Showing posts with label Apps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apps. Show all posts

Monday, March 15, 2021

Exploding DWG Files

 "Just don't explode DWG files" is good advice, that is immediately ignored because...reasons...

Setting that aside, now that we've exploded that DWG, now what. First, there is full explode versus partial explode. A full explode will recreate all the DWG elements into native Revit elements (assuming it is possible) but a partial explode will produce some native elements and some new DWG elements (blocks).

Reducing all DWG elements to equivalent elements in Revit is fraught with peril. Not all blocks in a DWG are created well. Explode one block that happens to have very large extents and your project will now have display/graphics issues. A Revit project might have one imported DWG but many times that number after partial exploding.

I recently encountered three project files that had +95k imported DWG files. These were the result of partial exploding less than 20 DWG files. As most people are aware, Revit won't create an element if it is too short (less than 1/32" long). A scary number of these DWG files were invisible, undetectable by eye in any view, because I believe their contents were too short to display. Many thousands were in just a few views. I used IDEATE Explorer to select, open the view they were in, if they were invisible then delete them.

It was time consuming; for some of them it was fastest to just delete the drafting view entirely because the view/detail wasn't going to be used on the project anyway. It was part of the everything and the kitchen sink approach in their template. Many of these details were derived from existing DWG based details created over many years to varying standards.

Back to Revit and exploded DWG elements...

Each line, arc, circle, etc. element is recreated and assigned to a new line style named for the layer it lived on in DWG. Similarly each text element is created using DWG info to define it as unique. Line and fill patterns are created this way as well. Ditto for dimension styles...and filled regions...

Once these exist in a project they are prone to being used by others because they are there. It is hard to ensure the standards a company has developed are used when this additional noise is present.

If we must explode a DWG let's not do so in our active project. Use an isolated file, based on our project standards (template). Once exploded, take the time to convert everything to our standard types. The completed drafting view can be added to our active project using Revit's Insert from File tool.

Also consider the time is takes to do this well...might be as long or longer than sketching over a detail DWG instead. If our detail item library is pretty good we'll be able to create a detail faster because we have components to represent the same kinds of things the DWG has in block form etc.

Don't sweep the DWG remnants under the rug...

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Dimension Inline and Dynamo

(Edit: If you download and apply an update to his Rhythm package after 1/17/2018 you'll have this node too)

From time to time I've heard people ask about putting the dimension value on the line (inline) instead of above the dimension line the way Revit prefers. The only way we can do it within Revit is to manually grip and drag the dimension value down to the line.

More recently I read a thread at the Autodesk Forum asking about this. The premise in their situation is that it is a significant roadblock to using Revit for one of their client's projects, it doesn't meet their drawing standard unless the dimensions are inline.

I was trading messages with Aaron Maller and mentioned it to him. Aaron was trading messages with John Pierson and a few minutes later I learned it is possible with Dynamo and a custom node. This morning he shared this with me, as well as replying to the thread. Nicely done John! We are sooo connected these days.

Friday, March 10, 2017

Autodesk Desktop App - Sad Face

This so called application continues to disappoint. It has failed to let me know about any updates since installing Revit 2017...

Sad face...

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Revit 2016 Updates Redux

This morning I gave Autodesk Application Manager (AAM) another chance by removing it and installing it again. It reports a number of things requiring my attention; A360, Navisworks, Revit 2016 Extensions and AutoCAD OSNAP support. That's a bit more encouraging, it seems to be awake at least. In the past it just stopped caring about updates and didn't seem to find any despite Luke telling me otherwise on his blog.

The Revit Clinic has since provided a post with information regarding 2015 and 2016 updates.

I noticed that Revit 2016 now has Service Pack 1 installed. After a year of Release Updates we are now returning to language of old with Service Pack. Okay...

In a comment for yesterday's post Phillip asks why isn't there one update application that installs the necessary features based on what is installed...for each Revit version? Good question! They must be able to figure out what is installed and hopefully they know what is needed, better than me trying to figure it out from the information they aren't putting on the website at least.

Luke also followed up his previous posts with another regarding Revit 2016 Extensions (he's observed they are now being deployed via AAM), Space Naming Utility (now generically "version-less" wrapped up and delivered at Autodesk Exchange Apps). I'm still not sure where to expect to find Worksharing Monitor or the Collaboration for Revit (C4R) 2016.

After installing the 2015 update I find C4R is broken, it triggers the usual message that only a programmer's mother can love.

I'm glad that AAM seems to be working now but it is soooo slooooowwww installing updates. The Navis updates just report "installing" with no indication for the degree of progress while some of the others do. Consistent inconsistency. The updates for Navis and ReCap put fresh icons on my desktop where there were none. It's not hard to delete them but its rude to put something on the desktop that wasn't there prior to the update.

Grumpy but not as grumpy as yesterday...

Monday, April 27, 2015

Revit 2016 - Space Naming Utility Still a Separate Application

The Dept. of Echoooo...

Yes, sadly the Space Naming Utility for Revit MEP 2016 is STILL a utility, as in a separate download AND installation from the Autodesk Exchange|Apps site.

It's still just wrong, wrong, wrong...it should have been incorporated into the Revit MEP toolset long ago. How hard could it be?