History Lesson

One of the most troubling support issues is when a designer working in Revit exclaims that things moved, deleted or were altered “on their own”. It takes a delicate approach to resolve this issue, as it is often a question of process or an incomplete understanding of the tool. For many years, Press and Drag has been something that I’ve advocated as disabled when deploying Revit to a large firm. To do this, we would simply enter the following line(s), if they don’t exist, in the Revit.ini:

[Selection]
AllowPressAndDrag=0

Some feel very strongly about this setting.

Today

Now, in Revit 2014, there are a number of new options, and again most of them are by default enabled. The question is, should the helpful BIM Manager change these settings, as we have before, or is the general skill level of designers using Revit now at the place where they can make their own informed choices? To select, or not select? That is the question, again.

You can get to these settings in Revit 2014 at any time from the Modify tool drop down, or on the Status bar, in the lower right corner. See images below.

Here is a run down of the available options:

• Select Links
• Select Underlay Elements
• Select Pinned Elements
• Select Elements by Face
• Drag Elements on Selection (The old Press and Drag with a more descriptive name)

For more details on what each of these do, go read up on Controlling the Selection of Elements, in the Revit Wiki Help.

Out-of-the-box, Revit has Select Elements by Face disabled. This makes good sense, else working in 3D or elevation/section views would be unpredictable and inconsistent with prior behavior for most tasks. I somehow think modifying any of the options would cause more help desk calls in the future, not to mention more frustration by someone when they can’t select a thing that is clearly visible on screen.

Below are the new options that you could put into your Revit.ini should you desire. Enabled is a value of 1, and disabled is a value of 0. Again, I’m just not sure of the right thing to do. I’ve indicated my current thoughts in blue.

[Selection]
AllowLinkSelection=0
AllowUnderlaySelection=0
AllowPinnedSelection=1
AllowFaceSelection=0
AllowPressAndDrag=0

I’d love to hear what you would select in the comments.

Revit: What’s new in Revit 2014?.

And, look: There’s a few features for Autodesk® Revit® 2014 listed on the product page now, and teaser images to go along with them. Some of my favorites (that I can share at this time):

• Non-rectangular crop regions
• Split elevations
• Displaced Views
• Parameter variance for groups
• Alternate dimensions
• Dockable window framework
• Temporary view templates

via: Revit | Building Design and Construction | Autodesk

To summarize these trends or shifts:

1. Reality Capture
2. The Cloud
3. Infinite Computing
4. Simulation
5. Digital to Analog
6. The Net Effect

This is one of a few teasers in advance of the big webcast coming on March 26th. This is presumably the announcement of the new Autodesk 2014 product line, which has been almost as regular as the returning of the swallows to Capistrano. You can view the live webcast on March 26th either here: facebook.com/autodesk (click the Webcast menu) or here: livestream.com/autodesk.

Harry is a ‘The Factory’ veteran, having been with the Charles River Software company, the original name of Revit Technology Corporation in the late 90′s. Now that’s street cred. This one’s going in the blogroll.

These are the rambling words of a weary traveller, about to embark on the frozen waste that is Windows 8. Normally excited to try new things, I have reached a point in my career where the marketing hype around a product has little excitement any longer. I must admit, I volunteered to put myself through this, so hopefully you won’t have to. Buckle your seat belt.

I admit, I was very afraid after watching Chris Perillo’s dad struggle with the new experience (above). This did not bode well, and made me feel like I am too old for new things. But I soldiered on.

Day 1

With a shiny-new laptop, loaded with powerful specs, I admired it sitting there as an inanimate object for a short while. I think I apologized to it, for making it take this journey with me. I dove in with some hesitation. Expecting to find an interesting and new experience, I quickly discovered that it’s not for me, and those who don’t use keyboard shortcuts will forever be perplexed on how to find the desktop, err second desktop. Enough about the OS itself… this is about running Revit on it, in it, around it… or something. So here goes:

I installed Revit 2013 on my shiny Windows 8 computer and although not a touch-enabled screen, I knew there would be little to gain from it with Revit without a UI redesign. I am playing the role of tester for this configuration. Initial experiences were good. The RFO Benchmark utility works just fine, and the machine I tested had admirable results. Note to self, run in Safe Mode for really good results, and you’ll see how much baggage the OS carries.

