Beyond Design

Navisworks Help now also available online

There's a lot of information out there on the internet and sometimes it can be difficult to know where to find the answers you're looking for. With this in mind we recently published our product help online, meaning that you can quickly find all the answers that you're looking for.

You can access the product help using the following links:

Navisworks Manage

Navisworks Simulate

Navisworks Freedom

This online help contains comprehensive information on how to use all aspects of Navisworks, and gives you an understanding of both the features that you use regularly, and those that you may be less aware of.

You can use the Table of Contents to navigate your way through the topics, and find information about the features that you're interested in. Alternatively you can use the help books as tutorials, and work your way through them all to learn about the full functionality of Navisworks – why not teach yourself to be a super-user!

You can also use the Index and the Search tabs to find specific information that you're looking for.

The content is structured in a logical manner that fits in with your workflows. Overviews of concepts are detailed under the Concept tab. Click the Procedure tab and you'll be taken to a list of related procedures. The Quick Reference tab gives you information on items in a specific window, such as buttons, icons or context (right-click) menus.

Using the buttons in the top right of the online help as displayed in this image, you can show the topic you are currently viewing in the contents, save the topic to your favorites which can be invaluable if you use topics regularly, go back to the home tab, or email a link to a colleague.

Let us know what you think about the new online help by adding a comment below.

Autodesk AEC DevCamp – Calling anyone interested in using the API to develop for Navisworks, Revit and Civil 3D

Are you interested in customizing, extending or integrating with Autodesk® Revit^®, AutoCAD^® Civil 3D^®, Navisworks^®,  technologies around Autodesk's BIM 360 vision, including Vault Collaboration AEC and Revit Server, new Autodesk web services and mobile technologies, and more?

If yes then the Autodesk AEC DevCamp is for you!

• When: June 6-7, with a DevLab on June 8
• Where: Boston, Massachusetts -- near Autodesk's AEC Division headquarters
• Cost: early bird discount fee of US $500 valid to April 30, 2012, thereafter US $600

The 2 day DevCamp offers training for beginners and experts on the APIs of each of the products listed above. You get to talk to Autodesk product management and engineering staff, and to meet fellow developers like you. There is also a Business Development track for those steering their company's strategic direction and investments as well as Autodesk specific sales and marketing topics. 

Following on from the DevCamp we are holding a day long DevLab. The DevLab has no agenda as it's all about spending quality time working with you on your specific needs and challenges. ADN DevTech engineers covering Autodesk technologies – Revit, Civil 3D, Navisworks and more - are available to help you – 1 to 1. Bring your laptop and work on your code as you'd normally do in your own office. With DevLab you have a team of experts available to review your code, answer your questions, and make suggestions.

CALL TO ACTION – let us know you're interested!

To receive more information on the DevCamp and DevLab, including the detailed agenda and registration instructions, please send an email to Melrose Ross on email address melrose.ross@autodesk.com giving your full name and company name.

Quantity Takeoff 2012 – Hotfix 2 now released

Quantity Takeoff 2012 - Hotfix 2 has been released and is available for download from the Autodesk Website.

Please note: This installer requires that QTO Hotfix 1 is already installed on the system.

This hotfix is designed to resolve some specific PDF file related issues:

• Large PDF sheets consuming too much memory
• PDF sheets not displaying after the project is reopened
• Error message "There was a problem displaying the page"

  

• QTO shutting down after switching sheets

The hotfix can be downloaded from here: -

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=18403022&linkID=10381885

I've never seen so many iPads in one place

At the end of last week I got back from the Construction MobileIT 2011 Conference in London in the UK, it was a great one day discussion about how mobile devices can be best used in the construction industry. With fascinating insights from Transport for London about how BIM models are helping with Emergency Service planning on London Underground after the 7/7 terrorist bombings in 2005, discussions about the safety of putting data in the cloud, using QR codes in versioning of drawings, use of point cloud technology by surveyors across the life cycle of a building project and whether social media has a place in construction for resolving RFI's.

