RTC 2011 begins

I am at the Revit Technology Conference in Huntington Beach as it kicks off its first US event. 
The Revit documentation and presentation boards from the previous Australian conferences are posted all around the halls and are darn impressive.
And now for the opening ceremonies with Wesley Bennett and Carl Bass...

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RTC 2011 - Revit Technology conference

If you're attending the Revit Technology conference next week let's meet up. Shoot me an email Craig a t iRevit.com.
Cheers

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Autodesk goes Open-source!

A 3D printed model at Autodesk's Waltham HQ

In a major change from its business model, Autodesk has made a software application (or utility in this case) Open-source! It is another example of Autodesk embracing the sizeable makersphere of which I am a big fan.
Check out BIMapps blog for more details on the Revit STL exporter

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Revit 2012 Viewer

Revit 2012 has a "Viewer mode" which is a method to enable the Revit-savvy Architects, Engineers, or Revit Illiterates access to explore a Revit model without any chance of effecting the Central file or production in the model. It is installed when you install the full version of Revit and accessed from the Windows Start menu program list.

The viewer allows all standard functionality of Revit but:

• You can't save or save as,
• You can't export or publish views/models *if you make any changes, but can export certain formats if no changes are made.
• You can't Print *if you make any changes, but can print if no changes are made.
• You can't edit elements in a workshared file, but you can if you open 'detached'.

In our office we use Navisworks Freedom for Project Leaders to review models. The difference between this and Navisworks freedom is that this is Revit and the model sizes we often create require higher levels of computer hardware to open, whereas Navisworks Freedom does not have high hardware requirements. Also, Navis. Freedom is far simpler and easier to use for the average Project Leader.

When you use the viewer to open up a workshared central file, Revit viewer mode uses a read-only method to lock you out of the central file preventing any and all ownership of elements, but still allows you reload latest, and therefore, monitor changes.
What is this Revit viewer useful for?

1. Reviewing models real-time, without fear of accidentally obtaining ownership of building elements
2. Checking the file History
3. Viewing coordination issues and running Interference checks
4. Walking through models without fear of accidentally obtaining ownership of building elements

The viewer does does not pull a license so keep that in mind if you use it.

Update: The commenter is correct that the viewer is not supposed to pull a license. I talked with the Revit platform manager about it. Viewer mode is re-titled Demo mode which you may have come across when you lose a license or went beyond the trial period.

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Handy tool to identify good keyboard shortcuts 4u

I just came across this little tool on Rod Howarth's blog and if you work in Revit day-to-day then you'll find this useful. It analyzes your Revit journal files and identifies commands you use a lot that you don't have shortcuts for as well as those that you do have keyboard shortcuts for. It's a tad difficult to associate the commands to the keyboard shortcuts but you'll get the hang of it. Cheers,
Craig Barbieri

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Revit on Android Part II

Not long ago, I wrote about running Revit on android devices. The secret's out now that Revit 2012 is available and I can share this information with you. Our good friends at Autodesk have enabled Revit to run on a Citrix xenapp server and it works pretty flawlessly if you have a decent internet connection. A Citrix xenapp server is very cool in that it enables you to access many different Desktop applications such as Autodesk Revit, Autocad, Microsoft Word, Outlook, Adobe Photoshop and so on, from mobile devices. All your mobile device needs is the little Citrix app available from the app store if your an Apple fan or the Android Market if your on Android. What the server does is essentially runs the software using the server's hardware/resources and transfers the appearance of the interface of the application to your device. I hope I am making sense. This setup allows you to be extremely flexible in how you work and access models on the fly and on the job site even.

Because the Server is doing all the work, you can even render a model, even on 'High' and see the results on your device. It's pretty fantastic so feel free to geek-out over it. Your server's specs have a lot to do with performance but in our initial testing, we used a 2007 Dell Precision 490 workstation with 8gb ram and it worked great even for 3D Max. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Craig Barbieri

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Hively

This is Revit-support related for within a firm, and thought I'd share. Check out Hively, it's a cool & easy way of encouraging positive support and communication in your company. It's also pretty cheap!

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