Autodesk BIM 360 Products

So I’ve been pretty quiet on the blog front this year (that’s kind-of an understatement!).  It’s not that I don’t have much to share, but it seems like every day passes way too fast.

The main reason though for my practical non-existence in the blogging world is that in the summer of 2013, I started the trek down the BIM 360 road with Glue and Field.  I was one of only a select few that were chosen by Autodesk to partake in being trained on the BIM 360 products in the US. The BIM 360 products are not like the majority of the Autodesk software and Autodesk didn’t release these products to all of the channel partners/resellers.  So much of my time that I have “free” (time that I’m not spending with customers around a handful of products), I’ve been diving into BIM 360 Glue and Field

I’m still involved in the Revit products, whether it’s teaching, consulting, implementing, supporting, etc., so I still have information to share around the Revit products.  This particular blog isn’t going to become a BIM 360 blog, I’m handling that over on my Navisworks/BIM 360 blog   I will however, be throwing some “nuggets” of information about how Revit works with BIM 360 Glue and Field on this blog, as well as hopefully posting more about Revit this year!  So hopefully you won’t be seeing a 9 month lapse in posts from me

System Requirements for Revit 2014 Products

Instead of copy/pasting a giant list of requirements that Autodesk has listed, below is a link to the System Requirements page on Autodesk’s website:

System requirements for Autodesk Revit Products

Please, please note that Windows XP is NOT listed!!  If you are still using XP (or even Vista, which I rarely run into), you’re going to need to upgrade your OS!  Not to say that Revit 2014 won’t install or run, but any issues relating back to the OS will not be supported.  Also note that Windows 8 32bit is not supported.  Autodesk has a page dedicated to OS compatibility for Revit, all versions - Operating system compatibility for Autodesk Revit Products

Out of the 3 configurations they list for system requirements, I would go for the Value: Balanced performance configuration at a minimum.  However, if you really look at the difference between that and the Performance: Large, complex models configuration, it’s mainly more RAM….so might as well stuff as much RAM in the machine as you can afford.

What’s New in Revit Architecture 2014

Yep, the wonderful time of the year when bloggers all across the globe push out their “version” of what’s new in the 2014 Autodesk software.  Instead of reposting a long list of enhancements, here’s a couple posts that do a great job of showing the new features…

• As always, David Light has his great post on the new features!  Click HERE to go to his post.
• Autodesk even got into the “game” this year and has provided a page with the new features (as well as many of the existing features).  Click HERE to see Autodesk’s page.

A couple items that probably won’t make the list for new features in Revit 2014 are integrations with Inventor and Vault. 

• Inventor 2014 can now export directly to a Revit Family (RFA) file.  I haven’t been able to work with an exported RFA file from Inventor yet since we had some version issues.  Once the products hit the streets, I’ll post more about this.
• Vault integration has been updated to now include search capability of the Family properties. I’ll be posting more about this as well in the future.

I also put together a video for our (MasterGraphics’s) YouTube channel. Once we get it uploaded, I’ll create a new post with it and update this post as well.

And now the wait begins until the software can be downloaded….

Flipping Stairs Flips Stringer Side

Little something I ran across during a class a couple weeks ago.  When working with Stairs in Revit 2013, someone asked about having a stringer on one side and not the other.  No problem with Component Stairs in Revit 2013. 

Then I went to show how you can change the “direction” of the stair by using the Flip Direction arrow at the top of the stair….and this happened:

Notice how the stringers also flipped sides, which is not the outcome that someone would want.  Sure, we can go in and remove/add the stringers to be on the appropriate side, but that’s just extra work!  Besides the fact that the stringers aren’t continuous …there’s a piece of stringer missing on one side of the landing (in the 2nd image).

Just a little something to be aware of when flipping stairs.  And it doesn’t even pertain to one sided stringers…it also pertains to each side having a separate profile being used!

Revit Backup File Notice

If you’ve used Revit, you pretty much know that you should avoid opening up a backup file unless it’s absolutely necessary to do so.  What I mean by that is you typically aren’t going to open up a file that has “filename.0000.rvt” (for example) as a name…the .”four digits”.rvt (or .rfa) in the file name means it’s a backup.

Well, the other day I was explaining to a group of new Revit users how saving and Revit’s backup files work and I opened up a backup file to show that it is a full size, fully functional backup file.  I went to hit save to show that when you save the file, it would still allow you to save the file.  To my surprise though, a little notice popped up asking if I actually wanted to save to the ORIGINAL file, not the backup!  This was a surprise to me since every time I’ve opened a backup file, I’ve always performed a “Save-as” to give the file a new name or overwrite the original file.

If you click “Yes” on this message, it will actually save the file over the original file, just as if you would have opened up that file instead of the backup.  If you click “No”, then you’ll be saving the changes to the backup file, thus creating a “new” file and the subsequent backups will now be “filename.0001.0001.rvt”!

I’ve been working with Revit since it was Revit Building 7 (I believe, whatever it was called in 2005) and I’ve never seen this.  So, I went back to Revit Architecture 2011 (which is as far back as I have installed) and this message does appear.  I’m not really sure if this has always been there or when it was introduced?  Regardless, I like the message and hopefully it will help those that accidently open a backup file save the changes to the appropriate file.