We know that many of you are looking to improve productivity and access to your information models using the API. This new AEC DevBlog will cover Revit, Navisworks and other AEC and BIM technologies and their APIs from Autodesk.
So far there are already posts about the following topics:-
New features in the Navisworks 2013 .NET API
How to access the Revit SDK
How to get a primitive from solid of Navisworks
More details on the BIM Coordinator (we'll be featuring more on this blog soon)
Head to the blog and subscribe to the RSS feed for new posts: -
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:
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.
The team over at SMART Technologies have been working with IDS Engineering to create a plugin to use Autodesk Navisworks on their interactive whiteboards. They're a great tool for coordination meetings, and demonstrating design intent to clients. See the YouTube video below.
Late last summer in Sheffield in the UK, a number of us huddled around a computer screen for an early prototype of the ability to import Revit Grids and Levels into Navisworks. We knew then that this was going to be one of those enhancements that will save you Navisworks users, valuable minutes and hours trying to get to a certain location in the model, or plain just trying to understand where you are! This is the sort of thing we get excited by, the things that smooth out your workflows, allowing you to get on with the tasks that matter to you, without wasting time getting lost in a complex model, or painstakingly creating AutoCAD grids and overlaying them in your Navisworks scene.
The video below provides an overview of this feature:
For those of you that can't access YouTube here's some more detail about the feature…
Navisworks reads the Grids from your Revit models – either via opening the RVT in Navisworks, or NWC Export from Revit – and display the grid at each reference Level (also defined in Revit). We can bring them in from multiple Revit models, so if you're working with multiple disciplines, for example, and they happen to have a differing grid system, then you can select which grid system you want to work with in the View toolbar.
Here you can also choose whether to show the grid, or not, and define the way in which you view them. Using the Mode, you can view a single grid on the level above or below, both above and below, display at all levels, or have the grid fixed at a specified level – this is particularly effective when used in conjunction with a section plane (creating a horizontal slice through the building), as the grid can remain on the floor slab when you're orbiting above the services, for example.
You can modify how these grids are displayed through the Options on the main menu or by selecting the small arrow in the bottom right of the panel.
Here you can select the color of the level above and the level below which changes as your camera changes position, and the other levels if you have them displayed. You can also change the label font size and whether you want levels hidden behind other geometry to display by using X-Ray Mode.
Let's have a closer look at the grids and levels themselves, here we have 3 main things to look at: - A – The line references are displayed at the edge of the window meaning you will always know where you are. B – Hovering over a grid intersection will bring up the Grid Reference and the Level allowing you to quickly check the location of an item. C - The Head Up Display when switched on will now display the closest grid intersection and the closest level below the current camera position allowing you to quickly see where you are in the model.
These will only work in Perspective mode; in Orthographic you will only be able to see grids and levels when viewing the model in plan or elevation (i.e. selecting a face on the ViewCube).
As useful as it will be to know where you are in a model, I think the biggest value of this functionality is when going through Clash Results and grouping issues, as we now also bring the data of the level and grid reference for each Clash Result, allowing you to sort the results by level and grid reference - this will also come through to your reports.
We'd love to know what you think and any other questions you have about this release, please leave a comment or contact us using the buttons on the left.
I've been working with Navisworks products for 7 years, Paul even longer, and I'll be honest, this is the most excited I've been for a product release in that time. I think the features we've added to this year's Autodesk Navisworks 2013 release are the biggest leap forward we have had in all that time.
Here's a quick overview of the main highlights and we'll be covering all of these in more depth in the coming days and weeks with more blogs, tips, videos and more!
Improved Revit® Interoperability
Native RVT file support
Hierarchy representation
Category, family, type, instance
Improved level association
Subparts named by material
Grids & Levels Support
Display of Revit grids & levels in scene view
Hover-over intersection for grid reference
Head-up-display (HUD) position readout
4D / Scheduling Improvements
Drag-and-drop sets/selections/objects to tasks
Auto-add tasks from sets, respecting folder hierarchy
Export task hierarchy to Microsoft® Project XML
Editable task hierarchy
Improved user interface
5D / Cost Simulation
Associate costs with schedule tasks
Clash Detection Enhancements
Clash result locations by level and grid reference
Sort results by grid reference, level, proximity, etc.
Quick filter results by status, level, assigned to, etc.
