OEM Vista Activation Backup and Restore (clean installation)

Luke Johnson

I had to format and re-install Vista on a laptop over the holiday break. Given that it was an OEM version, and the original disks were not available, I was faced with a bit of a conundrum. How will I restore the activation data without having to contact Microsoft?

Perhaps you have faced a similar problem. Often, OEM installation media is packed with software you don’t need, and it only serves to slow down your PC right from the get-go. However, you can install Vista using standard installation media, and then ‘backup and restore’ the Vista activation data. This way, you are starting with a truly ‘clean’ system. Of course, you will then need to download and install all the necessary drivers for your system.

Before starting the process, I backed up the activation data using the software at the link below. After obtaining some installation media, I installed Vista without providing any product keys (you should be able to do this with any retail Vista media). Then, I restored the activation data. It worked perfectly.

You can download the activation backup and restore utility at http://directedge.us/content/abr-activation-backup-and-restore

You can find a pretty good guide to re-installing a clean system at http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=120228

2009 and Beyond | Revisiting the Report on Integrated Practice (Repost)

Luke Johnson

Check out the following page to revisit the report. You can download interviews in mp3 format to listen to at your leisure.

In essence: “One of AIA’s 2009 Integrated Practice Discussion Group’s (IPDiG) projects involves revisiting the “Report on Integrated Practice” released during the 2006 AIA National Convention in Los Angeles…”

Thanks to Eddy Krygiel at ArchTech.

FREE RevitTV.com Paint for Revit 2010 – Beta

Luke Johnson

RevitTV.com are offering a free ‘Paint’ plugin for Revit 2010.

The features are:

  • Import and automatically create Revit paint materials from existing AutoCAD Color Book (.acb) files.
  • Search and filter hundreds of Revit paint materials by colour name.
  • Manage hundreds of manufacturers paint materials in Revit with ease, including Resene and Sherwin-Williams.

    • RevitTV.com Paint for Revit 2010 – Beta (download page)
    RTV Paint ver 2010 – Windows 32 bit Installer
    RTV Paint ver 2010 – Windows 64 bit Installer, coming soon…

    Search by Sketch

    Luke Johnson

    I had this great idea this morning – why can’t we do a ‘search by sketch’ of images or other data?

    In other words, you draw a small sketch of something, and then the search engine returns results that are similar to or related to that sketch.

    First I thought ‘quick, I better blog about this, before someone else does!’, but then I thought, ‘I better see if this exists yet…’

    And, it does. Have a look at retrievr. I did not have great results when trying this out, as it is ‘experimental’.

    If you want to search through some 3D models using a 2D sketch and keywords, have a look at Princeton 3D Model Search Engine.

    There is a paper written on the subject. It is called 3D content-based search using sketches.

    The next logical question is – is there some software that I can download that can perform this search on my own images?

    Check out the vid below:

    For more information, check out http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/searchbysketch/index.html.

    I foresee a time (in the not too distant future) when a full blown image search engine will be available, that takes either a sketch or uploaded image as input, and returns a list of images in order of similarity. Perhaps you can also specify a ‘tolerance’ value, that filters out the least similar and simply does not show them.

    If you know of any technology or software similar to this, please comment.

    View Ranges (and TOLERANCES) Explained *REPOST*

    Luke Johnson

    There is a great video on View Range by Paul Aubin at the link below here: http://www.screencast.com/t/eCJaIgaevE

    It is very well explained and I learned some things I had no idea about, like the ‘tolerances’ associated with various elements when using View Range. After using Revit for so long, I’m surprised this piece of important information had ‘slipped through’! I did some searching, and these tolerances are listed in the Revit online help at this link and hinted at in the support information here.

    For your convenience, I have copied the information from the Revit help page below:
    Additional View Range Rules

    • Model elements located outside of the view range generally are not shown in the view. The exceptions are floors, stairs, ramps, and components that stay or are mounted on the floor (like furniture). These are shown even when slightly below the view range. In addition, fascia, gutters, and edge slabs are shown when their bottoms are within a tolerance of the primary view range bottom.
      Floors located outside the view range use an adjusted range that is 4 feet (approximately 1.22 meters) below the bottom of the primary range. Floors are drawn with the Beyond line style if the floor exists within this adjusted range.
    • Elements that are strictly below the cut plane, but are at least partially within the view range, are shown as viewed from above. Components display according to Family Element Visibility Settings for Plan/RCP. See Managing Family Visibility and Detail Level
    • Walls shorter than 6 feet (approximately 1.83 meters) are not cut, even if they intersect the cut plane.
      The 6 feet are measured from the top of the bounding box to the bottom of the primary view range. For example, if you create a wall with a sloped top face, when the top of the wall is 6 feet away from the bottom of the primary view range, the wall is cut at the cut plane. When the top of the wall is less than 6 feet, the entire wall shows as projection even where it intersects the cut plane. This behavior always occurs when the Top Constraint property for the wall is specified as Unconnected.
    • There are a few categories for which an element located above the cut plane but partially below the top clip is shown in plan. These categories include windows, casework, and generic model. These objects are shown as viewed from above.
    • Visibility in RCP views is similar to plan views with the exception that objects are presented as viewed from below and mirrored.

