Happy New Year and Personal Update

For those of you who still actually follow my blog, I need to first off say Thank You! and sorry for not posting since mid Sept. (I can’t believe it’s been that long!) This past year was an interesting year…work was up and down (mostly up and busy) and I really started getting into photography The latter, is the main reason why I haven’t been posting this past fall and winter. As much as I wanted to post about Revit and BIM, photography just kept pulling me aside and taking up much more of my time during my off-work hours. In the new year though, I will be posting much, much more to this blog and my Revit ArchCenter blog…I promise!

Now, speaking of photography…I need to also share some great news. This past fall I took pictures of an area Freshman football team and had a blast. I stumbled upon a national photo contest from Canon called “Why Do You Love Football?” and decided to submit a few pictures. Much to my surprise, one of my pictures was selected as a finalist in the contest! I could not believe it. The photo below was selected as 1 of 7 finalist in the Adult Action category…

This is where I need to ask for a little favor. There is a public voting period that ends on January 7, 2011 and I need your help! If my photo is selected as the winner in the Adult Category, the picture will be unveiled and hung in the Pro Football Hall of Fame! Not only that, but anyone who votes is entered into a drawing to win a Canon T2i camera kit.

To vote, you can go to http://www.nfl.usa.canon.com/vote/photoContest.html When you enter the voting, you will first vote for your favorite Teen Action, then Teen Feature, then your favorite of those two. After this, you will get to the Adult Action category, this is where my picture is. You’ll then do the same as the Teen categories. The name of the picture is “Determined”. After all of your voting, you’ll need to enter your information…this is to enter your votes and yourself into the drawing for the camera.

Again, thank you for still keeping an eye on my little area of the blog-world and I look forward to bringing much more information in 2011. I hope everyone had a safe and great New Years! (And yes, thank you in advance for anyone that votes for my picture)

Dwane Lindsey

::Update on Contest - My photo finished in 2nd place in the Adult Action Category! Thank you to anyone/everyone who voted, it is very much appreciated!

Closing Cloud Redline Tool

Quick Tip:

When using the Cloud Redline Tool, did you ever wonder how to close it off?  Well, it doesn’t work like AutoCAD or Revit…and I’m assuming it’s different for other design software as well.  Usually, you can snap to the beginning point to close off a cloud.

Navisworks doesn’t snap back to the beginning, so when you are ready to close off the cloud, the way to close off the Cloud tool is to actually just right click!  That’s it, just a simple right-click. 

Navisworks 2011 Service Pack 1 Available

Autodesk released the first service package for Navisworks 2011 on Sept. 14.  Please make sure to read the readme file before installing the service pack.  Service Pack  Readme 

One thing to note….This service pack only updates individual installations of Autodesk Navisworks 2011 products and should not be applied to Navisworks products installed as part of Autodesk Factory Design Suite 2011.

This service pack fixes the following defects.

• TimeLiner. The TimeLiner / P6 Web Services hot fix, released in May 2010, has been included in the
  service pack and addresses two problems users may experience when accessing projects in Primavera
  using the P6 web services interface:
  
  • When importing projects from Primavera the project data in the Tasks and Gantt View tabs is not
    structured correctly under the top level New Link node.
    
  • When synchronizing or rebuilding projects in TimeLiner user data associated with a project's tasks
    does not persist correctly.
• Z+F File Loader. The Z+F hot fix, released in April 2010, has been included in the service pack and upgrades
  the Z+F DLL to the latest version of the DLL from Z+F (http://www.zf-laser.com).
  
• DPI Aware. The user interface of Autodesk Navisworks 2011 handles the setting of Windows custom text
  size (DPI) setting correctly and addresses the rendering problem of some windows.
  
  • Custom text size can be set using Control Panel ➤ Appearance and Personalization ➤ Display settings
    in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
    In Windows XP, click Control Panel ➤ Display ➤ Settings, click the Advanced button, and use the
    DPI Settings drop-down list to set custom text size.
    
