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Accessing Autodesk Subscription and Autodesk 360 

Learn how Autodesk 360 expands software capabilities beyond the desktop with powerful cloud-based services that help streamline workflows and unlock new ways to innovate. There are amazing and helpful tools available within the Autodesk 360 website watch now.

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October Tech Tip!

Using the Revision Cloud and the Schedule!

Here is one for you guys out there looking to learn something about the Revision Cloud command in Autodesk Revit.  This will be the same in all versions of Revit and past releases.

I briefly discuss the purpose and use behind the revision command and why it should be done the way it was created.  If you have any comments please post them below.

Click on this link and it should take you to our YouTube channel.



We at Sterling Systems can help you with your technical issues and your business needs.  Just give us a call at (480) 719-4599 and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Steve Coburn, Applications Engineer

September Tech Tip!

Working with Annotative Elements!

Well, welcome to another tech tip from Sterling Systems!

I'm glad you could join us as I talk a little about how the Annotative Elements such as text, dimensions, multi-leaders, hatch and blocks can help us save time and effort while producing our projects.

I hope that you have found this useful and I have cleared up some of the mystery of Annotative Elements and their use in today's workflow.

if you can't get the video to play, you can find the link here on our YouTube channel.

We at Sterling Systems can help you with your technical issues and your business needs.  Just give us a call at (480) 719-4599 and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Steve Coburn, Applications Engineer

Civil 3D to Revit

Civil 3D to Revit and back!

Okay guys, I know that it's not technically a tech tip, but I know that we market to a lot of Civil engineers and Architects, so I wanted to get this bit of information out there to those of you who want to collaborate on a better playing field with your Civil and Architect friends.

This is a great video/class presented by the CAD Technology Center at the University of Minnesota.  Props to the presenters, Brian Levendowski and Shawn Zirbes, for diving in and working this out plus allowing us to see their work.

This has always been a sticky subject when it comes to the Civil project data melding with the Revit Architectural project.  What you have to remember, and they state it several times, always follow the process.

Click here to see the video on YouTube.  It is a bit long as it is a breakout session and demonstration at 1:38:09 so be prepared to spend some time with it.  It is well worth the time if you're looking to make the workflow better.  Software being used in demonstration is 2014 releases.

We at Sterling Systems can help you with your technical issues and your business needs.  Just give us a call at (480) 719-4599 and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Steve Coburn, Applications Engineer

August Tech Tip!

AutoCAD Architecture Door Schedule!

In the past several months we have had some questions about the upgrading from ACAD LT to regular AutoCAD 2014 and to AutoCAD Architecture 2014. In these conversations we would discuss several of the options that you will receive if you do the upgrade.  One of these is the ability to schedule the blocks within the project.  One of these items are doors.

Below I have put together a little video showing you how easy it is to work with the schedules in the program in using the AutoCAD Architecture 2014.  You will see as well that this will also work with windows and rooms.

If you are having problems viewing the video, please click here to watch on our YouTube channel.

We at Sterling Systems can help you with your technical issues and your business needs.  Just give us a call at (480) 719-4599 and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Steve Coburn, Applications Engineer

July Tech Tip!

Sketchbook 2014 to Revit 2014!

Use the program Autodesk Sketchbook 2014 to quickly draft your ideas in a 2D representation much like you would on a napkin at the meeting table with your client.  Take that info and transfer it to Autodesk Revit through the workflow of the .dwg file format and quickly start your design without having to redraw the original intent.  Now we have a process to keep information from being lost between the client meeting and the office process of inserting into CAD.

If you are having problems viewing this video, please click here to view it on our YouTube channel.

We at Sterling Systems can help you with your technical issues and your business needs.  Just give us a call at (480) 719-4599 and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Steve Coburn, Applications Engineer

June Tech Tip!

Parameter Order!

There are those of us out there that when we go to create parameters in our families that we want some organization to the list.  As you well know Revit does not alphabetize or numerically list our parameters.

If you have done any research on this you may very well know what I am about to talk about.  It’s a simple tool or key stroke called the “asterisk”(*,or star).

The first step you want to do in any planning is to PLAN!  Layout your parameters in the order you want them in.  Of course if you don’t know them yet then this will be hard to do, but let’s try to think ahead and plan on what we will need.

Let's start with the "Generic Model" in the family editor.

Basic Family type layout.

Second step is to create the family file right.

While we are creating the file, during this process we insert the needed parameters.  I want to say start with the last parameter on your list.  Want to know why?  Well during the creation of parameters the program likes to put them anywhere it wants to sometimes, most of the time right above the one you previously created.  There is not a definite pattern.  So . . . the asterisk, mentioned above, allows you to at minimum put in order the parameters you are using.

For example let’s put in our first parameter we’ll call it “Par A”.

