Tag: RVT

RVG files (old school) – and how to upgrade them

Luke Johnson

I saw this message from Revit today and I wanted to share it with you:

RVG files used to be Revit’s way of saving Groups out, until RVT became the standard for saving Groups.  From the message, it looks like this occurred circa version 9.

Text-only:
The .rvg file you have attempted to load is no longer supported by Revit. If you wish to use the data in this file, you need to load it as a group into release 2008, where it can be saved out as an .rvt, or load it into release 9.1, where it can be saved out as an upgraded .rvg file. If you need help, please contact Autodesk Support.

So, if you have any old-school RVG files kicking around, you probably should upgrade them before it becomes too much of a pain to do so!

Revved – free Revit add-ins

Luke Johnson

Personally, I like the Component Commander and Open Folder tools.  Open Folder is a button that simply opens Windows Explorer to the folder of the currently active Project or Family – very handy!  (This is also a good way to find out the internally saved file location of a family – just click Edit Family from the Project Browser, then hit the Revved Open Folder button…)

ReVVed is a collection of Revit extensions that have been designed with the draftsperson in mind. ReVVed turns repetitive tasks into one click commands. These commands work with architecture, structure and MEP flavors of Revit. Commands like:

  • Text Tools – merge multiple text notes into a single note or change the case of notes.
  • Component Commander – allows loaded components to be searched and found easier.
  • Web Link – opens a web browser to the URL stored in Revit components.
  • Polyline – adjust the total length of end-to-end lines. (Like travel distances)
  • Open Folder – opens Windows Explorer to the folder where the project or linked file is located.
  • Project Commander – store critical information about the currently open project in a handy place.

You can download  ReVVed 2011 or ReVVed 2012 for free.
Current versions are 2011 release 4 and 2012 release 2.
Find out what’s new!

via
Revved

" IFC is too complex, too large, and too fragile to survive" – Ray Crotty

Luke Johnson

Do you agree? 

Here is a more complete quote:
One of the biggest practical obstacles to effective diffusion of BIM in the industry is the lack of data exchange standards and associated protocols. The Industry Foundation Class (IFC) definitions being developed by BuildingSMART will be useful, but will probably be used mainly as an archive format. IFC is too complex, too large, and too fragile to survive in the real world of live projects. Commercial IT companies are much more likely to produce a robust solution in this situation than committees of experts.
So why not accept the facts as they are and recognise Revit (for now) as a de facto industry standard? We can allow or incentivise Autodesk to licence the Revit file format—perhaps one or two versions late—on a FRAND (Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) basis to its competitors, and use competition law to regulate the situation. (It’s important in this to separate out the idea of data interoperability from application interoperability—how different systems store data from how they represent the behaviours of data objects. The first can probably reasonably be made public, the second probably not.)

Read the entire article at:
Beyond BIM – Building With Perfect Information: AECbytes Viewpoint #64

Image from aecbytes.com