All Things BIM / DC

Revit OpEd: 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 onlin..."

For one reason or another, several of our Revit 2011 installs cause Windows not to display the thumbnail preview of Revit project (.rvt) and Families (.rfa). After speaking with Adsk support, they determined the problem to be with Windows and not Revit. The fix is pretty easy. You first need to open a DOS Window in Windows. From the Windows Start menu, click Run and then type "cmd" in the Run dialog. This will open a DOS Window. In the command line then type: regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\ Revit Architecture 2011\Program\Revit.FilePreview.dll" The Revit.FilePreview.dll will register the DLL library for previews. If everything registered successfully, a successful registration of the DLL module should appear and the thumbnail previews will appear.

Workset Visibility in Revit 2011 From Inside the System 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. If you've run into the scenario above, this box was unchecked when the workset was created. One work-around is to create a new workset that is 'Visible in all views', and then delete the original workset. When you delete a workset that contains elements, you have to option to move those elements to another workset, so you can move them to the newly created workset. However, be aware that when you do this, those elements may be visible in views where they weren't previously visible (assuming their category is visible in those views). So, you may need to 'clean up' after yourself, to turn off the worksets where they're not needed. New in 2011 is the ability to change yo

Where is the ceiling?!!? Check the Underlay Orientation from The Revit Clinic Fewer things in life are more frustrating then when you think you have all the bases covered, and yet you’ve overlooked the obvious. Here’s a real-life example: A friend of mine owned a lawn mower that would not start. So after doing a little research online (as he was not a small engine mechanic by trade), he performed some basic maintenance: cleaned fuel filter, carburetor and belts, checked the spark plug, and changed the oil. Satisfied that he did everything by the book, he put the mower back together and gave the pull-cord a yank. No dice. He tried again. Nothing. Getting frustrated, he started the tried-and-true method of kicking the mower. Still wouldn’t start. Finally, after calling the (inanimate) mower a slew of bad names and threatening the (lifeless) mower with certain harm and even permanent injury, I….umm..I mean, my friend thought, ‘Hmmm. I wonder if there’s e

Working for an organization with multi offices, installing software can be a time consuming. I'm not IT, don't want to be IT, but making sure that everyone has functioning software is more often than not something a BIM or CAD Manager needs to attend to. To minimize time someone has to spend installing software, I wanted to create a batch file to install Revit and then the add- ons . The only interaction I want to have to do for the install if to double click on a single file and walk away. Working with some of the talented people at Autodesk I have been able to create a batch file to install the main product and several add- ons for Revit . The add- ons , like worksharing monitor are the tricky ones to silently (no user interaction) to install. To automate the install process, the first thing I did was create a network deployment. Autodesk's Help file provides some basic information on completing that task. For add- ons that are a standard . msi file, I used one o

Revit OpEd: Dept. of Subtle - Moving Fields in a Schedule : "As you probably already know, moving schedule fields around is limited to a Move Up and Move Down button in the Schedule properties dialog. ..."

Multiple Layer Slabs and Slab Edges From The Revit Clinic 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 around this, I wanted to relay a method as I still see the question float around. The following screenshot shows the default behavior when you add an edge to a slab with a substrate layer: To have the edge cut through that layer, first Unjoin the geometry: Then Join it, making sure to select the edge first and then the slab: I hope this helps!

Revit OpEd: Revit MEP and CADworks - Online Presentation : "I received an invitation to a presentation of the new piping productivity pack that CADworks has released. Here's a little bit of what the e..."