Our next one is “Par B”, but we don’t want it placed above “Par A”.

So . . . we remove the “Par B” and we go modify the “Par A” and call it “Par B” then add another one called “Par A”.

This is the simple method of doing things, with a couple of extra clicks that we did not want to do in the first place, right?  But what happens when you go changing and adding other names that start going under and above the ones already listed?

Well, the trick is to select the parameter that is right below the one you want to add and modify it.  In the name of the parameter add an asterisk(*,or star) before the name, copy the entire name and add a new parameter.

Paste the copied text into the name field, add another character to the end, making it different, make your choices for the data type and then hit ok.  You should see something like this.

As you can see I wanted to add the “Par A2” below the “Par A” and it would not allow me.  What I did was add the asterisk to the “Par B” added a 2 behind the new one and it automatically put it above the old “Par B” parameter.  Now what you would need to do is delete the Par A2 and rename the “*Par B2” to “Par A2”.  Of course go back and modify the original “Par B” to take out the asterisk and you’re all set.

So you should be seeing something like this.

Remember previously I said to plan your list, this is where you will need to do as much as you can, because it will go very quickly if you do all the copying and renaming first before you start adding formulas and the parameters to the geometry.  Simply keep adding the same parameter and adding more characters to the end to keep them in order as such:

After Renaming

Before Renaming

So while this was a very simple example it can be used in the most populated of families and their lists of parameters.

We at Sterling Systems can help you with your technical issues and your business needs.  Just give us a call at (480) 719-4599 and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Steve Coburn, Applications Engineer

Bluebeam Revu Receives 2013 Constructech Magazine Commercial Top Product Award

 I would like to congratulate the staff at Bluebeam for making their product the best it can be for this year's Constructech Top Product Award.  See article here.

How many of you out there use Bluebeam or have heard of Bluebeam?

How many don't know what Bluebeam is?

Well I've recently completed a webinar on one aspect of it's capabilities between Revit, which is also (included in the 2013 Building Design Suite Premium) and it's Revu CAD version. This will show you a glimpse of it in action.  See webinar here. View on our YouTube channel.  If you want to try it out then download the trial here.

Sinking Hole!!!

I would like to get some discussion started just to find out what people know and what they think may have happened.  I know it's not the normal thing you see here on our blog, but in the light of structural issues happening all around us, do we see the ground falling out from under us a lot more these days?

I'm not blaming anyone here in particular, but given the latest accident in addition to the ones in the past with bridges, roads and ships do we need to take a step back and maintain our infrastructure?  How do we go about taking a poll of what is to be done and how to go about doing it?  Is it government led or is it private sector's responsibility to make aware the issues that are out there?  Our infrastructure is aging and we should be seeing upgrades, but we're not.  At least I haven't!

I would like to know your thoughts!

March Tech Tip!

Punch it with Bluebeam Revu!

So . . . . I wanted to give a follow up article on a subject that I recently reviewed not too long ago in one of my webinars.  In getting to this subject in the video it leaves some information lacking and I wanted to give more detail as to how and why we needed this capability.  I’m referring to the Punch command inside the Bluebeam Revu CAD 10 program.  If you missed the webinar you may see the video here.  I want to bring to your attention to the process and reasoning behind it in a written format rather than in a video.  So let’s get started.

With a session of Bluebeam Revu Cad opened let’s open up a project that we have transferred over.  For ease I used the one I created for the webinar.  Browse to a floor level that you want to set up the punch sheets for.

Now over in the right side, where you would find the settings, measure and search functions and most likely the Sessions/Project function you will see an icon for “Spaces”.  Let’s pick on that icon and start adding spaces.  You first will want to plan out where you want to add these elements and how you would like to manage them.  I started out with one space and called it Level 2, use it as a zone.  To do this, simply pick and pan around the floor plan until you encompass the entire area.  When you’re ready to close the loop hit enter.  

Now I continue to work this way starting out with room 202.  All you need to do here is make sure you are within the outer boundaries of the Level 2 space, only selecting room 202’s boundary.  You can do this by either picking locations or click and drag a box around the room from top left corner to the bottom right corner.

Proceed to the next room and you will notice that Bluebeam automatically picks up the numbering system and enters it in the space provided.  Continue to do this process until all rooms you wish to punch are covered and showing up in the right side under the properties.  I included all spaces for an example.

Once you have all your spaces created you can then easily go back and modify their colors and opacity to make them pop out and be seen more easily.  To do this you will need to right click on the space name and select properties or select the gear icon (properties) in the top right of the panel.

Now we need to set up the pages or PDF in this case, for the punch process.  You can choose either to have a separate PDF or append this punch PDF to the original PDF file for the project.  Remember this may not be a wise decision as you may have RFI’s and other documents attached to it as well.  Setting up a hyperlink is in my opinion the best option for this type of document.  I will cover this process later.

