AU 2008

Have you ever attended Autodesk University? Perhaps you're already planning your trip to this year's gathering. If so, you might have a say in helping with selecting classes to be included in this year's catalog. Click HERE to take a survey and select your favorite 15 sessions. The survey closes on May 3rd, so hurry!!

NOTE: There are some Revit sessions under "Architecture Sessions - Other", so make sure to visit there too! (unfortunately some sumbissions ended up there because the classification option only listed Autocad Revit Architecture Suite and some speakers submitted their entries under "Other" and typed in "Revit Architecture"). You guessed it, I'm one of the chickens :)

AU 2008

My Second Revit Project - Part 2

It's been a while since I posted some images of my second Revit project (I say mine, but of course there were plenty of others working on this project and there still are!).

These few images show progress made over the months since my last post all the way through April. In the coming weeks I'll have more images which will reveal further progress. At the moment it's still hard to see what the building will look like, but in May and June a lot of finish trades will get going and things will start coming together rather quickly. Currently, new metal panel is being installed to re-clad some of the existing metal panel and I'm very anxious to see how it looks. The superintendent sounded very excited about it today...that's always good news! Click on the image below to scroll through the photos or click Auto-Play.



Of course design doesn't stop just before construction starts. We did some re-designing of the library reception and a few other things (the new librarian worked differently and wished to have some adjustments). With Revit, we were able to make the necessary modifications, present a few schemes and document the changes. Below are some shaded views of the library interior and reception area.

My Second Revit Project - Part 2

"Balustration" continued

Today I'm going to pick up where I left off in the other post on this topic.

Previously, we discussed how the left-over space in the Railing system family can be filled with a baluster at a user-defined spacing. The problem is that we do not have the same level of control we have with the main baluster pattern and the posts, so we cannot define where the top and bottom of this left-over is through the Edit Baluster Placement dialog. So we have to resort to modifying our post and/or baluster families.

Before we begin, here are some interesting facts about balusters:

• Baluster families (whether posts, panels or neither) cannot be generated through a Generic Model family by selecting the appropriate category, so if creating something from scratch, you need to make sure to start with the appropriate template. The category does not show in the list and in fact, you cannot even do an in-place baluster family. When you open such a family or create one from a template, you'll notice that no category is highlighted in the Family Category and Parameters dialog.

• The Top Cut Angle and Bottom Cut Angle Instance parameters are used for baluster families. These parameters give you the ability to trim the top and base of a baluster according to the slope of the top and base hosts. The Yes/No parameter "Post"works in conjunction with these parameters. If checked, these angles are set to zero and the top and base of the baluster are cut horizontally against the host and/or the railing's profile origin. Notice that these parameters are also available in the Baluster - Post family template, but the angles and sloping reference planes are not drawn. I personally prefer to use the Baluster template in lieu of the Post template, so I don't have to maintain two separate families. I can simply check the Post parameter to have it trim horizontally.

• Even though you can un/check the baluster family parameters "Always Vertical" and "Shared", the OK button stays greyed out. So basically these cannot be changed.

• Baluster templates have a fixed origin. Reference plane's "Defines Origin" parameter has no effect on changing the origin location. Make sure to locate your geometry relative to the original ref. planes set to define the origin. Avoid moving these as you'll get frustrated when the usual logic for geometry location in your project doesn't seem to hold anymore ;) If you lose the origin location, simply import a dwg into your family with some lines located at the WCS Origin, using the Origin to Origin option with Orient to View checked and you'll easily find where it is.

Now that you have some great cocktail-party facts that will make you look smart at your next User meeting or Mixer, we'll move on to see how to give an offset to the base of the baluster family.

Above you can see what's necessary to create control for the base offset. The baluster family has a void at the base and top. For the base void, we need to control the top of the void sketch. So I added a horizontal ref. plane and assigned a label parameter. I called it Base Offset. Then I moved the sloped ref. plane to the intersection of this new horizontal ref. plane and the vertical, center plane. The angular parameter will rotate the sloped plane around the intersection of the sloped plane and the horizontal plane (the two planes that the angular parameter references). In this case, even if you turn on automatic sketch dimensions, you will not see these relationships. Since the horizontal plane can move vertically based on the value of the Base Offset parameter, Revit will also move the sloped plane to maintain the intersection point in the same place. Also note that there's another parameter called "Baluster Height" that is not shown in the image (from ref. level to second ref. plane from top).

When you load this family in your project and assign a positive value, the base of the baluster will move vertically. The same can be done to control the top of the baluster. The top will trim at the angle of the railing slope, but the bottom will be horizontal since the host for the base is flat (the floor or the thread). If you want to make the bottom of the baluster be cut at the same angle as the top, replace the parameter "Bottom Cut Angle" with "Top Cut Angle".

"Balustration" continued

Cleaning Family Templates

So like many users, you have tried to desperately get rid of stubborn reference planes and labels/dimensions that show up whenever you create a new family from a stock template. You probably tried hitting the Delete key harder and harder, to no avail. But where there's a will, there's a way!