• Communication Center. The RSS feed is fully supported and the issue relating to Communication Center
  crashing Autodesk Navisworks 2011 when the user logs in using double byte usernames has been fixed.
  
• Redline. Converting multiple measurements to redlines will not crash Autodesk Navisworks 2011.
  
• Presenter. The Presenter Rules tab now redraws itself correctly when the window is reduced in size when
  docked at the bottom the application window.
  
• Licensing. A number of reported licensing issues have been addressed.
  
• COM API.
  
  • Calling InwPlugin_Site.GetApplication() returns an object.
    
  • Calling lnwOpAnonView.ClippingPlanes.Clear() no longer stops sectioning from working.

Navisworks 2011 – Part 1a – Interface Items - Navigation

One of the items I wanted to touch on that I mentioned in the previous post about the new interface was the Navigation Bar (Nav. Bar).  The Nav. Bar can be located by default on the right side of the screen as shown below.

In the Navigation Bar, here’s what you’ll find for functions/tools…

Wheel functions  Pan Tool

Zoom Tools Orbit Tools

Look/Focus    Walk/Fly Tools

At the bottom of the Nav. Bar, there is a little arrow that will allow you to turn tools on/off, where you would like to dock the Nav. bar and even options for the Nav. Bar.

In the Options that you can set if you would like to utilize the classic orbiting/walk tools, or if you’d like to utilize the new 2011 versions.  In the image below, you can see that you can utilize the classic orbit and walk tools.  By having these checked, you’ll utilize the icons and have the same interaction that you’ve had for orbit navigations.

Now, by un-checking these same options, you’ll turn the orbiting and walking tools into the new functionality for 2011.  Basically what is going on here is that the functionality is the same, except that it’s more like using the tools from the Wheel.  As you can see in the image below, the orbit tools all look the same and utilize the pivot point set by the Wheel-Center tool.  They each function as they have in the past, so you still have 3 separate orbit tools.  As for the Walk, the feet go away and you now get an arrow.  Interesting thing about the Walk…the arrow is always based on a start point in the lower center of your screen.  This is unlike the “classic” Walk (with the feet) in that the Feet could be anywhere on the screen.

The Constrain Walk angle being checked, the Walk tool will keep the camera upright while navigating.  If it’s cleared, the camera will have the ability to roll (like the Fly tool).

The Use viewport linear speed check-box is pretty self explanatory.  If this is unchecked, it will use the value in the slider.  0.1 is very slow  while 10 is very fast.

And last, but definitely not least on the new Navigation modes…when you are in the Selection Mode (using the Arrow), you can now utilize your mouse wheel to pan, zoom and orbit…just like in other Autodesk products!!  I think I can speak for almost everyone on this….IT’s ABOUT TIME!!!

Saving Back to Earlier NWD or NWF Versions

Navisworks allows you to save you files back to earlier versions, even back to JetStream v5 if you are running 2010.  Yes, sorry…2011 can’t natively save back to JetStream file format.  If you are running 2011, you’ll have to save it back to 2010, then open it in 2010 to save it back to a v5 format.

But, there’s a little something I ran into regarding published NWD files.  Had a customer needing to get their files to v5.  They were publishing their files to NWD, but publishing doesn’t allow you to publish to a different format.  So they re-opened the NWD’s to do a save-as to get to the v5 (or in the pull-down, it’s called Navisworks 5) format but they were only getting the option to save as a NWF file.  I noticed during the publish, the check box for “May be re-saved” was unchecked.  So I had them do the publish again but this time check that box.  When they opened the newly published file, they now got the option to save it as a v5 format.  Here’s the screen shots (from 2010) showing the difference, the publish box on the left and then the subsequent save-as dialog when the published file was opened…

Now, you can also get around this by just doing a save-as to your current project and choosing the earlier format.  Just have to be careful that you then close the file and re-open the current project file to continue working.  Otherwise, you’ll hit save and “upgrade” the file you just saved back to an earlier version.