It's a growing area revolutionized by the iPhone, iPad and App Store by Apple, but there's Android and Windows platforms amongst others in the marketplace and more rugged tablets designed for field use on construction sites. We've heard of people who use their tablets to remotely connect to their work machine to view their Revit and Navisworks models, but more and more developers are using our APIs to create apps such as CadFaster to let you view and markup Revit models on your iPad and Vela Systems to bring data from the field back into your information model.

With the mobile applications we already offer such as the newly released Constructware Field app to help manage projects from the field, Buzzsaw for managing files, AutoCAD WS for editing files and Bluestreak to help collaboration, there's a growing list of apps to help with your workflow and no doubt there'll be more to come in the future.

We just have one question for you, if you could take one app into the field with you tomorrow to help with your day to day work, what would it be?

‘One Size Fits All’ Quick Properties

We know you work with models from various disciplines and CAD applications, we also know that they come with a multitude of different properties and property names, which can make setting up Quick Properties (formerly Smart Tags) for each model you load in a real pain point. For those that haven't seen them before, Quick Properties when switched on, appear when you hover over an item with a list of pre-defined properties for that item.

As you can see, there's a long list of possible properties that can be used, and a smart tag in action. They can also be used in 2D sheets as below.

To set these up you need to load a model and go to Options > Interface > Quick Properties > Definitions. You will then be able to add Quick Property Definitions dependent on the properties available in the model.

You can save these for use in other models by going to Export and selecting Quick Properties > Definitions, which will save an XML with those saved properties.

Opening the XML you can see the file structure comprises of an Optionset, Option Name, Data Type and Internal Name, before moving on to the next option.

The problem many people now come across is that the majority of (in this example) DWF properties, will be completely ignored by models from other applications such as Revit, Civil3D, Inventor, AutoCAD. This is where you might want to create a 'one size fits all' Master XML file that can be imported into any project that will contain the relevant properties from each model type.

You will need to open example models from each discipline (Revit MEP, Revit Architecture, AutoCAD, Civil 3D) and create Quick Property Definition XML files containing Properties for each type of model.

Then open the XML in Notepad or other editing application and copy the relevant properties from there to a 'master XML' file. Just ensure you don't copy across duplicates, otherwise they will later appear multiple times when available in the model.

You will then be able to Import this Master XML to each users machine and it can be used in multiple projects.

Now when hovering over an item when Quick Properties is switched on, Navisworks will ignore all the irrelevant Properties for that model and only display those available.

Let us know how you get on and Submit a Tip if you have any other ways you manage to repurpose data and settings between projects.

Free Excerpt from new "Mastering Autodesk Navisworks 2012" book

We know you love freebies; we saw how many of you downloaded the free ground planes we offered a few weeks ago. Well here's another one, a few pages from the newly released 'Mastering Autodesk Navisworks 2012' book by Jason Dodds and Scott Johnson. Both these guys have years of experience working with Navisworks in the field with you guys, implementing workflows, pushing the limits of the product and doing things we didn't even realize Navisworks could do!

We've saved an important part of the book for you. Lots of people ask how they should work with NWC, NWD and NWF files for their workflow, these pages explain a little more about what each file format is, how it is used and a more detailed typical workflow, something many people would pay thousands of dollars for a consultant to do for them! Download these pages here

Now if you think that's a valuable bit of information then you should get yourself a copy of the book from here: -

Mastering Autodesk Navisworks 2012

I've got a copy sat here next to me and just picked up a couple of handy things about Timeliner I never knew, I'd tell you what they are but you'll have to get the book to find them out yourself!

Working with the Navisworks Project Browser

As I was writing the article about cross-referencing NWC models with 2D DWF sheets, I started thinking about the new workflow that this introduces around the Project Browser, and thought that you may find this of interest.

For long standing Navisworks users, you'll be familiar with the Selection Tree, which provides a hierarchy of all the models you've appended into the scene.

However you're probably less familiar with the Project Browser, introduced in the 2012 release.

