Missing/Lost Sheet (2011)

So the other day two of my colleagues came to me because they had a sheet that they could not find in the project browser. We knew it was an actual sheet not a dummy sheet since we set it up and put views on it. It was not deleted because it showed up in the sheet list and we were not able to renumber a sheet to it's number.

This my not be a large issue to some, if you primarily go into the views to make changes rather than work of sheets, since the missing sheets still reference the same and print the same as well. If you need to get to the sheet to make changes, where did it go?

Ben May of Revit-Ninja pointed out a case where his sheet had been moved up with views in the project browser. This happened to be the case for me as well. So to find this sheet, right click on "View (Plans/Details)" in the project browser, and turn off any filters and folders. You should now just have a long list of all your views. Scroll down to where "Sheets" would be alphabetically (ie "Sheets: RF-102S) and low and behold there is your missing sheet.

That is the solution if you don't mind switching up your browser to find that sheet every time...if this is an issue you can always delete the sheet in the Sheet List (right click and delete row). This will release all the views from the sheet so they can be replaced on a new sheet of the same name and number. Granted this may not always be very friendly if you happen to have 30 or so details on this sheet.

Now, AutoDesk says this is a very rare occurrence, but there is no way to fix this instance of the sheet to get sheets listed back where it is supposed to under "Sheets."

Autodesk Nucleus

This is an item I would not be surprised to see in RAC 2012 or 2013....Nucleus is a Maya based modeling tool that is starting to be incorporated into Revit. For all of those who remember the massing overhaul a few years back, this transformation makes that look rather generic and archaic.

Granted, with a background in engineering this does make me cringe when I try to imagine all the new non-squared designs that will potentially evolve if this is pushed to be included in the OOTB Revit release. Nonetheless, this still seems like a REALLY cool tool developed and AutoDesk is allowing you to play around with it until the end of this year.

This also does have great potential on the engineering (structural) side as well with its proclaimed ability to simulate loading conditions. Their website says that it has the ability to display gravity, wind, and collision loadings, but I think where this could have a greatest significance in today world, if accurate, is with blast and seismic scenarios.

Though it does state that designs made with Nucleus will still function after the trial expiration date, I would still be wary of overhauling your library before (if) this becomes standard OOTB with Revit.

Mouse Hotkey

I recently came across a pretty cool tool called StrokeIT which attaches shortcuts to your mouse and how you gesture. Now I am the type that love using my keyboard short cuts and so to me I feel that this would be a little too different for how I prefer to Revit, but it is still a really cool tool and many out there may find this a nice alternative to browsing around for tools on tool bars and using the keyboard.

Below is a video of how it works. You can also see the video on this forum. I am not sure why the video is so blurry on here?

New Revit Forum

So as most of you are probably aware of AUGI seems to be tanking rather quickly and there have been many searching for new places to go for a resource and to connect with fellow Revit users. "Revit Forum" is very well laid out, and the development team seems to be very quick on getting changes, wants, and fixes made to the forum.

There also seems to be many Revit users already starting to use this forum, so if any are interested in finding a new place to connect I would highly recommend this forum, and I hope to see many of you on there!

"North Symbol on all Plans"

I recently read a post on AUGI and I thought it was an interesting way to automatically put a north arrow on all your plan drawings. Draw your North arrow as a shaft object rather than an annotation. Seems like a pretty simple solution, and rather innovative. Thanks to David Harrington for the post on AUGI.

I am trying to get some things together from a project in college, but I am hoping to have a post soon on the power and setback to Revit Scheduling.

Revit and Construction

So I have recently started working at a new firm. I used to work for an Architectural firm/Construction firm, and now work for a structural firm. The things I am doing for the structural firm are all construction related, such as rebar shop drawings, steel stud lay out designs, roof construction sequencing and weights, and similar. What has been noticed the most about doing this type of designing with Revit is that there is still a lot of development and improvement with Revit that would make using Revit for shop drawings much more efficient.

The first area would have to be rebar. By pure time, volume, and frequency, rebar shops are something that could easily take off in Reivt and have a fairly high impact on construction cost and time. There are three major areas that would significantly improve creating rebar shops in Revit:

1. Placement of rebar around openings and non-squared edges
   *Right now there is not a way to easily take rebar around openings and along non-squared edges.
   
2. Tagging of rebar sets.
   *Rebar is fairly similar to a beam system in its looks and how it functions, it would be great to have a tag that recognizes this and would act as the beam system tag does by placing arrows to the extents automatically of the rebar set.
   
3. Customizable schedules.
   *This seems to be the simplest yet most helpful, it would be extremely helpful to have better control of schedules in Revit so users could make Revit populate a Bar Mark rather then a user generated mark. Not being able to convert a number to text and not being able to use bend types and bar sizes in formulas are each humps when trying to force Revit to automatically populate a Bar Mark. For example if a bar is a #7 17A bar, there needs be a way to combine these to 7-17A that is both able to be scheduled and tagged.
   

Scan to BIM from BIM Manager

I noticed a new post on a colleague's blog today about bringing scanned point clouds into Revit. I feel that this is a great opportunity for numerous expansions utilizing the Revit platform anywhere from high end industrial work to building remodels. I think this also could have a great impact on as builts and also facilities management.

http://www.avatech.com/solutions/building-design/product-details.aspx?product=90

http://bimmanager.blogspot.com/2010/11/scan-to-bim.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BimManager+%28BIM+Manager%29