Don’t Take Away My Turntable – Navisworks 2011

Finally, the old interface is gone and we can now use the Ribbon in Navisworks!  I’m sure there are some of you who can’t stand the Ribbon, but I haven’t met anyone, yet, who does not welcome the face lift of Navisworks 2011 with open arms.  It takes some getting used to, but once you’ve been able to find all your favorite tools in their new home you can see how much easier it is to get to them.  One tool I use religiously is the Turntable tool.  For 2011 they put all of the navigation tools in a transparent bar on the right of the screen, but when I looked for the Turntable, I couldn’t find it, it’s not there.  It’s not even in the Ribbon.  I started to think they got rid of the tool altogether.  Then I found the answer I was looking for.  The Turntable functionality is disabled by default in 2011, or rather replaced with the AutoCAD-like Constrained Orbit.  To enable Turntable:

1. Click the Application Button (Big ‘N’) > Options
2. In the Options Editor dialog box expand Interface and click Navigation Bar
3. In the Navigation Bar settings check the box next to “Use classic Constrained Orbit (Turntable)”

Now when you use the Constrained Orbit tool it will act like the Turntable.

Bob Eardley
Applications Engineer
CADsoft Consulting

Autosave in Revit?

I wonder how much time/money has been lost because we get so focused on what we are doing in Revit that we forget to save our file and our computer crashes or the power goes out. I get asked all the time if there is an autosave feature in Revit similar to the one in AutoCAD. Revit will never save your file in the background like AutoCAD does (thank goodness!) Can you imagine Revit saving a 200MB file in the background?

Revit does, however save detailed information about what you are doing in real-time in a journal file. These files can provide valuable information to your reseller for troubleshooting support issues. By reading them the support technician can determine exactly what you were doing when Revit generated an error or your system crashed. The best part about these files is that Revit can use the latest journal to rebuild your project exactly to where it was when you crashed! This is actually better that AutoCAD’s Autosave feature because the autosave file will only have information back to the last autosave which could have been 10 minutes ago.

To rebuild a file from a journal file follow these “super-easy” steps:

1. locate your latest journal file, typically found at:
   for Revit Architecture – C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010\Journals
   for Revit MEP – C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit MEP 2010\Journals
   for Revit Structure – C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit Structure 2010\Journals
2. Then just drag and drop the journal file onto your Revit icon on your deskop
3. That’s it! Now just watch the magic as Revit starts up, opens the file, and rebuilds it right in front of your eyes. This is fun just to watch it!

I hope this information helps to reduce the number of heart attacks among Revit users throughout the world. Please keep in mind, though, never trust the computer – still remember to save often!

Bob Eardley

Top New Features in Revit MEP 2011 – 1 of 3

Break out the party hats, order some pizza, it’s time to celebrate!  This is the day we all knew would come, we just didn’t know when.  If I had to list the top 3 things I would like to see added to Revit MEP they would be:

1. Conduit and Cable Tray
2. Customizable Panel Schedules
3. Copy/Monitor MEP fixtures

Every one of these features, and more, have been added to Revit MEP 2011!  So they added these new tools, but really, how good are they?  I will share with you my first impressions of each of these tools:

Bent Conduit

In a BIM project, 3D Conduit and Cable Tray can be critical elements in large projects where space is more valuble than gold.  Using previous versions of Revit MEP, engineers and designers could see what a powerful tool it was, but when a project called for these elements to be modelled in 3d, struggled with cumbersome workarounds such as using the plumbing tools to represent conduit or creating their own set of line-based families for cable tray.

When I first heard conduit was getting added to Revit MEP I thought, the tool better not be just a modified version of the pipe tool with larger radius elbow families.  They needed to give us the ability to do bent conduit, and they did!  The new conduit tool has two families: Conduit with Fittings, and Conduit without Fittings.  The Conduit without Fittings family is for bent conduit.  This seems to work very well.  There are actual Revit fittings that are inserted at the bends, but as you can see from the image the bends are continuous without any visible break.  As you are drawing conduit there is an option in the Options Bar to adjust the mininum Bend Radius for the bent fittings.