On the surface these may seem conceptually similar - a window that shows you what files you have in the Navisworks project. But with the introduction of 2D support, there's a big difference, as you no longer have everything loaded into the same scene. The project can now contain any number of 3D models and 2D sheets, and whilst these can exist in the same project, they cannot exist in the same scene, as the 3D and 2D scenes use different engines to display them.

If you aren't working with 2D data in Navisworks, then you probably don't need to use the Project Browser at all, at this stage at least – and you can probably stop reading this post too, unless you're:

a. Curious

b. Thinking about using 2D data

c. Paranoid that I might be talking about you whilst you're not looking J

As soon as you start using 2D data, then you will need to become acquainted with the Project Browser, so let me give you some tips and info to help you out.

• The moment you start Navisworks (or click New), there is no concept of a project – you need to Open (or Append) a supported file (see image below), which will effectively create your project, and populate the scene.

  

• The file you open will appear in the Project Browser:

  

• To add your 2D sheets into the project, rather than using the Append
  button (which you would have previously used to add additional 3D files to the project), you will need to use the Import Sheets and Models button in the Project Browser:

  

• You can then choose your DWF file containing your 2D sheet(s). So your project now contains (in this example) a structural model and 230 associated 2D views, sheets, elevations, sections and plans:

  

• Next I'm assuming that you'll want to add files for other disciplines. Again the Project Browser's Import Sheets and Models button can be used. In this example I'm importing Architectural, MEP and Site models in the NWC format (each exported from Revit).

  

  What we've done at this point is merely import them as separate models into the project, and you can review each of these models in isolation, simply by double clicking any one of them (the same as you would do to view any of the 2D sheets). You can also repeat this step to import any of the 2D DWF files that correspond to these additional disciplines too.

• When you view any of these models, notice the Selection Tree - it changes! Each model/sheet in the Project Browser is in effect its own scene, hence when you double-click on any of them the scene that you're viewing updates and in turn so does the Selection Tree (as it provides a hierarchical representation of the scene).

  

  

• This is great for quickly reviewing any of these in isolation, but I'm also guessing you'd still like to see the project model as a whole. You can do this easily using the following procedure:

1. Double click on one of your models in the Project Browser (loading it as the current scene) - in my example, this is the Structural model
2. Select all of the other models in the Project Browser that you want to combine (e.g. Arch, MEP, Site)
3. Right-click on the selected models and choose, Append to Current Model

   

   Again in my example, this results in the Arch, MEP and Site models being appended into the Structural model

   

   So now whenever I view the Structural model, I will no longer see the Structure in isolation, I'll see this integrated scene. As a result of this, I'd recommend an additional couple of steps:

4. In the Project Browser, right-click on the Structural model (or whichever model is now your integrated model) and choose, Rename. You can then rename this better identify it as the integrated, or project model.
5. Use the Import Sheets and Models button again to import the Structural model file again (i.e. the original model you've just renamed), so that you again have access to this discipline model in isolation.

In my opinion, this is a giant leap in the right direction for Navisworks and Autodesk – we're not dealing with files, we're dealing with projects and information. Models and sheets are representations of the project information, and different users will need to see that data in different ways. So the fact that these can now be found in one place, with components cross-referenced between representations can only be a good thing, making it easier for team members to see what they want, when they want. Let us know what you think.

Cross-referencing NWC models and 2D DWF sheets

In an earlier post I wrote about the introduction of 2D support in Navisworks 2012. In this release 2D views and sheets are supported through the DWF format. These can be individual DWF files, or a multi-sheet DWF file – a single DWF containing multiple sheets, sections, plans and elevations.