To set up the Punch PDF Revu has included several templates for you to choose from and one of those is an 8.54x11 sheet built for that purpose.  Let’s pick that template and tell it that we need 11 pages for this PDF  because we know that there are 11 spaces on level 2’s floor plan, hit OK.  You now see a new PDF with the first page already displaying the template that we chose.  These can be made to fit your office standards through template creation and form items allowed within the program. 

Now go back to the project PDF where we have our floor plan in the display.  Right click on the space names on the right panel and select “Snapshot”.  This process does exactly what it means.  It takes a snap shot of only that space and allows you to paste it into any other PDF.

Switch to the Punch PDF; right click on the display space and paste.  Position your image on the sheet at the top left and drag the bottom corner tick to scale up the image.  We’re not worried about scale here because we only need this for punching purposes.  However, if there was a dimension on this image we could use that to calibrate the page’s scale factor and use it to place dimension markups on it if needed.

As you can see I have placed all spaces in the PDF by going to each new sheet, switching to the project PDF and following the same process as before.  Do this each time for each individual space.  Yes a little monotonous, but right now that is the process.  Maybe soon they will have the ability to populate the sheets by selecting all spaces and adding them to sheets automatically.

OK, let’s talk about the hyperlink just for a second as we need to set up on right away to help us in case of file collapse or computer crashing.  Save the file that you created for your punch, preferably in the project file somewhere, but it is up to you.  Return to the project PDF.   In the sheet that we placed the spaces I want to add a hyperlink so that I can get to the document quickly.  

I created a text box and added a description I wanted to see.  I then “Flatten” this sheet to allow the text to stay permanently and move around in case someone wanted to change it. 

After this I then either click on the “Hyperlink” icon in the top ribbon under the Markup menu or I can hold “Shift+H” on the keyboard and then select the text by highlighting it.  Once this is done you receive a pop up menu asking you to input the hyperlink’s location.  Here is where you will tell Revu where to find the new document we created.  As I may have mentioned in the webinar this can be any file you want to link to including any cad file if needed.  Under the “Open file” option browse to the location you saved the file and select “OK”.

Let’s get to punching shall we.

In the bottom right section of Revu you will see an icon that looks like a figure of a body, this is your profile icon and it displays several option that allow you to either show or hide details/icons on your screen relative to what your purpose at the time is.  Here we will choose the “Punch” profile.  This will change your display and then bring up the punching menus under your “Tool Chest” that include an array of markups that involve different disciplines of construction materials and basic notations for punching a project.  These are merely a start as you can create your own as well.

For our example today I have placed some well-known punches in room 202 and for the purpose of the article I copied and pasted them to every other room with this type of layout.  Of course I had to move some around, but you get the point.

OK, we now have level 2 punched out.  Oh by the way, did I mention that this could be done onsite with an iPad that has connectivity to the server or even access to the file that can then be uploaded later?  Of course the set up would have to take place first, then the team member would go to the site and punch, take pictures, place them in the file as a markup also.  But now we’re back in the office and managing the file.

Let’s take the file and view the markups over all.  Under the bottom panel you will see a “Summary” option that allows you to print this summary of redlines/markups to an Excel spreadsheet, XML format and PDF format as well as regular printing to a printer.  Click on the “PDF Summary” and we will add this on to the end of our punch pdf file for easy use and added functionality.

You now get a pop up window asking you to decide the range of the summary, how to include the markups or columns, the options to append to or create a new pdf document, title and how you want to view the text of the markups themselves along with a preview of the markup and the sheet size needed.  Select “OK”.  Revu runs and produces a document that now contains all the markups in a summary that can now be used to email and coordinate with those responsible for the punches reviewed in the field.  If you appended the summary to the end of the punch PDF you have the option now to click on the preview in the summary and go straight to the markup on the punch document where it was originally placed.  If you did not append that capability is not there.  In this case it would be wise to set up own hyperlink to the summary file for future accessibility. 

As you move along in the learning and use of Revu, you will find many features that can help you and your company speed up some of the processes that would normally take you weeks sometimes to accomplish.  Imagine that this was set up within a day’s time, punch was done normally and completed within a few days (depending on size of project), brought back to the office and managed for another day, and files sent out and collaborated within a couple more days’ time.  This realistically could be done within a week or two.  You now have simplified the communication process along with the documentation process and at the end of it all you have a digital document that can be used to track comments, progress of punch corrections and have a complete record of who did or said anything.

If you compare the amount of time and money spent on the traditional path versus this new process and having better resources at your disposal you will see where Bluebeam Revu has made a game change in realization of documenting a project.

If you would like more information on Bluebeam and their software offerings please contact us and we will be glad to talk to you and consult on what will fit your business needs.  Just give us a call at (480) 719-4599 and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Steve Coburn, Applications Engineer

February Tech Tip!

