Community
Cracking the Vault
Vault Ribbon appears incomplete after installing Inventor 2011 Update 1
After installing Inventor 2011 Update 1, you notice that the Vault Ribbon bar only includes the Vault "Log In" and "Log Out" Options. To fix this, you can Repair the Autodesk Vault 2011 (Client) application in Control Panel>Uninstall/Change....
It is Alive in the Lab
BY PRODUCT tab of Autodesk Labs home page redesigned
The BY PRODUCT tab of the Labs home page has been redesigned. http://labs.autodesk.com/?sortby=product Here's the story. I created an education page by hand: http://labs.autodesk.com/education/. I got positive feedback on the way this page looked, so I requested that our community......
The Building Coder
Simulating a Ribbon Textbox Label
On Wednesday evening I arrived in Stavanger on the coast of Norway, found the sailship Pantagruel and met the crew that I will be spending the coming week with. Thursday we went on a hike rather than sailing, because we......
Revit OpEd with Steve Stafford
Call for Abstracts - RTC Gold Coast Australia
The Australian Revit Technology Conference will be held at Jupiters Gold Coast, Queensland, between the 26th and 28th of May, 2011.The online abstract submission site is now open, and will close on Friday October 22nd, 2010.We are now seeking abstracts from individuals interested in speaking at the event. Increase your profile in the industry - speak at RTC 2011. This is your opportunity to share your knowledge and expertise with other Revit Users. Submitted abstracts will be double-blind refereed...
Between the Lines
AutoCAD for Mac Brochure Download
The AutoCAD for Mac product brochure in PDF format is now available for download....
LT Unlimited
There are a ton of live & virtual events on the calendar before the end of the year. I’ll be posting more about each of them individually, but for now you can mark your own calendar to make sure you......
Jason Grant Blog
There's an App for that... but is it the best one?
Houston Neil, Director of Marketing at Software Advice contacted me about plugging some very interesting research that he conducted on apps for the iphone and ipad. Click here for article Excerpt: So we decided to build a list of the best architecture, engineering and construction project management software apps for contractors, project managers and architects. Our methodology was simple: filter out the irrelevant apps (e.g. “iShovel” and “Men at Work – Ultimate...
Through the Interface
Septembers Plugin of the Month: DigSigStamp
Yesterday Scott Sheppard announced the availability of this plugin over on It’s Alive in the Lab. We originally received a request for this Plugin of the Month some time ago. Fenton Webb, from our DevTech Americas team, developed the initial......
Inside the System
Workset Visibility in Revit 2011
Has this ever happened to you? "Frankly, I’m annoyed by having to turn on my workset every time I create a new view. " When a workset is created, there is an option to make it not visible by default.......
The Revit Clinic
Multiple Layer Slabs and Slab Edges
When a substrate layer is added to a floor's structure, it will cut the slab edge, rather than the edge cutting through and directly attaching to the slab. While some of you may be aware of possible ways to work......
Buildz
BeeHives are Back: Real Equilateral Hexagons
Last year I did a post on making custom panel patterns. It was noted that among other limitations, Revit's out of the box hexagons kind of stink. I finally got around to figuring out how to make a real equilateral hexagon, where there is no overlap between panels, they count right, and they flex. One problem: they are a little funky on really irregular grids, curvy things, etc, but they work on most regular surfaces. If you download this file, and keep your UV divisions to a proportion of 1 to 1.73,...
BLAUGI
AUGI Announces President Elect for 2011
The Autodesk User Group International (AUGI) Board of Directors has formally elected David Harrington as President for 2011. Historically the President has been chosen and elected at the transition from one Board to the next, after annual elections and installation......
REVIT Structure Learning Curve
.I have no idea how this guy has done this but try a few basic words, It had me in fits of laughter!Thanx to Rikki for finding this one...
(bim)x
Not necessarily surprising, considering how important construction has become to BIM software vendors recently. Will be interesting to see what happens with Autodesk &Vela in the future.http://www.velasystems.com/news-and-events/press-releases/09-02-2010/...
dOODS and ENDS
Single-Segment vs Multi-Segment Linear Takeoff Tool
When doing a manual takeoff using the Linear Tool you, whether using polyline or rectangular, you are given the option to utilize Single-Segment or Multi-Segment Mode. Let's start by defining what these actually mean: Single-Segment Mode: Creates a single line......
Inside the Factory
Dept of Obscure - Override Cut Line Styles
In the process of doing some research into model and symbolic graphic representation, and the various methods Revit uses to control these, I came across a feature I had forgotten about. As I refreshed my memory I thought I would......
