AU 2018 - Go Vote NOW for your favorite classes

Busy, busy, busy, my life for the past 12 months.  Being full time on a project running 3D MEPFP coordination, an extremely fast paced project, really keeps a person away from things like a blog :)

But, something good will hopefully come out of it!  This is where you come in.  With the work I've been doing, I submitted a class to to present at Autodesk University 2018 this coming November (2018) in Las Vegas (USA). 

To vote for my class, click this link:
http://au.autodesk.com/speaker-resource-center/call-for-proposals/voting

When you get to the page, search for "baseball" (yes, baseball, you'll see why when you see my class details) and you will get directly to my class where you can vote to help get my class selected for AU 2018.

Thank you in advance!

What’s New in Navisworks 2015

Wow, time has flown this year, the 2015 Autodesk products have been announced!

In regards to Navisworks, here’s my highlights of the new features for 2015…

• 2D Quantification Tools (Incorporating similar tools that were in QTO)
• 3D Quantification Improvements
• Property Mapping now available (similar functionality was in QTO)
• Autodesk Rendering Enhancements
• Navis get’s cloud rendering!
• ReCap/Point Cloud Improvements
• Navis has new ways to “convert” the point cloud, which will help with performance and being able to select portions of a point cloud.
• Redline Toolset now includes and Arrow tool (finally, no more manual arrows!)

This isn’t an all-encompassing list, just a few highlights.  As I get more time to actually get into some of the new features, I’ll report back

Navisworks 2014 Hotfix 3

Autodesk just released a new Hotfix for Navisworks (all flavors) and it fixes/resolves the following issues…

- Problems resulting from operations that involve clicking in the first column of the Clash results grid, such as collapsing/expanding groups, dragging clashes and resizing columns.
- Issues with material and transparency inconsistency when importing FBX files.
- Issues with the automatic selection of the correct Rendering engine (Presenter or Autodesk)

Note: it is not necessary to have installed Navisworks 2014 Service Pack 1 before installing this hotfix

You can download the appropriate version HERE

Navisworks 2014 gets QTO

As you’ve probably seen in the new features list, whether it was here on my blog or over at Beyond Design, Quantification has come to Navisworks 2014.  I’ll be doing posts on the new Quantification features in the future, but wanted to get one thing out that I know is going to be asked…does it only come with Manage?

NO!

Whether you use Simulate or Manage, you will have the ability to use the Quantification tools within Navisworks 2014.

System Requirements for Autodesk Navisworks 2014

Below is a grab of the System Requirements for Navisworks 2014…this pertains to Simulate and Manage. 

Please, please note that Windows XP is NOT listed!!  If you are still using XP (or even Vista, which I rarely run into), you’re going to need to upgrade your OS!  Not to say that Navisworks won’t install or run, but any issues relating back to the OS will not be supported.  Also note that Windows 8 32bit is not listed…meaning it’s not supported.  Autodesk has a page dedicated to OS compatibility for Navisworks, all versions - Operating system compatibility for Autodesk Navisworks

System Requirements for Autodesk Navisworks 2014

• Windows® 8 (64-bit) or Windows® 7 (32 or 64-bit) Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition (recommended) (Service Pack 1)
• Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon™ processor 3.0 GHz (or higher) with SSE2 technology
• 512 MB RAM (2 GB or greater recommended)
• 10 GB free disk space for installation
• Direct3D 9® and OpenGL® capable graphics card with Shader Model 2 (minimum)
• 1,280 x 800 VGA display with true color (1,920 x 1,080 monitor and 32-bit video display adapter recommended)
• Microsoft Mouse-compliant pointing device
• Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7.0 or later web browser

What’s New in Navisworks 2014

Ah, the spring time (in the United States anyway) when the weather starts to change (unless you live in the Midwest like me, still feels like December!) and Autodesk rolls out the new products.  Navisworks has some nice features in 2014 and this should be an interesting year talking to customers about the new features.

The guys over at Beyond Design put together a nice little list of the key features in Navisworks 2014.  You can read their post HERE.

