Well, there are at least three:
1) Wall by Face tool, from a slanted Mass face
2) My Wall Component family, with adjustable angle and corner voids – download here
(warning – unsupported workflow)
3) This Thick Wall with Reveal method
Category: Uncategorized
Sometimes you just need to hear an idea and you innately know “this is going to be useful…”
Quick Select command for Autodesk® Revit® to select by element type and its properties. Expand the element or family type and select the properties that you wish to filter by. Click OK and all those elements will be selected.
- When in “Or” mode, the command will select all elements that match any of the properties.
- When in “And” mode, the command will only select elements that match all the selected properties.
Example of potential uses:
- select all Casework on a particular Level – done
- select all Filled Regions with a given area – done
- select all Walls whose Top is Attached – done
As with most addins I post about – its free. Download on Exchange at:
this link
Heads-up via:
#revit must have addin! Selection by Parameter Values from #CADMasters: Quick Select http://t.co/ZFSXP3ePhz
— Julien Benoit (@Jbenoit44) January 6, 2014
Did you miss the recent update to Whitefeet Tools? These are probably the oldest and most robust database editing tools for Revit.
The highly experienced developer, Mario Guttman, is also actively working on Project Hummingbird (a set of Grasshopper components that facilitate the creation of Revit native geometry). Check it out at:
http://ghhummingbird.wordpress.com/
and download at
http://www.food4rhino.com/project/hummingbird
The latest version of Whitefeet can be downloaded by following the instructions at:
http://www.whitefeet.com/Tools/
via
Just posted some minor fixes to http://t.co/UDjAdbfZ1b which also affect http://t.co/39kq1PUZGX #RevitWhiteFeetTools #RhinoHummingbird
— Mario Guttman (@MarioGuttman) December 22, 2013
Can you change built-in parameters from Type to Instance based, and vice versa? This post shows you can.
The essence of the workflow is to
- start a family with the desired template,
- add a value to the parameter,
- change the Family Category to something that doesn’t have that parameter built-in,
- switch the parameter to Instance,
- then change the Family Category back to the original
Read the more detailed version here:
http://aectechtalk.wordpress.com/2013/12/26/change-revit-voltage-parameter-from-type-to-instance/
(It is based on changing voltage parameter to Instance based for Electrical Equipment)
I previously posted about Up and Running with Autodesk Navisworks 2014 by Deepak Maini a while back, but I think it definitely deserves another mention. Here is a selection of usability and productivity tips I thought you might find useful in the coming year:
1) Merge – in the scenario where a Navisworks coordinator issues an NWD to three different teams, who all do markups in their respective NWD files, they need to save as NWF before returning the file (for merging) to the initial coordinator. This avoids having duplicate geometry.
2) Home – Project – Scene Statistics will show you if any Object Enablers are missing
3) To preview a model in isolation, without having to close the current project, and before fully Appending it to the main scene, you can use the Import Sheets and Models tool
4) To change the pivot point while orbiting in 3D, move the cursor over the desired vertex and then scroll the wheel button of the mouse once.
While using the Walk tool, scrolling the mouse wheel up or down is equivalent to tilting your head up or down (similar to “Look” on the Steering Wheel
5) Holding the SHIFT key down and selecting any object will select everything in the Autodesk Navisworks scene. Repeating this process will cycle through various selection resolutions.
6) The Move and Rotate tools show on a “toggle” basis – to turn these gizmos off, select any object and then from the Item Tool ribbon tab, clear the Move or Rotate tool.
7) You can add new parameters to objects directly in Navisworks – right-click in the blank area of the Properties window and select Add New User Data Tab; a new custom tab is added with the default name of User Data. This is sensitive to the selection resolution (ie. Can be added to a entire layer etc). Along similar lines: Navisworks does not allow you to view properties of objects in different layers or categories at one time. For example, if you select the curtain panels on all the layers, the Properties window will be grayed out. So you will have to create the custom properties one layer at a time.
8) Quick Properties settings are stored in the software, not in the Navis project file
9) Section boxes – if you have used a custom alignment, using the same alignment again will rotate the plane 180 degrees (like mirroring it). Also, the Fit Selection tool will (unsurprisingly) resize the sectioned view to fit selected objects.
10) To permanently turn “on” the options to save the object visibility and material overrides using the Options Editor. From the left pane, expand Interface and click on Viewpoint Defaults. From the right pane, select the Save Hide/Required Attributes and Override Material tick boxes. Henceforth, whenever you create a viewpoint in any file, these two options will be turned on.
