Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Revit Viewer

Yes it still exists.

I've been doing some work with Autodesk as a Revit Mentor helping users navigate their 30 day trial. One of the recurring themes is, "I only need Revit to view other peoples models. How do I do that?" In the old days a version of Revit that lacked a license turned into viewer mode. At times that proved a bit dangerous because a user could lose a license (network issues or internet access) while working on a model and find themselves in Viewer Mode and unable to save work they ordinarily could, should be able to.

To counter that situation we now have a separate application that is Revit Viewer. It's installed alongside Revit, wherever you decided to store it on your computer. In my case it's listed like this when I search in Windows 10. FWIW, I don't put any icons on my PC's desktop so that's how I start everything, click on the Window...type a few letters, launch an app. It's the illusion of an uncluttered mind! My actual desk...well that's a different matter...


When you run it you'll be greeted by this message before it will finish opening and let you open a project.


It is worth stressing that the limitations the dialog above describes kick in as soon as ANY change is made. I frequently hear, "I can't print in Viewer mode". That happens when you change the model, to which they reply, "I want to print using a different titleblock, I switched to a different one".

Yeah, that's a change...

It doesn't matter how minor or subtle a change is, the key word is change. If you move a tag, add a dimension, put a view on sheet, change a view's scale, a view's detail level...yeah those are all changes. Trying to print (or save/export) afterward will cause Revit to pop up the dialog above again. If you get the dialog, use Undo until the action you want will work. Most likely you'll have to undo everything you've done just after opening the file.

I should clarify, using Viewer won't allow exporting to formats that can be modified (that is part of the license warning message). That means Viewer can't be used to export to DWG, DXF, IFC etc. We can use Viewer to Print or Publish to DWF.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

can Revit Viewer be installed alone? i means w/o installing normal Revit, or is it possible to uninstall normal Revit but leave Viewer as it is? in short, i only want to install Revit Viewer, is it possible?

Steve said...

Revit Viewer IS Revit, launched in a special way to disable features. To cut down on the footprint on your PC you can discard the content libraries. If you don't want someone to start Revit, you can remove the icon.

Anonymous said...

thanks Steve.

it'll be much much better if factory can provide separate Viewer (installer) just like Navis Freedom so this Viewer can be installed specifically for targeted group like principles, PMs, marketing people, etc.

Steve said...

Considering they just combined all verticals back into one Revit I won't hold my breath.

Anonymous said...

So, will Revit trial revert to viewer after the 30 days? like the previous version?

Steve said...

Anon, I thought I answered that in the first paragraph...apparently not. No it doesn't. Revit will only work if you authorize it after the trial ends. To use it in Viewer mode you have to launch Revit via a separate Revit Viewer icon, application.

Wes said...

I am getting the 'Revit is in Viewer mode' box even though I have not made any changes. I just opened the file and tried to export and it's not working. Is there some export setting that I need to change?

Steve said...

Wes - You won't be able to export at all. They've decided that Viewer Mode cannot export to formats that provide changeable files. That means DWG, IFC etc. We can Print or Publish to DWF. I'll edit the text of my post to remove the reference to Export, sorry to suggest you could.