Day 2

Revit opened fine that first time. Now that I’m actually using it and actually tried to make and edit things that I realized why Revit is not yet on the Autodesk Windows 8 compatibility list. Below is what I’ve found you might experience, and why I strongly recommend against upgrading to Windows 8 until or unless these issues are addressed in a product upgrade. Otherwise, we will have to wait for a future release that may be designed for Windows 8. No timeline for that has been made public at this writing.

I’ve categorized and captured my comments in the following format. Impact – Description

Ribbon

• Low – Panels cannot be pulled off the ribbon to make floating in the workspace.
• Critical – Contextual ribbon does not display any panels or tools. Try clicking family, and there is no load family or model in-place tool. Try selecting a family, and there is no edit tool. Select a wall and there is no edit profile, attach, etc… The non-functioning Draw panel shows up instead!
• Medium – Similar to above, enabling Raytrace means you have no way of stopping the process or exporting the image. You have to close the active view and re-open it to return to the previous visual style.

Vasari

• Critical – Beta 1 does not run at all. This is known and easily discovered on the discussion forum, however what you don’t know, you don’t know.

Day 15

API

• {Varies} – The Python for Revit tools don’t function at all. More accurately, Revit hooks don’t work. Standard Python commands work – my usual test is:
  import this

  I wonder if some libraries are simply not found in the new OS. Given I’m only beginning to learn Python, I can only rely on my experience trying (unsuccessfully) to run the samples provided by the highly admirable Nathan Miller.

After tinkering a bit, I realized that the contextual ribbons will return if you cycle through the display of the tabs. This sometimes take more attempts to make it happen, and I’ve found that each time I edit something I need to repeat the process. Oddly, this does not seem to occur in the family editor.

Day 18
Add-ins

• Medium to Critical – Most of the Add-ins written for Revit 2013 rely on the dotNET framework 3.5 or earlier. Windows 8 comes with 4.0 however, you have to jump through serious hoops, and in some cases you would need to work with your IT department to set up exceptions to group policies that are in place and get your hands on a Windows 8 disk or ISO (something that OEMs do not provide with new computers any longer). All in all, if you require any Revit add-ins, including the free ones available from the Autodesk subscription, good luck to you. You may be in for a bumpy ride, aka a very long Microsoft whitepaper on the subject..

Day 20

So, I’m ready to face reality. Time for a downgrade or at least create a Windows 7 virtual machine to continue to do my work in Revit. For that matter, maybe I don’t need a PC at all… if only I could do all my work from an iPad, that would feel way more civilized. At least the UX would be predictable, and simple to understand. I did after all, find more gray hairs on my head this morning.

Your results may vary
Others, Like Robin Capper have had good results with the upgrade.

Still, my favorite ranty (perhaps even NSFW) review of Windows 8 is…this: Windows 8: The Animated Evaluation – YouTube

BTW, Chris Perillo’s dad did indicate which OS he preferred recently…

Happy trails.

(this post was written entirely on an iPad)

I’ve always struggled to read sheet music as effortlessly as some of my more musically-talented friends. It often seemed without life, just sitting there like ink someone carelessly spilled on the page. Sure, I “know” how to read the notes and symbols, but it never really comes to life until played – usually by someone better than I.

They say architecture is like frozen music. This has been attributed to Meis Van Der Rohe, or Friedrich von Schelling, and others… I never fully understood the relationship to be beyond metaphorical. I would say that more accurately, a photograph of architecture, without the experience of moving through and around it is in fact a 2-dimensional, flat and unmoving act. To truly appreciate a place, you must go there. To truly appreciate music, you must see AND hear it.

Now, only after seeing the below mathematical representation of an emotionally inspired piece of Chopin, does it really make sense. As elegant as a well-composed grasshopper or dynamo script, the visual representation of architectural and musical form seem long-lost siblings.

Please enjoy responsibly.

Chopin, Nocturne, opus 9 no. 2 from musanim on Vimeo.

Pumpktris – YouTube

For more information, and detailed photos from it’s creator: http://www.hahabird.com/2012/10/pumpktris/

Life Safety Gnome, the official mascot of Revit egress paths.

For many versions of Revit, we have used Steve Stafford’s Line-Based Generic Model family for representing Egress Paths in our life safety drawings. It has served us well. At the time, this was absolutely the best way, given the available tool set. Certainly, you could use dumb drafting lines to sketch the path, and not have any ability to schedule or tag… but we like BIM here at Paradigm shift, and strongly believe in creating your own tools when they don’t already exist.

