recently trying to link Revit models to a federated file on Revit 2021. The models were failing to link, but no error message or warning was provided. The federated host model and the links were all initiated and ‘live’ collaborated models on the Autodesk Construction Cloud.
Resolution:
I had previously used this method ( Moving the Revit BIM360 CollaborationCache Folder to a Secondary Hard Drive ) to move the cache for BIM 360 / ACC Docs to a secondary hard drive. Windows Explorer showed this hard drive was essentially running out of space. So Revit was failing to link the model, but wasn’t providing a ‘insufficient hard drive space’ warning.
But why was the hard drive filling up?
I reviewed the files and folders and discovered that one particular program was generating massive log files:
The final resolution was quite simple – delete the massive log files, and then the files linked to Revit fine. I used 7-zip with the “Fastest” and “Delete files after compression” option to archive and delete those logs.
To future-proof this scenario, I’m considering writing a Powershell script to detect and possibly archive and delete the existence of massive log files.
First, let’s manage some expectations – Aconex is generally viewed as a closed platform. They seem to deliberately resist platform-level integration with other tools like BIM 360 and Revizto. However, you can achieve the promise in the title of this post – with a bit of work!
The basic steps are:
Setup a sync between the Aconex Doc Register and Autodesk Docs (BIM 360 Document Management), using the Aconex PIF and Autodesk APIs
Connect the BIM 360 project to the Revizto project and connect your BIM 360 ‘official Aconex’ PDFs to Revizto 2D Sheets.
Aconex provides a PIF (Project Integration Framework). This essentially acts as an API, and clients are able to build integrations between Aconex and other tools using their own budget.
The Aconex PIF is hard to find on the inter-webs…
As part of my strategic consultancy work as a Director at Virtual Built Technology, I have assisted clients in setting up the Aconex to BIM 360 sync. This will require considerable time, effort, $$ and planning. Although the scope is basically the same for every Aconex client that wants this, it seems individual Aconex clients will be charged significantly for this development to occur and operate on their ‘own’ PIF.
Once complete, you will begin to see PDFs arriving in Autodesk Docs from Aconex on a daily / nightly basis. Depending on how you have briefed the Aconex development consultants, you may end up with some interesting PDF file naming in the BIM 360 environment – so how can we deal with that?
Step 2a – BIM 360 Preparation Script for Merging Filenames to a single Folder
Let’s say you have your Aconex-to-BIM360 sync running, and you have PDFs arriving in 360 into “Discipline” folders like Architectural, Structural and so on. Not bad! But what if your PDFs are named like this:
SheetNumberX_Rev_1.pdf
SheetNumberX_Rev_2.pdf
SheetNumberY_Rev_1.pdf
etc
When thinking about downstream applications like Revizto, this is really sub-optimal. Why? Because a Revizto 2D sheet will want to connect directly to a SINGLE BIM 360 PDF document with Versions – not to a mangled set of ‘revision suffixed’ pdfs like the above. So we need to clean this up! And it needs to be repeatable and automated…
For this, I have created a PowerShell script. Here is a description of the logic in the script:
it takes a list of BIM 360 Docs folder paths (the local folder path from Windows Explorer address bar), these are ‘monitored folders’
those folders need to be ‘synced’ prior to the script running (I’m still looking for a way to call the Autodesk Desktop Connector sync from a Powershell script, for now you have to right-click in Windows Explorer first)
it will process the folder list and:
create a subdirectory called “Current”
create a logfile in that subdirectory called deepSpaceSync.log
split the filenames at the _REV_ part
process each available Revision number individually in a loop (to ensure Aconex revisions are stored sequentially into BIM 360 versions)
check if the file was already copied – and skip it (using existence of that filename in the log folder)
or, copy the file to the “Current” subfolder
Sleep 5 minutes between each loop to allow Autodesk Desktop Connector sync to catch up.
So this script essentially merges the messy “REV” filenames into a nice clean SheetNumber.pdf filename structure AND actually creates BIM 360 file versions in the cloud (due to the sleep functionality).
Step 2b – Revizto 2D Sheet to BIM 360 PDF Connection
Now that we have a nicely named, version-rich PDF on BIM 360 Docs, its time to connect that up to Revizto.
Firstly – you should always publish 2D sheets from Revit BEFORE setting up the Docs connection if possible, as this is the only way to get the automated viewport overlays (Note – you can export with “Sheet coordinates only” option in Revizto Sheet Exporter from Revit).