Taking a step away from the key features they show, here’s a little list (not a complete list) of some of the other things you’ll see in Navisworks 2014…

• Timeliner Selection Set Export
  • This is interesting…you can export your Task List to create a folder of Selection Sets that match the name of the Tasks.  The Sets are then automatically attached to the Tasks. At this point, you’d need to add items to each Selection Set.
    • This should make attaching/mapping objects to tasks much, much easier!
• Timeliner Format Update
  • You can now utilize Primavera P6 v8.2! (this was a big issue with 2013)
• Preserve Clash Highlighting in Viewpoints reporting
  • A feature that sneaked into 2013 via SP2 was the ability to save your Clash Report to Viewpoints and keep the visual fidelity of the Clash View. Well, it’s native in 2014! You even have the ability to choose if you want that functionality via a checkbox.  It even keeps the Redlines! (which it didn’t in 2013)
• Clash Elements Different Colors
  • Basically, you can set Item 1 and Item 2 to be different colors instead of them both using the Clash Status color.
• Clash Comments
  • The Clash Results now include a column that shows if a Clash has a Comment and how many.
• Clash Filters
  • You can filter the Clashes to only show what you currently have selected.  New for 2014…
    • Exclusive – if you have the 2 clashing elements selected, this will show clash results where both of the clashing items are included in your current item selection.
    • Inclusive – if you have 1 or 2 clashing elements selected, this filter will show clash results where one or both or the clashing items are included in your current item selection.
      • I can see people using the Inclusive quite a bit.
• Clash Report Filter
  • If you have a Filter applied to your Clash Results, you can export a Report of just the Filtered Clashes.
• Clash Isolation Settings
  • The Dim Other and Hide Other are no longer part of a drop-down menu, they are buttons next to each other.
• Measurements (Nice enhancements here!)
  • We can now do measurements were we can lock the X, Y or Z axis from the first point selected.
  • We can now measure in a Perpendicular (huge!) or Parallel alignment to the surface of an object.
    • I’ll definitely be doing a video for this one soon!
  • We also get some new visual cues when selecting a Face (small rectangle behind the cursor), Edge (small line behind the cursor) or Point (an “X” behind the cursor).
    • The visual cues replace the cursor changing, the cursor now keep a “+” as it’s graphic.
• Rendering
  • Wow, there sooooo much to this now that we can use the same Materials as the other Autodesk software and the same rendering engine.
  • We also get the Ray Trace tool that was introduced in Revit 2013.
• Sectioning
  • You can now “limit” your sectioning planes/box to elements you have selected.
    • Oh, this is nice when you want to show a section cut and the limit to be 1st Floor to 2nd Floor!

So throw list together with what the guys and Beyond Design have (Quantification, Rendering, ReCap (point clouds), etc.) and that’s pretty much what your going to see in Navisworks 2014!

Oh, I should note…Clash items listed above are only available in Navisworks Manage, everything else will be available in Navisworks Simulate as well.

More to come soon once I get Navisworks loaded on my main computer

Reveal Hidden Elements for Navisworks

This is more of a “wish-list” item that came up during a discussion with a customer training I was doing. 

The question always comes up…”how do you turn on specific elements that have been hidden?”  Well, the answer(s) isn’t the best…you can look through the Selection Tree and look for elements that have been “grayed” out, Unhide All (then re-hide the objects that are supposed to stay hidden), make the object/objects a Selection Set so you can manage them a little easier, etc.  Basically, there isn’t a good way.

One of the users brought up the idea of having a “Reveal Hidden Elements” mode like Revit has, which is a great idea.  Here’s to hoping that Navisworks 2014 (whenever that comes out) will have such a “feature” to help with object visibility.

Hidden Update in Service Pack 2

Well, at least it seems like it was a hidden update to me.  What I’m talking about is a feature that people have been asking about for a while…being able to save a Clash Report to Viewpoints in Navisworks. 

Technically it’s not a new feature, you’ve been able to do it for as long as I can remember.  But, it’s never REALLY worked.  The resulting saved Viewpoints never kept the “visual” settings when looking at the Clashes in the Results tab of the Clash Detection panel.  So the results were really just the camera position with elements in their native color and none of the elements in front of the clash hidden or transparent or wireframed or etc.

Here’s the Clash Results Viewpoint (while having the Results tab “active” in Clash Detection)…

Prior to Navisworks 2013 Service Pack/Update 2, this was the result of the “Saved Viewpoint” when the Report was exported to Viewpoints…

And now, here’s what you get with Navisworks 2013 after Service Pack/Update 2 is installed…

FINALLY, the report exported to “Viewpoints” actually shows the same view settings as the Results tab does!  This means that when the NWF is Published to a NWD, someone with Freedom (or Simulate) can actually review clashes!

