Automate ALL the things!

January 31, 2012 by Leave a comment

Just came back from a client visit and the project this time was helping to upgrade their license server. Pretty straight forward stuff, but I’ve come to realize that what I do as “straight forward” is actually pretty impressive to quite a few people.

We all know [at least you should if you follow my blog] that there are three spots that Autodesk uses to define where the license servers are.

  • Environment variables
  • Registry Entries
  • LICPATH.LIC

These are read that in that order, and when the system finds the key (ADSK_LICENSE_FILE), it will stop and put it to memory. So how does it affect my deployment? Well, if you have a license server (let’s call it OldLic1 and OldLic2) already serving up licenses and you want to upgrade/retire it and move licenses to your new, awesomely robust virtual server (NewLic1 and NewLic2), most people think you need to touch every workstation to update those values so that AutoCAD and Revit will get license from the right servers. NOT!

With the all-powerful Group Policy Management Editor and some nifty GPOs, you can make the change to all your workstations to all your branches… at once. Yes, we did this to well over a thousand machines for this project, even to their branches, WITHOUT having to touch every single machine. Thank goodness too, cuz I would’ve gone crazy!

Wait,… what? What GPOs do I need, you ask? I dropped enough clues; I’ll let your IT group figure that one out 

Filed under Autodesk, Licensing Solutions

Test: Cloud Rendering in Revit 2012

January 7, 2012 by Leave a comment

In a time when ‘to the cloud’ is a common refrain in the techroom, Cloud Rendering is an obvious ‘Duh…!’

Well, it is a reality (finally!) with Revit and other Autodesk Products such as 3D Max Design and AutoCAD. My primary interest being Revit, I was more excited to avoid the drudgery of waiting forever for getting something rendered in Revit.

I’ve made a comparison between renderings produced natively in Revit and those produced in the Cloud – and the results are comparable. The interface is simple and the options are limited, but hey the reason you render anything in Revit is to really understand how the space appears and as a consequence impress the buyer of the space. I love rendering in Revit because it is a WYSIWYG (what you see…is what you get) impression of the model and hence there is hardly any ‘faking it’ unless you are intentionally mis-representing objects.

The interface is pretty straight-forward. You do need to be on subscription to be able to access it (and recently, I am told, you should also own the Building Design Suite Premium or Ultimate). Once you sign in, you get a very simple screen that looks like this:


Read more of this post

Filed under Architecture Solutions, Autodesk, BIM Solutions Tagged with , , ,

Revit: Automatically create Catalog files for Families

October 12, 2011 by Leave a comment

How come when I want to place a 2D section of a Steel Beam or Column in my project I get the following catalog to choose from:

However, when I want to put a put a Brick or CMU section into my project Revit inserts EVERY brick shape known to mankind and now I have to sort through them in the Type drop down list in the Properties palette:

The reason is there is a Catalog Text file (.txt) with the same name as the Family file (.rfa).

The structure of the file looks as follows:

The first line sets the parameters for the types, followed by a list with these parameters filled in.

These are what appear in the Catalog dialog box when you go to add one of these detail components. But hey, I am SUPER lazy. There is NO way I’m doing this for those brick sections, so I guess I’m stuck, right?

NO!!! Let’s review the lazy person’s way to create this catalog file. I’ll begin by opening the Bricks-Section.rfa file. Now, from the Application pulldown menu (the big “R”), choose Export, then at the bottom of the fly-out menu, Family Types.  In the Export As dialog box, keep the default name Bricks-Section.txt for this file, then pick the Save button.

Opening this file, it will look like the following:

Yah, there was no way I was typing all of THAT stuff out. Ok, let’s test it. With both the RFA and the TXT file for Bricks-Section now in the same folder, I’ll open the Bricks-Section.rfa file using the Annotate tab, Detail panel, Detail Component tool.  Picking the Load Family tool from the Place Detail Component tab, Mode panel, instead of all of the types automatically loading into my project, I now get the Specify Types dialog box, and a list of the types to choose from:

Wow. That was easy. Hey, I think I get to go home early. Don’t tell my boss how quickly I did that!

Filed under BIM Solutions

Revit Architecture Viewer 2012

October 6, 2011 by 1 Comment

So, you have just had a request from the Project Manager, or worse, the “Boss”, that they want to open a copy of Revit and look around in the model and maybe print some sheets.  Now, several thoughts pop into your head:

  1. Oh my God, these guys are going to screw up the model and delay the project!
  2. If they open a copy of Revit, then I lose a usable license for production work

Have I got a solution for you! It is called Revit Architecture Viewer 2012 and is found in the Start menu:

Revit Architecture Viewer 2012 (RAV 2012) installs when you install Revit Architecture (RAC).  It modifies the startup code with a “viewer switch” : “C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit Architecture 2012\Program\Revit.exe” /viewer.

RAC starts with the normal splash screen, but when the Recent Files page is displayed, you are presented with the following dialog box:

While elements may be edited in the file, none of the changes may be saved. In addition, RAC 2012 does not pull a network license, thus preserving them for staff that needs editing capabilities.

Filed under BIM Solutions

Save space & time when applying Revit updates to deployments

October 4, 2011 by Leave a comment

Within a few months, Autodesk has released a second update for the Revit family of products. Download them from the Autodesk website (here). Being a “on the ball” IT guy, I went to update my deployment images for Revit Architecture, Structure, and MEP.

Since I have both standalone and network versions, I don’t want to download the updates twice. The automated method actually downloads the MSP from Autodesk and puts it into the file location \\company.com\deployments\RevitArchitecture2012-64bit\AdminImage\x64\RAC2012, under the file name rac2012ur2.msp. Knowing this, I moved the .MSP file over the the root of the deployment image for the Revit product and modified the deployment to apply that .MSP. One MSP can then be used for both standalone and network deployment. Save server space. Save time. WOOT WOOT! 

