Revit 2017 - Space Naming Utility Update - It is Available Now

The other day I poked Autodesk about this feature. As it turns out it is deployed slightly more automatically. The catch is that the latest iteration of Autodesk Desktop Application (I'm going to call it AdA) must be used to see these updates.

My first problem was that AdA wasn't working. It just displayed a blank white screen. I also noticed that there was no Autodesk (A icon) in the system tray for an active service. Eventually I used the wisdom of The IT Crowd; turned it off and on again. That restarted the service and AdA started working, displaying information.

The second problem was there were no updates to choose from. I logged out of A360 and closed its system tray instance. I also logged out of A360 via Revit, since I had it open. I closed the instance of AdA in the system tray too. I had a browser open looking at my Manage portal. I thought that maybe my access settings were wrong. I logged out and closed the browser too. Then I logged back into A360 and launched AdA...voila, updates appeared. It made no difference earlier that I used the right-click Check for New Updates option for AdA in the system tray repeatedly.

Once I got it working again this appeared in AdA.

This a tiny bit better.

People will still have to pay attention to be alerted to download and install it. If they don't have enough control over their computer they'll still have to get EyeTee involved. I'll have to see if I notice more people have it installed in the coming months.

Once it has been downloaded and installed you don't have to rely on AdA to pass it along to others in the office though. You can just capture the downloaded installation file from the location defined when you downloaded and installed it the first time (C:\Autodesk by default).

It is also a bit tedious that every one of the updates is a separate installation; must be run and completed before starting another. If you attempt to run them while another is running you'll run into messages about something already being in process.

By the way, when you run Revit after installing all the available updates you may be greeted by "Security - Unsigned Add-in" warnings. Nice...

I've got my Space Naming Utility! Do you? I hope so!

...and thanks to Paul Aubin for the heads up!

Doors and a Sliver of a Room

Following on my post yesterday regarding Doors and Rooms, if you happen to have a room that is NOT at least 14 inches deep you will find that Revit is unwilling to report either its To Room or From Room parameter. If you've been reading this blog a long time you may remember a post I wrote which included a short video that mentions this issue?

A room like pictured below will work because it is 14" deep.

However the room pictured below won't be recognized and the corresponding parameters will be blank, in this case the To Room parameters.

If you are familiar with the Room Calculation Point (I call it RcP) feature it can be used to influence this issue.

Keep in mind it will also negatively affect which room you can regard as the To Room, if not for this door specifically any other doors that need the opposite behavior.

The Room Calculation Point (RcP) feature was added to doors to provide a way to change how the To Room assignment is controlled. Originally the To Room value for a door was (still is without the RcP being enabled) decided based on the side of the wall the door swings in toward.

There are doors which must swing out of a room but still belong to the room they swing from. For example a classroom's door (like shown in the images above) often swings outward to the corridor (often set into an alcove), for exiting requirements usually. However we still think of and document the door as belonging to the classroom, not the corridor.

If the door is placed so that the panel swings into the classroom (using stock doors) then the To Room parameter is assigned to the classroom. If we then flip its orientation so the panel swings out of the classroom the To Room value remains associated with the classroom (check out the post I mention above for a video of this behavior).

The RcP feature changes that behavior to alter the To Room value to follow the flip of the door orientation regardless, which means in my example, and the images above, the To Room value would change to reference the Corridor instead.

May you have sliverless designs...

Space Renumbering Tool - Hackalicious

I got a comment on my previous post about the new Plug-in posted at Autodesk Labs asking about renumbering Spaces.

Well the Room Renumbering tool does not accommodate spaces too. I decided to use this as an excuse to steal a word from Zach Kron (hackalicious) and hack away at the Room code to convert to Space Renumbering. It took me a little less than an hour and two questions to Phillip Miller at Kiwi Codes (though I did find my answers before he replied both times, quick responses though Phillip!!).

I edited every reference to room, Room, ROOM, ROOMS, rooms to space, Space, Space, Spaces, spaces etc. I also had to change every reference to room in the forms and the properties of the "project" (C# code). The builtinparameter for ROOM_NAME is also different, SPACE_ASSOC_ROOM_NAME. I created a new Add-in file and used the GUID site to create a unique GUID for the add-in.

If you are using the existing Space Renaming Tool (available from Autodesk Subscription) to match the architecture model's rooms then you shouldn't need to use this. If you aren't and just need to renumber them then have fun!

