Auditorium Seating via Rail Object in Revit

While helping a designer with a new chapel project, ran into an issue of how to layout auditorium seating on a sloped radial floor in Revit Architecture 2012.  Things we wanted to accomplish included, easy and controlled layout via straight line segments and via curved arcs.  We also wanted to have a running count of seats via schedule.

My first thought was to curtain walls and use the system panel family to host the chair. This worked fairly well until the seating had to share arm rests.  Although you can host a detail component in the mullion profile family as an option for displaying the arm rest in 2D, it does not allow for nesting 3D Arm rest geometry in the mullion profile family.  Although, for quick plan view layout, seat counts, and ease of creation, this method worked quite well and would work very well in 3D as long as arm rests were not required.

Since this project called for seating with armrests, we resorted to a railing object with nested chairs as baluster panels, and nested arm rests as baluster posts. This allowed us to control the seat size, spacing and placement of armrests along any type of sketch line, curved or straight.  Endpost offsets allowed for control of the arm rest on the ends. Locking the sketchline to grids allowed the designer to change the length or radius as necessary while the chairs simply updated to match.

We ended up with 6 railing types, 3 for floor mounted and 3 for wall mounted chairs. Materials are handled in the nested geometry families and each chair has 3 different parametric sizes (20, 21, 22 O.C.).  based on Series Seating Celebration model.

Generic Model templates were used to create the support posts in two types, wall mounted and floor mounted as shown above.  This gm family was then nested into the Baluster post family and loaded into the project for railing type creation.

Again gm family templates served as the starting point for the seat geometry, which was then nested into the baluster panel family.  Doing both posts and seats as independent geometry in generic model families kept them flexible for future use and allowed for some testing in hosted families. Modeling was kept minimal while matching overall shape and style.  Each family starts as simple 2D geometry for flexibility and efficiency.  Updating 2d graphics and adding refinements in 3D are easy to accomplish as necessary.

As the design progressed, we ran into issues with the railings not hosting to the sloped floors. It is not as simple as editing the railing and picking the floor object as host.  My favorite command, align, was not much help either.  It seems that railing objects host to floors unless the floor is sub-entity modified.  Since many of the floors were sloped in this way or via sweeps, the hosting was accomplished via very thin "ramp" elements which effectively control things vertically while maintaining the horizontal control via grid elements. 

To hide the redundant ramps, we moved the ramps to the "constraints" phase and demolished it in the "hide by demo" phase, both of which precede the "existing phase" and thus don't appear in new construction views.  This is based on a tip I learned at AU 2011 in an interiors class taught by Steve Brown.

Seat counts are controlled by dividing the railing length by the center line spacing of the seat size within a calculated field in the Chapel Seating Schedule (a railing schedule).  Format was set to integer and the formula in the calculated field was wrapped in the round() function.  Originally, the round down function, new to Revit 2012, was used to force a seat count.  Because the railing seems to default to always round up graphically, I found that the round() function actually matched the graphics to the count more accurately.

Some Unity3D goodness - Scripts for Adding Lights

Learning to write scripts for assistance in editing/adding geometry within Unity3D is a must for anyone bringing in models from Revit or 3DSMax for Architectural Walkthroughs.  One particular pain point is putting in all the lights or the lights that you wish to cast light within your "game".  To use these scripts add an Editor folder under the assets folder in your Unity3D project folder.  Once they scripts are copied to this folder, you see new options in the "Game Object" pulldown menu item.  Select some light geometry, for example, some lamp shades in your scene, then click on Game Object - Add pt lights ^n from the menu pulldown.

The results will be a child game object component added to each of your selected geometry objects with the same position as the parent object. Also, because it is a child component, it will move should you reposition the light.

Note: a few objects might require tweaking.

 Here are a couple of scripts:

1. Add point lights - This script will add a point light with the name "_pointlight" with the same transform position as a selected light geometry within the Unity3D editor.
2. Add spot lights - This script will add a spot light with the name "_spotlight" with the same transform position as the selected light geometry within the Unity3D editor. 

Note: the light cone is automatically rotated down and is useful for downlighting. 

Old Revit Problem Resurfaces - 3D Views with Shaded and Wireframe graphics

Ever had a Revit view that displayed some entities in wireframe while correctly displaying other entities in full shade or realistic mode?  I thought this "feature" had been resolved, since I hadn't run into it in ages, but was asked to fix this issue today by a designer.  This problem is best shown in the image below, but could be described as wireframe graphics in a shaded mode. 

