Ok, show of hands….How many of you work in Navisworks and also work in a “design” application (like Revit, AutoCAD, etc.) at the same time? A few, that’s what I thought. Of those that do, how often are you having to close out of your current Navisworks project (NWF) so you can save over the top of your existing/appended NWC (or NWD I suppose) so you can show the changes in Navisworks? Or you’re (for example) a GC (general contractor) who is gathering NWC or NWD files and when you get a new one, you have to close out of project file in Navisworks so you can save the new version over the top of the previous? Yeah, that’s what I thought…too many of you!
All kidding aside, this is a very common question I get about working with Navisworks….why do I have to close out of my NWF just so I can overwrite my appended NWC/NWD files? The reason is one “little” checkbox in the Navisworks options….”Close NWC/NWD files on load”
With this options checked, you no longer have to close out of your current project to re-export your NWC files from the design applications, or when you want to overwrite a previous version when you get a new one from the “designers/engineers”.
This little checkbox essentially removes the file lock that would get attached to the appended NWC/NWD file. Without this checked, the file lock is applied and you can’t overwrite the file unless you close out of the NWF file the NWC/NWD is appended to.
Hi Dwane,
ReplyDeleteThat was a great find. No need to do extra effort to close other apps.
By the way, I also have a question regarding saving the nwd file. A scenario is like this, I have an nwd(with filename already)open but when I append or merge something the file become "Untitled". Do you the reason why?
regards
jaypro
Thanks jaypro. As for your question, when you append a file into an opened NWD, Navisworks wants to make that file a NWF since it now has an appended file to it, since a NWF is what holds the appended files. You could do a "save-as" and re-save it as an NWD, but remember...you lose the ability then to refresh the appended (now binded) file.
ReplyDeleteIs there a way to do this on a mass scale to multiple users
ReplyDeleteYes, via exporting the Settings to a XML file. You could export a XML of just that setting if you wanted. The other users would just import the XML and have that setting changed.
ReplyDeleteThis can be done with a REG file
ReplyDeletefor navis 2014, you can add the following to a text doc and save with extension of .reg
ReplyDeletethen just double clicking this file will then set the correct registry key. or add it to your group policy or log on script. We set all our common settings this way as our automatic naviswork exporters will not work if a user is locking a file down.
Note if you are using simulate or freedom then one of this for each path needs to be created (manage path shown below)
Also the version may need to be altered 2014 is '11.0', 2015 is '12.0'
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\Navisworks Manage x64\11.0\GlobalOptions\model\performance\load]
@=dword:00000000
"close"="3 1"