Thursday, October 19, 2006

New Builds for Revit 20060928_2300

A new build for Revit Building was posted on Friday night. The following information is from the Revit Building download page:

This build, (20006_0928_2300), addresses several upgrade issues discovered in Revit-based release 9.1 project files.

Issues related to the following areas have been addressed:

File inconsistencies stemming from the upgrade process
Behavior of Rooms with Plan regions
Improvements in snap to DWG
Filtering as it relates to the Save-to-Central function
Unexpected behavior when using the spacebar
Placing revision tables inside of titleblock families issue
Irregularities within the Keynote function
Inconsistencies when upgrading template
Issues with portable license utility

Download Link:

Revit Building

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

New BIM Blog!

Nothing like other bloggers to make you feel inadequate! Robin and David and Sean...as far as I know have already mentioned this new BIM blog
(bim)X by Laura Handler of Tocci Building Corporation.

While only having started blogging in September this year, Laura has already written many interesting articles. I appreciate that she is sharing the things they are doing, learning and hoping to accomplish. The insight into how Revit supports their needs (or doesn't) is very helpful! Cheers!

Monday, October 16, 2006

Autodesk University 2006

I apologize, I am late mentioning this. I have been selected to be a speaker at this years Autodesk University 2006, held in Las Vegas at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino (November 28th thru December 1st). The Autodesk University planning team has a difficult task choosing from a great many submissions from highly qualified people. I am flattered and honored to be selected again. If you are interested in the perspective of one such planner you can visit Joseph Wurcher's blog.

I am presenting two classes, repeating one for a total of three sessions:
November 29th at 3:00 PM (90 Minutes)
Powering Up Your Autodesk Revit Families (Lecture Format)

November 29th at 5:00 PM and November 30th at 8:00 AM (90 minutes each)
Autodesk Revit Building Family Editor Basics and More (Lab Format).

The "Powering Up" session is part of a new feature this year, the Revit Power Track. Thirteen sessions are following a theme and related project. The goal is to provide intermediate to advanced level information to attendees craving the "how", now that they know "what" is possible.

The lab sessions are going to focus on reverse engineering examples of some cool content to discuss how and why things were done as well as covering the basics. We'll have a few special guests as well so we should have some fun!

The bad news is the labs are full as of right now. In fact the response to this year's AU and the Revit Power Track sessions has been nothing short of phenomenal. Read Joseph's blog for more data on this.

For those of you already registered, I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible. For those who have not, check out AU 2006, it might not be too late for you!

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Oops! I Deleted the Titleblock! Now What?

When you create a Sheet View Revit adds a titleblock to the view. What if you delete it and don't realize it till later. How do you put it back? How can you just put a Titleblock on an existing Sheet View? There is no command...Symbol? No... Component? No... Tag? No... Guess you can't?

Here's two options, best one first:

Use Edit menu > Copy to Clipboard to copy a titleblock from another Sheet view

Use Edit > Paste Aligned > Current View to paste the titleblock into the Sheet View that is missing the Titleblock. (Also can use Edit > Paste Aligned > Select Views by Name if you managed to delete more than one)

You can drag a Titleblock from the Project Browser (found under Annotation Symbols category) onto the Sheet View. Take care that you won't be able to position this titleblock in the exact location the previous one was. That's why the first option is better.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

But I Didn't Do Anything?!? Yes You DID!

Every so often someone will open a project using worksharing, poke around a bit and unwittingly end up borrowing something. Typically a view, plot settings or sheet view perhaps. When they choose File > Close Revit will "yell" at them, telling them they should Save to Central, but they don't because they didn't "do" anything. A little later someone else needs that view or plot setting and they find that this innocent person owns it or them.

What went wrong? First of all the innocent person didn't fully appreciate how their incidental interaction with Revit ended up borrowing something. Then they compounded the problem by not reacting correctly to the warning Revit offered.

Take a view for example, we can look at the model through any view we want all day long without borrowing a view. As soon as we alter the scale, change Model Graphics Style from hidden line to Shading with Edges or turn on an underlay Revit lent us the view. In other words, any change to the properties of the view itself requires Revit to lend it to us.

Similarly if we change a plot setting to use a different sheet to just plot part of a view we are borrowing a plot setting to do so. Seems innocent enough but in reality Revit must manage these things and prevent simultaneous ownership of elements and access to their settings.

How do you get around this?

First of all consider using Detach From Central if you really intend to just poke around and not contribute new work or editorial effort to the actual project.

Second, understand that wandering around the project file is not necessarily the innocent activity it might seem to be.

Third, heed the warnings that Revit gives you. If it says you should Save to Central, you should!

If you are determined not to save any changes you made either intentionally or not then follow these steps.

Step 1: Choose File > Close - When Revit warns you to STC
Step 2: Choose Don't Relinquish - this means you still own things

Step 3: Choose NO - When Revit asks if you want to save your Local File

Step 4: Choose File > Open - Select your local file again
Step 5: File > STC - Relinquish all worksets (this way you'll return everything you borrow previously, without saving any changes)

Alternatively this last step you should be able to use Relinquish All Mine as well.

Relinquish All Mine will work without the above process when you haven't changed any elements at all. Let's say you only borrow a bunch of walls and doors but don't actually change anything about them. You didn't reposition something, change a property...JUST borrowed them. Then Relinquish All Mine will work. Otherwise you'll need to follow the steps above.

May all your worksets be editable!