What you need to do is to rename your rft templates to rfa (as a precaution, always make a copy to experiment on) and open the rfa family in Revit. You can now delete all the reference planes and labels/dimensions. Note that parameters cannot be removed (maybe someday I'll stumble on a way to do that, but I highly doubt it!). Click the video below for a demonstration of how this is done for a casework family template.

Cleaning out a Casework Family Template

Cleaning Family Templates

A tale of a ghost

So I'm sitting here kicking myself for not thinking of this earlier, but now I'm a better man for it!

Bill comes to me in desperation..."I have an image that is printing in every single section and elevation view, but it doesn't show up in the actual view!". I looked at him in awe....I thought he had a sip too many. "Bill, that can't possibly be true! Don't you know that what's not in your view, cannot print?! That's a Revit basic behavior!". So I reluctantly stroll to his desk and we open up the project file. Sure enough, the darn raster image shows up in the Print Preview. So I start troubleshooting....turning visibility of links, raster images with absolutely no positive results. Then Bill pointed out that if the crop region doesn't include the first level, the image goes away. I immediately start blaming some project corruption on the level and thought that we're going to have to send it to Autodesk Support.

And then it hit me.....I turned off all Imported Catergories (those awful DWG files) and the raster images vanished from the print preview! Hurray! Problem solved. Don't ask me how that raster image got there in elevation in all section/elevation view of all orientations, as the dwg files were used as backgrounds for casework and other things that we didn't do in Revit in plan, but that's what was wreaking havoc. Pretty simple issue to resolve....DON'T USE DWGS!!

Well, use with caution :)

A tale of a ghost

Family template for System Families!

I ran across a "hack" a while back which I posted on the AUGI forums, and thought I'd add it here too.

We all know that we don't have rft family templates at our disposal for some system families such as walls, roofs, ceilings and floors. But using the following technique, you can create a template for any system family category that is available as an in-place family:

a) In a project, create an in-place family of the category you desire. For example add a simple extrusion, but then do not exit from Family Editing mode;

b) Group the solid;

c) Go to the project browser under Groups and save out this group. Notice that it will be saved as an rfa file;

d) In Explorer, rename the extension to rft. Now you can use this template to create custom parameterized walls for example, that can be re-used from project to project. If you had any geometry that you do not want in your template, make sure to delete it before you rename the file.

It is important to note that you place this family using the Component tool or straight from the family editor by dragging the family, which will be located under the corresponding category. The family itself will not report what category it is when you go to the Family Category and Parameters dialog. See this little video clip for how simple it is to get this done. Enjoy!

RFT Family Template for System Families

Family template for System Families!

Minutia - Design Options glitch

I stumbled across this today during a training session on Design Options. It seems to be more of a "glitch" than a bug. Here's what transpired...

I had two plan views (called Option 1 and Option 2). Some walls were part of the Main Model while a couple others were part of Option 1 and Option 2. At one point I was explaining how you can set a design option to be the primary option and accept it, which would then delete all the elements belonging to "rejected" options. Revit also pops up a dialog prompting you to delete all views that were assigned to these design options, but also gives you the opportunity to uncheck some/all of them. So I tried this...unchecked all views and clicked Delete. The design options went away since I only had one Option Set, but now the plan view that was set to the "rejected" option set did not update. Click the link below for a video clip (no audio):

Design Options Glitch

But don't panic! There are two ways to nudge Revit into coming to its senses. Either enter and exit the Reveal Hidden Elements mode and the missing elements return in that view, or simply close the file (remember to save it first!) and then re-open and things start working properly once again.

Minutia - Design Options glitch

Streamlining Local File Creation - update

Earlier this month, I posted about a script/program to streamline local file creation. I finished some new updates which you can find on the AUGI thread Transparent Local File Creation (see the first post). I'm calling it Version 3, whatever that means :) I have added a readme file to the zip file that contains all the details you need to know about how it works, version history, etc. Here are the new additional features:

a) Check for Revit build between users working on the same project. The program will warn the users using a build other than what was used originally to create the first local file (using the script/program). This will help in alerting the BIM Manager/Workstation Administrator that some team members need to be upgraded.

b) Check if Revit is already open with a local version of the same project, belonging to the user that is running the script. If such case is detected, a warning will be issued and execution will stop.

c) The program will launch any Revit version from 2008 onwards (until they change the naming again!). So you'll be able to use it in a couple of weeks when the 2009 line-up is released!

d) Added an informative, animated splashcreen for a few seconds while a Revit session is launched.

e) Revit will now always open maximized.

If you find any problems, feel free to contact me. I'm also eager to hear your suggestions to make this a more useable tool. At the moment I have stayed away from using a GUI interface to select the project to launch, as this is tailored to our firm procedures, naming conventions, etc., and so far, it has been working very well for us.

Streamlining Local File Creation - update