Revit 2011 Secret #15 – Subscribe

Luke Johnson

I am quite sure that I was the first to post about the Web Update for RAC 2011 (please feel free to correct me if I am wrong). So I thought this might be a good time to encourage you to subscribe to this blog.

Subscribe using RSS

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Also, here are the updated links to the downloads for the various flavours of Revit (thanks Revit3D.com)

Revit Architecture 2011

Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 Update 1_32-bit (exe – 39575Kb)
Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 Update 1_64-bit (exe – 59876Kb)

Update Enhancement List (pdf – 204Kb)
Service Pack Readme (htm – 39Kb)

Revit Structure 2011

Autodesk Revit Structure 2011 Update 1_32-bit (exe – 39575Kb)
Autodesk Revit Structure 2011 Update 1_64-bit (exe – 59881Kb)

Update Enhancement List (pdf – 254Kb)
Service Pack Readme (htm – 37Kb)

Revit MEP 2011

Autodesk Revit MEP 2011 Update 2_32-bit (exe – 39555Kb)
Autodesk Revit MEP 2011 Update 2_64-bit (exe – 59867Kb)

Update Enhancement List (pdf – 212Kb)
Service Pack Readme (htm – 36Kb)

If you have correctly applied the update, you should see ‘Web Update 1 Service Pack’ in the ‘About Autodesk Revit 2011’ dialog box (see below):


Also, as Steve noted, it pays to check the Communications Center when first opening Revit each day:

Maintenance Update 1 Available for Revit 2011

Luke Johnson

There is a Maintenance Update available for Revit 2011 x64.

Please use the link below to download the update for 64-bit:
http://updatesdl.autodesk.com/updates/files/rac_x64_ur10.exe

For 32-bit:
http://updatesdl.autodesk.com/updates/files/rac_x86_ur10.exe

The readme file is at:
http://updatesdl.autodesk.com/updates/files/autodesk_revit_architecture_2011_update_1_readme.htm


Enjoy! And remember where you heard it first…

Content – Links and RevitProfessionals updated

Luke Johnson

There has been a few posts about Revit content recently, one being at http://chrismounts.com/content/places-find-revit-content and another at http://excel2bim.com/revitbim/?p=2238. These are related to a LinkedIn discussion on Club Revit.

Some of you would be aware of the Revit Blog Directory I have set up. I have taken this content link list and added it to the blog directory site at http://www.revitprofessionals.com/

Make your computer read to you

Luke Johnson

So you have some electronic information that you really want to read, but you just can’t find the time?

You are madly Revit-ing away, and you have some PDF training files that might really help you, but you are just TOO BUSY to read them?

Then try out this free program. It basically uses inbuilt Windows text to speech tools to read any document. I use the SpeakComputer TTS Reader. Just select the text you want to read, and paste it into the box…

Then press Play! There are a few other options to do with speed of reading etc – just tweak these to suit yourself.


If you can’t find anything Revit related and interesting to read, head over to Scribd and search for Revit…

PS – Hopefully Microsoft Anna doesn’t distract you too much from whatever work you are actually doing 🙂

Lost your Centerline Symbol text?

Luke Johnson

Let’s say you have isolated a few categories, and you have included Dimensions so that they are still visible.

However, your dimensions are no longer showing the Centerline symbol text – do you know why?

It is because this item is on a different category to dimensions themselves. In my case, I had to turn on the ‘Generic Annotation’ category in order to show this text.

Roof forms – How do I make a 'xxx' roof?

Luke Johnson

Okay, xxx means “insert your desired roof type here”. One of the best and easiest ways to find find the answer you are looking for is by downloading this file on Roof Forms from the Revit 2011 Content Distribution Center.
From here, you should be able to figure out the ‘best practice’ when it comes to creating the various different roof forms.

Strangely, Autodesk Seek ‘knows’ about this file, but you can’t download it from there – yet.

Hidden and Unknown Free Content

Luke Johnson

I read the following on the Revit 2011 help today:
Ketiv’s Modern Medium Library has been converted into Revit Architecture families and made available on the Web

Okay, I didn’t really know what Ketiv’s library was, but I found it! To access this library:

  1. Go to the Revit 2011 Content Distribution page.
  2. On the left, you can click on the ‘Modern Medium 2011’ library.
  3. There are a number of subcategories to browse and choose from.


Enjoy your access to this free content 🙂

Saving a Dying Hard Drive

Luke Johnson

I recently spent some time troubleshooting a netbook that was unceremoniously ‘dropped’, and I thought I would share the things that I found most helpful.

Basically, there was physical damage to many of the sectors on the hard disk, meaning that the system did not boot and had some serious issues.

After booting using a USB drive into a diagnostic version of ‘mini’ XP, I was able to run a program called HDTune. An Error Scan using the ‘quick’ option showed the area of the drive that was affected.

I then basically resized the partitions on the disk so that the ‘bad’ parts of the drive were in the unallocated space – hopefully meaning that it won’t cause any future problems.

I backed some of the necessary data, then formatted and I will now reinstall XP. Hopefully all is well!

PS – Try not to drop electronic devices.

HOW-TO View the Revit Database (2011 Secret #14)

Luke Johnson

This guide is for beginners who want to view the Revit database in 2011. I have previously posted about rvtmgddbg. This has been replaced in 2011 by RevitLookup. This is an API tool that allows you to view (‘Snoop’) the elements in the Revit database.

How do you set it up? Its quite simple really:

  1. Download this file (thanks to The Building Coder).
  2. Unzip the file to the C: drive (such that you have paths C:RevitLookupCS etc)
  3. Double click on the file “C:RevitLookupCSRevitLookup.csproj”, this will open in Visual Studio tools for Applications.
  4. Click on Build – Build RevitLookup (this creates the RevitLookup.dll file)

  5. Now, open the file “C:RevitLookupCSRevitLookup.addin” in Notepad.
  6. Replace this-
    RevitLookup.dll

    with this-
    C:RevitLookupCSbinDebugRevitLookup.dll

  7. Save the file.
  8. Now, copy the RevitLookup.addin file you just saved to the following location (depending on your OS):

    For Vista
    C:ProgramDataAutodeskREVITAddins2011

    For XP
    C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataAutodeskRevitAddins2011

  9. That’s it! You should now see the Revit Lookup menu on your Add-Ins ribbon:


One of the simplest ways to use this tool is to select an Object, then use the ‘Snoop Current Selection’ option. Enjoy!