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Funny Revit Error Messages

August 16, 2012January 14, 2020 Luke Johnson

Go Team Leo:

Helpful…

Revit time travel?

Ever felt this way? (via (@apertedesign)

Even Revit knows that new features will be added in the future:

This post used to be titled Another dimension beyond XYZ? Inches to the fourth power …
but I have decided to collect funny Revit error messages and put them all here.

I received this message from Revit recently:

Download resources for book Introducing Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012

September 5, 2011May 17, 2017 Luke Johnson

Here is the resource page where you can download datasets for the book Introducing Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012

Revit 2012 All Direct Download Links RAC RST RMEP

April 7, 2011May 17, 2017 Luke Johnson

Update: now try this method

Revit Architecture 2012

Revit Structure 2012

Revit MEP 2012

I recommended using Firefox with Downthemall to download these files. Finally, be sure to confirm the checksums / hashes before beginning the install.

EDIT: Some people were having problems with these links. However, this should no longer be a problem.

If you are interested in Student version links, go to this page.

Do you know what Revit likes? (6 Phases of a Revit User)

January 27, 2011March 5, 2019 Luke Johnson

Revit Fox recently re-posted about the 6 Phases of Revit. Ultimate credit for this apparently goes to Chris Zoog.

It is “perhaps the most re-posted Revit resource in history!”
http://seilercadsupport.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/the-6-phases-of-a-revit-user/

One of the oldest blog posts I found about it was at REVITit http://revitit.com/blog/?page_id=207

I am trying to find the ‘original’ post document to link to it – anyone have any idea where the ‘oldest’ ‘in the wild’ version of this exists?

In harmony with the title of this blog, I thought the description of the final phase was worth re-stating (yet again, I know…) Here it is:

You have mastered nearly all things Revit. You “know” what Revit “likes”, and what it “dislikes” during model construction, a sixth sense, really. You spend your time exploring and tweaking advanced scheduling, OBDC, external parameters, AR3. You have a template to beat all templates, families for every situation.

To know What Revit Wants is indeed to “know” what Revit “likes”, and what it “dislikes”…a sixth sense, really.

Revit 2011 Secret #8 – Adaptive Components are Nearly Cool

April 13, 2010May 19, 2017 Luke Johnson

The existence of the Adaptive Component feature isn’t really a secret. But it is one of the coolest things about Revit 2011. Imagine a family that lets you push and pull points in 3D space…and imagine that those points then drive all the geometry inside the family.

It is very nearly cool. However, I say ‘nearly’ because there are definitely some serious limitations. Autodesk has come out and listed some of these limitations, such as:
adaptive components can only be placed in a conceptual mass family, an in-place mass, a curtain panel by pattern family, or another adaptive component family.

This is a real shame, because this is going to be one of the most powerful modelling tools in Revit 2011. If only we could use them in all categories!

Look out for some very cool forms in the next few weeks, as users start to get the hang of Adaptive Components. And look out for some very neat workarounds and tricks to get the most from this new feature.

SuperTip #2 – Planes

April 12, 2010May 10, 2017 Luke Johnson

No, not aeroplanes: we are talking about Reference Planes. So, the tip is:

Always name reference planes that you intend to keep and use.

Reference Planes lie at the very core of What Revit Wants. Revit is a program, so it needs parameters. In order for understand objects in 3D space, it needs to establish a ‘plane’ to work from. Obviously, Reference Planes are the basic, garden variety type of Revit plane – there are also Grids and Levels. These are just planes that do some special things, like host a view.

If you want to quickly see what planes exist in your project, open a 3D view and then start the ‘Set Work Plane’ command. This dialog shows all the NAMED planes, including grids and levels. Can you start to see why you should name Reference Planes you intend to keep and use? That way, you can quickly make them ‘current’ by using this command.

This also allows you to clean up your drawing. If you adopt this tip, let’s say you come back to a drawing a few months later and it is absolutely cluttered with Reference Planes. Which ones can you safely delete? Well, you have named all the important ones, so you can delete the rest!

Encoding 64 bit Walkthroughs (4 GB limit, AVI corruption)

January 14, 2010April 30, 2018 Luke Johnson

Update: check out this page for the 64-bit Xvid codec

I encountered a problem today related to walkthrough creation in Revit 2010 64 bit with Vista 64 bit. I was exporting a large walkthrough to uncompressed AVI format, and the file size would reach 4.00 GB (4,294,967,296 bytes), and then corruption of the AVI would result. It appears that a 4 GB limit was being imposed at some point in the walkthrough creation process.

