‘Scuse me, while I kiss the sky!

April 16, 2012 by Leave a comment

I have been using Revit for a few years now on my Macbook Pro in a virtual environment (Parallels 6) with no issues. (Showcase – well that is a DIFFERENT blog item!). I recently installed the Revit 2013 products and started kicking the tires, so to speak.

Stairs are super fun. That 30 minutes I spend teaching stairs has now expanded to more like 90 minutes. There are a huge number of amazingly wonderful new tools. Then it was time to play with the new Background Graphic Display Options feature. The one thing I like to brag about with my Macbook is that “it just works”, er, except when it doesn’t, which is what happened here.

So, from the Properties palette I set up a “fluffy cloud” image background. We have been missing fluffy clouds ever since Accurender vanished from the products. I found a great image and set it up from here:

And then…..I held my breath and waited for the screen to refresh…and….NOTHING! Just a white background. So, I changed to Sky and yep, same results. Strangely, Gradient did work. So, I checked with my fellow techs here who all have much less cool Lenovos, and WHAT??? It worked on their laptops. It even works on our Dell training stations. So, my sleek, sexy, extra cool Macbook was NOT going to do this? Bummer!

The issue is with virtual machines and graphic card emulation. While the Macbook has this hot little Nvidia card, the virtual machine creates some rinky dink vga driver and no you can’t change that. After exhausting the web, it was time to turn to the experts at Autodesk.  So to keep the 60′s music analogies going here, the Mighty Quinn in tech support there found this bit of info:

“Hardware acceleration is not available in the Parallels 7 environment, and Revit will revert to a DirectX 9 based software graphics mode, which will not render materials, sky, artificial lights, and other features when the Realistic visual style is in effect.

Workaround 1: When you first start Revit and see the Graphics Options – Cannot Use Hardware Acceleration dialog, select the Save Hardware Acceleration Setting option, and then close and restart Revit. Upon restart, DirectX 11 software mode will be used and features will display correctly in Realistic visual style.

Workaround 2: Manually add the following to the [Graphics] section of the Revit.ini file before startup: UseGraphicsHardware=0″

Workaround 1 did not present itself to me, but workaround 2 was pretty easy to achieve:

[Graphics]
TempDimFontSizeInPoints=12
InvertBackground=0
Antialiasing=0
SemiTransparent=1
UseGraphicsHardware=0

I added the last line above to the 2013 Revit.ini file, restarted RAC 2013, and….

As they say these days: “SWEET!!”

Now if this purple haze will just lift……

Filed under BIM Solutions, Uncategorized

Adaptive Components 01: Test-drive on an everyday Irregular Window Family

September 22, 2011 by Leave a comment

This excercise is a simple demonstration of the power of Adaptive Components to aid quick and easy design studies (including quantification) using Revit without going through the process of creating intricate, documentation-grade component families for them. Use this simple tutorial as the basis of creating your own non-standard components or, as an introduction to Adaptive Components.

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Let’s take an example of a regular wall type in Revit Architecture 2012.
To add an irregular-shaped opening, one would have to edit the profile of the wall and sketch the outline of the opening. The opening by face does not work on walls and the Wall-Opening Tool restricts you to rectangular openings.

Filed under Autodesk, Uncategorized

Memories of the past decade

September 12, 2011 by Leave a comment

Monday September 12th.

10 years ago I had just started a new job after having been a Consultant with my own business for the previous decade plus. I was in the process of settling in when I heard about the plane crashing into the World Trade Center and like you thought it must have been a small twin engine job or something like that.

My job was to move 60 people from a randomly customized AutoCAD 14 to a consistent use of Architectural Desktop 3.3. We then moved to the 2005 and 2007 versions, along with Revit 8.1. From there I landed with Microsol Resources, one of the most amazing resellers I have ever worked with, and trust me, I’ve worked with them all as a consultant. I have watched both AutoCAD Architecture and Revit Architecture mature, while watching the advance of products like Navisworks, Showcase, 3DS Max Design, and so much more. Use of the internet to extend processing power and connectivity continues at a steady pace as well.

In the years ahead, I can only imagine where virtualization will lead us. Clearly we will eventually move to more interactive devices such as tablets, and eventually to working virtually in the model itself. So just imagine where we are today in relationship to 2001, and imagine where we shall be in 2021. Hang on. The fun part of the ride is going to continue….

Filed under Uncategorized

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