A Beginner Revit Blog
Lately, more clients are seeing the benefits of BIM. So I get to ramp up our standards for 2011. Meaning I want to change a few things to use the 2011 new features.I finished our template a couple of weeks ago. The few things I added/changed:Sheet Index – With our typical sheets to choose from when creating a new sheet, this helps with our standards, I can keep people to follow our naming convention. I added a sorting parameter so the sheets are set listed in the typical set up.View...
AutoCAD Insider
This morning Autodesk announced the return of AutoCAD software to the Mac platform. It takes full advantage of the Mac OS X platform, with an intuitive, graphical user interface that makes it easy to bring your ideas to life. And......
Autodesk University
AU 2010 Class Catalog Preview in an Excel® Spreadsheet
The AU Community has really jumped on the chance to preview the AU 2010 Class Catalog and there's lots of excitement and tweets being passed around about it. We received a number of requests to have the catalog available in......
The Sustainable Design Toolbox
Going Native.....AutoCAD on the Mac is back
Rumours have been out there for some time and press announcements started in the last day or so, its now official, AutoCAD is soon to be available running natively on Mac OS X. For me, the great thing is I have now got a MacBook Pro to play with so I can get up to speed on this exciting new development. AutoCAD for Mac supports the usual Mac functions such as Cover Flow, Spotlight, Trackpad and Magic Mouse gestures. It really is a full Mac product and is certainly looking good: Autodesk Evangelist...
Revit Journeyman
So Autodesk has finally gone off and done it, they are now going to offer AutoCAD for the MAC. First thing I did when I saw this early today was look at the calender to make sure it was not April fools day. Nope it is August 31st. Next question that comes to mind is when will they do the same for Revit.... I can think of several firms that would love to use Revit on there MAC'S, and I would live to see it happen....
CADDHELP
Revit Technology Conference 2011
The dates and locations of the 2011 conferences have just been announced!Revit Technology Conference, Australia: 26-28 May, Jupiter's Gold Coast, QueenslandRevit Technology Conference, USA: 23-25 June, Hyatt Huntingdon Beach, Orange County, CaliforniaRead all about it, with the complete wrap of the 2010 conference in the just released Newsletter #7 August 2010....
BIM & BEAM
Prokon integration with Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis
Autodesk partner Prokon has announced the beta availability of a new link that facilitates the transfer of steel and concrete information to Prokon from Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis. PROKON RobotLink The PROKON RobotLink is a add-on for Autodesk® Robot™ Structural......
It's All Just Ones and Zeros
Over the years people have asked me for class diagrams of the Vault API. I avoided doing them mainly because I don't have time. Recently, I've started playing around with Visual Studio 2010, and I found that it can auto generate some pretty good diagrams. So now I have no excuse. Here are the class diagrams for the Vault API. The only thing missing are the service classes from the Web Service API. The diagram would have been incomprehensible if I left them in. Web Service API diagram Client API diagram...
The MEP CAD Engineer
How do get the #$%#@$ Revit drawings to look right....Lineweights and Object Styles!
I'm an old school kind of guy - I started in the "chalk on a rock" days where we were putting ink on mylar. In those days, you had to know everything...before you put the pen to paper. AutoCAD, for how much I love it, made us a bit lazy, since we could make all kinds of changes quickly. Even getting the documents to look right has a couple of ways to do it (CTB vs STB, layer colors mean a specific penweight - ever get into a fist fight about this?).Now Revit comes along a while back, and all of our...
Without A Net
AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Layer Manager Hotfix
Yesterday I told you an issue had been discovered with Update 1 for AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011 resulting in Update 1 being removed for download until it could be corrected and re-released. Customers who have applied Update 1......
Do U Revit?
I confess: I have not used site tools in Revit that much. There are a variety of reasons for that: not much opportunity in what I was doing in the past, insufficient tools, etc. But recently I started using them in schematic design, especially because I have made a pact with the devil to obliterate the perception that only SketchUp is adequate for this phase! Continuing on the usual trend of reporting what doesn’t work in Revit and suggesting possible fixes, I came across a problem today. The...
Lynn Allen's Blog
Project Photofly is Alive in the Autodesk Lab!
So do you regularly check out the Autodesk Labs for great free software? Here you'll find all types of great programs to help make your design life easier (or at least more fun!). Just recently the Autodesk Lab posted Project......
Beyond the Paper
What's New with APIs in Autodesk Design Review 2011?
Design Review Software Engineer, Herbert He, mentions a few noteworthy changes to the 2011 Design Review APIs that aren't included in the current API documentation. • New Animation Detection API • New Lighting and Field of View Commands • Moved......
