Category Archives: Platform

Steering Wheel Features

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While using the steering wheel command in Autodesk products, (I have only tested this with Revit and Navisworks), some of the features have additional options or tools associated with them. For those of you who haven’t used the steering wheel Shift+W will bring it up.

 

While in the Orbit feature of the steering wheel, the pivot can be changed on the fly by holding the CTRL key down.   Now you can locate the pivot point and then release the CTRL key and continue to orbit the model.

Before using the Zoom feature you can hold the Shift key down and it will take you into zoom window option instead of dynamic zoom.

While using the Look feture you can use the arrow keys to walk through the model, similar to W,A,S,D on first person video games. You can also use the Shift key before look to select a face of an element to focus on to.

With the Rewind tool not only can you see all of the previous zoom levels you were at but you can also fast forward to a position incase you rewound to far.

Last but no least you can also right click on the steering wheel and get a list of options, allowing a user to Fit everything to the window, Level the camera, etc.

 

Revit Basics – Linework Tool

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The linework tool is found on the Modify tab, in the View panel.

 

With this tool a Revit user can override the graphical style of a model element, i.e. change something from a solid to a dashed or hidden line, or to make a line invisible all together.  Any line style in the project may be used, plus a few default out-of-the-box options.  Furthermore, each edge, side or line of an element may be independently overridden (so only one side of a wall, or one edge of a slab, etc). 

Once a line is overridden grips will appear at the ends of the lines.  These grips can be drug one way or another such that only part of the line is overridden.  The catch is that these grips will only appear when the linework tool is activated, and when the overridden line is selected.

 

What if more than one portion of a line is to be overridden?  Use the line work tool again and additional grips will appear that can now be drug independently from the first set.

  

One final question with this tool is how would one put the element back to its default style?  No, one would not have to delete the element and remodel it, and it is never a good idea to just draw lines over it.

 The answer is to use the linework tool once again, but instead of choosing a line style, choose “By Category” and click on the elements to be changed back to their default style. (It will be possible to select only overridden elements, even the ones that were made invisible).

Revit 2013 3D View Rotation

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As I have been using Revit 2013 I have noticed what I like to consider a bug, or at least a change in work-flow since the last release.  Maybe I consider it a bug because I don’t like the new work-flow so don’t be jaded by my opinion.  When orbiting a model in 3D it will pick the center of the model as a pivot point, unless you select an element, this then becomes the pivot point, this is the same as previous releases.  However if you unselect that element it still remains the pivot point for that veiw (new to Revit 2013, similar to Navisworks) and to reset this you must either close the view or click on the veiw cube to reset it back to the center of the model.  I don’t know if this was by design or accident but if it could be set back to the old way this would be nice.

Worksets and Links

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When linking in Revit files it is common to not be paying attention to what workset is current.  This is not a big deal because it is easy to pick the linked file and change the workset in the properties dialog.  What is less common to do is change the workset in the Type properties as well.  It is a little known fact that linked Revit file have a workset in the instance based properties as well as the type properties.

 

This then brings up the question of why do they have both?  The reason is the same as to why when you link in a Revit file and go to the visibility graphics there is a parent file and a child file (the child file usually has a number after the name).

The reason there is a parant and an instance workset property is for campus type projects.  If you have one file linked in multiple times, they can be controlled individually with visibility graphics and worksets.