ADT: How do I convert a PDF to DWG?

Thanks Aida Staugaard and Chris Anderson for sharing this tip.

We need to convert PDF to DWG quite often, can anyone recommend good convert tool?

Answer - If you have a CLEAN line drawing only available in PDF format, you can convert this to Autocad dwg using Adobe Illustrator. Open the PDF file in Adobe Illustrator then do a File, Export, save to Autocad dwg selecting 2000 version. That’s it. When you open the file in Autocad, you will need to check the scale of the drawing and work on the layers since you will lose this information. Thanks Aida Staugaard and Chris Anderson for sharing this tip.

Autodesk University: AU 2007

Registration for Autodesk University (AU) is now open http://www.autodeskevents.com/au2007/

-This is a very good value for training in Revit,3D Studio, and other CAD/BIM topics and is highly recommend it for CAD Managers and others.

Links: RSS feeds and Aggregators

Following our HOK CAD Manager conference call today, I showed a few RSS feeds from "Revit and BIM" blogs here are a few more. HOK CAD Solutions - Green BIM (Miles Walker) - Green Revit - All Things BIM (James V) - Revit OpED (Steve Stafford) - Revit Rants - Revit Zone - Revit 3D

They can be aggregated to reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or "personal newspaper." Once subscribed to a feed, an aggregator is able to check for new content at user-determined intervals and retrieve the update. The content is sometimes described as being "pulled" to the subscriber, as opposed to "pushed" with email. I like the Aggregator Netvibes....click here to see how it works.

Revit: room revit warnings

Question from Victor Martinez.

Does anyone know a quick way to resolve some of these Revit warnings that appear, other than deleting the object and recreating it? In this example I’m getting an error in regards to a room’s top face, so I changed the properties to be defined by the level above. I adjusted the properties in this room but the warning still has not cleared. I’d hate to have to recreate 250+ rooms!!

Joe Kendsersky says: "This is a known defect...the workaround is that the roof must be above and be room bounding. Calculate room volumes must be on." (This could be an overhead on the project. Ed)

Revit Details: edit cut profile

Great suggestion from Jon Gardzelewski where the void former which is about 50mm needs extending to the slab below.

Edit cut profile is a quick way to draft using model elements that works with keynoting. When using this you need to realize that your views will be fixed but the model won’t, and so I will only advise to us “edit cut profile” to clean up internal joints. Below see my composite slab comprised of 150 RC over varying depths of void former. Select “edit cut profile” and then knife the material you want to manipulate.

This takes you into the greyed out world of purple lines (Revit users know what I mean).
Draw an enclosed shape and be sure to connect the orange lines have the blue arrow point to where you want the material stretched into.

Once you’ve filled the gaps in add your keynote by material. Notice how the void former hatch pattern has been extended and the keynote applied.

Revit Details: use filters when deleting items

Contribution from Jon Gardzelewski.
When deleting any detail items always use the filter. Otherwise I guarantee you will delete model elements without realizing it. See: “railings” and “Revit links” almost disappeared without a trace.

Revit Details: keynoting tips

Contribution from Jon Gardzelewski.
It is important to understand how keynotes are setup on a project and where the files are located, here are some examples from the BP2 project. If we need a new keynote we can add these where appropriate, and I would say that any note used in more than one view should be done with keynotes. We’ve created so far Main Keynotes1.txt and Cladding Keynotes1.txt to suit the different models.

I have been assigning keynotes by material, but when doing this it is important to create new materials for each keynote (we can have an internal debate about other options as well). I went into the floor family, went into the structure, and in each material there is an identity tab where you can select your keynote from a list that references the text file link from above. To re-load that link go to settings/keynoting and browse for the path. When you browse you can just re-select the same link and it will reload with any changes.

Welcome to HOK BIM Solutions

Welcome to this HOK BIM Solutions blog.

We decided to call it ‘HOK BIM Solutions” as it is for our HOK buildingSMART BIM community and we want to primarily demonstrate answers to issues we face in our daily work. Of course there will be questions too! This is the idea: let’s use this blog as a communication track to gather knowledge and share; we hope HOK BIM user will be willing to author posts and share opinions. Postings will be by HOK and invited guests, viewing is by anybody inside and outside HOK. Here are A few simple ground rules for successful blog posts:

Include:
-Solutions to problems that are likely to occur generally.
-Interesting work processes that are of general interest.

Exclude:
-General commentary about the industry.
-Personal opinions on the direction of HOK or the industry
-Problems without complete solutions.
-Solutions or processes that would only apply in a limited context.

