The Revit Clinic

Color Change in Revit 2012 after Updating Windows 7

For those installing recent optional Windows updates, you may have found that there are changes in Revit (Architecture/MEP/Structure) 2012. 

If you don't like the new color scheme, you can uninstall the update below, or disable Hardware Acceleration in the Revit Options.

Credit: Lance Coffey in Product Support

 

 

 

USACE Revit Templates

Our friends over in Autodesk Consulting have been busy helping the Corps create Revit Platform Templates to help increase adoption and improve delivery quality and consistency.  I thought it would be great to share this with our readers.  

Links to the templates are available from the Autodesk Building Owners page.  You can access them by clicking on that link and going down to bottom of the page.

Here is a little more detail on what this is all about:

The Process

The USACE and Autodesk collaborated to create a BIM Template Team consisting of seasoned CAD/BIM Managers with a working knowledge of Revit. Each member has specific disciplinary strengths and shared a draft working district specific Revit template with the team. Each of the district’s templates were critiqued and tested by the group, and by teams going through BIM Implementations. The feedback was debated and the group decided on revisions and enhancements that supported the intent, purpose and general needs of the USACE.

The Payoff

The upfront time and effort required to set up, configure, and coordinate a Revit project and environment, be can be minimized significantly by deploying a Revit template file (.rte). Revit templates will increase graphic and non graphic consistency across teams, districts and divisions. Templates will provide a team with a common starting point and will improve the overall USACE product and brand.

 

Crash Accessing the Sun Settings Dialog

I wanted to bring up an issue I've seen reported a few times: sometimes Revit 2013 products will crash when accessing the Sun Settings dialog.

This will occur if the Sun Setting field for the view is blank in the Graphic Display Options dialog:

To resolve the crash you have two options:

1. You can update your 2013 installation to UR2, where the issue is resolved.
2. If you are unable to update to UR2 you can apply a view template to the view that has a value for the Sun Setting field, which will resolve the crashing.

 

Revit 2013 Hotfix Available

A Hotfix for Revit 2013 has just been posted. It addresses issues in two main areas:

Part Family:

• Prevents data loss during upgrade of families containing specific material parameters.
• Improves stability and memory usage within graphics display.
• Improves vector print output of transparent elements and masking regions.
• Prevents accidental data loss during cancellation of the in-place family editor.

Revit Server:

• Revit would occasionally report that an operation could not be completed when attempting a worksharing operation after a period of inactivity, if Riverbed devices were used in conjunction with Revit Server. A subsequent retry of the operation would then succeed. When this hotfix is applied to Revit, this behavior is eliminated. No changes to Revit Server are required.

Make sure that Update Release 2 has been applied prior to adding the Hotfix. Verify that the build number of Revit 2013 is 20121003_2115.

The Hotfix is available here:

Hotfix - Autodesk Revit 2013 - Server and Part Family

Note: This Hotfix is applicable to all Revit versions: Revit 2013, Revit Architecture 2013, Revit Structure 2013, and Revit MEP 2013.

 

Load as Group and Project Parameters

Load as Group gives you the ability to load a Revit project as a group into the current project. 

The project that you are loading (as a group) may contain various project parameters.  Revit determines whether a parameter will come along for the ride based on if that parameter is actually in use.   Two examples:

You have a typical unit .rvt project that contains walls, doors, furniture and casework objects.  There are project parameters for those categories as well as parameters for floors, windows and generic models.  When you load this project as a group the parameters for floors, windows and generic models are not loaded into the host project, because there are no matching objects of those categories (in the project you are loading as a group).

You have a typical floor layout .rvt that consists only of walls.  There are 10 project parameters for walls.  3 of the wall parameters contain no data for any wall instance.  You load this project as a group and note that only 7 parameters were loaded into the project.  All it takes is 1 wall instance to contain some parameter value for it to be loaded.

This way you won’t unnecessarily populate your project with hundreds of unused parameters, while still bringing any active parameters that contain data.

Autodesk FormIt & Revit

If anyone missed the Autodesk FormIt announcement during AU, I thought it would be helpful to organize some resources and links below.  Here are some app highlights, including Revit interoperability:

Express design ideas with easy-to-use tools:

• Create forms quickly from a gallery of shapes
• Directly manipulate forms using gestures for easy model changes
• Save designs to the cloud and share with others

Easy access to site information:

• Set project location in a searchable maps interface
• Import satellite image of your site
• Design directly in the context of your proposed building location

Make early design decisions:

• Explore the effects of the sun using the location-aware Shadow Study tool
• Start early program analysis by tracking gross building floor area ratio while you design

Experience a more continuous BIM workflow:

• Store and share designs in the cloud using Autodesk® 360 cloud services
• Easily transfer designs to desktop applications via RVT or SAT file formats
• Explore design ideas and add detail to early design forms using award-winning BIM technology

Links:

Welcome to Autodesk FormIt

Autodesk FormIt App Page

Please let us know what you think if you’ve used the application!

Windows 8 and Revit

With the release of Windows 8, we are getting many questions regarding support for Autodesk products in this new environment.

We have released the following Knowledge Base Document, which lists the Support Products in Windows 8, along with our policy regarding support.

Windows 8 Support for Autodesk products

NOTE: As mentioned in the document, it will be updated as new information becomes available, so make sure to check in every once in a while.

Update Release 2 Available for Revit 2013 Products

Update 2 is now available for Revit 2013 products, and can be accessed at the following locations:

For Autodesk Revit Architecture, Autodesk Revit Structure, and Autodesk Revit MEP, you can find the update in the Data & Downloads > Updates section of each product page:

Autodesk Revit Architecture 2013 UR2

Autodesk Revit Structure 2013 UR2

Autodesk Revit MEP 2013 UR2

The update for Autodesk Revit 2013 can be found in the Design & Creation Suites Support > Data & Downloads > Updates & Service Packs section.

Autodesk Revit 2013 UR2

Installation ReadMe files and Update Enhancement PDFs are available at each of these locations as well.

RSN.ini and File Extensions

As the RSN.ini provides the Revit application workstation  which Hosts are visible during file navigation, as well as determines which Hosts can be accessed through the Revit Server Administrator from an Admin Server, it is one of the more important files in the Revit Server Network.

We have seen that even though the RSN.ini is in the proper location, the workstation cannot see any Host Servers in the Revit Server Network, or the Admin Server cannot access Host Servers through Revit Server Admin.

In a few of these cases, the issue was that in certain environments, Windows hides the file extension for known file types, Text documents being one of them.

Therefore, a user may think they have created an RSN.ini file, when in reality they have created an RSN.ini.txt file, which Revit does not recognize.  

 

 

 

 
The fix is to make sure the Type for the RSN.ini says "Configuration" as in the screenshot above.

To have Windows show the file extensions go to Control Panel  > Folder Options > View > Advanced Settings then make sure "Hide extensions for known file types" is unchecked, as in the screenshot below:

Revit user-interface ribbon appears blank for some tabs

A few users have reported completely blank ribbon tabs while other tabs appear normal.

If this occurs the entire tab may look similar to the image below:

If you should run into this behavior there are a few recommendations to correct the display:

1.  Use the ‘Restore Down’ option or ‘Maximize’ depending on your current state to adjust the size of the Revit window.  This action should force a redraw \ re-size of all panels and typically corrects the ribbon:

2. Closing and re-opening Revit should also correct the display.

Why could this occur?  Under some situations having Revit on a second display, changing the display resolution mid-session, or returning from a print \ print preview could trigger this appearance.

Afterward it should appear as expected: