Control visibility of masking region linework in Revit

While creating a custom office furniture family set for a client a while back, I had the need to control the appearance of boundary lines in a Revit masking region.

On the surface, it seemed like something pretty easy to do. While in Sketch Mode for the masking region, you can select the boundary line you want to paramaterize to control its visibility and add a Yes/No field to it. You can check out the accompanying image to see how I attempted this. Seems like it would do the trick, right?

The problem is that it just flat doesn’t work. For some reason, the Visibility parameter doesn’t apply to masking region boundaries. I fought with the masking region a bit before eventually, I figured out a pretty easy work around. It was one of those things I figured out while deep in the middle of a family creation project that saved the day, but I didn’t take the time to put together a blog post or video to share it with my fellow Reviteers.

Well, Jose over at Andekan has created a great (while lengthy) video showing the problem and the work around. Check it out, after this brief description of the solution. Here’s the trick:

You can’t control the visibility of a Revit masking region boundary with a parameter.

Instead, change the linework of the boundary lines that you need to control to ‘Invisible’. Now they will never be seen. Exit sketch mode for the masking region.

Next, draw new Symbolic Lines over the top of them. Guess what? Symbolic Lines CAN have a parameter that controls their visibility!

You should be able to take it from there. If you want to see a great step by step, check out the video from Andekan. Also, be sure to check out their high quality custom Revit families. These guys do a great job of creating powerful and parametric Revit content.

Multiple Column Text in Revit 2012

Multiple Column Text in Revit 2012

We’ve been waiting for it for years and it’s finally here! Well, sorta. Sorry, before I get your hopes up too high, let me tell you that the headline is a little misleading. There are many great new features and improvements in Revit Architecture 2012, but, sad to say, text manipulation and formatting still has a long way to go. So, how can we get our notes and text to wrap into multiple, free flowing columns? It’s pretty easy, once you know the technique.

We Know: Revit is not AutoCAD

If you’re at all like me, you probably hate it when people compare Revit to AutoCAD, i.e. “AutoCAD can do this… why can’t Revit?” It’s generally not very productive to make these comparisons, as these are two very different products. However, when it comes to text, it’s hard not to make comparisons. AutoCAD has made great strides in the last 10 years and now boasts a pretty full featured set of text formatting and manipulation tools that sometimes leaves Revit users envious. After all, MTEXT has given us easy column flow in AutoCAD for some time now. Just click the bottom grip, and, like magic, the text flows into multiple columns.

I understand that Revit is not a Word Processor, and it was never designed to be used to make large amounts of text look pretty. Even so, the fact is that in a typical set of construction documents, there are plenty of sheets that include a ton of notes. Sometimes, a whole sheet is dedicated to General Notes. So, how can we accomplish a multiple column effect? The trick is to create a Key Schedule instead of a Text object. Schedules can be split easily into columns and flow easily.

Here is how to Wrap Text into Columns in Revit:

Create a Key Schedule, using a category that you probably won’t use, such as Site.

Name the schedule appropriately, such as GENERAL NOTES, and add the COMMENTS field to it.

Name the headings # and Note, if you like (we’ll hide the headings anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.)

Now, cut and paste each of your notes into its own row. That’s the only tedious part, but getting the column flow flexibility makes it worth it.
If you really want the schedule to look more like notes than a table, turn off the lines.

I also like to shut of the Headers. We’ll keep the Title visible.

Sweet! Now we can easily break up the schedule into multiple columns.

You get a grip at the bottom very similar to the grip for MTEXT in AutoCAD that can be used to adjust the height of the column. You can continue to break up the schedule into even more columns.

To rejoin columns into a single column, just drag and drop it onto the main text block. Easy! By the way, this technique isn’t exclusive to 2012. It works for 2011 and 2010 as well.