    You can view Paul Aubin’s site at:
    http://paulaubin.com/lrt/

    I received the information about the screencast from Fear and Loathing in a CAD vs BIM World at http://cad-vs-bim.blogspot.com/2009/12/view-ranges-explained.html

    Slanted Columns in Revit 2010 (Structural Tool)

    Luke Johnson

    We were given the ‘Slanted Column’ ability when some of the Structural tools were recently incorporated into Revit Architecture. If you have been pulling your hair out trying to place one of these slanted columns in a Plan view (where the tool is greyed out), the answer is simple. Go to a Section, Elevation or 3D View to place them!

    You will likely need to set an appropriate workplane to ‘draw’ these slanted columns on.

    The Brace tool is also quite cool – have a go at the ‘3D snapping’ capability in the Options bar (try it in a 3D view, obviously).

    If you are interested in reading further, check out:

    http://revitclinic.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/04/slanted-columns.html

    http://bimandbeam.typepad.com/bim_beam/2009/06/revit-structure-2010-slanted-column-parameters.html

    Revit Hardware – compatibility and performance

    Luke Johnson

    Revit is a very acceptable OOTB (out of the box) tool. If you are using Revit OOTB, there are really only two variables that determine your productivity. Assuming you have zero customised content, these variables are:

    • your own skill and ability
    • the performance of your computer

    We are all working to try and keep our skills on the cutting edge. But is your hardware keeping up its end of the bargain? Our company made a significant investment into some middle to top-of-the-line workstations a few months ago, for which I am very grateful. If you are looking to purchase a new system, or upgrade an existing one, you should definitely review the
    Model Performance Technical Note (you may have accessed this via Subscription, but this is a direct link to the PDF).

    The following AUGI forum links may also be of assistance to you:

    Revit 2010 – Graphics Cards that work (and those that don’t)

    Happy with your hardware?

    Video card D3D compatibility – Revit 2010 on Vista / Win7

    Revit Running on Intel Mac

    Non-Mac hardware benchmarks using the 2009 benchmark journal

    Rendering speed in Windows 7 64 & Revit 2010 64bit

    Feel free to comment if you have any thoughts or recommendations.

    Large files and emails…they don't mix

    Luke Johnson

    Revit makes it very easy to produce a LOT of drawings. This can result in a large deliverable. In one recent case, our Tender Issue of drawings consisted of 132 A1 sheets. Using CutePDF (with a couple of handy tweaks), we printed these to a PDF file of around 48 MB.

    Depending on your email size policy, a file of this size would take anywhere from 5 to 16 emails to transmit.

    To avoid this eventuality, I have explored various options for uploading large files and making them available to our colleagues. FTP seemed to be the answer, but one of our Clients is behind a proxy or firewall system that doesn’t allow FTP access – even with an anonymous account! So it was back to the drawing board…

    Therefore, I decided to setup a HTTP server for file access. I downloaded Apache 2.2 (for Windows, without SSL). I took the following steps:

    1. Allowed a port through our firewall and directed it to the PC running Apache. We have a static IP, so I could now access Apache by typing in xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:portnumber.
    2. Ensured that the opened port setting matched the Apache port in the httpd.conf file
    3. Disabled the ‘Indexes’ feature for a subfolder of the Apache ‘root’ folder (in my case this was C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocsFILES).
    4. Created a password for this folder using htpasswd.exe
    5. Enabled password access to the same folder using the following text in httpd.conf

      directory>
      Options FollowSymLinks
      AuthType Basic
      AuthName “Restricted Files”
      # (Following line optional)
      # AuthBasicProvider file
      AuthUserFile “C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/password/.htpasswd”
      Require valid-user
      directory>”

    Now I can login to the PC running Apache, copy any file I want to serve via HTTP to the password protected folder, and then send a link to any of our colleagues that I want to gain access to this file.I also setup Filezilla FTP Server on another PC in our network, and forwarded port 21 through our router to this PC. I setup a user for a folder on this PC, and disabled all rights apart from ‘read’.I can now send an email that contains two hyperlinks to any large file we wish to transmit, one for FTP and one for HTTP. Both of these links are password protected.And all of this is done using free, open source software!