Managing Room Separation Lines

For many of the users I teach Revit to the first time, the inevitable questions arise when we discuss Room Separation Lines…

“Do they print?”

Yes, yes they do.

“How do we get them not to print?”

You can turn them off in Visibility Graphics. 

“But then do we have to keep turning them on/off every time we need to add or manipulate them?” 

Yep, pretty much.

Then I usually get the disappointed look.  But then I go over this little way of being able to have them hidden on the “printed” plan and still be able to add/remove (manage) the Room Separation Lines.

Duplicate your Floor Plan View/Views that you need to use Room Separation Lines on. You don’t need to Duplicate with Detail, just Duplicate it. I usually will go with an Overall Plan if you’re using Area Plans/Matchlines.  (By Area Plans, I mean Area A, Area B, etc.)  Then, go into Visibility Graphics for that Duplicated View.  Navigate to the Room Separation Lines (Model Categories, Lines) and change the Room Separation Lines Projection (the only thing you can change) to be something like Red with a lineweight of 6. This will show those bad-boys nice and bright on your floor plan. You can then keep the Room Separation Lines turned off in your “printed” Floor Plan views.  Anytime you need to manipulate, add, remove, etc. your Room Separation Lines, just flip over to the “Floor Plan – Room Separation” (that’s what I tend to call it, call it whatever you want) view and do your work on the Room Separation Lines there.

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

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. 

Remove Dimension from String Revit 2013

In Revit 2013 (all flavors), we now have the ability to remove a single dimension in the middle of a string!!  It’s always been painful to tell people that they needed to wipe out one end or the other and recreate the string if something in the middle needed to be removed for whatever reason.

Here’s a very, very short video on how it works…just remember, don’t select the string and try to Edit Witness Lines to remove a dimension this way.

Removing Single Dim from String

Revit 2012 Service Pack 2 Available

Well, the latest service pack for Revit is now available!  You can download the update HERE. As always, make sure you download the appropriate version (for OS) and read the Readme file.

The update list isn’t available yet, but check back on the download site within the next couple days and it should be available.

I posted this morning that SP2 was needed in order to utilize the Cloud Rendering that’s now available via the Autodesk Cloud.  So once you install SP2, you should now be able to utilize the Add-in for Cloud Rendering.

How Much RAM Should I Get

I get this question quite often from many people, whether they are looking to get a new computer or looking to make some updates to their current computer.  Here’s a little excerpt from the Revit  Model Performance Technical Note…

“Please keep in mind the amount of local machine RAM required is approximately 20 times the size of your compacted central project file.  Each linked file would apply to this total as well.”

What this really talks about is how much RAM is required to OPEN a Revit file.  So if you have a 100MB Revit file (I like easy math!), you’ll need 2GB of available RAM to open that file.  Got a 100MB Revit Structure file linked into the Arch file, better have 4GB of available RAM when you open the Arch file.  Notice, I’m not saying that you need “X” amount of installed RAM, it’s “X” amount of available RAM  to open a Revit file.

Because of this requirement, I’ve been recommending that people utilize a 64bit OS so you can get at least 6GB of RAM installed, but preferably 8GB of RAM.  Unless you are working on small projects and you’re Revit files are going to hover around 50MB or less, then you could get away with 4GB of RAM and potentially a 32bit OS.

Revit 2012 Products Availability

Now that the information is out about the new 2012 Autodesk products, the questions start coming up on when the 2012 products will be available. 

First things first, 2012 will be the same as 2011…it’s going to be available as a download for Subscription Customers unless you specify you want a disk.  So keep an eye out for an email from Autodesk Subscription (if you are a Subscription site manager for your company) as you’ll get your new serial number and notification that 2012 is available for download.

As for the date, the Revit 2012 products will probably be available around mid April based on the past few years.  Remember, this is not a 100% certainty and is purely a guess, Autodesk has the right to provide the download/ship the disks at a earlier or later timeframe.

Hope you enjoy the new 2012 products!

Disallow Join vs Don’t Clean Join

Ever wonder what the difference was between these two, or even know that there was a difference between these two options?  Both are part of the Wall Joins tool and are selected by different methods. 

The Disallow Join option is selected when you pick the end of a wall with the Wall Joins tool when it’s not connected with another wall, or now in 2011, when you right-click on the drag grip of a wall and select Disallow Join.

     OR    

The Don’t Clean Join option is available when you are trying to manipulate a wall join.

Now for the difference…and we’ll work with the 2 walls at the intersection. 

If you use the Disallow Join, you’ll get this result…

And if you use Don’t Clean Join, you’ll get this result…

As you can see, Disallow Join doesn’t allow the walls to cleanup at all.  Where as the Don’t Clean Join keeps the walls joined, but doesn’t clean up the materials.  In this case, that meant the gyp board didn’t try to cap off the masonry wall.

Error: Not Enough Space on C Drive

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had quite a few people call or email into our support line about getting this message “Not Enough Space on Drive C:” when trying to save their project and Revit then crashing.  Everyone says that they have “a ton of space” available, so there’s no way there isn’t enough space on the C.  And besides, we’re saving to the Network!

I did a little investigating and contacted Autodesk about the message.  It turns out that the message is not quite worded correctly!  What it apparently means is that there isn’t enough Virtual Memory available to complete the task, so Revit needs to close.  So, the message is somewhat technically correct, Virtual Memory is usually on the C drive, but the message makes you think there isn’t enough actual disk space available, even though you are saving to the network.

Up to this point, we’ve usually been able to limit the message from popping up by cleaning out the Windows TEMP folder, but even then it didn’t help eliminate it.  So, how do you fix it/adjust your virtual memory and what should I use for values?  First off, the value(s) for Virtual Memory according to Autodesk should be at least 1.5X the installed RAM.  So, if you have 4GB of RAM installed, the virtual memory should be at least 6GB.  Here’s a screen shot of how I get to change my Virtual Memory settings on my Window 7 x64 laptop…

One thing to note about this…you may need to talk to you IT person in order to change these values if anything is grayed out.  You will also need to restart your computer before these chance take affect.

As you can see in the Performance Options dialog, my virtual memory was initially set to the installed RAM (8GB of RAM = 8191 MB).  I went ahead and unchecked the “Automatically manage the paging…” in the Virtual Memory dialog, then hit the “Custom size” radio button.  I set my “Initial size (MB)” to be 1.5x my installed RAM (8191*1.5) to get the 12286.  I then set my “Maximum size (MB)” to be 2x my installed RAM (8191*2) to get the 16382.

Changing this value should alleviate the error message of not having enough space on the C drive.  Granted, if you are working on a 32bit PC, have 4GB of RAM installed, you’re Virtual Memory still may not be able to handle very large Revit projects/files.  Definitely check out the Revit  Model Performance Technical Note from Autodesk for more info on RAM and Virtual Memory.