But, there is a bit of bad news.  It appears that any Redlines that are created on the Clash do not come through.  However, if you create a Redline Tag, the associated Comment WILL come through and be available in the Viewpoint…which doesn’t really help since you can’t see the Redline Tag.  Also, if you add a Comment and/or an Assign(ment), those will also come through and be available in the Viewpoint.

I’m glad to see the progress has been made to make the Viewpoints Report capture the Results visual settings.  Hopefully we’ll see some more improvement to also capture the Redline information.

Navisworks 2013 Service Pack 2

Looks like another service pack for the Navisworks family of products was recently released (short list of updates via Beyond Design)…

• Performance issues when working with a large volume of selection and search sets.
• Issue where some commands appear disabled after dragging a selection set to a folder.
• Show command didn't work at the folder level for sets hidden in folders.
• Crash when trying to drag a set into a folder.
• Area/Volume properties from Revit Drawings not available.
• Inventor models are rotated at 90-degrees.
• A number of unexpected crashes in Clash Detective
• Unhide All taking much longer when Clash Detective is open.
• Not possible to rename a Clash result after a drag and drop.
• Clash groups expand unexpectedly.
• Renaming results in the Clash results grid performance issues.
• Resolved a performance issue where loading a model is extremely slow when Timeliner is open.
• 2D measurement start, end and difference values are incorrect.
• Cancelling or closing the options editor using keyboard shortcuts retains options.
• Cinepak Codec for 64 bit is now available.
• CSV export from Selection Inspector now available

As always, make sure you read the Readme file before installing…the Readme also includes a full list of updates. 

Also make sure you download and install the appropriate version (32bit vs 64bit, as well as Freedom, Simulate or Manage).  Please notice there is also a download for the Navisworks Exporters, so you’ll want to install that as well if you are exporting files to NWC from (for example) AutoCAD or Revit.

Download - Autodesk ® Navisworks ® 2013 Service Pack 2

Timeliner with Primavera Web Service

I recently had an issue come through regarding the use of the Primavera P6 Web Service with Navisworks 2013 and it not working.  The users could access the P6 service outside of Navisworks, but when they attempted to connect to the P6 service through Timeliner, it would error out and not connect/download the content.  The error message was an “Unexpected wrapper element” with some locations called out.

The issue came down to the fact that they were using P6 V8.1…which Navisworks doesn’t support.  I verified with Autodesk support what is supported with Navisworks 2013…

Product: Engineering and Construction: 6.2.1 (SP4 Hot Fix 1), 7.0 (SP4), 8.2
Notes: Requires Primavera v6, 7 or 8 Engineering and Construction to be installed locally or remotely, along with the corresponding version of the Primavera SDK. TimeLiner connects to the Primavera database via an ODBC data source link.

Product: Primavera P6 Web Services: 6.2.1 (SP1 Hot Fix 1), 7.0 (SP1 Hot Fix 1), 8.0
Notes: Requires Primavera P6 v6, 7 or 8 Web Services installed within a suitable Web Application Server such as Oracle Web Logic or JBoss on the same machine as your P6 database.

So if you have plans to upgrade your Primavera services and use it in conjunction with Navisworks, you may want to hold off.

Navisworks Journal Files

A little while back, I was going through removing my 2013 “stand-alone” products so I could install the Building Design Suite Ultimate 2013 and ran across a folder I didn’t remember seeing in 2012…a Rx folder within an Autodesk folder in my Users directory.  Huh, so I opened it up and there lies a Navisworks 2013 folder…with a Journals folder within it.  Now this is interesting…are they somehow introducing Journal Files for Navisworks like Revit has??

Well, no, not really. From what I can tell, a Journal file is generated when you Append/Open a Revit file in Navisworks 2013.  This Journal file appears to be (my opinion anyway) a “record” of what Navisworks is doing in the background when reading the RVT and creating the NWC. 

And in case you are curious or want to investigate a Revit Journal file that was created when you Appended a Revit file into Navisworks, this is the location it’s located in (Windows 7)…

C:\Users\*USERNAME*\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Rx\Navisworks 2013\Journals

So if you are having issues when loading/Appending in a Revit file into Navisworks 2013, you may want to check out the Journal file to see if there is anything in the Journal that’s pointing to the problem.

Update to Switchback with Revit 2013

I’ve posted a couple times now about the Switchback feature in Navisworks and how it works with Revit.  Well, there is an update to the functionality for the 2013 release in a good way!