Filed under Autodesk, BIM Solutions, Miscellaneous Solutions Tagged with , ,

Revit Architecture 2012 Update 2 is out!

September 23, 2011 by Leave a comment

Revit Architecture 2012 has an update! We’re now at Update 2 and there’s a pretty big enhancement list to this update, from improving stability to fixing API issues. The Autodesk page to download the update is here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=16841348

If you have any existing deployment images, you can go to deployment image location where you’ll find a folder called TOOLS. Open that folder and click on the shortcut to CREATE & MODIFY… to add the service pack to your image. As for those workstations with Revit already installed, the only way is to manually install them… unless you have SCCM, which is another beast in itself.

Filed under Autodesk, BIM Solutions Tagged with , , ,

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.

Read more of this post

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

‘Secret’ Settings: Changing Image Sizes in Navisworks Clash Detection Reports

September 19, 2011 by Leave a comment

 If you found yourself looking at a default Clash Report and wondered “well, I am really interested in figuring out where exactly the clash is located and the only thing that would give me the best shot at locating the clash is the Image in the report.”

Unfortunately, a look at the ‘Options’ editor does not give us any clues as to how we would go about increasing the size of the image in question.

A few months ago, I happened to attend the opening meeting of the New York City Navisworks Users Group (http://www.meetup.com/NYC-Navisworks/) where one of the technical folks from Autodesk let us in on the ‘Secret’ settings of Navisworks.

 The ‘Secret’ Settings are accessed by holding the Shift button down whilst clicking on the ‘Options’ Button. The resultant ‘Options’ Editor will look  a little different….

Obviously, there are more ‘Options’ here. On investigating another solution, I found I was supposed to look under Registry>Current User>Clash Detection>Reports for the image-size setting. I could not find this at all.

So what was I missing?

Knowing how finicky software can be, I ran a test clash to generate a report (using HTML tabular format) and then tried the ‘Secret’ Options yet again. This time the option to modify the size of the image in the clash report (in pixels) appeared.

WARNING: Some of the settings affect the windows registry. A colleague of mine had to repair the Navisworks installation after a couple of wrong moves. So, proceed with extreme caution – there is a reason why these settings are ‘secret’.

Filed under Autodesk, BIM Solutions, Solutions Tagged with , , , , ,

Softlocks are just as tough and annoying as hardlocks!

September 14, 2011 by 1 Comment

“The security system (softlock license manager) is not functioning or improperly installed. “

Yes, you can reformat your machine and make this error message go away. Your support guy might also suggest a full uninstall of all Autodesk software. Of course there is always another way 

Softlock License Manager Errors were typically seen with the older version of AutoCAD products (releases older than 2008) and the typical cause of the error was restricted permissions on licensing folder or some corruption with the license file. We’ve been seeing this also with 2012 software, especially software coming from new Building Design Suite. The standalone license file locations are here:

On Vista or Windows 7:

  • C:\ProgramData\FLEXnet\adskflex_00691b00_tsf.data
  • C:\ProgramData\FLEXnet\adskflex_00691b00_tsf.data.backup

On Windows XP:

  • C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\FLEXnet\adskflex_00691b00_tsf.data
  • C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\FLEXnet\adskflex_00691b00_tsf.data.backup

These files are encrypted files and basically keep activation information.  Please try giving Everyone full control permissions to the folder and move adskflex data files you find there to another folder (e.g. Desktop). If that didn’t work, just delete the files. Can’t delete the files? That means that the service that requires those files are still in use. Go to the services.msc and look for “FLEXnet Licensing Service” and “FLEXnet Licensing Service 64″. Start the service, then STOP the service – in that order. Once those services are stopped, delete those two files and start the services up again. Start AutoCAD and VOOOOOOILA!!

Filed under AutoCAD Solutions, Autodesk, BIM Solutions, Miscellaneous Solutions, Solutions Tagged with , , ,

Top 10 Reasons You Can’t See an Element in Revit

September 14, 2011 by Leave a comment

People who are new to Revit are always having issues seeing everything in a project view.  I guess it’s the AutoCAD mentality that is so hard to shake at first!  Anyway, over time I’ve seen and heard plenty of suggestions on what a user should or should not do to “expose” missing elements, but the following Top 10 Reasons is the most comprehensive check list I’ve seen.  In my opinion, every Revit newbie should have a copy of this list posted to their cubicle wall until it all becomes second nature.

Note this is actually a repost from the CAD Shack,  so kudos go out to Todd Shackelford for putting the list together and sharing with the masses!

  1. Is the correct Workset being used?
  2. Is the view range set correctly to see the particular element?
  3. Is the object hosted on an incorrect surface like a floor instead of a ceiling?
  4. Is there a filter applied to the view that is causing the element to be hidden?
  5. Is the detail level of the view set correctly?  Some families are set not to show at Coarse.
  6. Try using the “Reveal Hidden Elements” tool in the view control bar.
  7. Is there a plan region in the view?
  8. Is the view “Discipline” set correctly?
  9. Is the element in the correct phase and is an appropriate phase filter set in the view to make it visible?
  10. Is the element part of a design option and perhaps that isn’t the current option for that particular view?

Also note, this is by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s a pretty good place to start.  Feel free to post comments of other valuable suggestions you’ve found as well.  I’d love to see this list grow over time if need be.  Cheers!

Filed under Autodesk, BIM Solutions, Solutions Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 82 other followers