Notice the image above: All the building components are displayed in transparent wireframe mode, yet the view type is set for shaded. Switching to hidden line still displays bldg objects in transparency as shown in the second image.

Conventional wisdom from previous releases involved deleting the view and recreating it.  Unfortunately, that didn't work in this project.  Neither did resetting the view using the view cube!

Note:  I've checked the transparency of materials and verified that ghosting and transparency are not at work here. 

Because this was associated with a problem orbiting, I suspected CAD to be at the root of the problem.  Turning off the cad import, which had geometry far from the origin, did not fix the problem, but it did resolve the orbit issue.  With the orbit issue resolved, I thought I would try resetting the view.  Right click on the design cube and choose "orient to a direction" -> TOP.  Now the view is fixed. 

Hope this helps someone else!

Autodesk Building Design Premium Deployment Modification - Verticals First

I had to revisit some deployments I created recently to modify some content locations.  On any deployment that had both AutoCAD and an AutoCAD based vertical package (ACA or MEP), the deployment modification routine would hang when I tried to modify either the ACA or AMEP product if I had modified the support paths in the AutoCAD versions (AutoCAD or Struc Designer) first.

I was able to restore the paths to default by modding the AMEP, then ACA, then Struc designer, then AutoCAD.  If you run into this, try modding the paths in the above order.

Hatch Origins to the Rescue

Problem:   A designer calls and asks for a new hatch pattern for gravel.  Further inspection reveals that the standard gravel pattern was used, but when viewed it looks like many random intersecting lines rather than the rounded gravel pattern they were expecting.

Solution:  Pick the hatch pattern and use the edit hatch command. Pick a new origin point close to the hatch object. Click ok and watch your hatch magically restore itself.

Sometimes, hatch patterns do not display correctly when their origin point is a large distance away from the hatch itself. This occurs frequently in metric - imperial conversions.

Note: Watch out for masonry patterns. Ensure your new origin displays the correct masonry coursing.

Revit Tip - Wheel Mouse - Adjusts text HEIGHT while editing

Are you editing or placing text in Revit, but need to change the height of the text in the editor because it is too small or too big?  Try holding your Ctrl key down while spinning the mouse wheel. 

The result is a temporary size adjustment to the text in the editor.  Don't worry, the change is only displayed while editing.  Once you finish your edits, the text entity will return to its normal size.

Exploded Attribute Text will not be visible when referenced

Remember to check your "Insert" options when bringing in blocks with attributes. You NEVER want to insert those type of blocks with the "Explode" option still toggled on.  Nevertheless, this is a frequent hurdle for designers who are not as familiar with attributes as they SHOULD be.

What is confusing for designers is the fact that they can see the text and think it is a value, but it is typically the attribute tag they are seeing.  The typical steps they take to resolve before requesting assistance include:

• They double check the entity layer, and find it on a plotting layer
• They check the reference layer and find that it is thawed, on, and plottable.
• It is visible in the drawing (xref file) where it is placed, but when that dwg is externally referenced into another file, the text values do not show.

Quick Fix:  Copy the tag name to the "default" value text box when editing the attribute definitions, then cut the definitions to the clipboard and reinsert using "Paste" as block.  Save your file, reload the xref, and your text will magically appear.

Best Practice:  Understand the difference between simple text/mtext and attributed blocks. Ensure that you don't inadvertantly leave the "explode on insertion" option toggled on in the Insert block dialog box.

Revit - View Layering for Softer Proposal Images

I was asked to generate some color images from a recent Revit project created by one of our talented designers today.  The recipient didn't like the look of the shaded plan view, so the image was bound for photoshop to add some softer shadows and text.  Seems the original designer was having difficulty getting the look just right.  This is the original image:

"Not good enough, too harsh", was the response I heard.  "I want more texture and a softer look."  Oh yeah, and it had to match the slight axo images already provided. Like this:

 and like this:

...seemed easy enough, just generate a plan view 3D view.  The effect is close, but the graphics are all wrong!  Notice the door swings are not visible, and the frame looks odd.  The soft shadows are courtesy of ambient occlusion being toggled on.  Setting the in session lighting to Azimuth: 185.00 and Altitude: 5.00 degrees respectively relative to view accomplished what you see below.

