RTC - Revit Technology Conference 2015

WOOT.. directly after a lovely vacation I was whisked off to an AMAZING conference.

Revit Technology Conference 2015

I had a chance to meet the original 2 men that brainstormed the program REVIT.. (Irwin Jungreis and Leonid Raiz)... they were like Apple's Steve Jobs. 

Humble and brilliant men.. It's was great. There were tons of classes which were full of great information.

I learned a lot and will be implementing these Best Practices here in the upcoming months.. so keep your eyes open.

Some of the items of interest you can expect to see:

• Revit Project Health Checks (file reviews for best practices and performance)
• Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
• Project Template Organization - file, family and view naming etc.
• Best Practices for working with LARGE projects
• Rhino-Grasshopper and Iterative Design (pattern based families  and adaptive components)
• Updates to the Family Editor - to make your life easier
• Managing Groups to reduce/eliminate group errors 
• Behind the scenes secrets for Shared Coordinates
• Etc. Etc. Etc.

It was a great.

It's also great to be back in the office!!! 

Profiles are Included in Copy/Paste

If you need to copy a system family (stair, railing, wall sweep, fascia, gutter, etc.) that has a specific PROFILE embedded, from one project to another.. you can do a copy/paste with confidence.

The system family will copy over and bring with it any profile that is embedded that helps create the shape. Your system family may ERROR when you paste it into the new project.. but the profile makes the transfer just fine.

Example: If you copy a wall sweep.. it will error because it doesn't have a wall to host to in the new project.  No biggie. Your profile made the jump and is ready to be used.

Happy Revitting

Sketchy Lines - in Revit 2015

One of the fun features that has now been incorporated into the current version of Revit is Sketchy Lines. You can turn this feature on in any elevation, section, 3D view, etc. and it can also be set up in a View Template (example: Sketchy Presentation).

Here is how you use it:

When in any view.. simply open the Graphic Overrides for that view and expand the Sketchy Lines settings. Enable Sketchy Lines.

Try different settings for the Jitter and Extension until you get what you are looking for.

It's not SketchUp.. but hey.. we're getting the 'less refined' look that people are saying that clients really want to see.

Revisions

When working with revisions, the workflow is thus. You place a CLOUD around the items that have been revised and you also place a TAG directly adjacent (and touching) the cloud that gives reference to the cloud, letting people (mostly the contractor or installer) know which project revision this work is associated with. This keeps things organized.

When you issue another revision.. you must give it a separate number.. again, this keeps things organized. But, this time you must do another task. It is common practice to turn off the CLOUD from the previous revisions, but LEAVE the old revision TAGS on. This alerts people to the fact that another previous revision has occurred in this area, but doesn't cloud the issue with extra clouds laying around. haha

At first this may seem like a daunting task.. but Revit has it all figured out. 

If you have been using the Revision system built into Revit (accessed by selecting Manage>Additional Settings>Sheet issues/Revisions).. the dialog and revision cloud on the drawings should look like this.

When you ADD another revision and ISSUE your first one:

First, check the box for ISSUE (this locks the revision clouds from being edited).

Second.. change the dropdown from 'Cloud and Tag' to just 'Tag'.. and all the revision clouds from the previous revisions will turn OFF but their associated tags will be left ON.

BAM.. move along. 

Magical Moving Grid Heads

Ever work on a project and find the Grid Heads moving on other Views when you intended them to only be moved in the current view?

Grid heads have a 3D and a 2D feature built into them.

Typically.. out of the box... they are set to 3D.. which means when moved, they will move in all other similar views (example: all the plan views). But you can switch this setting to 2D on an individual Grid Head basis in order to move the Grid Head where you need.. and this will NOT effect the other views.

Here's how:

Select the Grid line.. you will see (NEAR the Grid Head) a small annotation of '3D' or '2D'. If it is set to 3D, then by clicking on this small annotation you can switch it from 3D to 2D.. and then the Grid Head can be safely fulled to a new location. 

You can switch it back to working in 3D and connected to all the other views by aligning the 2D head to the little CIRCLE on the grid line. The 2D annotation will switch back to 3D. 

NOTE: This 3D/2D functionality works on LEVEL MARKERs too when working in Elevations and Sections!!

Guide Grids

Ever want to make sure your plans are aligned from one sheet to the next? Rumor has it that contractors can't build it unless the plans align exactly from one sheet to another. So, thankfully Revit has a quick easy solution for this.

Guide Grids. Yep, Automatic alignment feature built right in. (Nearly automatic anyway.)

Here's how they work:
You place them into Sheet Views (since you can't put them anywhere else).

With a Sheet View opened.. Select the View tab, and in a group called Sheet Composition you will find a button labeled Guide Grid.
Click on that.

A small dialog box will appear where you can select an existing Guide Grid or make a new one. NAME it appropriately (e.g. floor plans), select OK. The Grid will appear across your entire sheet. You can then resize it (crop it basically) to the area you need it.

In the Properties of the Guide Grid you can also set the Grid Spacing from the default 1" to anything you like. 4"works great.

Place the same (floor plans) Guide Grid onto each of your Plan Sheets and move your Floor Plan VIEWS to align with the 'non-moving. non-shifting' Guide Grid. (You will find that the grid will not shift at all when you resize the grid boundaries.. so you are safe. Just move your floor plan views to align and you are good to go.)

Try it out.. its pretty cool.

Which Version is it???

QUESTION:

Is there a way to just look at a file in your directory structure and know which version of Revit was used to create it?

The answer is sadly NO.

Especially if the file is not one that has Worksharing enabled.. if that is the case, you will simply need to try to open it.

If it is an older file.. it will begin to upgrade.. it it newer.. it will warn you.. and if it matches your current Revit version,.. it will open.

Yet, there is hope... if a file DOES have Worsharing enabled (it's a CENTRAL file), there is a way to know if the file is the same version as the Revit session you currently have running... before you begin opening it.

Let me explain with an example:

If you are in Revit 2014 and are trying to create a new Local file from a Central file on your server. You select OPEN file and you browse to the file on your server. When you select the file (one click only), look at the CREATE NEW LOCAL  checkbox.. if it is highlighted with a checkbox in it.. you are good to go.. the file matches the current 2014 version. 

But, if CREATE NEW LOCAL is greyed-out and your only option is to DETACH FROM CENTRAL.. you are missmatched and it's not a Revit 2014 file (or its not a center file after all).  It could be older or newer, or a local file of Revit version 2014.. Sorry.. try again.

It's not fun when we don't know the file's version.. especially when your office is using several versions of Revit.

It pays to NAME the FILE with the Revit version in the filename.

Example: Colorado State_Admin Bldg_Exterior Envelope_R2014