The Future of Revit

So, this is a bit of a hack until we finally get some of those long awaited text tools in Revit. Rest assured, the Factory is not unaware of the current state of Revit’s text tools, and is always working on ways to give users what they need. Not being a hard-core programmer myself, I can’t really talk about what the hold up is, but I do understand enough to know that AutoCAD and Revit are built on very different software platforms, so it’s certainly not as easy as pulling a module of AutoCAD code and slapping it into Revit. Good things take time, and I look forward to the day I can announce that Revit 20xx has had a text formatting overhaul!

Until then, workarounds like this can get us through, and still let us benefit from the vast number of things that Revit really does rock at!

Happy designing!

10 Easy Steps to Conceptual Energy Analysis

As many of you already know, I’m a big Ecotect Analysis fan. Over the past year I’ve had the pleasure (well, mostly a pleasure) of helping hundreds of designers in the US and parts of Europe use this tool to improve the performance of their buildings. That being said, I’m also the first to admit that the process of creating an efficient BIM that can be used for energy analysis is far from perfect. At times it’s time consuming, and other times, it’s just frustrating. Even after getting the hang of it, the process could certainly be improved.

Well, the good news is that our great friends at Autodesk have been hard at work to improve this process and to lower the barrier to entry to start using analysis on all of your designs. The tool they’ve developed is the Conceptual Energy Analysis plug in and the best news is that it runs right inside of Revit!

I’m sure you’ve already heard of it, and maybe even checked out some of the videos Autodesk has posted on Youtube. But, just to show you how easy it is to start using this great tool, I’ve put together a list of 10 easy steps to jump start your building analysis.

This application makes it a snap to upload a properly formed thermal model to the Autodesk Cloud, making use of the Green Building Studio web service to perform whole building energy analysis but without the pain of submitting it to GBS yourself. The analysis is fast, easy, and turns out some awesome charts and graphics to help validate your design decisions. Get up to the Subscription Center right now and give this tool a whirl!

There you have it. I know I told you there were 10 steps. The 11th pic is not a step — that’s your results! Enjoy them. See, I told you it was easy…

Bonus Tip:

You can use Ecotect with the model the Conceptual Energy Analysis tool builds. Simply click Export and choose gbXML. Import it into Ecotect and you’re ready get down to business with an incredibly clean and well constructed thermal model!

1. Export to gbXML from the Results and Compare dialog.
2. Import the gbXML into Ecotect and perform your analysis with an incredibly clean, efficient, and well constructed thermal model!

Amazing! Thanks, Autodesk.

Network, Multiseat or Standalone – How to utilize downloadable software for repair, reinstall, clean installs or updates.

We have been getting a few cases on helpdesk regarding downloaded software and what it means to keep the downloads on hard drive and why. This article attempts to strategize ways by how to utilize the downloads for the future.

In with the new – Using software downloaded from Autodesk Subscription website entails a little forethought where repair, reinstall, clean installs and updates are concerned. If many users are like me I will download and extract from an executable file, this is an example of one that is downloaded Autodesk’s subscription site:

Autodesk_Revit_MEP-B_2011_English_Win_32-64bit.exe

After downloading the executable file and extracting the contents of the executable file, the default folder is usually along the lines of the example below:

C:\Autodesk\Autodesk_Revit_MEP-B_2011_English_Win_32-64bit\RevitSetup\RevitMEP\

Users have the option to select the browse button to point to a folder on the external drive or the server that will extract the contents of the executable file. This will then create the contents of a DVD to the hard drive.

Out with the old – Now if DVD media was the deliverable source, for the purpose of repair, reinstall, clean install or update, the installer program would call for the location of the contents of the DVD in seeking an .msi file. Hence, I would have specified the alternate in the Use Source to be the contents on the Autodesk Revit MEP 2011 DVD. Contents remain on the DVD media to be utilized by popping the DVD back into the drive when Repair/reinstalls or clean reinstalls and updates are needed.

With deliverable DVD media replaced with subscription downloads; installations, repair, reinstall, clean install or update processes will instead call for the .msi file in the extracted contents folder. While it looks and behaves the same as the DVD installation, it will instead require the contents to be in a path on the hard drive, external drive or server. This will be specified in the use source field. (see image below)

This means if the executable and the folders are deleted after install, they have to be downloaded and re-extracted for the purpose of having to perform that subsequent repair, reinstall, clean install or update processes.

