ejs

a snaphot of time

Archive for category Architecture

On the door handiness in Autodesk Revit

Mar 3

Posted by ejs in Architecture, My job, programming, Revit | 4 Comments

I was working on semi – automated solution to enter door handiness in Revit models. The existing solutions are either quite expensive (like Reforma Swing Direction) or has weird assumptions.

My intial setup is Dynamo and the Dynamo Door Set Handing module from http://archi-lab.net/. It has fine tutorials, so you only need to create your model in Dynamo.

The weird thing on door handines is it is different in some countries.

  • Door handiness in Germany is defined as hinge position on the door, when one is pulling the door to open. if the hinges are on the left side, the door is left-handed, and if the hinges are on the right side, the door is right-handed. I will refer it ad “DIN – style”.
  • The IFC, together with ISO 16739 defines door handiness as the position of “positive Y axis”, which is definitelly the position of door handle when puling.  I will refer it as “ISO – style”.
  • Americans use ISO style, but also has “reversed” option. I still have no idea on this option, as “reversed right” is “left”.

So, what’s to do?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Revit and IronPython: the early bird

Apr 9

Posted by ejs in Architecture, programming, Revit | No Comments

ODS module does not work on IronPython, and i don’t know the way to add Revit modules to regular Python.Whatever …

''' cut-n-paste from the net
 @author: ejs
 '''
 import clr
 import sys
 clr.AddReference('RevitAPI')
 clr.AddReference('RevitAPIUI')
 from Autodesk.Revit.DB import *
 from Autodesk.Revit.DB.Architecture import *
 from Autodesk.Revit.DB.Analysis import *
 
 #sys.path.append(r'C:\Python\3.4\Lib\site-packages')
 
 #from odslib import ODS
 
 #ods = ODS()
 
 uidoc = __revit__.ActiveUIDocument
 doc = __revit__.ActiveUIDocument.Document
 
 cView = uidoc.ActiveView
 
 collector = FilteredElementCollector(doc)
 collector = FilteredElementCollector(doc).OfClass(ViewSchedule);
 
elems=collector.ToElements()
 n_elems=len(elems)
 
 for elem in elems:
     if cView.Id == elem.Id: Read the rest of this entry »

Case story: move the location of Revit Server 2012 models

Oct 6

Posted by ejs in Architecture, My job, Revit, Software | No Comments

Here is the other issue: due to the fast install of Revit Server 2012, the location of model was not important. After the server’s role was changed to “Central” instead of ‘Caching”, i wanted model be stored in more predictable location.

Again, I had no wish to reinstall the whole server, including w2008r2 server.
Read the rest of this entry »

Case story: change role of Revit Server 2012 without reinstall

Oct 6

Posted by ejs in Architecture, Revit, Software | No Comments

Our company was running a caching Revit Server 2012 instance, to be able to work on a project. The central server was set in the kingdom of far away and was serving three architectural offices.
Recently we had to take care of the model created and the Revit Server 2012 instance itself. I hate to touch working system, but i had to.
Read the rest of this entry »

Where is my free space, windows, where is my free space?

Oct 5

Posted by ejs in Architecture, My job, Software | No Comments

I had a strong wish to install Autodesk Revit 2013 just a days ago. Besides it needs 38 GB of free space, it did not fit on my clogged 100 GB system drive.
Too bad. Ok, my drive is oldish 160 GB Seagate, but still, windows7 seems like a disc hog.

So i’ve decide to investigate the case. Using RidNac, i made a small tour to the HDD space. Read the rest of this entry »

Using Revit Server 2012 by non-domain members

Jan 9

Posted by ejs in Architecture, My job, Software | No Comments

The last issue in the Migration Hell was Revit Server. To be precise, not the application itself, but the client authentification.
With all it’s bells-n-whistles, it lacks most part of the documentation. The application itself runs on IIS, uses Windows (NTLM) or Basic authentification, but nothing is said about the Revit client. The only thing you can find – you must login as domain member to use the Revit Server.

It’s not true. You should, but must not.

Two things must be done on the client to use Revit Server:

  1. authenticate in the domain and every server you will need to use. You must use your domain login credentials to authentificate. The AD domain uses trust relations to authentificate you in the domain servers. If you prefer not to login to AD domain, you must take care of it by yourself
  2. change environment variables.
    • %USERDOMAIN% point to the current domain, if logged as domain member. If not, it’s pointing to the computer name. Setting the variable to the domain name needed (eg. SET USERDOMAIN=MYCOMPANY) will do the job. You should not use DNS domain name, eg. MyCompany.COM, it’s set in %USERDNSDOMAIN% and is useless in the case of Revit Server
    • %USERNAME% must be set to your AD’s username, without AD prefix or FQDN suffix. Eg. if your AD domain login is mycompany.com\PerfectUser or PerfectUser@Mycompany.COM, use “SET USERNAME=PerfectUser”.

That’s all. Enjoy.

PS: if you use Local Revit Server, and Central Server is located somewere in the Other Domain, you will probably need to authentificate to the Central Revit Server too. Not sure about this.

Tags: , , , ,

Localised fonts

Apr 20

Posted by ejs in *NIX, Architecture, My job | No Comments

The very first try on “Flux-the-Architect“. Added Ą,Č,Ę,Ė,Į,Š,Ų,Ū,Ž glyphs and some minor symbols (°, ±, ², ³). The font is OpenType in TrueType encoding. OpenType fonts in PS encoding does not work in AutoCAD.

Tools for 3D

Feb 10

Posted by ejs in Architecture, Lectures, Software | No Comments

Fine free tools for 3D modelling and rendering.
AQSIS rendering engine, RenderMan compilant
Ayam CSG modeller, cross-platform
CSG Editor, MSwin only

Wanna make your own CSG application? OpenCSG library

We missed

Nov 21

Posted by ejs in Architecture, My job | No Comments

Architectural award by Salon magazine, Russia.
We are almost lusers 😉

ArkietÄ— – finished (almost)

Oct 17

Posted by ejs in Architecture, My job | No Comments

Almost finshed current project of reconstruction. Read the rest of this entry »