When you now use Switchback with Revit 2013, the camera view that you are using in Navisworks 2013 is now created in Revit…literally.  When in Revit, you’ll be directed to a new 3D View called “Navisworks”.  The nice thing is you don’t have to create this view, it happens automatically.  So if you rename or remove the “Navisworks” 3D View and use Switchback again, you’re going to get another “Navisworks” 3D View in Revit.  This is much, much better that what we got in 2012 where the camera didn’t change much in Revit, or maybe just went to a plan view.

Another change is that the object that you’ve selected in Navisworks 2013 to run Switchback with will now actually be selected in Revit 2013 and show the Properties!  Revit 2012 almost had it, but you had to do a few things to make the properties actually show even though the object was “selected”.

One thing though with the object selection potion of this…your results are going to vary depending on what you have your “Selection Resolution” set to.  When I first tried it, I had the “Selection Resolution” set to “Last Object” and the object selection in Revit wasn’t showing.  So I went back and tried the other options for “Selection Resolution” and the one that you want to use is “First Object”.  By using this “Resolution”, the Revit object will be highlighted and the properties of the object will be available.

Here’s a little video showing the new functionality of the Switchback feature for the 2013 products…

Navisworks and Revit 2013 Switchback

One thing to note for those using Revit 2012 and Navisworks 2013…you have the ability to use Navisworks Switchback 2013 in Revit 2012, but the functionality of the Switchback will be the 2012 functionality.

Navisworks 2013 Selection Tree Changes-Similarities

With the ability to now read Revit files, another change with Revit files is how they are organized in the Navisworks Selection Tree.  In the screen shot below, I’ve laid out some examples to illustrate the differences from 2012 Revit based NWC files (2012 and 2013 NWC), Revit 2013 NWC and Revit RVT files…

As you can see, Revit 2012 will export to a 2013 NWC file, but the organization stays the same as if it was exported to a 2012 NWC file.  So the new organization (of Level->Family Category->Family Type->Instance) is only going to show up when a RVT file is read directly into Navisworks, or you generate a NWC file from Revit 2013.

One thing to note with the above image, it doesn’t show an Append 2012 RVT file (oops).  I can say that it will show just like a Revit 2013 RVT file as shown below…

UPDATE:

Based on a comment I received, I didn’t notice the 2013 RVT and NWC files were named the same.  Since I didn’t refresh the NWF, it probably didn’t matter.  But to be safe, I re-appended the files with different names and the RVT and NWC show the same “structure” of Level, Category, etc. I did however notice that the exported NWC breaks down the Instances a step further than the RVT. Here’s the screen shot…

I didn’t look that closely at the tree before to notice this difference with 2013 Exported NWC’s and RVT’s. The NWC Export Settings and Revit File Reader options are the same, so this is something I want to look into further…

Navisworks 2013

Wow, the first part of 2012 has been a busy one!  As you are all probably already aware, the Autodesk 2013 products were introduced on March 27.  Instead of relisting the New Features for 2013, I’ll point you to Paul and Lee over at Beyond Design.  They have a nice list of the new features as well as a couple new posts about some of the features, like Grids and Levels!

As I get some more face time with Navis 2013, I’ll be posting about some of the new features that have been presented and ones that maybe weren’t as “advertised”.

Clash Report and Incorrect Revit ID Numbers

This problem sucks, there just isn’t any good way to put it….

If you’ve been using Navisworks with Revit files, you may or may not have run across this depending on how you use the Clash Reports (exported reports).  When you look at the Clash Report, there is a separate column for the Item ID, which for Revit is the Element ID.  You can use that ID number to search for the Element that is being called out in the Clash. (similar to what I discussed in this post about Revit Interferences)  At first glance, it looks great.  I can grab that ID number, go to Revit and quickly find the item in the Clash, especially if you don’t have the Navisworks model (versus possibly using Switchback if you had the Navisworks model). 

But, there is a problem when it comes to some objects.  Some objects, like Columns, Beams, Diffusers (to name a few) don’t actually report the proper Revit Element ID!!  Yeah, not so good!  From what I can tell, it’s actually calling out the Element Type ID Number and not the Element Instance ID Number.  (See this post about the props of a Revit element and what is considered Instance vs Type)  Some of you may be thinking, well can’t I just use the ID number to find the object in Revit….sorry, no you can’t.  Revit wants the Instance ID number so it can actually find and select the corresponding Instance Element.