Under the Hood
Categorizing Inventor Content Center files with Autodesk Vault
Categories are a powerful feature of Vault Workgroup, Collaboration, and Professional. A Category extends the use of files in Vault and defines their behaviors. A number of customers have been looking for ways to identify Inventor’s Content Center files in Vault and categorize them, thus having these files follow unique......
Revit Beginners
Remodels in Revit... the untold story
To my surprise, there's not a whole lot of discussion on this very important topic. Anyone who has developed large remodel projects in Revit can tell you, it's not as clean and easy as starting with an empty model.The first step is pretty staight forward... build your as-built model in the existing phase. Once an as-built model is done you might want to archive a copy of the model just incase the design scope changes and you have to start all over again with a clean as-built. Now I'm sure you are...
Engineering Education for Mechanically Inclined
Calling all cars! and bikes, and canoes, and bridges
OK. They* tell me I’m supposed to behave myself on this blog thing but enough is enough. If you’re a member of a student team and you’re not using Inventor; you’re working too hard. Seriously. I know that in most......
CADCAM Blog
Alibre Design 2011 - New Features
Alibre Design is one of Australia's most affordable mid-range 3d mechanical CAD solutions. Within the next several weeks Alibre 2011 is expected for release. This major release both adds new features as well as improving many existing ones. A crucial focus for Alibre Design 2011 has been improvement in efficiency and ease of use, including fully customizable keymaps and in-place editing. Developers may also be interested to know that much of Alibre is now written in the Microsoft C# programming language,...
The BIM Bulletin
Avatech Solutions and Rand Worldwide, Inc./IMAGINiT Merge
On Tuesday, August 17, Rand Worldwide, Inc. and Avatech Solutions, Inc. announced that they have closed a definitive agreement under which the companies have merged.The combined company will be called Rand Worldwide and the Autodesk focused operations will operate under the name, IMAGINiT Technologies, when the transition is completed.For more details check out: http://tinyurl.com/273ljtl....
Revit MEP
NIBCO and CADworks Partner to Deliver High-Quality BIM Content to AEC Firms
From: http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=460131&Itemid=33 NIBCO and CADworks Partner to Deliver High-Quality BIM Content to AEC Firms NIBCO and CADworks, a leading Autodesk® Revit® content-solutions provider, have collaborated to provide NIBCO® specified valves to the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) community through the Autodesk® Seek Library (http://seek.autodesk.com) (type 'NIBCO' in the search bar for full product listing). "NIBCO takes an active...
openRevit
OpenStudio Surface Matching Tool
Hey guys I’m back! Sorry for the lack of activity on the site. I got the VPN hooked up again so I can make videos from home and I’ve been getting some great feedback from everyone. Looking forward to answering some questions and getting to some suggestions in some upcoming videos. Going to try and [...]...
Voice of Community
AA and Community: What can we learn?
You might be asking yourselves, what on earth does Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), have to do with community. What does it have to do with Autodesk user groups and user communities? And I might have had the same opinion but on a plane a few weeks ago, I was reading an article in Wired Magazine about the history of AA (The Secret of AA, Brendan I. Koerner. Wired Magazine, July 2010) which made me think again. One of the main themes of the article is that although AA and many of the 12-step programs have...
Everything Autodesk Revit & BIM
My colleague and friend, William Lopez Campo has finally decided to unleash a blog on us. You may well remember William from last years AU 2009 design slam, he was also the winner for the Berlin design slam with this little beauty… A quick chat with William today and this is his vision for the blog… “I’m hoping to capture some of those little developments I start but never finish, like the Inverse Kinematics application in Revit, or some scripting ideas that never progressed. Hopefully...
HOK BIM Solutions
Using Navisworks for Presentation
The following YouTube presentation explains how to use Navisworks for real-time clients presentation. The workflow requires you to export an 3d DWF from Revit and then import this into Navisworks....
Family Jewels - Creating Quality BIM Content
A new Revit MEP blog called "Revit MEP" - by Jason Martin
Hey everyone, I was looking for more info on primary connectors today and I just stumbled onto this blog called "Revit MEP." It looks like a pretty good resource, but there's no author I can find, nor any way to post a comment to ask. Anyone know who the author is on this? Who do we give the kudos to?? I like it, so I am adding it to the blog links for us all. Thanks for the replies from you all. It's Jason Martin's blog. Looks nice Jason. Please post more on primary connectors for pipes and pipe...
iRevit
MARA kicking it at KlingStubbins
Eddy, Phil and James have got a genius public awareness campaign going for the latest edition of Mastering Revit Architecture, and I am not one to be left out of the fun! Buy your copy here:...