To further tweak the look by introducing plan view swing graphics, I did the following:

1. Turn off Doors Category
2. Activate the Section box and drop the top just below the top edge of the door frame.
3. Drag this new doorless view onto a blank sheet.
4. Duplicate a plan oriented, hidden line mode, 2D view and then turn off everything but the door graphics.
5. Drag this new view on top of the 3D view on my sheet watching to ensure that Revit Aligns the views. Ensure that both views are set for the same scale and look for the light blue alignments horizontally and vertically (I embellished the alignments in the image below).

I also created a second plan view with solid filled walls and overlaid it in the same manner to achieve the look below.  You could turn on the room tags and add any notes as desired.  I left the annotation up to the person working in photoshop.

Hope you find this useful!

Google Earth Color Drape on AutoCAD Mesh - The EASY Way!

The google earth extension from autodesk labs makes it really easy to drape a google earth image over a 3D mesh inside AutoCAD.

Importing the Google Earth mesh (IMPORTGEIMAGE) results in a black and white overlay of the google earth image on your mesh.  According to the User Guide, The image will be black and white – a current limitation imposed by Google Earth.

Unfortunately, the image IS black and white as you can see above and draping your own color export has been somewhat difficult within AutoCAD Architecture due to the differences in the material editor.  Until Now that is!

Rather than struggling with the materials editor and image scaling, why not simply swap your images to get the color drape you've been looking for!

Import your mesh into AutoCAD Architecture 2011 after you've loaded the GE cui file (Note: Use cuiload and change the filetype to legacy cui to load the toolbar shown below, then click the import ge mesh tool and place your mesh. I used 0,0 and a rotation of 0.)

Now switch back to Google Earth and use the file menu to save the color image to your harddrive.

Notice that the color image exported and the automatic material created by the extension have the same image dimensions!

Now open the color image you exported and saveas overwriting the material image found in the local settings folder for your Acad installation.

Note: to find this image, enter the following path in your explorer address bar:

%userprofile%\local settings\application data\autodesk\aca 2011\enu

Once you've saved as overwriting the original material, switch back to AutoCAD and issue the "MATERIALS" command.  Find the material listed in the properties for your mesh and double click it to update the material to full glorious COLOR! Watch the video below to see it in action!

See, I told you it was Easy! I hope this helped you!

Cannot Snap to Wall Endpoints or Corners in AutoCAD Architecture - Resolved

Problem:  Designer cannot snap to endpoints or intersections or corners of walls that are AutoCAD Architecture Objects.

Solution:  Thaw layer zero in your drawings.  AutoCAD Architecture objects require layer zero access for some functionality. 

Revit Grid Lines don't display in Elevation - Another Fix

Revit Elevation Marks automatically try to align themselves perpendicular to nearby objects, but if they are not perpendicular to the grid, then the grid lines and bubbles won't display in the resulting elevation view.  If you have tried all the Tips for Missing Grid Lines at the Revit Clinic and David Fano's video and work around is not your cup of tea, then try this simple trick.

Problem:  Elliptical Atrium in center of floor plan and all elevation marks placed within the atrium do not display grid lines in elevation views.

Solution:  Add an elevation mark by clicking close to an orthogonal wall outside the atrium area, then move your mark inside the ellipse where you want it to display in the plan view. Adjust your clip offset and extents. Verify that your grid lines are now displaying correctly in the Elevation View.

Worldclass Autodesk Support System Restored!

AUGI.com online...and so are the old forums!

At this time, the VBulletin based AUGI Discussion forums have been restored to AUGI members for new postings and to the rest of the world for viewing. In short, the worlds best Autodesk Support Discussion Community is back in business! The forums are being made available in beta while backend systems are connected. There is some functionality that has been turned off during this period while decisions are made and customized templates and functions are modified. Things like the forum jump menu, calendars, and birthday display at the bottom of the main index page were customized to work with the old system and will require review, modification, or replacement. New features made available with this release of Vbulletin are being reviewed and may experience reduced functionality. Please bear with us as we reconnect the old plumbing into our new system.

At this time, the Expression Engine (EE) forums should be closed for new posts. The best group of volunteers in the world will be migrating ALL posts from the EE based forums into existing or new locations in the VBulletin based forums. Feel free to share this notice and the availability of the forums with the rest of the world.

