When Undo will not Undo

Luke Johnson

Every now and then, Revit will remove everything from the list of things you can Undo.

It’s called ‘flushing the undo stack’.

Various things trigger this scary behaviour:

  • Making a Workset editable WITHOUT using the Worksets dialog box
  • Deleting a View, from a workshared project that is not ‘checked out’ (editable, see first point)
  • Deleting a Family via the Project Browser, from a workshared project where the Family is not ‘checked out’ (editable, see first point)

An interesting workaround – if you check out the View workset manually (using the Workset dialog), and THEN Delete it, you can still Undo from this point.

This leads to some seriously scary possibilities – if you plan to delete a view with a 1000 detail lines and text elements, make extra-certain first!

i-model plug-ins for Adobe Reader + Revit = time for 3D BIM PDF ?

Luke Johnson

I previously posted about the i-model plugin for Revit here which ultimately allows you to export from Revit to the Bentley i-model format, and then subsequently Export to a 3D PDF file.

A couple of days ago, Bentley released version 01.00.01.51 of the i-model plug-in for Adobe Reader.

This allows you to:

  • View/interact with i-models using free Adobe software
  • Pan, zoom, rotate, and search embedded i-models

This presents a possible solution for Revit to actually produce 3D PDF files that have legitimate BIM intelligence, through the Bentley i-model plugin for Revit.

FTP download link  for Adobe Reader plugin

Project Vasari SDK Software Development Kit for download

Luke Johnson

In addition to Project Vasari itself, you can now download a Software Development Kit (SDK). This kit is intended for power users who wish to use the Application Program Interface (API) to work with Project Vasari.
The API allows a programmer to:

  • Create add-ins to automate repetitive tasks in the Project Vasari UI
  • Enforce project design standards by checking for errors automatically
  • Extract project data for analysis and to generate reports
  • Import external data to create new elements or parameter values
  • Integrate other applications, including analysis applications, into Project Vasari
  • Create Project Vasari project documentation automatically

// Download Project Vasari SDK via Autodesk Labs

via
Project Vasari Software Development Kit Now Available – It is Alive in the Lab

Some direct links:

Vasari Software Development Kit (SDK)
Project Vasari 2.5 offers an API designed to allow power users and external application developers to integrate their applications with Vasari. It is strongly recommended that you become familiar with Project Vasari and its features before attempting to use the API. Training can be found through the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN).
// download
// more

via
http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/vasari/

Stairs Representation During Upgrade to Revit 2013

Luke Johnson

Awesome post to Wikihelp by Ping Jiang, Software Quality Assurance Engineer, Autodesk.

The short version:
basically when the old stairs upgrade to Revit 2013 and mix with new stairs in the project, we just need to simply uncheck the visibility of ‘above’Riser Lines and Riser Lines, then the representation for them will be almost exactly the same [as pre-2013] in all the views.

Read the complete and detailed guide at:
Stairs Representation During Upgrade – WikiHelp

Hack for Revit 2013 emulated Hardware Acceleration in Parallels or VMWare Fusion

Luke Johnson

From Gordon Price on RFO:

Go to the Revit program folder (C:Program FilesAutodeskRevit Architecture 2013Program for RAC) and look for a file called AdskHardwareCertificationReport.xml. Rename this file AdskHardwareCertificationReport.xml.OOTB and accept the warning about changing file extensions. You will now be able to enable Hardware Acceleration just like you did in 2012. Performance will not be as good as direct graphics hardware, but it will be much faster than WARP.

via
Revit on the Mac (OS X) – Page 6

Read the whole thread if you want to understand some of the limitations and risks of this method.

A curtain family that (kinda) opens and closes …

Luke Johnson

This is an example of an family with an array that kinda mimics a curtain that opens and closes.
http://revitlog.nl/images/stories/families/82_meubels/82_gordijn.rfa

However – it is also a good example of what happens if you don’t create a fix for when an array drops to only one item.  You need to formulaically stop this from happening, by doing something like this:

Applied Array=if(Calculated Array>1,Calculated Array,2)

(where Applied Array is the parameter applied to the physical array in the family, and Calculated Array is the number that is formulaically derived)

Family via
Google Translate
of
http://revitlog.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=395:11-gordijn-op-en-dicht&catid=113:logs-april-2012&Itemid=89

Missing railing templates in 2013 metric content

Luke Johnson

You have installed the Metric content for Autodesk Revit 2013 and found that you are missing two railing template files.

Solution

The two missing template files are available for download below:

Metric_Support.rft (rft – 240Kb)
Metric_Termination.rft (rft – 240Kb)

via
Autodesk – Autodesk Revit Architecture Services & Support – Missing railing templates in metric content

Revit content creation standards

Luke Johnson

There are quite a few different content ‘standards’ being bandied about lately, from ANZRS to the Revit Model Content Style Guide.

There is a partial list of these content standards at the page below:
Content|Studio Blog: BIM Show Live – Content from inception to reality

Direct link to the current Autodesk Revit Model Content Style Guide:
http://revit.autodesk.com/Library/RMCSG/Revit_Model_Content_Style_Guide_v2_1.zip

MeshMixer to Revit – real life organic modelling example

Luke Johnson

I was speaking to CJ from Crossley Architects yesterday.  He said that he had been experimenting with creating freeform rocks in Meshmixer and bringing them into Revit.  Here is an example of what he has produced:

 As part of his workflow, he first of all used the STL Exporter add-in to export the fishtank context from Revit.  This ensures that sculpting work is done in a way that can be accurately scaled and proportioned.

After importing the STL context into Meshmixer:

  1. Bring a plane object (Import Plane) into Meshmixer and transform it to suit the tank wall that is to be sculpted.
  2. Do the freeform modelling in Meshmixer.
  3. Export to 3ds Max (see previous post).  Holes may need to be capped.
  4. Go from 3ds Max to a SAT file into a Revit family.

I’m glad to see that the Meshmixer organic workflow is getting some real-world Revit use!

Here is my previous post on Meshmixer:
What Revit Wants: Freeform and organic modelling from MeshMixer to 3ds Max to Revit