Beside the Cursor...

STL Exporter from Revit available at autodesk labs

Are you using Revit and tired of exporting to DWG, only to open the file and export to STL for 3D Printing? Now you can download the latest tool to hit autodesk labs, the Revit STL Exporter.
Read Scott Shepherd's blog post from yesterday to find out more...
Direct link to lab project.

Autodesk Seek Web Service is Live

I stumbled across the Autodesk Seek web service as I was investigating the changes to Revit 2009 user interface. When I saw the ubiquitous search tool that had appeared on the options bar, I clicked it to see what it did. Autodesk Seek is a search engine that aggregates available content from various sources on the web and brings the results back in a filtered, intelligent interface. Using the tool is easy and straightforward. You can either browse to the site and perform your search directly or launch it from within the Revit 2009 interface by entering a search term in the

content search box and clicking the magnifying glass icon as shown in the image shown to the left.

Once you click you are taken to the main page which performs the search displaying a loading progress indicator.

After completing the search, the results are displayed in the main window located to the lower right of your browser. If you wish to further filter the results by manufacturer, filetype, category, etc. you can perform these refinements by clicking on the filters available in the filter column located on the left of the browser window.

You can also refine your search by filetype by clicking on the filetype selector located at the top of the browser and choosing what file type you are interested in.

The entire online catalog of Revit Families are available through this new mechanism. Other content types include Sketchup (*.skp), AutoCAD (*.dwg), word (*.doc), and adobe (*.pdf) documents. Hopefully, manufacturers and the rest of the industry will find this tool useful and open up their collections to be "discovered" by this new web service.

Personalize the BIM Talk widget...its easy!

Got a quick question or suggestion for me when you're visiting this blog? Why not personalize the BIM Talk widget when you find me online? I would like to know who you are...although its not necessary, it is rather easy! You can click on the nickname displayed on the Meebo me widget and edit it to display your actual name or a nickname of your own choosing. Take a look at the the following screen grabs for more info.

VSTA for Revit Architecture Install - (Think VBA's replacement!)

I installed the recently received Autodesk Revit Architecture 2009 application on my laptop the other day. In browsing the DVD, I noticed a folder titled VSTA. If you want to install the Visual Studio for Applications for use with Revit, pick the bottom installer option for tools and utilities as shown below.

I didn't see any mention of this in the documentation, readme, or the installer for the basic product. I did see reference and tutorials in the SDK install, but one has to know to look for these. I found a cryptic mention of this in the New Features Workshop. If you look in the Revit Architecture Help file, you'll find mention of "Creating Macros with Revit VSTA"...grab Gregory Arkin's pdf version using the link below.

Install Steps:

Install the Revit Product First
Go back to first page of installer and then install the VSTA tools.

The install is much improved in this release...much faster too!

Now lets see how it runs.....

Note: The product install forces an install of Design Review 2009. This may impact those of you running the BIM Smart Library by Reed Construction Data. If you create a deployment, you can potentially modify the installation.

Links: Looks like other sites have more info on this.
Check out

Labels: Architecture, BIM, Building Information Modeling, CAD Management, Revit, VBA

Detecting XP64 versus XP32 - Autolisp Function

Do you need a function that detects whether AutoCAD is running under XP32 or XP64? I had the need today. This is what I came up with:

;;; Begin code

;;; =========================================================================
;;; Function: RLB:XP64Detector
;;; Purpose : Function to detect running under 64 or 32bit XP
;;; Author : Richard Binning
;;; Date : 4/10/2008
;;; Call : (RLB:XP64Detector "Wow6432Node")
;;; Example : (if (= 0 (RLB:XP64Detector "Wow6432Node"))
;;; (alert "32 Bit Detected")
;;; (alert "64 Bit Detected")
;;; )
;;; Params : subKey: Name of XP64 Registry Key for installing 32bit apps
;;;
;;; Local : keyVal: Value of key sought
;;; : profileStr
;;; Returns : a number greater than 0 if running under XP64
;;; Notes : Placed in use to load correct version
;;; ================================================================================
(defun RLB:XP64Detector (subKey / keyVal retVal profilesStr)
(setq keyVal nil)
(setq profilesStr (strcat "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\" subKey))
(setq keyVal (reverse (vl-registry-descendents profilesStr)))
(vl-list-length keyVal); return value
)

;;; end code

Anyone like to test this under vista?

Fixing Non Planar Walls in AutoCAD Architecture - VBA Powered

Ever get a file in AutoCAD Architecture (ACA), aka the software formerly known as Architectural Desktop (ADT), that just had more wall cleanup problems than you knew what to do with? It happens frequently when walls are converted from existing linework or traced from other files. One problem is that the walls can have different end point elevations...and this is really bad for ADT. Rather than fixing each wall one at a time or fixing them within the properties dialog, wouldn't it be easier if you could simply run a quick macro to fix every wall in the current drawing? I thought so. Thats why I wrote the routines you can download below.

Want to learn how to load the file you can download for your version of ADT?
Then watch this video:

Want to see that video in full size? Try this link:

ADT2005_Walls2_CommonPlane.dvb

ADT2006_Walls2_CommonPlane.dvb

ADT2007_Walls2_CommonPlane.dvb

ADT2008_Walls2_CommonPlane.dvb

Want to learn more about how this routine was written? You'll get the code and all the backgrounder info by reading my AUGI HotNews article from the July 2006 issue. When you are done reading, head back here to download the version specific routines.

Thanks to creative commons and Derek Audette for the background music.

Be Aware - Amazon Context Links Could be Dangerous - Video

As I alluded to in my comments on last weeks "Sneak" Preview post, watch out how you configure Amazon's Contextual Links widget on your website or blog. I added contextual links long ago and found out recently how out of context they can be! Watch the video below to see what I went through and how I resolved it.

Apparently, Amazon isn't the only one who has not properly provided oversight for their "context links". I understand, via Mike Perry, that other ad generators have a similar problem.