Revit Tips and Tricks
Creating a Quick Trellis in Revit using a Curtain Wall
1. Start with a rough idea of how big the trellis will be and a rough idea of what the major support structure for the trellis. This might be using parts that are already built in your model or you might need to put in some columns, beams, etc.2. Start sketching the outer boundary of the trellis with a RoofHome > Roof > Roof by Footprint3. Go to the Properties of the Roof and switch the Family to System Family: Sloped Glazing (this is a Curtain Wall used for skylights) and then create a new Type...
Don't Think: Do Revit
32bit that is! I've been waiting for this post to be published by the Revit Clinic folks. I've been working with Ryan for a month now on a user that continues to crash no matter what. The current thinking being that it is the issue of stability of 32 vs 64. Needless to say we've tried and exhausted just about every other possible option, and no, this user is not working on huge Revit files at all either....
Connected
All in a Day's Work for the Buzzsaw Activity Log
I just got this great little tidbit from KBR's Aakanksha Luthra - what a great story! I've personally been in meetings just like this, when it was discovered that somebody was doing a little jiggery-pokery with the facts...it's great to......
Knowing What You Don't Know About CAD
Just got my acceptance email notifying me that I will be presenting once again at AU 2010! My proposal was one of 747 that were selected out of 3,100 proposals. Looking forward to AU 2010!Look for registration to begin in late August, and of course look for my class....
Beyond the Silos
A forward from Harlan Brumm: As you may have heard already, Update 1 has been released for Revit 2011 products. You can get the updates by following these links or by using Live Update (Check the little satellite dish): Revit Architecture 2011 Update 1 Revit Structure 2011 Update 1 Revit MEP 2011 Update 1...
RobiNZ CAD Blog
It’s the time of year when Autodesk unleash new versions of their applications. I just finished watching a webcast announcing the AutoCAD, AEC, Manufacturing and Visualisation products. “With the release of these powerful applications, the 2011 Autodesk product line is......
Bolt Out of the Red
Compiling and running .NET4.0 Revit commands
For those of you excited by .NET4.0’s new features and wanting to test Revit commands compiled with .NET4.0, you’re in luck. Before I show you how, a few caveats: I’ve tested this for a few days. While I haven’t run into any unexplained issues , there are areas of new functionality in .NET4 that can cause a bit of a head scratch. Of course this is unsupported so you can try submitting a bug but don’t be surprised if Autodesk just laugh at you. In other words,...
CAD Application Development
Revit API 2011: Revit AddIn Manager – Almost Edit & Continue
(part of our ongoing series) If you’ve been developing for Revit for a while – you groaned significantly when, in Revit 2010, changes were made to Revit that disabled the “Edit-and-Continue” capability within a Revit add-in. That is to say – if you wanted to make a minor code change while Revit was debugging – you had to close Revit (wait for Revit to be totally closed), perform the change, then restart Revit, re-load your model, and then try to get back to the same location. Argh...
What A Mesh
Hi, if you happen to be at AIA in Miami, and want to see cool modeling in AutoCAD and its potential for interoperability with Revit, please pass by Autodesk's booth, and I'll be glad to show you some amazing stuff.......
Bad Revit!!!
a tip about windows schedule cost field
Welcome to my first blog and my first post!I could start with any kind of tip or article about Revit Architecture... so i'll start with a simple question that a former student asked me today.This is a tip for newbies... but very useful!question:in a window schedule, how can i have a cost per unit field and a total cost field? (assuming i'm not using the "itemize every instance" check box)answer:first step we have to create a window schedule. (the project must have windows!)Now, when you reach the...
Revit ArchCenter
Are Reflected Ceilings Views Truly Reflected Views
Easter Island Prokect Diary
Nobody knows who carved the huge stone figures, or why. There are 1000 of them, ranging from 6 feet to more than 30 feet in height. The biggest weighs about 270 tons. All have the same appearance: a long shaped......
Classroom Connection
Animation Academy - Providing Another Pathway...
If you haven’t read it – you better. By "it" I’m referring to the draft report on Multiple Pathways developed by WestEd. created in response to CA Assembly Bill 2648 (Bass) that “ requires the State Superintendent of Public Instruction......
Between the Walls
AutoCAD Architecture 2010 and AutoCAD MEP 2010 Update 2 Released
Autodesk has released Update 2 for AutoCAD Architecture 2010 and AutoCAD MEP 2010. http://bit.ly/d3HfrA & http://bit.ly/9ApjyI...