I also mentioned the ability to cross-reference items in the 2D sheets with the corresponding items in an NWC model. Håkan Norberg requested further information on this, so I've created this quick video tutorial:

The key steps are:

1. Export your Revit project model to NWC
2. Export the corresponding 2D views and sheets to DWF
3. Load the NWC in Navisworks
4. Use the Navisworks Project Browser to Load the DWF file(s)
5. Right click on any item in a 2D sheet or in the model, then select Find Item in Other Sheets and Models
6. Click on any of the results to view the item in the selected model/sheet

Remember, if you see the exclamation mark icon at the bottom of this window…

…then you're only seeing partial results. To search All sheets and models, click the Prepare All button:

How does it work? It's based on the Revit GUID, a unique internal identifier for each item in the project. For each item, the GUID is the same in the DWF file…

…and in the NWC:

Navisworks searches for this GUID in all prepared sheets and models and provides you with the relevant results.

As a reference tool this is great, as you can navigate through the model whilst reviewing the project, and then for any object you can view it in another representation, such as a sheet or section with additional information.

Thanks for the feedback Håkan, be sure to let us know how you get on!

NWC files can’t be loaded in Navisworks 2012 NWFs

NOTE: This has now been fixed in the Navisworks 2012 Service Pack 1, files will need to be recreated for changes to take effect.

We've had a couple of people report that they receive a 'Can't load ***.nwc because of an internal error' or 'This file contains data that requires an additional Navisworks license which is currently unavailable' message (see pictures below) when loading an NWF with updated NWC files. This may happen if you have upgraded from Navisworks 2011 (or earlier) to 2012 mid project.

With the introduction of 2D Multi-sheet support in Navisworks 2012, we've had to slightly change the structure of NWC files to handle this. Whereas an NWF file looking for a 2011 NWC file (i.e. an NWC created using the Navisworks 2011 exporter) would just reference the file name, when referencing a 2012 NWC file we also look for a default 2D sheet (or dummy sheet in the case of NWC files with no 2D data). The errors can therefore occur where a NWF was originally created referencing older version NWC files, which have since been updated with 2012 NWC files, and the NWF isn't detecting that the 2012 NWC files are of this new structure.

There are two possible workarounds at the moment.

Continue working with 2011 NWC files, this would mean you would need to be on the 2011 version of the CAD application too as the exporter isn't forwards compatible, only backwards compatible.

OR

If you want to work with 2012 CAD applications, remove the 2011 NWC files from your NWF and rebuild it using 2012 NWC files.

2D or not 2D, that is the question

The technology behind Navisworks was first developed in order to handle large models – 3D design data. Over the years this data has exploded in terms of size, as CAD and BIM design software continues to become more and more sophisticated. And Navisworks itself has had to become more sophisticated in order to continue to handle these monster datasets.

But for all the developments and advantages of a model-based approach to design, construction documentation is still delivered in 2D… on paper would you believe?!

The reality is that when communicating information, there's no 'one size fits all' – different data is better suited to different formats or mediums. Models are great for analyzing coordination between trades, whilst engineering drawings are better suited to the clear presentation style of a 2D sheet.

So the question is, 2D or not 2D? Which is best? I don't know about you, but I like to have my cake and eat it, so why choose? Why not have both!

Check out this short video of Navisworks 2012, demonstrating the new 2D and multi-sheet support:

In all seriousness, this is a fantastic enhancement, and opens up a host of opportunities. Take this Revit workflow for example:

• Export your model as a Navisworks NWC file as usual.
• Export all of the associated 2D sheets, views, elevations, floor plans etc. as a multi-sheet DWF file.
• Repeat this for each project discipline.
• Append all NWC files in Navisworks – creating your multi-discipline model.
• Import the multi-sheet DWF files into the Navisworks Project Browser. 

 

What you now have is a fully integrated project, with all elements in the model cross referenced against each 2D representation. So you can right-click a model element, select Find Item in Other Sheets and Models, and be presented with all 2D views and sheets that contain that element.

Now think how much use this could be in the field – the model could be navigated to see a 3D representation of the area of the project being worked on, including all of the other trades in that area, and then be able to pull up a detailed 2D sheet or plan, which can be easily zoomed, panned, measured…

Try it out for yourself. And leave a comment to let us know what you think of 2D support, and what opportunities it presents for you.