Undo support
Improved user interface
Comprehensive API
Improved Selection Tools
New Selection Inspector Tool
Improvements to Sets window
Support for drag-and-drop
Additional File Format Support
Siemens NX
Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks
Dassault Systèmes CATIA®
Microsoft Project 2010
Primavera® P6 v8
Graphisoft® ArchiCAD 14 & 15
Faro 4.8
Vault Integration Enhancements
Open & append all supported file formats via the vault
If you are having difficulties exporting large Revit files to NWC, or just want to clean up your files prior to export then this article gives some tips about how.
Create a new View in Revit specifically for Navisworks, then in the Visibility Overrides of the view switch off things you won't need such as Lines, or specific details that won't be needed for your TimeLiner Simulation or Clash Detection.
Once you have created your View, you can save this as a template for future use.
Then when exporting, change Export to 'Current View' in the settings.
Now look at your Navisworks Export Settings; is there anything you don't need - rooms, URL's, or even linked files?
If you do have linked files, do you need them all? Just keep the ones you need. If you are having problems when exporting files with many links, do they export correctly individually?
You can use the 'Purge Unused' button on the Manage tab of Revit to delete unused families or unused family types from the model. You will be able to select which items are Purged before proceeding.
You may want to open each individual linked file and purge it until there is nothing left to purge; this may take two or three passes. After all individual linked models have been purged, purge the main model and try again to export.
Other things to check if you still have problems exporting
Does Revit needs a restart? If you are working in the application all day and then try to export at the end of the day, you have been potentially caching your project all day. Save the project, restart Revit, reopen the file and try to export. If you still have problems and the machine has been left on for days or weeks then a restart of the machine may also be a good idea.
As with any memory hungry operation, try to minimize the number of other programs competing for resources.
We know there other methods you use to pare down your files - please get in touch if you feel there's any that you can't live without that we should include in this article.
A hotfix has now been released for HTML Tabular reports. This will resolve issues related to the display of groups in a HTML Tabular report of Clash Detective results in Navisworks Manage 2012.
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: -
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!
In Navisworks to optimize performance, all geometry is drawn using triangles. If you set the Render Mode to Hidden Line or Wireframe you will see how we draw your model.
Clash Detective will report the minimum distance one of the objects will need to move so the Clash no longer exists. With a Hard Clash this distance sees the intersecting triangles as separate objects, not as part of the whole face.
This is a screenshot of a line intersecting a 6 sided object with the render style set to hidden line. Notice that each side of the object is made up of two triangles. Taking a point to point measure from where the line hits the surface to the nearest edge of the object, it is 0.24m.
However, the distance reported in the clash result is 0.06m. Taking a point to point measurement from the point where the line hits the surface to the nearest edge of the triangle it intersects, it is 0.06m, which explains the distance value in the clash result.
You can get round this by using a hidden type of Clash Test called Hard (Conservative). To access this go to the Application Button > Options > Interface > Developer and check "Show internal properties".
When you go into Clash detective now you will have an additional test type named "Hard (Conservative)".
This reports all pairs of items, which might clash. This may give false positives in the results, but it is a more thorough and safer clash detection method.
I saw this post on AUGI the other day, which hits on my primary motivation for starting this blog – creating a place where Navisworks users can come to find more information, a few pearls of wisdom if you like, suggested workflows, interoperability with other products, and so on.
Now I'm not suggesting that I have all the answers, in fact as the guys on AUGI here suggest, if everyone contributed a cool tip or trick, then we could quickly build up a great knowledge base. So if you want to contribute, please use the link on the left and Submit a Tip. Alternatively, if there's an area of the Autodesk construction products you'd like to know more about, why not Suggest a Topic.
One of the tips in this AUGI thread is to create a project template with all of your defined clash tests using an NWF. There is also another method that I believe will achieving the same result, using functionality that you may not be aware of:
Create Search Sets to categorize your project model.
Create a batch of clash tests, defined using Search Sets (in the Select tab), and set test types, tolerances and ignore rules. Name each test so that you can differentiate them.
Export the Clash Tests from the application menu, creating an XML file. This is your clash template file.
Now, whenever you start a new project, after appending all of your models, you can import your clash template file.
This will import the full batch of clash tests (with each clash test pre-defined along with rules etc.) with the added bonus of also importing all of the Search Sets you defined.
NOTE: As your initial tests are defined by Search Sets, they themself are defined by model properties, coming from Revit for example. In order for this workflow to work for you, it assumes that you'll be working on similar projects, with the same authoring applications being used to create the models – without this, the search sets would need to be updated to point to the relevant properties. Either way, as Paul Jordan says, this can save you a ton of time.
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