David Light recommends it in this Tweet:

Freedom capabilities of #autocad 2012 are so cool, forms work very nicely with #revit & #vasari; & no i haven’t gone all soft on you 😉

via @davewlight David Light on
Twitter / @davewlight: Freedom capabilities of #a …

If you are interested in the Patch, Fillet, or Offset Edge tools, check out this video:

If you are interested in the spline form editing, check out the video at this link
http://download.autodesk.com/us/autocad/2011_featurevideos/autocad_3d_freeform_essentials_1044x828.html

One easy way to determine if a family Category is Cuttable is by looking in the Object Styles dialog box. If there is a gray box in the ‘Cut’ column, that Category is not cuttable. See image below (from 2012):

For some further info, you can check out these WikiHelp pages:
Cuttable Families – WikiHelp

Non-Cuttable Families – WikiHelp
However, it would seem that the above lists are not exhaustive…

Also, you can check out my previous post about the subject:
What Revit Wants: Cuttable vs Non-cuttable families

Some of the principles employed by the Windows development team are no doubt similar to those faced by Autodesk, as they develop Revit.  Check out some of the quotes I found most interesting (and my thoughts in red):

We chose the ribbon mechanism, and to those that find that a flawed choice, there isn’t much we can do other than disagree. (Autodesk has also gone ‘All-In’ with the Ribbon)



While there are a lot of opinions, the one thing we know is that the satisfaction with our products that use the ribbon is much higher and the usage much broader and deeper. We also know a very small set of people remain unhappy. That was true in versions before the introduction of the Ribbon mechanism, though obviously for different reasons. It might be the case that no matter what we do, there will be a small set of people that are not satisfied? (I’m sure both Microsoft and Autodesk hope that it is a ‘small set’ that are dissatisfied with ‘most’ users satisfied, and not the opposite.)

above from
Reflecting on our first conversations (part 2) – Building Windows 8 – Site Home – MSDN Blogs

When we kicked off this blog, the premise was a dialogue – a two-way conversation about building Windows 8.  (I like the concept of using a blog or blogs to drive discussion and development of Revit.  I recommend ramping up the Mosaic Project, adding User ratings for blogs, Wish List submissions and polling.)

Windows 8 is about maintaining those roots while moving forward in a big and new way.

First, we’re talking about a product used by a billion people. No matter how you slice it, that is going to create a very, very large number of perspectives and customers to serve.

this blog is the “talk of the town” here in Redmond. 🙂

above from
Reflecting on our first conversations (part 1) – Building Windows 8 – Site Home – MSDN Blogs

Displayed battery information includes the battery name, manufacture name, serial number, manufacture date, power state (charging/discharging), current battery capacity, full charged capacity, voltage, charge/discharge rate, and more…

Download at
BatteryInfoView – View battery information on laptops / netbooks

Original heads-up via
http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2011/09/06/view-laptop-or-netbook-battery-information-with-batteryinfoview/

I received the ‘Unacceptable list separator’ error while trying to:

  • load a family from file into a project, and
  • load types into the family from a Type Catalog.

I assumed the problem was to do with Type Catalog.  The family I was trying to load was from the ‘Australia’ default content – 

AustraliaStructuralFramingSteelCHS-Circular Hollow Sections (AS 1163).rfa

To fix this issue I followed these steps:

  1. Open the Family
  2. Export the Types to a Type Catalog file.  The exported Type Catalog should only include one type, but the syntax should be correct…
  3. Open the exported Type Catalog in Excel – as a comma-delimited file
  4. Open the ORIGINAL Type Catalog in Excel – as a comma-delimited file
  5. Copy the fields from the ‘Original’ default Type Catalog into your new ‘fixed’ Type Catalog (there may be more columns in the ‘fixed’ version, just Auto-Fill the other fields as necessary)
  6. In Excel, save the ‘fixed’ version as:
    Other Formats – CSV (MS-DOS)
  7. After closing the file, rename it so that .TXT is its extension.
  8. Use this fixed Type Catalog to load all of the types into the opened Family.

/X
Perform free-space consolidation. Free-space consolidation is useful if you need to shrink a volume, and it can reduce fragmentation of future files.

/T
Track an operation already in progress on the specified volume.

/H
Run the operation at normal priority instead of the default low priority. Specify this option if a computer is not otherwise in use.

/M
Defragment multiple volumes simultaneously, in parallel. This is primarily useful for computers that can access multiple disks simultaneously, such as those using SCSI- or SATA-based disks rather than disks with an IDE interface. 

via
Defrag from the Command-Line for More Complete Control

I have created a Google Custom Search page that searches through the major Revit forums.  Check it out at:

Revit Forum Search

As of 5 September 2011, the custom search includes these sites:
http://revitclinic.com/
http://www.forums.revitzone.com/
http://revitinfo.com/
http://forums.autodesk.com/
http://www.revitcity.com/
http://www.revitforum.org/
http://forums.augi.com/

For example, let’s say you search for ‘Slanted Walls’ – you would quickly get results from Revit Forum, Revitcity, AUGI and Revit Clinic all in one list.  Give it a try!

Let me know if you think there is some other Forum that should be added.

What Revit Wants: Revit Forum Search

The steps below show how to do it using the i-model plugin (you may also want to look at converting a 3D DWF straight to a 3D PDF):

  1. Close Revit
  2. Download and install i-model plug-in for Revit (you will have to register)
  3. Download and install Bentley View
  4. Open a Revit project
  5. Open a 3D view
  6. In the Ribbon, go to Bentley – Publish as i-model
  7. Open the i-model DGN in Bentley View
  8. File – Print to PDF
  9. Tick ‘Print to 3D’
  10. Click Printer button
  11. Choose a place to save your file
  12. Open the 3D PDF in Adobe Reader
  13. Have fun navigating your Revit model inside a 3D PDF file.

ftp link>

If you’re looking to buy Autodesk software, try finding it here with special deals.