Cable Tray

There are several different type of conduit such as Channel, Ladder, and Mesh Bottom ready right out of the box.  And much like the conduit, there are two cable tray families: Cable Tray with Fittings and Cable Tray without Fittings

Cable Tray and Conduit Runs Categories

Of course both conduit and cable tray have their own categories in Revit MEP, but there are two additional categories, Conduit Runs and Cable Tray Runs. These special categories give us the ability to calculate length of entire runs within a schedule instead of just individual segments.

Two new connectors have been added to the familiy editor for creating objects that Conduit and Cable Tray would need to connect to. These connectors also have the ability to place them as “surface-based” which makes it possible to connect to any part of the surface of the object you need to connect to.  This way you are not limited to just one single connection point.

Where Are My Reference Planes?!

One of the biggest frustrations for many Revit users is understanding how to control the visibility of objects.  Sometimes things  seem to show up when you don’t want them to and others don’t show up when you do.  I like to think I can solve any visibility issue, but the other day I ran into one that made me really scratch my head.  I couldn’t get any of the reference planes that I drew in section to show up.   I checked every setting and mode that you would expect:  turned on the “Reveal Hidden Elements” mode (the light bulb), made sure Reference Planes were turned on in Visibility Graphics, adjusted the location of the section, recreated the section, changed the view to wireframe mode, I even tested it in a brand new project. None of these attempts fixed my dilemma.  To add to my confusion, I had two Revit models linked into my project and all the reference planes from the linked models were visible.  Revit just would not display any reference plane I personally drew in section.

I then thought to myself maybe it has something to do with my work plane?  Hmmm… but are Reference Planes drawn on a work plane?  The answer is not really, but kind of.  After doing several tests I realized that the actual work plane you have set has nothing to do with the Reference Planes you draw, instead Reference Planes are attached to the 3D extents of your Levels.  Once I realized this it was an easy fix.  All I needed to do was make sure that my levels extended through the section view by dragging the end grips of the Levels in an elevation view through the location of the section.  This problem can be very common for those using Revit MEP or Structure as they will typically start a project by first, linking in another company’s model which, as in this scenario, may come in a good distance away from your typical project origin.

Elevation View

I think we all start to create a mental list of things to check when something doesn’t seem to be displaying in Revit.  Here is my list in order of the most common to the least:

1. “Reveal Hidden Elements” - Turn on the light bulb icon at the bottom of your screen.  Objects that are temporarily hidden show up in a cyan color and persistently hidden objects display magenta.  Right-Click on the object, select “Unhide in View” and then either “Category” or “Elements” to unhide.
2. “View Range” - Your objects may not display in a view because the view might not be seeing that far.  Try adjusting the View Range by going to View Properties > View Range.  For more details on view range see the Revit User Guide – View Range
3. “Discipline” - Each view in Revit can be set to a certain Discipline (ie: Structural, Mechanical, Architectural).  These Disciplines can affect the visibility of objects and will take priority over Visibility Graphic Overrides.  For example, when set to the Structural Discipline a view will not show any architectural walls, only walls set to have a structural usage within it’s properties.
4. “Annotation Crop Region” -There is an additional region that is enabled by default in section and callout views specifically that allows you to crop annotation objects separately from the model. Many times a user will add text to a section only to have it disappear after typing the text.  To adjust the Annotation Crop Region select the standard Crop Region.  The Annotation Crop should appear as a dashed line beyond the solid line of the standard Crop Region.  Use the blue arrow grips to pull the sides of the Annotation Crop beyond the object that have been cropped.  See also: Revit User Guide – Crop Regions
5. “Hide at Scales Coarser Than” -Every section or callout has a setting within it’s properties to automatically hide the annotation for the view in all other views with a coarser scale.  The purpose of this is so that I can see the annotation in my floor plans that might be set to 1/8″=1′-0″ but not in anything coarser than that like an overall plan or site plan.
6. “3D Extents” -For objects like Levels, Grids, Sections, Callouts, and Reference Planes you need to make sure the object you want to see extends through the view range of the view you want to see it in.  For example if you create a wall section in a 10 story project that only shows goes up to the 6th floor you will not see the section line annotation for that section in the 7th through 10th floor plans.