We have changed the way the drawing banner works.

It no longer needs to be a Legend and you change the text to suit. As we have made it an Annotation Symbol and it's Instance Properties can be change the usual way via the drop down.

It can be found in Masterdocs\CAD\Revit\Waterman Library\Families\Annotations and is called W_ANO_X_Banner.

It is also loaded into the Waterman Template

It seems that there is a Network Licensing "bug" in RS2010.

Which kicks in if you leave the software idle for 10 minutes or so ( which is easy to do without even realising it ), after which time Revit will give back the license. Then when you carry on working you won't be able save as you will have entered Demo Mode.
The only way to get the license back is to exit Revit and fire it up again.

The answer until Autodesk sort this problem out ??
Save regularly.

Turning off individual elements in a linked Revit model

We often have the need to link Revit models to each other and then "Hide in View" certain bits and pieces.

As you will know if you hover over the linked model Revit will put a box around it and display some information about it.

If you hover over the item you wish to hide and hit the tab key to will be able to select it and then hide in view.

Ever wanted to stop two walls joining in RS2010 ?

This is still an operation that needs doing prior to modelling the second wall. Unless someone out there knows how to do it after the event ?

So .... Draw your wall then go to the Modify Tab and find the Wall Joins icon.

Then hover over the end of the wall you want to stop joining wait for the box to appear and select the end of the wall.This will wake up the Disallow Join button.

You now also get a nice little icon showing wich walls have been stopped from joining.

Section Marks show up at 1:100 but not at 1:200

even though the plan area shown is exactly the same !!

This question seems to come up every now and then and the answer is easy. Once you know it.

If you look at the element properties of the section mark you will see " Hide at scales coarser than " if the value is 1:100 then they won't show at 1:200.

Ever considered a career as a steel erector ?

Just putting the final touches to the worlds tallest building.
The "Burj Dubai" @ 2,260 ft / 801m !!!

Ever wanted to stop two walls joining ?

We have two walls that have a 75mm expansion joint betwen the ends. When trying to model this initially we couldn't get the walls to stop joining "automatically" until we noticed the Edit Wall Joins button which wakes up the Disallow Join button.

Easy now we know !!!!

Thanks to Simon Jones for showing me this.

Changing CAD files to a new workset ...

We have probably all done this.

When creating a workset for our Cad models if you forget to uncheck the box that says "visible by default in all views". Every time you create a view all the Cad files come in with it.
There is a fix.

Create a new workset making sure you uncheck the "visible by default in all views".
Then make the old workset editable by picking the button towards the bottom of the right of the window.
Then close the window and reopen it.
Highlight the old workset and pick the delete button on the right.
You will then be prompted where to move the information on the old workset.
Select the new workset.
The old workset disappears and you can then rename the new workset to whatever you like.

Thanks to Mike Jones for this tip.

Following on from the "Re-Branding" post yesterday.

I received a couple of comments on the way I had done things and after looking into it I've changed the drawing sheets and templates slightly.
So if you re-loaded the drawing sheets yesterday you will have to do so again to be up to date.

Thank you to those that took the time to point out a better way.

We have been re-branded and as a consequence our logo has changed.

I have updated our Revit template, but, any projects that are already up and running will need the new drawing sheet loaded in. Unfortunately in Revit you will have to do this manually.
The new sheets can be found in \masterdocs\CAD\Revit\Waterman Library\Drawing Sheets
If you are using any project specific drawing sheets these will also need updating to show the new logo. If you require any assistance doing this then please contact me.

While we are on the subject of Section Marks ....

To get a "jogged" Section Mark. Selecting the Section Mark makes the Split Segment button wake up.Pick Split Segment then select the Section Mark. you can then drag one part of the Section Mark around.

Section Marks can at times be quite over powering ...

One way to trim them down a bit so that they don't cover up to much of your drawing.

Just click on the break in the middle of the section mark. You can then also grab the drag points to make the section marks lines even smaller.

How to show "Hatch" patterns in coarse detail.

I have been asked this a couple of times recently.

There are people out there that like to show steel beams in coarse mode ( single lines ), but, when they do the fill ( hatch to us old draughtsman ) in core walls doesn't display.

This is easily remedied.

Select the wall and go to its element properties --> Edit/New and under Graphics you will see Coarse Scale Fill Pattern. Select this via the three little dots and choose the desired fill pattern.

A couple of Workset Tips that you should take heed of ..

• Never Work in the Central File
• Save often! Both locally and to Central
• Always relinquish all borrowed elements and Worksets before leaving work for any extended period of time ie Going to lunch, going home, going on holiday etc.
• Recreate your Local file regularly. You can create it as often as you like, but do it at least once a week.

Using the Linework tool ...

Something that was pointed out to me recently and has just floated back to the top of my memory.

Each time you click an edge, the new linework will be applied to the edge and it will remain selected with editable handles at each end of the line. You can stretch these handles to confine the effect of the edit to a portion of the edge.

As you can see by the image I have changed the lines to Hidden and pulled the handles down so only part of the line is shown as hidden

I have found this very useful in getting those sections and details looking just right.

I have created a mapping file for when you need to export

your views / sheets out to AutoCAD dwg files. The mapping file can be found in \MasterDocs\CAD\Revit\Waterman Library and is called WGPLC-exportlayers-dwg.txt

To do this go to --> file --> Export --> CAD Formats

Then go to Layer SettingsIf not already loaded you can Load and Browse to the file ..

As always if you find anything I have missed or got wrong please let me know.

As most of you already know ..... I do make mistakes.

I have taken the liberty of doing a cut & paste

from Bim&Beam and an interview with Ericksen Roed & Associates which sums up exactly why you should all be looking at using Revit.

If you could give one piece of advice to someone in the field of structural engineering who is NOT using Revit Structure today, what would it be?
Do absolutely nothing – your clients will find us! But, seriously, don't wait any longer! Revit Structure is a mature tool capable of producing higher quality Construction Documents than 2D CAD and providing better information for downstream use. Much of the content we had to develop internally in the early releases is now available right out of the box. Ignore this industry trend at your own peril (I am serious about that!).

Close Hidden Windows .....

I posted about this on the 16th September. If you remember ???Scott Davis of Autodesk added a comment to this post regarding adding a "Keyboard Shortcut" to this command. Excellant tip thanks Scott.

To do this go find the file called KeyboardShortcuts.txt it should be located in your C:\Program Files\Revit Structure 2009\Program folder. Open up the file and scroll down to the window menu section and add a xx in.
Close and open Revit. Then all you have to do is type xx to close all of your hidden windows.

A couple of us attended the AUGI Design Academy

last week and found it a very worthwhile event.
As we were leaving we were handed a CD containing the class handouts I've copied the Revit ones into MasterDocs\CAD\Revit\Waterman Library\ADA Handouts. Even though some of them are titled Revit Architecture a lot of the content is relevant to Revit Structure as well.

Close Hidden Windows .....

This has been mentioned to me a couple of times recently so I thought I would let you all know about it.

When you come to close your Revit project and you realise you have several views open you don't have to close each one individually.

You can go up to the Window pulldown and select "Close Hidden Windows" this will do what it says on the tin. Then all you have to do is close the one view left open.