Secondly – you then
open Revizto
ensure you have connected Docs to the right BIM 360 hub in Revizto
browse to the “Current” folder for a specific disciplines PDFs
click “Send to 2D”
select all and Done
Connecting Docs to Revizto 2D Sheets
then review that the correct sheets are going to be replaced and connected to the BIM360 PDF
Confirm that sheets are correctly connected using the Sheet Number
Final steps
Once your PDFs are flowing well between platforms, you may want to automate further. For example, the PowerShell script provided above could be set to run as a Windows Task. You would want it to run as soon as possible after the Aconex scheduled sync to BIM 360. As always, you should monitor your inputs and outputs for any problems or gremlins.
Done! You now have official documents from Aconex flowing regularly into Revizto via BIM 360. This means your site teams using Revizto on the iPad can now be accessing the official For Construction PDF Drawings (synced from Aconex Doc Register) while in the Field!
When a recent update to Autodesk Desktop Connector forced a migration to Autodesk Docs, file paths were generally change like this:
FROM – C:\Users\USERNAME\BIM 360\YOURFOLDERS
TO – C:\Users\USERNAME\ACCDocs\YOURFOLDERS
If you were doing some interesting tricks with BIM 360 Docs, and sharing and federating Revit models as non-initiated files on BIM 360, you may find that links were broken and “Not Found” in Manage Links after that latest Desktop Connector installation.
But don’t worry! You can just set a symbolic link to point from the old BIM 360 Docs location, to the new location. The Command Prompt script looks like this:
The moment after this script was run, I was able to hit Reload from Manage Links in Revit and the new location was detected and links were loaded successfully. Note that they still appear in Revit as if they are in the old location, but really it is reading the latest data from Autodesk Docs, and that new location is being updated by Autodesk Desktop Connector.
At this stage it appears those links are still working, as the Revit CollaborationCache is a different technology to the simple file sharing mechanism of Autodesk Docs.
Today I was trying to open a particularly stubborn DWFx file. In Autodesk Design Review 2013 it would stall completely. ADR 2018 would throw an error, crash or stall as well. I ended up using Autodesk 360 and Navisworks 2019/2020, and these were able to read the model.
However, in the process I found these links to install the very latest version of Autodesk Design Review:
What happens if you enable BIM360 Design Collaboration on a project, but would then like to switch it off? I asked Autodesk this question, and here is part of the response (in italics):
Unfortunately we cannot disable active services on specific projects. Once a service is active, it remains active.
…
If the project is underway and there is information that cannot be moved (such as issues/ RFI’s, etc), then my recommendation would be to make sure no one has access to the Design Collaboration module on the project.
…
If you would like to see a feature implemented that allows the ability to deactivate a service, you can share your thoughts and request it via the Ideas Board using this link: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/bim-360-ideas/idb-p/2032
In light of the above, if you do want to make sure no one has access to Design Collaboration, switch it off per-person in the Project Members page as shown below:
Logout from Autodesk services prior to starting Desktop Connector. You can do this easily with the sign out option at top-right of Autodesk Desktop App.
Through Task Manager – Details, attempt to “End Task” on these. Probably AdskLicensingService.exe won’t close.
Then try to start Autodesk Desktop Connector again from the Start Menu.
You can monitor starting of Desktop Connector in the tray.
Having recently installed some more storage hardware, and previously posted about moving folders with symbolic links, I then decided to move my BIM 360 Glue cache folder and Navisworks Cache folder to a secondary hard drive. I did this using symbolic links.
You need to:
start a Command Prompt as Administrator
use the commands shown below
Moving BIM 360 Glue cache storage location:
if exist "%localappdata%\Autodesk\Bim360Glue 2016\LocalCache" rename "%localappdata%\Autodesk\Bim360Glue 2016\LocalCache" bim360glue2016.old
mklink /d "%localappdata%\Autodesk\Bim360Glue 2016\LocalCache" R:\BIM360Glue2016
if not exist R:\BIM360Glue2016 MD R:\BIM360Glue2016
robocopy /mir "%localappdata%\Autodesk\Bim360Glue 2016\bim360glue2016.old" R:\BIM360Glue2016\
Moving Navisworks cache storage location:
if exist "%localappdata%\Autodesk\Navisworks 2019\LocalCache" rename "%localappdata%\Autodesk\Navisworks 2019\LocalCache" Navisworks2019Cache.old
mklink /d "%localappdata%\Autodesk\Navisworks 2019\LocalCache" R:\Navisworks2019Cache
if not exist R:\Navisworks2019Cache MD R:\Navisworks2019Cache
robocopy /mir "%localappdata%\Autodesk\Navisworks 2019\Navisworks2019Cache.old" R:\Navisworks2019Cache\
After you have run the scripts above, you can delete the old folders with the .old suffix (Navisworks example shown below).
