Revit January 2008 bug fixed!

New Build 20080101_2345 to address the Y2K8 issue

When downloading this it will still be listed as webupdate #3. The other enhancements are:

· Improves stability when editing groups, saving views/groups to the library or creating a new project with template set to “None”.

· Improves stability when upgrading or linking a project from Autodesk Revit Building 8.1/Revit Structure 2 or older.

Just a note as the fix will only be available for the English versions because by the time the localizations were done it would be February and the problem would be gone.

The Web Updates can be downloaded by going to:

RAC: www.autodesk.com/revitarchitecture-download
RST: www.autodesk.com/revitstructure-downloads
RME: www.autodesk.com/revitmep-download

Trelligence Affinity for Revit™

Trelligence Affinity for Revit™architectural programming and schematic design software.

Designed for use by AEC professionals, Affinity for Revit™ automates the pre-design stage of the building life cycle and delivers on the promise of software interoperability for planning architectural projects. Today’s design tools do not offer the ability to capture detailed program requirements such as space adjacencies and abstract constraints. Affinity for Revit™ extends BIM into the early stages of project programming with a framework for collecting program requirements in a computable format. Based on the program requirements, Affinity’s schematic design tool then provides visual representation in 2D and 3D of initial design concepts for collaborative decision making and client approvals early in the process. The initial schematic designs created in Affinity become the foundation for detailed designs in Revit which can then be monitored and analyzed for program compliance throughout the design process.

For more information about Affinity for Revit™ please contact

info@trelligence.com or call 713.481.2549.
www.trelligence.com

Microsoft's Virtual Earth Building Maker.

I almost forgot to post this. Now last month Autodesk released their Revit/ Google Earth plug-in for those on subscription, and it works really well. But recently Microsoft released a program that allows you to model a building and see it in their earth tool.

I've enjoyed using Microsoft's Virtual Earth in addition to Google Earth and figured this would be something else to keep track of. At the moment it looks like you can only use their program for building the models but hopefully that will change in time as this is only the technology preview. Be nice to be able to send your Revit buildings into yet another program for others to see!

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/10/19/microsoft-launches-3d-building-maker-for-virtual-earth/

Keeping track of memory

Ahh memories, like the first time you finished something in half the time or sold the client with a rendering from Revit. Oh and then there’s the time it crashed on you saving to central…… ok so that’s not a good example. But memory was likely the issue with that problem. Revit asks for a good amount of memory, and for a lot of people they may never run into any real big problems. However for the companies that are working on very large or very detailed models memory can become an issue.

Some people have started to use widgets to keep them aware of how much memory they are using and is left as well as cpu usage and the weather. My only complaint with those widgets is that they take away screen real estate that I would much rather have for Revit or other programs. I’ve found a few that might be useful and have a small footprint both processing wise and screen wise for keeping tabs on what your pc is doing.

TinyResMeter
This will probably be overkill for most but it displays a lot of information relating to your pc. I like all the extra info, and the fact that it displays it as a thin band is good but I would prefer it to be able to display in the system tray so I can maximize my program windows.

Better Memory Meter
This is a nice little bare bones utility that displays the percentage of physical memory the computer has left in the system tray. The utility is nice and clean and does not install any adware or anything and free is always nice.

MemInfo
This utility displays the physical memory remaining, however unlike Better Memory Meter it allows you to configure the information that it displays. You can select the kind of information you would like it to display as well as how you want it displayed. You can also set an alarm to notify you when you are nearing the limit of your memory.

FreeRAM XP Pro
This is very similar both in presentation and in settings to Meminfo, but if you felt Meminfo didn’t give you enough options to change this one will likely suit you better. It has the ability to save log files as well as clean memory. This might be a little overkill for most people but it also has a task manager like display as well if you choose, other wise it has an easy to read status bar icon that displays the chosen memory information in several ways. One of which is a pie chart symbol which reads really well.

RAMpage (gotta love the name)
This is a nice program that gives you a few options on how you would like to display the remaining memory. If installing this note the update info for version 1.6.1. You need to install the main program and then download the update and overwrite the existing exe file. This program can also try to free memory. I’m not using that feature but it could be useful in the long run if there are programs in use that typically have “memory leak” issues. My only complaint with this one is the amount available is a little hard to read, depending on what your screen resolution is this might not be an issue though.

MemView
This one has an interesting display. Rather than have a meter and a number representing the amount of memory left in the status bar, it uses a cup with the amount of memory being used and a bar that you can place anywhere on the screen. Essentially when you’re using all your memory the glass would be full, not quite the optimistic view you would think of but it works. If you mouse over the icon it will give you the numbers and the percentage. Nice graphic idea and can use different skins.

Now this is in no way meant to be an exhaustive list of available programs. The ones shown here are a few of the better free ones that I have come across and been able to find. Some of these are very simple and give the user only the info they want, others allow you to track and see a lot more information if necessary. For me, Better Memory Meter used the least amount of memory (although none of these went over 5mb in my tests) and was good at just showing me how much mem I have left. For instances where I want more information at hand without having process explorer open Ill use FreeRAM, Meminfo isn’t far behind but the extra features in Free makes it a little more useful for my needs. As with many things your mileage may vary but hopefully these little applications can help you out and keep an eye on available memory if that has been a problem.

Greetings!

Thanks for checking in on our corner of the web, I'm hoping that the information you find here will be useful and help in making decisions and solving problems regarding BIM. Many of my posts might not deal directly with the design programs directly but will deal with ways to get more out of them. As I see it there's alot of blogs out there already, and I would rather go over things that are a little different from the norm, both basics and advanced ideas. Along the way I'm always open to suggestions and Ideas so let me know what you think of the blog!

Now on to the show...