Cleaning Out Autodesk!

The other day I was talking to a client and we were in the process of cleaning out his files for Autodesk products, because he wanted to get a clean slate and remove all products from his system.  Thinking that he knew what to do I mentioned to him that he needed to get the folders out of the program files from all locations.  If you have surfed your system folders, you have seen the multitude of files/folders and their locations that Autodesk creates on your hard drive.  Since he did not know how to go about doing this I then proceeded to help him through this tedious process.

I would like to explain how you need to go about cleaning out these folders and locations so that you will be able to install new software to a clean state.  This helps keep the programs tidy and clean which also helps clean up some much needed hard drive space.

The first step in any uninstall is to go through your Windows’ Control Panel to “Programs and Features”, find your program and click on the “Uninstall/Change” button.

\

But . . . with all Autodesk products they usually have an “uninstall” option in the program files which does the same thing.  If you can’t find the location it is usually under your “start menu” button  in the Autodesk program folder and the specific program you want to uninstall.  In my opinion the easiest way to get to those files is through the control panel, but you can do it either way.  Sometimes there are problems so always go back and make sure the uninstall actually grabbed everything including the desktop icons.

 

Next we need to go into our computer, windows explorer, and find the locations that Autodesk has folders created in the program files of your system.  For quick reference I will list them here.  Warning: always make sure you have the rights and permissions to change your system, either through IT or your manager.  If you are ever unsure always back up your system, just in case you mess something up.

Locations to delete:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\

C:\Program Files (x86)\Autodesk\

C:\Users\All Users\Autodesk\

C:\Users\**YOUR USERID**\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\

C:\Users\**YOUR USERID**\AppData\Local\Autodesk\

Once you do all this you will need to clean out your Recycling Bin as well.  You know as well I do that there are GB’s worth of data in these folders and you need to clean your deleted files up.

Okay!  So we have uninstalled the programs, cleaned out the program files and cleaned up any remaining icons related to said products.  Now we need to restart the computer to refresh all the files and especially the registry.  This is just good housekeeping manners.  Once this is done then we can get to the nitty-gritty.\

Cleaning up the Registry.

Only proceed if you are comfortable in this management of your system.  If you have any questions at all please consult your IT personnel or get professional help.  Any slips in this modification can render your system useless.  The best thing to do is to get someone who knows what they are doing to work on this section.  Also back up your system again before continuing as well as your registry.

Go to your start menu and type in the word “regedit” and hit enter.  This will pull up the Registry Editor. If you get a warning stating, "Do you want the following program to make changes to this computer?," say yes.














You will now be brought to the editor screen.

The following keys will need to be deleted if the uninstall process did not take them out.

(Settings per Windows 7 system)

\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk

\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk, Inc.
\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SOFTWARE\Autodesk

\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk

This should be all the keys that you will need to worry about finding and deleting.  Once you complete this step restart your computer, go back into your registry and make sure all Autodesk products have been removed.  Double check the “\HKEY_USERS” folder to make sure all Autodesk related keys have been removed, again creating a backup of your registry before continuing.  Once this has been confirmed, if there were any changes made restart your computer, and then you can proceed to re-install the specific application needed.

This process is for a clean sweep of any and all Autodesk products.  If you desire to only uninstall a certain product please do not follow these instructions to the “T” as it will delete more than you want.  You can use these instructions to go and find the product you are uninstalling and pick it out.

We at Sterling Systems can help you with your technical issues and your business needs.  Just give us a call at (480) 719-4599 and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Steve Coburn, Applications Engineer

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Sterling Systems provides articles and information for educational and entertainment purposes only.

You are strongly encouraged to consult, a) Your PC's Manufacturing Company and b) Microsoft® before attempting to edit or alter your system's configuration - including the Windows® Registry.

Furthermore, by viewing this site, you agree that Sterling Systems cannot be held responsible - directly or indirectly, in full or in part - for any damages or losses that may be suffered as a result of taking action on the information published on SterlingSystems.com.

You assume any and all risks associated with any actions taken as a result of reading any and all articles.

January Tech Tip

Revit 2013 vs. Revit LT 2013

We have been asked recently about the differences in the two flavors of Revit, these being LT and the full version, so I decided it would be easier to create a short webcast describing these differences for any and all to see.  This would save us from having to describe it over the phone and just send you to this site to see for yourself.  Yes, there are sites on Autodesk's site, but they only put it in writing and sometimes they get confusing.

I have put together this webcast to show a few hands on elements that are different and then some I just described, hopefully well enough, for anyone to understand.  ENJOY!!

We at Sterling Systems can help you with your technical issues and your business needs.  Just give us a call at (480) 719-4599 and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Steve Coburn, Applications Engineer