Thanks for your patience,

~Richard

Old School Failure on SUBST command in XP64

I ran into an odd issue yesterday that I thought I would share.  It is something I've done literally hundreds of times, but yesterday and today it would not work.  I was testing a new deployment of AutoCAD Architecture 2011 and kept running into Error 1926 when installing from a spoofed network drive, you know the kind you create by dropping into DOS and running the SUBST command. 

I searched and searched for answers on the Autodesk NG and google to no avail.  The only thing I found was related to VISTA...but I was running XP64.  After setting, verifying, and resetting permissions on the folders and drives, I abandoned using subst.  It seems that using SUBST to create drive letters in Windows XP64 created a permissions issue with the Windows MSI installer.  Thankfully, the problem went away when I created the drive letter using NET USE.

So if you run into this problem, try mapping the drive letter using NET USE with the syntax of (Note-remove extra space before machine name, inserted here to prevent hyperlinking):

\\ MACHINENAME\SHARE

For more info on NET USE try this link: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/net_use.mspx?mfr=true

Revit Build Checker Version 5 for Revit 2011 products - Update

I posted an update to this tool in April that was intended to work with Revit 2011 products.  This new build has been updated and verified to work with Revit 2011 products and correctly reports on the build number for Revit applications installed on the machine from 2008 through 2011.

Download version 5 here.

I hope you find it useful.

Excel VBA Macro for Upper Case Text Formatting

I find myself updating some documentation for the menu system I enhanced yesterday. While updating a spreadsheet, I spied the following vba macro. I thought you might find it handy for formatting selected cells.

Place the following in your "ThisWorkbook" module inside the vba editor.

Option Explicit

Sub Upper_Case()
'
' Upper_Case Macro
' Change Value of Selection to upper case
'
' Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+t
'
Dim myCell As Range
Set myCell = Application.ActiveCell
With myCell
.Select
.Value = UCase(.Text)
End With
End Sub

Then assign a shortcut to run the routine. (I use Ctrl+Shift+T) Then as you work in excel, you can select a cell that you want to format as upper case text and press your shortcut to reformat it.

...now back to work!

AutoCAD Menu Streamlining and Updating or When does 8 = 37?

I had the opportunity to update some AutoCAD toolbars recently and looking through other's code is always a good time to either enhance something or learn from it. I chose to enhance the code and streamline it for future expansion.

The code itself is classic AutoCAD toolbar stuff. Lots of semicolons, back slashes, command line commands and options, and unfortunately, lots of hardcoded values associated with each scale. The tools worked, mostly, but trying to extend them or re-use them for new tools was problematic at best and hair-wrenching at times. As I looked through the toolbar code and built a table of the values for various scales, an opportunity to use some good old diesel code presented itself.

Let me give you a little background on the tools: The menu consisted of a series of toolbars, each one intended to be used for a particular drawing scale, providing a common method of inserting tags, dimensions, text, symbols, etc. The toolbars were wrapped up in flyouts, so that when a scale change was required, you simply picked it from the flyout and the correct associated tools were exposed and ready for use.

Anyway, as I started to build the tables to better understand the code and define patterns so that I could migrate this functionality for a Meter based metric project, I began to see how painstaking this process was going to become. To resolve the issues and simplify the maintenance, I changed all the hardcoded values into variables that could be multiplied by the current dimscale value. In doing so, I was able to create 10 new metric based toolbars from one master toolbar that only required two search and replace operations. Rather than copying each toolbar 10 times and then searching and replacing 22 different values for each scale, I reduced the effort to three operations, copy, search & replace, saveas.

Here is the tip: When does 8=37?

When you replace hard coded values with flexible diesel code!



Example code: $M=$(*,-0.0015875,$(getvar,dimscale))

Don't use hardcoded values in your menu macros, rather generate a value based on a variable and use diesel to retrieve it. So when does 8=37?

When you build a diesel macro to retrieve a value multiplied by the dimscale variable. The best thing about using diesel is it is evaluated so the 37 characters are not counted against your character limit. Only the number of characters represented in the value returned by the function is counted against the character limit. And variables make your tools more flexible. Instead of creating 40 new toolbars for the new metric tool menu, I was able to create 4 instead....now back to migrating legacy code with you!!!