For Network or Multi-seat deployments; this is not necessarily a problem because, the software will be bundled as an “image” on a server location by which a initial deployment process will use the location of the image to install the networked or multi-seat program on the client PC. The image has to remain on the server so that subsequent repair, reinstall, clean install or update processes will transparently utilize the image for these operations. If you use a path of your choosing, it should be on a shared folder on the network server.

Single seat users, after installing products, are inclined to delete the extracted files on the local drive to save space. This fine with the exception that when repair, reinstall, clean install and applying updates are needed, the contents extracted to a folder are no longer available to utilize during these tasks when called for by the installer script. In addition to the msi file there may be a need for some of content of the extractions to be available when performing repair, reinstall, clean install and applying updates. So once again, the executable file needs to be extracted to a folder either default or user specified to utilize the Autodesk Revit x64.msi or Autodesk Revit x86.msi file.

Just for fun, I have attempted to use a Revit Architecture Autodesk Revit x64.msi file with my Revit MEP update to see if I could get around the need to keep or extract both of the program files on the server or my local drive. This was unsuccessful as it seems even similar named files are structurally different in some way in the code and the Revit Architecture and Revit MEP msi does not work across one another.

Being on subscription allows the benefit of using downloads of older versions, extensions and getting updates. When on subscription; regardless if a network, multi-seat deployment or single user, product downloads and extensions are available online and contract management is available online for the company’s contract administrator.  Where ever possible try and use a multi-seat standalone if network license is not an option in the firm. Because a multi-seat standalone allows the use of a single license serial number with deployment image configured at one time. It allows applying service packs to deployment image once and using the deployment on the server for repairs, reinstalls, clean installs and updates. Link to Autodesk Multi Seat Standalone

So to summarize how best to use downloaded executables in three scenarios:

Standalone installation – Extracted content can remain on users own hard drive or the server to use for repair, reinstall, clean installs and updates for more than one seat. This scenario uses a different serial number for each seat. At the users discretion, extracted content can be removed leaving the zipped executable to extract again if needed for repair, reinstall, clean installs and updates.

Multi-Seat Standalone installation – Deployment image can be left on the server to be used for repair, reinstall, clean installs and updates for more than one seat. Deployment image allows a single serial number up to the allowed number of seats licensed.

Network Installation – Like multi-seat deployment, image can be left on server to be used for repair, reinstall, clean installs and updates for more than one seat. Deployment image allows a single serial number up to the allowed number of seats licensed to be administrated by a license server.

If are any questions you can contact us at support@cadsoft-consult.com or call us at (480) 820-0408 and we can help you with your licensing, updates and managing your subscription options.

Underlay Orientation and RCPs with Revit (especially Revit MEP)

Mowing the Revit RCP Lawn

I want to give a shout out to Jeremy Smith from the invaluable Autodesk Revit Clinic blog for a great post on an issue that many users, myself included, have found to be very frustrating. As Jeremy highlights, the answer is actually really easy, but often overlooked. I won’t parrot his post here but to sum it up quickly, here are 2 important take aways:

1. If you have trouble getting a ceiling to appear in an RCP view, even after checking all the usual suspects (ceiling category is on, view range is correct, used the right view template, etc.) check the Underlay Orientation and make sure it is set to Reflected Ceiling Plan.

2. The most important take away is this: While part of the View Properties, for some reason, Underlay Orientation is not controlled by View Templates. This is counterintuitive and is the reason why this issue causes so much frustration. I think we get in the habit of using View Templates to control all aspects of a view, and we expect that when we apply a ‘Ceiling’ template, we expect that it would obviously set the Underlay Orientation to RCP. It doesn’t. Set it to RCP yourself and you’ll be mowing the grass in no time.

P.S. – If you’re baffled by my mowing the grass comment, or just want more details on the Underlay Orientation and RCP issue, just check out Jeremy’s great post at http://revitclinic.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/08/where-is-the-ceiling-check-the-underlay-orientation.html