Top Posts #1 – What Revit Wants

Luke Johnson
Here are some of my most popular posts from the last 2 years:

How to use the new Keyboard Shortcuts Dialog and Tips

Make a Good…Impression Workflow (simple guide from Revit)

Unpredictable Properties Box Behaviour

How to add symbols to Schedules and Text in Revit

How to Print a large set of drawings to individual PDFs with automatic naming

Windows 7 and Vista ‘God Mode’ – very powerful

I hope you enjoy these links.

I will periodically do a ‘Top Posts’ post for your convenience.

Heaps more videos from Autodesk Building

Luke Johnson

If you haven’t discovered the Autodesk Building Youtube channel yet, now is the time.
Or, you can view all latest posts from heaps of blogs at my Revit Professionals (Revit Blog Directory) site.
And here is a list of some of the latest videos from the channel.

Autodesk Revit: Performing Conceptual Energy Analysis

Autodesk Revit: Performing Conceptual Energy Analysis
subscription.autodesk.com – This video demonstrates how to start a conceptual energy analysis and view the results.
Time: 01:37

Autodesk Revit: Changing Energy Settings

Autodesk Revit: Changing Energy Settings
subscription.autodesk.com – This video demonstrates how you can modify energy settings to change zoning, glazing, and skylights before performing energy analysis on the model.
Time: 02:12

Autodesk Revit: Using Automatic Form Rationalization

Autodesk Revit: Using Automatic Form Rationalization
subscription.autodesk.com – This video demonstrates how intelligent energy settings are used to rationalize the mass form into mass surfaces and zones for energy analysis.
Time: 02:43

Autodesk Revit: Choosing the Project Location and Weather Station

Autodesk Revit: Choosing the Project Location and Weather Station
subscription.autodesk.com – This video describes how to specify the location and a weather station for the project, so the correct climate information will be used during energy analysis.
Time: 01:57

Autodesk Revit: Using Images in Revit

Autodesk Revit: Using Images in Revit
subscription.autodesk.com – This video illustrates importing, resizing, and placing an image file for use in a Revit project.
Time: 01:28

Autodesk Revit: Sketching

Autodesk Revit: Sketching
subscription.autodesk.com – This video demonstrates when sketching is required to create geometry, such as slabs and roofs, in Revit.
Time: 01:36

Autodesk Revit: Understanding Revit Server

Autodesk Revit: Understanding Revit Server
subscription.autodesk.com – This video presents the concept behind Revit Server, and demonstrates how to connect to Revit Server and the Revit Server Administrator.
Time: 03:22

Create Similar tool persists while switching Open Views

Luke Johnson
Let’s say you want to take a door from one Level of the building, then use the Create Similar tool to make an instance of this door on a different Level.
This is quite easy.  Just open a view from each plan, select the Door, trigger the Create Similar command, and then switch views.
The Create Similar tool is still running, so you can happily place your Door.
Really quick video is provided below:

Using Nvidia nview with Windows 7 64-bit

Luke Johnson
Have you struggled to install nview on Windows 7 64-bit?  Here are the steps:
Step 1 – Download the latest Drivers from the nVidia website

Step 2 – Download WinRAR (you could use 7-zip)

Step 3 – Open the Driver file with WinRAR and extract the nView.CAB file (onto your desktop for now)

Step 4 – Open the nView.cab file with WinRAR and extract all the files into a folder on your desktop

Step 5 – Run the nviewsetup.exe file as normal. 

I found these steps at:
These steps may help you install nview in a number of different situations.
What does nview do?
nVIew display management software provides:
  • Intuitive interface for easy display management
  • Customizable desktop by various usage models
  • Robust IT management tools for easy deployment and maintenance
  • Tested compatibility with industry-leading business applications
  • Proven stability – over millions of enterprise installations

Subscription Advantage Pack – meh

Luke Johnson
I don’t know about you, but the two main ‘Advantage Pack’ features seem a little boring to me.
I can certainly see that Revit Server will be useful for large multinational companies, and the environmental analysis for large scale high rise massing.  But surely this is only a percentage of all Subscription users?
Then again, I assume Autodesk have done their research, so perhaps these features were chosen based on the fact that they would make ‘most’ subscription users excited?
What do you think?

How to edit 'My Places' names using the Registry

Luke Johnson
In RAC 2011, we can not directly modify the display name for a ‘My Places’ entry in the Open dialog.
This needs to be done in the Registry, as described over at Do U Revit in 2009.
I made a brief video of this process (there is no audio).
  1. Open Revit, go to Open dialog, add a folder to the ‘My Places’ dialog.
  2. Save the changes.
  3. Close Revit.  (You may not even have to close / re-open Revit).
  4. Open Registry Editor.
  5. Go to [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareAutodeskRevitAutodesk Revit Architecture 2011ProfilesAllAnavDialogs] (for 64 bit)
  6. Modify the ‘PlacesOrderxDisplay’ for the appropriate index / number entry.
  7. Re-open Revit.
 Be careful when modifying the Registry – you can break things if you aren’t careful.