Revit 2013 has opened up some new possibilities. With railings, you can now schedule and tag their length. Mathew Miller wrote up a great process for documenting Life Safety / Code plans, and you should definitely check it out. Then go follow him on Twitter.

Are you back? Good. Yes, I completely agree – one could simply create a custom railing for the path. I liked this quite a bit, and the more I tried refining it, the more I didn’t like the ability to edit certain aspects. The new component-based railings cannot entirely have all components turned off – there’s always a rail at the overall height of the instance.

I think the best solution I’ve come across thus far, is from one of NBBJ’s own – Kelvin Tam in our Columbus office. It is made from an adaptive component, so the points can be placed manually where needed, and easily adjusted. There’s also some additional benefits to using this method, as you’ll see in my short video. This is a rough draft, and comments are always welcome.

Revit 2013 Egress Paths – YouTube.

Get the family here: LifeSafety-EgressPath_4Segments.rfa

Why are you there, silly Skeuomorph?
Have you ever noticed something expressed in modern technology that doesn’t seem right, as if it might be a relic of the past, and yet the meaning is completely lost? What will page turning in an app mean when paper books are more rare than disposable tablets?

Another less controversial example: you know those little horizontal lines under the F and J keys on a computer keyboard? In case you didn’t take a typing class in high school, these exist on physical keyboards to tell you (if you are a touch typist) you are resting at home position. Absent, you would need to look down, as you take breaks to think of what to write next. On an iPad screen they make no sense. To have them as digital ornamentation behind a polished, flat slice of Gorilla Glass, makes absolutely no sense. It isn’t even cute. Apple has these little skeuomorphs everywhere in their applications and OS. Sometimes they help, are fun (like page turning), and more often than not they make my eyes itch.

Now that is Fast!
How cool is the Touchfire? I really like it! I recently received my new light, transparent, whimsical keyboard that has been a story in the making for along while. I first learned (and posted) about this project while on Kickstarter back during Autodesk University 2011. Later in December, Steve Isaac (one of the two cofounders) demonstrated the prototype in my office. I was blown away.

This is the keyboard that iPad wishes it had shipped with. Yes, you can rest your fingers at home position. And no, you will not fire off random gibberish by doing so. The keys are specially designed to work on the capacitive touch screen of the iPad, and work so well – I have begun using only the iPad with my Touchfire for taking notes at meetings. I guess I’m not a perfect touch typist… however, there’s a typing tutorial on the website: www.Touchfire.com/start. I will improve.

The beginning of tactile computing
I’m certain this will be the spark that ignites more tactile computing with our mobile devices and look forward to things to come. What I’ve got now, is far and away better than a wireless or other keyboards that accompany a case. Those are usually sacrificing something and leave the experience as flat as glass. I am sure the recently announced Surface will be no different. The Touchfire is very different. I began composing this on my iPad using it moments after it arrived.

When unpacked, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it comes with a nicely compact hard case. Initially, the surface was a little bit tacky. However, this disappeared after just the press of each key a few times. Little bits of dust, joyriders if you will, were adhered to the surface which a quick rinse under water – the recommended way to clean – easily dispatched.

If your iPad goes to sleep, you can swipe right through the Touchfire with ease. Which means, you can also very easily swipe through to alternate keys. The only technique that I’ll mis is the ability to tap/slide, to quickly insert a capital letter or number. However, now after several paragraphs – already typing at a much faster and accurate rate – will barely miss that capability.

Caution: Heads will turn
When you first unfurl the keyboard and begin using it, people will stop and stare. This is perfectly normal. Then, people will ask to try it out. I tell them to get their own and keep typing. Then after about 30 seconds give them an opportunity to savor in the soft luxury of typing on a gel surface. It’s always fun to see their initial response. This is so much nicer on the fingertips and the reduced noise is welcome in the office. My old IBM-style mechanical keyboard is very jealous.

The Touchfire works best if you have an Apple cover – including the smart cover for iPad 2 or 3, or the original faux-suede iPad1 cover. The smart cover allows the keyboard to roll up and out of the way entirely. Regardless of iPad generation, you will have the ability to fold the keyboard back on itself, and it hangs out there at the bottom of the screen, awaiting redeployment. I do sometimes enjoy using my iPad sans cover, and this also works very well on the newer model iPads, due to the internal magnets of each device. With my original iPad, it just means that I need to swipe across it’s ‘chin’ and type away – while I do need to keep the device relatively flat.

I highly recommend this screen-top keyboard if you plan to type anything of length greater than a tweet on your iPad, and give this two big thumbs up!