Category Archives: Platform

Model Lines for Hosts

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I had a structural client ask me this week the best way to model a wall foundation if the walls were being modeled by the Architect.  I had two suggestions one of which made me think of this post.  In this case we can use slab edges, but instead of hosting them to a slab they can be hosted to model lines.  I have used this tip many times since slab edged can’t be hosted to the sloped side of a slab but they can be hosted to sloping lines. Oh the added bonus is that they can also be hosted to curved lines in elevation.  Slab edge hosted to model lines shown below in elevation.

I also wanted to point out that Roof Fascias and gutters can be hosted to model lines as well.  Although gutters can only host to flat and not sloping or curved lines.

I have used this trick to do more than the intention.  Since all of these tools are just profiles being swept along a path the profile can be anything you want; for example curbs, gutters and sidewalks in a parking lot.  Now this isn’t going to follow topography but it does work well for schematic.

 

Autodesk Design Suites License Cascading

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I have been working with a client and setting up all their 2013 deployments.  One of the things I tested last week was to see how the licenses were going to work in 2013.  With the advent of the Building Design Suites I was wondering if the Revit (One Box) licenses would open up a license from a standard Revit Architecture or Revit Architecture Suite.  After days of creating deployments and then installing them on several different machines I had some results, although they weren’t what I was hoping for.

If Revit is opened from from the Building Design Suite Ultimate and there aren’t any licenses available then it will look to any Building Design Suite Premium for a license file.  Unfortunately if there aren’t any licenses available from the Design Suites it will NOT open a license from a standard Revit Architecture (Structure or MEP) or Revit Architecture Suite. 

In finding this out I had to create and install a deployment for all versions of Revit and all of the suites then I had to install them accordingly on the clients machines.  So alot of the clients had to have two different versions of Revit installed because of this lack of cascading.

Just before posting this I realized that Up and Ready posted about this at the end of last week.  Wish it would have been 3 days earlier would have saved me some time.

Building Design Suite Install update

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As all of us are receiving the nice USB drive with our BDS we are going to jump into creating deployments or possibly just install it.    Paul Aubin posted about his issued installing the software and Mark McDonough reminded us all about a blog post from Autodesk about the issues that were in the 2012 deployments as well.  The nice part about the UP and Ready blog post is that they showed how to create deployments from the suite to include only the AutoCAD based products or only the Revit Based products.  This is a good thing in my opinion in the fact that alot of my clients keep saying they don’t want to install the the AutoCAD based products on most of the machines just the Revit side of things.  So if this is a concern for you check out the post and divide your deployments.

Building Design Suite 2013 Bug?

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I had posted about the installation about the BDS 2013, but today I noticed a few issues after using some of the programs.  First off, it must install Navisworks before Revit because the Exporters are not there in Revit 2013.  You have to go back to Add Remove inside of Windows and tell it to update the exporters.  Once that is done Navisworks Switchback and the export to Navisworks 2013 then appears under the Addins External Tools.

The reason I noticed this is the fact that I was trying to get Rebar to display in Navisworks, unfortunately it does not go out to Navisworks with just opening a Revit model.  If you export out the Revit Model as a .NWC then the rebar will go out.  However if you export out as a .NWC file then you have to keep exporting out to .NWC as Navisworks is no longer looking to the Revit file for updates rather the .NWC file.

Of course like usual I could be doing something wrong so I will wait for updates from Autodesk Support to confirm or deny these issues.  I bet a reader of this blog will comment before Autodesk we will see.

Revit 2013 Options Bar

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For years Autodesk Revit has had issues with the options bar growing and shrinking.  Now a new undocumented feature of 2013.  When you select anything in the project browser the options bar disappears completely.  Of course this is at random and I haven’t been able to find a rhyme or reason for it.  It will be doing it for a while and then all of the sudden just stop, come back a bit later.  I had this issue in the alpha and beta but Autodesk was unable to reproduce the issue.  Continue reading →