DWF Viewer Prevents RAC 2011 Install - Solution

Seems fairly intuitive, but sometimes designers just don't read the messages that Revit displays for them. Do you have a habit of hitting the escape key or the enter key to dismiss dialog boxes without reading them? If you are having difficulty getting Revit 2011 to install, then maybe it is time to read the messages. Revit 2011 will only install the new combined material libraries if DWF Viewer 6.5 is currently installed. It will tell you (see image), but you actually have to read it to know what to do.



The solution is simple, go to your control panel and uninstall DWF Viewer 6.5. (see image)



Now re-boot the machine and re-run your deployment. It should work correctly now as shown below:

How To Inserting Views/Sheets from Templates in Revit

Have you ever wished you could insert views or sheets from existing templates into a new project or template only to find Revit uncooperative? Did you attempt it and find that Revit replies with the dreaded "Error-cannot be ignored" dialog box?

You know the one that says, "Unable to copy elements from file." It is the same window that only provides a cancel button reinforcing the software's claim that this Error cannot be ignored.

Have no fear! All is not lost. The solution to this problem is to simply open the other template file into the current session of Revit. Once open, you can use the Insert View command to bring those sheets/views into your current project or template with seeing the image shown above. Don't forget to change the file type selection to "All Files". Hope you found this helpful!

Revit Family Editing - Project Tip

Are you working in a live project and need to modify a family? Are you going to add some new types or rename existing types and then add some new ones? Perhaps you are going to do all the above and then save the family back into your corporate standards library. Do yourself a favor, keep your project organized and the type list shorter by following this tip.

As a general workflow, do your renaming within your project file if you plan to reload the family. This will prevent your type list from growing since Revit will keep your old types and add the new or renamed types when it reloads the family from the family editor. If you've got workshare enabled and others are in the project, make sure that your synchronize with central, SWC (aka STC), and notify your team to do the same once the renames are complete and before you reload the family.

1. Do your renaming within the live project. You can rename the types within the project browser as the starting point.
2. Now rename the family (if required) within the project browser.
3. Now SWC and notify your team if necessary.
4. If you aren't making structural changes to the family, then you can create your new types here as well.
5. Now, If you are making structural or wholesale changes to the family, then it is probably time to edit the family directly. You can choose an instance in the project and click Edit Family on the ribbon or right click the family in the project browser and choose Edit.
6. Once your edits are complete and you've flexed it, reload it into the live project and verify your changes work.
7. All good? Ctrl + Tab back to your family file and save to your library.

This process should keep you from getting a never ending type list under your families... Now back to work!

Revit Material Tags got you down?

Are you tagging elements with Material tags and think that the tag is not reflecting the correct value? - Just face it... you're wrong and Revit is right! Bwa ha ha ha ha.

Actually, you're probably getting a different element than you think when you go to place the tag. If, like my frantic designer, you are tagging very thin floor slabs (as finishes like carpet or tile), then just ensure that you temporarily hide from view the underlying floor slab (probably concrete) before you attempt to tag by material.

In our practice, we add thin floor slabs as finish materials on top of the structural slab and tag them, so the designer thought they were tagging a carpet, but Revit was secretly choosing the structural floor slab below. Using the temporary hide element from view tool available under the "cool shades" icon on your view control bar, will allow Revit to select your thin floor finishes rather than the main floor slab.

And Viola! Revit is once again playing nice! ... now back to work with you!

...Note: make sure your thin materials are indeed above the top of the structural slab to avoid this problem in the first place - My designer figured this out on their own and just reported back!

VBA Quick Tip

I am writing a quick select case this am and remembered something I thought I'd share with you. Don't worry about closing quotes around strings when it is the last character on the line. The VBA editor will do it for you when you hit the enter button. So my shortcut was to copy the beginning of the plotstyle name and Case statement to the clipboard and for each new line I simply paste, add the end of the style name and hit "Enter" key. The VBIDE adds the close quote for me.

Ex:
Here is what I paste from the clipboard - Case "Black-
I added the word: XBold and hit return. The result is shown below:

Case "Black-XBold"

Text Layer Movement in GIMP - Quick Tip

I'm working in GiMP creating new icons for some Acad based tools. Rather than switching from the Text tool to the move tool and back again, try just closing the "GiMP Text Editor" window and then use your arrow keys to move the layer around. Double click on the text layer in the layer window to reactivate the Editor window.