The Revit Clinic

Updating or Uninstalling Revit Server 2012 when the User That Installed It is Unavailable

A new Technical Solution has just been added to our Knowledge Base with information on how to update or uninstall Revit Server 2012 when the user that originally uninstalled it is unavailable:

Unable to update or uninstall Revit Server 2012

Revit Schedule Survey

Our friends over at Inside the Factory have posted a new survey about Revit schedules.  They are conducting some research and would love to hear from you.

I can relate to Dave's story about how cool Revit schedules were when you first saw what they could do.

To give them a hand in their efforts, check out the post over at:

http://insidethefactory.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/01/revit-schedules-a-love-hate-relationship.html

Scheduling Duct and Pipe Elbows by Angle

A common request we are seeing is the desire to schedule duct and pipe elbows by angle so that they can be scheduled and ordered. As the Angle parameter is a System Family it cannot be scheduled normally.

The help automate this process we have found that creating a Shared Parameter with a formula should pull the angle of the elbow, which in turn can be scheduled.

The process for goes like this:

1. Create a Shared Parameter file.
2. Edit the elbow families and add the Shared Parameter.
3. In the Family Types, set the formula for the Elbow Angle parameter to = Angle.
4. In the project, create a duct or pipe fitting schedule with the Elbow Angle Parameter (along with any other parameters). 

 

You should now have a schedule that shows the Angles. From here, you can filter the information to best suit your needs.

One thing to keep in mind, is that initially the schedule will show all fittings (Tees, Crosses, Transitions, etc.), so filtering by "Elbow Angle > Parameter Exists", should only show the elbow families with the shared parameter.

Here is a video of the process:

Credit to Jason Martin for verification of the process.

 

In the project, create a duct or pipe fitting schedule with the Elbow Angle Parameter (along with any other parameters). 

You should now have a schedule that shows the Angles. From here, you can filter the information to best suit your needs.

One thing to keep in mind is that initially the schedule will show all fittings, so to only show the elbows set the schedule to filter by "Elbow Angle > Parameter Exists".

Here is a Video of the process:

Project Spark Learning Materials & Survey

I wanted to post some information around learning materials and a survey from the Project Spark Team; included below:

Have you used the Project Spark Getting Started Guide?  Did you watch the Essential Skills Videos?  What about the WikiHelp? 

However you choose to learn, we’d appreciate your feedback on the Project Spark learning materials.  If you can spare approximately ten minutes to take a short survey we would really appreciate it.   To participate, just follow this link:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/spark_tutorial

If you haven’t tried Project Spark yet, it’s not too late!  It’s available as a free download from the Project Spark homepage on Autodesk Labs.  Project Spark is currently available worldwide.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact us at Labs.Spark@autodesk.com.

Thanks in advance!
The Autodesk Project Spark Team

Family Editor Course on Lynda.com

Have you seen lynda.com?  Lynda.com is a great resource for product training.

Paul Aubin has some great Revit training on the site.  He just released his latest course on the Family editor.  Paul is a excellent instructor and speaker (one of the best at AU every year, IMHO).  

Go check out Paul's site for more information about the new family editor course here: http://paulaubin.com/blog/new-revit-family-editor-course-on-lynda-com/

Its great learning material for Revit and the family editor.  

Adding a Spot Elevation in the Host Project to a Linked Revit Floor

One common reason for not being able to add a spot elevation to a floor in the linked or host project is if the view visual style is set to wireframe [since the top face isn’t visible].

There is another potential scenario I wanted to outline below:

1.  You have a Revit link containing the floor [you wish to add the spot elevation to] linked into a host project.

2.  The link is set to either By Linked View or Custom, under the view Visibility / Graphic Overrides > Revit Links > Display Settings.

3.  In the host project Visibility / Graphic Overrides > Model Categories, the Floor visibility is off.

Because the linked floor is set to use the display settings from the linked project it is still visible.  However because the host floor category visibility is off, the top \ bottom face is unavailable as an option [you cannot place the spot elevation].  You can still choose any of the linked floor edges, however the value will be null.  For example, as a test toggle the > Model Categories > Floor visibility on\off and watch what happens to the spot elevation value.

If you run into unexpected values or the inability to add the spot elevation, verify the host project floor visibility.

Snappy Elevation Marks

When placing elevation markers into your views, Revit makes it easy to get an elevation of an angled wall by “hunting” for elements near the marker and snapping to an angle that is parallel to the element.  

A problem comes when a design change happens and the wall the elevation was snapped to is rotated, even just a tiny bit (actually a tiny amount might be more difficult to recover from because the way Revit wants to snap.)  

You can end up losing the symbolic line work in the families that are shown in the elevation and any dimensions you place will not be reporting the correct distances.  It can be difficult to get the elevation marker rotated so it is parallel to the elements you are trying to elevate again.  You may just give up trying and end up deleting the original view and place another view marker.  Not the best solution.

