Autodesk University 2011

That time of the year again... Autodesk University in Las Vegas is about to start. If you cannot make it to the University in Las Vegas, dont worry. Autodesk is making most of the classes available online for FREE. All you need to do is to create an Autodesk account and register for the courses here. Autodesk has made the registraton process even easier this time by allowing us to use our facebook or twitter credentials...
Awesome!
If you use Twitter profusely... you can tag Autodesk University 2011 by using #AU2011 ...

ETransmit for Revit 2012

At last Autodesk has come out with an etransmit tool for Revit. In fact, they have not released it to the market, but the tool is available at the Autodesk at Autodesk Labs Utilities eTransmit for Revit. This is a free download.

The best part of the tool is that it can be used to archive a Revit project. (We used to have a long list of 'to dos' to archive a revit project along with all the DWG linked files, etc. Now this can be done in one step. Nice.

This is an add-in tool and it shows up in the ribbon for easy use. These are the things the tool does:

Copies the central file

Copies all the dependent files

Changes the path for all the dependent to be dependent paths, etc.

Works ONLY for Revit 2012!!

This free download is available only until Dec 31st 2012. Autodesk might make it a subscription update after this date! (They are just crowd sourcing the bug fixing phase!)

Definitely worth a try.

AutoCAD WS - Web and Mobile Application for AutoCAD - Autodesk

It has been some time since Autodesk released their web version of AutoCAD WS.

It works amazingly, whole thing is embedded within the web browser. Autodesk also has an app for android and iphone. Unfortunately the dwg website cannot accessed using Nokia web browser (It claims that it needs Adobe Flash support, which I thought Opera mobile has....)

Basically:

1. Create an autocad ws account (existing autodesk account will do)

2. Upload your dwg file.

3. Anyone, anywhere can can access your dwg and edit (as long as you give them access rights)

The dwg files can be collaborated online simultaneously. There are a lots of youtube videos that explain the features of the website.

Ofcourse, the online autocad is NOT full fledged version of the real one. But it is useful for most of the stuff you might need to do on job site or at coordination meetings. Very nice.

Copy Cells from Excel to Revit Schedule

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This utility has been updated for Revit 2012 and for 64bit version for 2011 Revit.
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I had created a script to Copy Cell values from Excel to Revit Schedule view. I updated the script for 2011. The evaluation copy of the updated script for Revit 2011 and 2012 is available at:
http://bim.nichitecture.com/copyexcel.html
I hope this is helpful.
The script works with both Microsoft Excel and Open Office.org Calc.
The script copies a bunch of cells (rows x columns) and pastes them into a revit schedule (contiguous rows x columns).

1. The script works well if all the fields in Revit schedule are EDITABLE. (A normal schedule has lots of ‘read-only’ fields like Family name, Area, etc where this script will fail.) The cells also need to be 'instance' driven cells (as compared to 'type' driven cells)
2. The script does not create blank rows for data in Revit (yet). You need to create as many rows as you might need using this button in the Revit option bar before running the script.

Project Vasari

Autodesk has introduced (sometime back) a, kind of rival to Sketch up. It is free and can be downloaded from here or
http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/vasari/
Really nice program. You can keep it in your thumbdrive and take it whereever you go. It does not have to be installed like traditional apps.
Even creating a sphere or a dome is a pain in sketchup. Vasari can do it very easily. Also it has levels, from which you can get all the floor areas and can be directly imported into Revit. In fact, the file format is RVt and so can be directly OPENED in Revit. Very nice.
(I hope autodesk keeps this software FREE!!!!)