Click to Download my hacked version of the room renumbering, now the Space Renumbering Tool.

Hack at your own risk!

Re-Numbering Elements

I've written about this in the past:

Avatech Utilities Update
Duplicate Mark Values
API Tools Part One - Avatech
Numbering Stuff
First Number Value Template Setup

I also mentioned in one of those earlier posts it is possible to re-number elements using the Element Positioning tool that is available via subscription. Unfortunately it is brutally slow!! On a recent project file it took well over an hour to crank its way through the project database. Frankly it needs a rewrite or fresh approach. It is grossly inefficient to crawl the entire database, generating view by view to establish a selection set. My claims are written like only a "non-programmer" could marginalize the effort to create good code.

How else can we renumber elements, apart from scheduling ingenuity?

Well Avatech's Utilities for Revit are, in my view, unfortunately and arbitrarily limited to Doors, Grids, Levels, Windows, Spaces & Rooms.

Kiwi Codes offers the most elegant solution I've encountered so far. They have two tools; Element Renumber or Category Renumber. Category Renumber is a simple tool that let's you select a single element to define a category to renumber "arbitrarily" and it just reassigns a new number to every element. Keep in mind you'd need to be able to edit every element (potential workset conflict perhaps). Element Renumber lets you set a starting number and pick elements in the order you'd like to renumber them. It also lets you assign an increment value as well as apply a prefix or suffix to the number. For Revit MEP users this tool is a real value, I think. They have a 2011 version, it just isn't on the site at the moment. Write to them.

It strikes me as a bit silly that this sort of tool isn't just part of the software already. I know they've got big list and they are checking it twice even thrice but typically it's the littlest stuff that gets people giggly.

As for pricing of 3rd party applications - I prefer the "a lot for a little" approach. If I were to provide a productive tool for sale I'd be inclined to price it very lightly with the hope that the price is inviting enough to generate significant volume (recognizing the market of Revit users versus the market for selling candy bars...not the same league obviously).

The following statements will rule out my ever being invited to work in sales for these products but here goes. If I were to sell the Avatech tools they'd be about $50. The Kiwi Code tool about $10. The Ideate Explorer for about $35. There are others too but I'll not offend them right now. My rationale is that for these tools to proliferate they need to be a commodity and set at a price that an individual or corporation wouldn't blink at. Especially when they are looking at the capital cost associated with Revit itself. I'm not saying the work of the developers isn't worth more, they deserve compensation for their work.

I'm inclined to think that volume would increase if the price is "right". They'd get a generous return by selling more. The prices I see now are putting up a barrier that makes someone think twice about buying. Maybe I'm full of beans and they are selling like hotcakes but I don't see many of them in use. Then again awareness may account for that more than anything.

[Disclaimer: No product vendors enticed me to write in favor of one or another. This post was born of frustration the other day.]

Numbering Stuff

Revit doesn't automatically number everything. It does it for doors, windows, rooms. In Revit MEP it numbers a variety of other elements too, some of which people wish weren't because they end up generating useless warnings. A post at AUGI asked about numbering parking stalls. One suggestion was tricky and involved temporarily changing the category of the parking stall to doors so the automatic numbering would kick in. How about using the Extensions for Revit instead?

Seems to me that too many people are either unaware of the extensions that have been available for Revit for several releases now or they just don't have them installed. One of the extensions is called Element Positioning. Pardon me, lousy name for the routine, sorry. I've posted a short video showing how it works in the context of parking stalls. I've embedded it here too if you'd rather listen than watch.

[amended 5/12/10] Room and spaces are not valid elements for this tool. Neither are annotation or load elements (according to the tool's help doc). This tool got its start as an add-on for Revit Structure and was made available to the other versions.

The First Number or Value - Template Setup

When you place a component, like a door, Revit provides a unique Mark parameter value. Same thing happens when you place a grid. Have you started a new project, placed a door and found a nice number like 234? How about a grid value of 2 or 15 instead of just 1 or A? Not all elements get a unique number automatically, such as furniture or casework for example. Those two just get a blank value.

Fortunately this issue is pretty quick to resolve. Just open your template, place a new component or grid and renumber the Mark/Name parameter so that it has the number just before the one you want your user to get with the template when they get started. This works fine for numbers but I'm not sure what to do about letters. If you want the grid to start with A...what comes before A? I've tried to get it to start with A again...but no joy.

I made a short video that shows what I'm writing about.