Etiquette:
Be constructive, polite and positive.

Thank you for your interest.

Revit: wall wrap bug

Thanks to Chirag Mistry and Kevin Shumbera to this workaround.

If you have a situation where a wall wraps correctly around the windows in the 1/8" plan but fails to wrap in a detail callout (a floor plan callout wraps correctly.) The bad news is that this is appears to be a bug in Revit. The good news is that you do not have to recreate all of your callouts.

The workaround for fixing this in your Detail Callout is to:

-Select the wall and explore its element properties.
-Choose Edit/New for “Type” parameters.
-Change the wrapping at ends parameter to “none” and hit apply.
-Now change it back to either “Exterior” or “Interior” and hit apply again.

Changing this setting to none and back again seems to make Revit reapply the wrap. * If you change the crop region of the Detail Callout… this condition will occur again and will require the same steps to fix. That being said, there may be other random actions that can cause the view to revert.

ADT: resetting user profiles

Sometimes it is necessary to reset a users ADT profile. To do this close down ADT and delete (or rename) the following two folders:

C:\Documents and Settings\User.Name\Application Data\Autodesk\ADT 2006
C:\Documents and Settings\User.Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk\ADT 2006

A new user profile will then be created when ADT is restarted.

Workflow: Rhino to Revit

Solution for HOK by David Light, Excitech

Start by modelling your form in Rhino.

Then export your model from Rhino as a SAT file, ideally using the export to AutoCAD SAT format. From the file pulldown menu, select saveas > select ACIS SAT from the “saveas type”. The ACIS export menu will appear > select Autocad from this drop down menu.
In Revit Architecture 2008, create a new massing family from “mass family template”. Go to File > new family.

A dialogue box will appear box, select “metric mass.rft” template. This will then open the family editor. You will then be able to import your export Rhino SAT file into the new mass family. To import a SAT file into the mass family. Go to the File pulldown menu > import/link > CAD formats.

Make sure you select ACIS SAT from the “files of type” pulldown menu and navigate to the location where your Rhino SAT file is saved. Make sure you set the scaling units so that the imported file scale is the same as the Rhino file. Therefore, if the Rhino file was created in metres, make sure the import units are set to metres. Import the SAT file centre to centre. The SAT file will then load into the family. Save the family with a suitable name.

Start a new Revit project. Next load the new mass family you created in the previous steps into your project. To load the family, File pulldown menu > Load from Library > Load family and then navigate to the mass family you previously created. This will then load it into your current project.

Go to the Mass tab on the design bar. Pick Create Mass icon; a dialogue box will open warning you that the mass visibility needs to be turned on, accept this dialogue box. Another dialogue box will appear providing you with the ability to name the mass. Provide a suitable name for the mass. The design bar will now change displaying the massing tool functionality.

The next step is to place the mass family you created into the project. To do this click place mass and select your mass family from the type selector. You may get a situation where you can’t seem to place the mass in your project. It is possible that the “place on face” icon is enabled. Change this to “place on work plane”. You will now be able to create additional floor levels within your project and use the “floor area faces” tool to cut the mass at each floor plate. To do this go to an elevation view, create the desired number of additional levels.

Then select the mass and the “floor area faces” button will appear in the options bar. Click this button and the dialogue box appears which allows you to split the mass at each floor level. Select all the levels you want to place a split at, do this by tick the check box at each level. Next select the OK button and the mass will be split at each floor plate level. Once you have split up your mass element you can now start to use the by face tools within the mass design bar to add additional detail to your form. To start with, use the Floor by Face tool.

Select the Floor by Face tool from the Mass tools. Next, Window around the mass form, so that you have the whole geometric form in the selection window. The options bar will now change to include an additional icon for “create floors”. Make sure you have selected the correct floor style from the type selector. Click the create floors icon and Revit will automatically place floors at each floor level.

See also: http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Freeform-Roof-in-Revit

ADT: express tools

When we use layer Express Tool or Overkill command, sometimes the following error msg shows up:

Nested error trapping used incorrectly.
Resetting nesting index to 1.*Cancel*

Normally this problem can be fixed after close/reopen the drawing, I searched discussion forums, the best "solution" is:

This error message is caused by at error in another LISP application.
The problem is often in on automatically launched LISP utilities (like your ACAD.LSP, ACADDOC.LSP, .MNL files, StartUp,¡­)

Has anyonne a better solution instead of close/reopen the drawing, because we have to do batch processing drawings sometimes?