Therefore, I tried to use an encoding format. When using Revit 32 bit, I recall that I had a number of options in the Video Compression ‘codec’ dialog when exporting a walkthrough. However, in Revit 64 bit, I only had a couple of basic options (Microsoft Video 1, Intel IYUV Codec, Full Frames (uncompressed)).

After some searching, and trialling a few different ideas, I found that I could access some decent codecs in this box after installing Shark007’s 64 bit components (link below).

64 bit Encoding Components

In addition to the above, it is recommended that you install Shark007’s 32 bit Codec Pack (link below):
Vista Codec Package 5.5.3 Final

After installing both of the above and restarting Revit (you may also need to restart Windows), I was intermittently able to access an additional filter in the dialog called ‘ffdshow’ – clicking ‘Configure’ opened up a whole range of encoding formats for use!However, there appear to be a few problems:

The ‘ffdshow Video Codec’ encoder only appeared in the Video Compression dialog when a certain ‘Size Crop’ and resolution were selected. For me, the only settings that consistently seemed to work were: Size Crop width = 150 mm, and export resolution 886 x 500.
The corruption still seemed to result if the uncompressed AVI format would have exceed 4 GB (even while using a compressed codec).
Choosing H264 actually crashed Revit.
WMV 8 using libavcodec simply did not proceed past the first frame.

Given the above limitations, my solution at this point is:

Split the walkthrough into parts that have a size less than 4 GB (ie. part 1 = frames 1 to 100, part 2 = frames 101 to 200 etc) and use FULL FRAMES (UNCOMPRESSED) AVI format.
Use VirtualDubMod to ‘append’ these segments together, and
Use VirtualDubMod to ‘Save As…’ a different format. I was able to choose ‘Cinepak’ compression in VirtualDubMod, which turned my approx 5.4 GB uncompressed AVI into a 167 MB file in only about 5 mins of processing time.

After spending quite a few hours trying to make this work in a satisfactory and simple manner, I decided to contact our reseller and lodge a support call. I will let you know if I learn anything helpful.During this investigation, I tried a few things without success. They may be of interest to you (see links below).

Windows Media Encoder 64 bit

Xvid 64 bit

x264 64 bit

With what Attitude do you use Revit?

November 20, 2009May 13, 2017 Luke Johnson

No doubt you would agree that our ‘attitude’ can have a big effect on our lives. If we look at things with the right outlook and viewpoint, we are more likely to feel successful and satisfied. So how does this relate to Revit?

There are a number of ways to approach Revit as a software platform. Consider some examples:

“Revit is a modeling tool, and I want it to be able to easily model any form I can conceive.”
“Revit is a drafting tool, and I want it to be able to draft quickly and easily, and I demand absolute graphic control over every single visible 2D element.”
“I believe Revit should be intuitive and easy to use. It should be able to guess what I want and deliver the result that I seek.”
“I have to use Revit because it is becoming the industry standard. I don’t have to like it or understand how it works.“
“I want to understand What Revit Wants, so that I can use it in a productive and appropriate manner.”

I would say that the first 3 are basically impossible, for any software tool. However, in some ways Revit can deliver the results that you seek when approaching it with the attitudes of 1, 2, or 3. It is capable of many things, but it does have limitations. Attitude Number 4 is a problem though. Why? Because you MUST understand, at least to some degree, how Revit works. Otherwise you will never succeed, and you will face a lot of frustration.

Yes, you must grasp What Revit Wants. You must try to think in the same way that Revit thinks.

Why is it trying to join the walls this way?
Why is object A masking object B?
What is causing Revit to show this line dashed instead of solid?

Instead of getting frustrated and angry, and instead of uttering unrepeatable phrases directed at ‘Autodesk’, just try and understand WHY. It is a little bit like meeting someone you don’t know for the first time. You may choose to judge them from first impressions. Or you may try to understand them, and why they act the way they do. If you come to understand them, you may be able to have a rewarding relationship with that person.In conclusion, give Revit a chance. Try to understand. Try not to judge or lose your patience. Don’t be afraid to find out What Revit Wants.

Category: Revit