Tag: free

Download Mastering Revit Architecture 2011 sample materials

Luke Johnson

I posted recently about the excellent book, Mastering Revit Architecture 2011.

If you wish to access and download the sample files, head over to the Sybex resource page for this book.

http://www.sybex.com/WileyCDA/SybexTitle/Mastering-Autodesk-Revit-Architecture-2011.productCd-0470626968,navId-290572,pageCd-resources.html

Bending the Rules with Adaptive Points (2011 Secret #16)

Luke Johnson

You should all know something about adaptive points by now. I will here describe how I recently used them to solve a modeling problem.

Basically, I need to create a surface that was quite irregular – it did not fall in a way that could be describe in 1 or 2 slopes. I didn’t want to use a shape-edited floor, as I wanted a form that would be smooth – not triangulated. Further to this, I wanted to be able to easily edit this form, and I wanted to be able to be able to derive some intelligence from it (ie. report the slope of the form). What would you do?

Here is how I handled it:

  1. Create an Adaptive Component (generic) family.
  2. Place some points and make them Shape Handle Points (Adaptive)
  3. Create two splines based on these adaptive points that meet at two endpoints (see image below).
  4. In the Project, create an in-place Mass family.
  5. Create an Instance of this Adaptive Component inside the in-place Mass.
  6. Finish the in-place Mass.
  7. Create a new Wall based on the face (surface) from the Adaptive Component family.
  8. You are done!


The fun part is editing – here is how you do it:

  1. Select the in-place Mass (use the Project Browser if you can’t pick any actual Mass geometry), and edit-in-place.
  2. Hold your mouse over one of the points and ‘Tab’ until you can select the actual adaptive point (see image below).
  3. Once selected, you can pull this point around.
  4. Adjust the points to suit, and then Finish Mass.
  5. Pick the Wall that you applied to the face (surface), and then ‘Update-to-Face’.


If you wish to add further details or even ‘trim’ the Wall, just create another in-place family of Category walls and go for your life (you can use Cut Extrusions etc to trim the face-applied wall to a form that suits you).

I’m sure that this isn’t the only way of attacking this problem, and I’m sure that it may not be ‘recommended’ in every case. But I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Here are the Adaptive Component family and the Project for you to download and look at:

Project File – Bending the Rules with Adaptive Points

Family – Adaptive Component

Useful Free Utilities

Luke Johnson

As I go about my day-t0-day, I come across some very good free programs (some of which I have posted about before – see links at bottom).

Most recently, I have come across the following free utilities:

  • FreeFileSync – for comparing directories
  • RichCopy – very powerful copying utility, for things like network backups etc. Replacement for Robocopy + GUI
  • InfraRecorder – free burning and ISO creating utility
  • Mozilla Thunderbird – just goes from strength to strength. I have used it to connect to our Exchange database at work.
  • GRemote – this utility allows you to control a PC using a Windows Mobile device as an emulated mouse. Can connect either using WiFi or Bluetooth. Useful for Media Centre and Presentations.
  • Microsoft Security Essentials – free antimalware and antivirus program with real time scanning from Microsoft.

Hope you find these helpful!

https://wrw.is/2009/11/free-cutepdf-writer-setup-and-settings.html

https://wrw.is/2009/09/these-are-few-of-my-favourite-things.html

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…

    Free BIM Standards and Guidelines – REPOST

    Luke Johnson

    There is some very handy BIM resources located on the Indiana University website at http://www.indiana.edu/~uao/iubim.html

    Among other things, you can download the IU BIM Guidelines and Standards for Architects, Engineers, & Contractors document.

    There are also some very handy links to other BIM resources.

    Thanks to James Van of ArchTech for posting this one.

    Free CutePDF Writer – setup and settings tips

    Luke Johnson

    After trying many free PDF Writers over the years, I have found CutePDF Writer to be the best.

    In order to ensure you are producing the best PDF files you can (high quality while still keeping file size relatively small), please follow the steps below (when you have a chance, no hurry 🙂

    Install the updated CutePDF Writer from here

    Change the setting in the printer properties (Preferences and Printing Defaults) for ‘PostScript Output Option’ to ‘Optimize for Portability’ as a default.

    Change the setting in the printer properties (Preferences and Printing Defaults) for ‘TrueType Font’ to ‘Download as Softfont’ as a default.

    Navigate to C:Program FilesAcro SoftwareCutePDF Writer and open the file PDFWrite.rsp in Notepad. Change the line FROM
    -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress TO
    -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer

    (The path is C:Program Files (x86)Acro SoftwareCutePDF Writer for 64 bit machines)

    Enjoy producing high quality PDF’s for free everyone!

    Free Keynote Manager from Emc2

    Luke Johnson

    This will be old news for some of you, but if you head over to http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=97765&highlight=EDIT+KEYNOTE&page=4 you will find a link to http://www.emc2architects.com/revit_tools.html where you can download a very handy Revit Keynote Manager for free!

    Keynotes are a powerful tool that Revit wants you to use. They are often overlooked and under-utilised. If you want to increase your productivity and add more intelligence to your model while annotating, have a serious look at Keynotes.