Using the rotate tool from the Modify tab of the ribbon does not offer much help in this situation.  This tool allows you to free rotate the elevation marker but there is no snapping behavior like what happens when you placed the elevation marker originally.  In order to get the elevation marker to “re-snap” to the elements that got rotated in your model, you can use the rotate control grip on the elevation marker itself instead.

Select the elevation marker in a plan view and then use the small “rotate” grip to rotate the marker.  When you use this grip you will notice the elevation marker will snap to elements in the model like it does when it is first being placed.

Thanks to Jeff Hanson for the tip!

And the Revit.ini file strikes again...

You may remember a few posts about the Revit.ini file and Revit 2012:

• Deploying Revit 2012 with a Customized Revit.ini file
• Revit 2012 Network Deployment Utility: Custom Revit.ini Settings and Content Supression
• Who moved my Cheese (Files) ? - Important File location changes for Revit 2012

Before diving into this post, I recommend you check out the above posts if you haven't already.

With UR1 for Revit 2012 products, the way the UserDataCache Ini file (C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit Architecture 2012\Program\UserDataCache\Revit.ini) propagates to the users directory (%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Revit\Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012\Revit.ini) have changed with the addition of a new Update tag.  

There are also some important details to understand about the hostname field that will impact your ability to roll out company wide changes to your users Revit.ini files.  

First, here are the details about how these fields work in the ini to propagate changes:

2012 behavior for RAC, RME or RST at startup as product is initializing:

Note: all keys are read from the [Install]  section of Revit.ini for either the user's file or UserDataCache (UDC) file.

If Hostname key in user's file does not match UDC Hostname key:

no further processing, InstallGUID and ReinstallGUID are skipped

If InstallGUID key exists in UDC and value does not match InstallGUID key in user's file

• delete all files in user's roaming profile folder (top level files only, no subfolders processed)
  • %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Revit\<product name> e.g.   C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Revit\Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012
• re-copy all files from UDC into user’s roaming profile folder

else if Update key exists in UDC and value does not match Update key in users’ file  (new for UR1)

• parse list of Section/Key pairs and overwrite user’s values for any non-null values in UDC Update key
  • i.e.  for each UDC Section/Key read the value, and overwrite the user’s Section/Key value
    • e.g.  Update=Documentation|OnlineHelpServer
    • format:  Update=Section|Key;Section|Key;Section|Key
• write UDC Update value into user’s file

else If ReinstallGUID key exists in UDC and value does not match ReinstallGUID key in user’s file

• overwrite user’s values for these keys for any non-null values in UDC file (hard-coded list only)
  • FamilyTemplatePath
  • DataLibraryLocations
  • DefaultTemplate
• write UDC ReinstallGUID value into user’s file

The first item is probably the most important one for you if you want to roll out changes to a lot of users at once (after you have already installed).  It turns out that the hostname field is the first check Revit makes when comparing the UserDataCache ini with the ini in the users directory.  

If the names don’t match, then nothing else parsed through in the ini file.  The Hostname check was added because of roaming profiles so as a user logged into different machines their Revit.ini wouldn’t get overwritten due to different InstallGUIDs per install.  

In case you need to roll out changes to your user ini files from one source there are two options you can look at:

1. If you remove the Hostname entry from *all* user’s Revit.ini files and from the UDC Revit.ini, then you can more easily propagate changes and/or overwrite entire Revit.ini files.  
2. If you delete all user’s Revit.ini files on all machines, and update all UDC Revit.ini with the new settings and remove the Hostname entry, then a new Revit.ini file would be copied from the UDC the next time the user runs Revit.

Both of these options should have the desired affects and allow you to roll out changes to other users. Happy INI ing...

 

Revit WikiHelp Community Content

Quick post for anyone not familiar with the Community area of WikiHelp yet.  There is an ever-growing collection of great content at the link below:

Revit Community Content

Not only does this serve as an excellent resource, but you can contribute as well.  Definitely check out the area if you have not already!

Removing the Unused - 3 Times the charm for Purge Unused in Revit 2012

In 2012, the Purge Unused command has gotten a little help.  Now, it is possible to delete out of your project all the unused materials and property set definitions.  I really like the ability to delete out all the unused materials. 

One thing to know about this new ability is that it may take up to three purge Unused to fully clear everything from a project.  Allow me to explain.  When you use Purge Unused, you only see the items that are not being currently used in the project.  

Any families that are listed in the list may be using materials that are in the project.  The materials that those families are using won't be shown in the list because they are "in use" in those families that aren't being used.  

Confused yet?  Good.  

When you purge out a family, its materials now might be unused in the project and the next time you launch the purge unused dialog you may see the additional materials that can be purged from the project.

When it comes to property sets, the same thing that happened with families can happen with materials.  Property sets may be "in use" by a material that isn't being used in the project.When the material is purged, its property set is no longer being used and will display in the Purged unused dialog when you launch it again.  

So, long story short, you may need to do a Purge Unused three times to get everything out of the project.  Once to get everything you normally would, then to get any additional materials or property sets, and finally, to make sure all the property sets are taken care of. 

Happy Purging.