Since I was busy at work with our Project Template I wanted to know how big yours is - Family Template that is...

Looks like bigger is indeed better - or at least more widely used.

We have trimmed ours down to about 5.5MB, putting the extra stuff in a separate file from which you can pick and choose which elements to use.

Today I am following an update course for Revit 2011 and a few handy tips are surfacing.

One of them is the project location. While in Revit 2010 the list of standard cities for the US was very extensive, the Netherlands was represented by exactly two location. That left you going to Google Maps, finding the geo-location data and manually entering them.

Revit 2011 makes this easier. It brings Google Maps to you.

In the Ribbon select Manage > Location

And when you change the dropdown menu for Define Location by to Internet Mapping Service, you get this:
Google Maps, right inside Revit. Including the regular search functions.

Loving It!

This is one of the more drastic changes in Revit 2011. The keyboard shortcuts are handled and set differently.

In R 2010 you had the KeyboarShortcuts.txt file in the Program-directory. By changing this you changed the shortcuts.

R 2011 does things differently. Now you have a nice dialoge-box in which to set the keys:

Find the command you want, select it, and press the new keys you want assigned. By clicking on the now active "Assign"-button you activate the shortcut.

There are a few rules you have to keep in mind (this is straight from the User Reference Guide):

• A keyboard shortcut can consist of up to 5 unique alphanumeric keys.
• You can specify a keyboard shortcut that uses Ctrl, Shift, and Alt with a single alphanumeric key. The sequence displays in the Press new keys field. For example, if you press Control and Shift and D, it displays as Ctrl+Shift+D.
• If a keyboard shortcut includes Alt, it must also include Ctrl and/or Shift.
• You cannot assign reserved keys.
• You can specify multiple keyboard shortcuts for each Revit tool.
• You can assign the same keyboard shortcut to multiple tools. To select the desired tool when you execute the shortcut, use the status bar. See Using Keyboard Shortcuts.

On one hand I like this a lot, because everything is done within Revit and the changes happen immediately (as opposed to having to restart Revit).

However, there are a few features that I don't really like. Because you can assign the same shortcut to multiple commands there is no collision control. Once you type the command, the status bar will display the options and you can cycle through the different commands with the arrow keys and select the one you want with space (see the User Manual).

I just don't get that. I assign a shortcut to make my life easier, not give me multiple options. It is supposed to save me time, not make me type more and more letters. I would really like an option where you can have collision controle while asigning new shortcuts.

Other than that I am happy. :)

Our office is making use of a commercial solution for our family content. Most of the time this saves on creating families on your own and makes the workflow that much quicker.

Other times it does not.

Anyway. They have just published a new Poject Template to go with their solution for Revit 2011. So I figured I'd download it and take a look. That thing is almost 10MB in size!

When I went to university I took a CAD-class, where we worked with AutoCAD. (OK, not quite the same, but bear with me.) Or final project was to take an existing building of some size and create floor plans, sections, elevations and a 3D model. I did this for the Bank of China in Hong Kong.

Quite fun. :)

But here is the kicker: we had to turn this in on one floppy disk! You know, these weird, 3.5" big, plastic square things that held 1,44M!

I know that memory does not cost as much as it used to, but sending files to others via e-mail is still limited. (Yes, I know, there is online storage avaliable. Yes, I know, some of it is even free. But not everyone is comfortable with this. Or knows how to use it.)

Anyway. Enough ranting. I was just interested in how big your project files are before you actualle put any project-information in them.

This is more a reminder to myself, but if it helps anyone else - great.

We've been having some stability and speed issues with the new release (R2011). Since a lot of this was graphical, I went to look for the list from Autodesk that has all supported graphics cards in it, together with current driver information.

Since it took me some time to finally track it down, here the link:

Revit Graphics Hardware List

I've been playing around with a variable openings for doors in plan view and never quite worked it out. So I finally sat down and started from scratch to get this settled.

And since this is not only nice to have but also interesting to do (from an academic point of view :) ), I thought I'd share. So here goes.

I first started with a Generic Model - line based.

I then create a Reference Line, to which I will attach my opening door. Just put it at any angle but be sure to start it from the family origin.

Adding an Angular Dimension with a Label will make this puppy move like I want it. But since I want to be clever, I use an "internal" Label for this, calling it aopen and sorting it under "Other". Why? Well, I'll tell you in a second.


First will quickly draw a "door" with a variable thickness (after all, you could also use this family for windows...). I'll use Symbolic Lines to draw a rectangle, attaching one side to the movable Reference Line and adding some labeled Dimensions to it.

OK, so now for the "smart" part. I want this door to display a possible opening of 10 to 170 degrees, and turn off when the opening angle is below 10.

So I create two new parameters, called opening angle (angle) and door visible (yes/no). The first is so the user can change the angle and the second will turn it off automatically. I the program them as following:

aopen = if(opening angle < 10°, 10°, if(opening angle> 170°, 170°, opening angle))

and


Now I just set the Visibility of the door-lines to the door visible parameter and I am done.

Now, when the user enters a value lower than 10 the actual aopen-angle will stay at 10, preventing the family to break, but turning off the visibility. And an automatic doorstopper is set at 170 degrees.

Of course you could also introduce variables to set the minimum and maximum opening angels etc, but hey. That's up to you. :)