Oh, I should mention a way to get the proper number.  Well, there actually is a couple. One being to use DWF’s from Revit instead of NWC’s.  The DWF will put the Element ID number as a suffix to the Name of the object in Navisworks.  But for many, that would require a complete change in process of getting files.  The other way, would be to have the Navisworks model open with the corresponding Clash Test and Results.  When you select a clash, the bottom pane in the Clash window will show you what objects are clashing.  If you select the Element Name, use the Select button, you can then look at the Properties to get the proper Element ID number.

I’ve reported the issue to Autodesk Support, which was escalated to the Development Team.  Hopefully (keep anything and everything you can crossed) that they can solve this issue in the next release of Navisworks!

Selection Tree and Revit Objects

This is something that I get asked quite a bit…when I load in a Revit file into Navisworks, why do things like Columns or Doors (as examples) always show the Type Name twice?

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, here’s a little screen shot…

As you can see, the W10x49 has a “sub component” also called W10x49.  What you are really seeing here is the Element and the Type (respectively).  To help explain this a little further, here’s each one selected and the associated “Element” properties…

 

As you can see in the image on the left, the Properties for the first item selected displays the Instance Properties of the Revit object.  On the right image, you can see the next item in the list is selected, which is now displaying the Type Properties.

So when you see Revit objects with what seem to be duplicate names, you are actually seeing the Instance and the Type.  One thing to note, this isn’t the same for all Revit objects.  Take Walls for instance, Navisworks only lists out the Instance and the actual geometry (as shown in the top image).

From what I can tell, this helps separate out the Properties and the number of tabs that are displayed.  But, there is an issue with having all of these properties broken out like this, specifically the Element ID!  This ties back to the Switchback post…if you try and use Switchback with the Type selected, it won’t find the object.  And, that’s not all…it also affects your Clash Detection reports!  More to come on that subject soon….

Navisworks 2012 Switchback with Revit Video

Way back in July, I posted about a new feature for Navisworks and Revit 2012 being able to now use Switchback.  Well, I finally got around to creating the video that I said I was going to.   It’s amazing how time flies when you’re busy!

The video below shows the interaction of Switchback with Navisworks and Revit.  I didn’t put voice to the video, but did input some “pop-ups” with some explanations.

As you can see, there are some interesting things happening in this first iteration of Switchback with Revit.  Hopefully the 2013 versions have a much better integration.

Navisworks 2012 Interoperability Pack

A couple weeks ago, an Interoperability Pack was released for Subscription Customers.  The Beyond Design blog has a great post about the contents of this if you haven’t seen it yet.

Navisworks 2012 Deployments with Service Pack 1

With the latest Service Pack/Update 1 for Navisworks 2012, there have been some questions on how to add this to Navisworks 2012 deployments.  When you go to modify an existing Navisworks 2012 deployment (or even create a new one), the option to “download” the service pack isn’t available…the only option you have is to append or merge the .msp file(s).  Typically, this is okay but not for Service Pack 1 for Navisworks 2012.

Service Pack 1 actually has multiple .msp files buried inside the exe you download.  Which again, for appending/merging into a deployment is typically okay to do.  But, Navisworks SP1 also includes a few odbx.msp files that are not supported by the append/merge method as they cannot be added to the deployment image through the installer framework.

Because of this, you cannot modify an existing deployment of Navisworks 2012 to add in the full contents of Service Pack 1 OR even create a new deployment for Navisworks 2012 to include the full contents of SP1.

The only way to have Navisworks 2012 installed with all of the contents of SP1 is to install SP1 separately after Navisworks has already been installed.  For me, this means just run the exe you’ve downloaded to install the SP on each computer.

Navisworks 2012 Service Pack 1 Available

Yes, you may have already heard about this being available, but I wanted just reiterate that the first Service Pack/Update for Navisworks (Manage, Simulate, Freedom) 2012 is available.  You can download the update HERE.  As usual, make sure you download the appropriate version for your OS (32bit vs 64bit).

Also, make sure you look at the available download links…there is a separate download for the NWC Exporters as well.  This is available for those of you who only have the Exporters installed, you don’t actually have Navisworks installed.  If you have Navisworks installed and install the Navisworks update, you do not need to install the Exporter update as well…this is already in the Navisworks update package.  See the comment below from Lee (Beyond Design blog) regarding the Exporter Update…I was slightly incorrect on the above comments about the Exporter Update.

“If you installed Navisworks Manage or Simulate 2012 or the standalone NWC Exporters prior to September 2011, then you should install the separate updated Exporters, this is NOT contained in the Service Pack.”

As for the list of updates, take a look at the PDF HERE.