11) Use Ctrl+G to turn Gravity on and off
12) To use Measure tool to move objects or models into position: First, measure the distance between any two points that are supposed to match in the scene. Then, select one of the files from the Selection Tree and use the Transform Objects tool (in the Ribbon) to move the selected file
13) Markups, Commenting and Tags – Redline markups can only be added in a saved viewpoint
To add a line break to various text entry boxes in Navisworks, such as Redline Markups, you can use the P (backslash P) switch
Redlines, Comments or Tags? As I mentioned in my previous post about using Revit and Navisworks, using Comments is quite powerful (moreso than redlines) in a lot of ways, as it allows for easy searching. However, Tags are even better, as they relate directly to a model element and they can still be searched as with comments.
This is just a selection of awesome tips you will find in this great Navisworks resource. Here is how you can get it:
Australia / NZ purchase page:
here
Amazon page for the Up and Running book:
http://www.amazon.com/Up-Running-Autodesk-Navisworks-2014/product-reviews/1482605279
Let’s say you want to quickly schedule a particular Model Group’s instances in your project, and also be able to quickly “find” them in the project:
- Make a new Generic Model that can have everything “hidden”
- Make sure it has a Shared Parameter that is set to “Varies by Group Instance” in the Project
- Make a Schedule that shows only this family (using a Filter). In essence, this schedule will now be scheduling the actual group.
- If you want to, enter some identifying information into the “varying” Shared Parameter that you made in step 2
- Use the Highlight in Model option in the Schedule to locate each instance
This process is only made possible in 2014, due to the ability for parameters to vary by Group Instance.
I adapted and expanded on this method over at:
Auditing and Comparing Model Groups in Revit 2014
Have you ever wanted to rationalise your Topography as a Massing form, perhaps so you could use Divided Surface and panelization tools on the topo?
Here is one method:
- Make a Site family with a vertical model line and height parameter (see sample file at end of post)
- New Project – Make a Toposurface (or existing project with Topo)
- New in-place Mass
- Place the Site family on the Topo in one corner – it will detect the Topo and host itself to it, even though you are in the Massing environment
- Copy a certain number of times in X direction. Basically, you are forming one part of a grid sampler…
- Make a new Adaptive with the same number of points as step above. I made a 20 point adaptive.
- Select all the points, make sure they are Adaptive, Spline through Points
- You now have a 20pt Model Line spline… Load into Project
- In Massing environment, place the 20pt component by clicking on the very top of the vertical Model Lines from the Site family (as you place it, the points will change to a smaller point size to show it is “living” on the top of that line)
- Now, select the whole row of Site families and the 20pt component and copy it along the other planar axis (this is the other part of the sample grid mentioned in step 5)
- As the elements are copied, the Site families will host themselves to the Topography, and the Spline will adjust accordingly
- Now, select all of the spline families and Create Form!
- You can adjust how close to the original site the Massing form is by using the height parameter of the Site model line family
This method could be used in conjunction with the Tree randomizer here.
The image shows the sample surface above, and the original Toposurface below.
The only limitation I found was that if the form is “flat” at some point, the Create Form may not work. However, if each Spline does vary up and down, it should work ok.
… all of the ASP/IIS pre-requisites can be satisfied in the 2012 server Add Roles environment
…
The key is getting ASP 4.5 registered in IIS 8. To do this there is an extra feature that needs adding in the Add Roles environment. It is HTTP activation and it is found under .NET Framework 4.5 features/WCF Services.
via
2013 Revit Server 2013 on Windows Server 2012
More on the “Add Roles” process at:
http://wikiassets-video.s3.amazonaws.com/9926a63b22cd83be9315984d8fafd6901d54df9e/Setting_up_Revit_Server_Prerequisites_on_Windows_Server_2012.mp4
Did you know that any array in Revit can be switched between the Next and Last object methods?
Just select an existing array – and have a look in the Options Bar…
It will look like this in German:
Read at revit-family-planner:
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Frevit-family-planner.blogspot.com.au%2F2013%2F08%2Fdie-optionsleiste-oder-neues-beim-reihe.html&act=url
In the past, whenever you built a parametric array in a family, you needed to handle the “break” condition – that is, if the array value drops to 1, you need an IF formula to actually keep it as 2, hide the array and show the single element. It works, but it is clumsy and needs some parameter obfuscation.
That is why a Divided Path,
- with a Repeated 2 point Adaptive family with Reference Line connecting the points,
- hosting “whatever” you want,
- on a non-driving point that lives on the Reference Line,
is better – because when the number of divisions of the Divided Path is set to 2, there is still only one repeated element. No formulas or duplicated parameters needed… Also, Revit error checking usually kicks in when you try to set the Divided Path to “1” and it will prompt you before the thing breaks.
Very useful in situations like this curved adaptive Window family – it can have any number of panels, from 1 to 200 (thanks Aaron).
EDIT Following Aaron’s comment, here is some more “proof of concept”:
