Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 No Experience Required - part 94 docx

When you are in the process of creating a local file, you open the central file, do a Save As, and work in your new file.. You may be saying to yourself, “Self, why wouldn’t I just take

N O T E the reason we are making sure all the worksets are not edit-able is that, in the central model, everything needs to be turned off Look at

the central model as merely a hub that serves as a conduit for passing data

as your team collaborates on the project

It is now time to create your local model Luckily, you have done all the difficult work Setting up the central file is the hardest part of the worksharing process, and is usually done by the BIM manager or at least the BIM lead person on the project The act of creating a local file is as simple as issuing a Save As

creating a Local File

With the central file in place, you are ready for the rest of your team to have at

it Although I keep mentioning how easy most of this stuff is, there are some dangers to look out for The first danger is to never open the central file and stay

in it When you are in the process of creating a local file, you open the central file, do a Save As, and work in your new file

N O T E Some firms also like to have their users physically copy the central file in Windows Explorer and rename it I err on the side of caution, and have my users open the central file and choose Save as You may be saying to yourself, “Self, why wouldn’t I just take the advice of the book’s author?” All I can say is, it only takes one time to have a user open the cen-tral model and start working this generates errors and will cause the other users to be unable to make any edits

This section of the chapter will guide you through the process of creating a local file by opening the central model and saving the local copy as your own:

1 Make sure you are still in the central model.

2 Click the Application button, and choose Save As ➢ Project

3 Find the folder where your central model is, and create a new folder.

4 Call the new folder Local User and open that folder.

5 In the Save As dialog, click the Options button.

6 In the File Save Options dialog, change the number of backups to 1,

and click OK

7 Save the model in this folder, naming it NER-LOCAL-ERIC.rvt

(obviously you enter your name here)

W o r k i n g i n t h e R e v i t S h a r e d E n v i r o n m e n t 9 0 5

Congratulations! You are the proud owner of a new Revit file that knows your

name and everything! Yes, it knows your name

You see, when you create the local file, it is yours to keep As a matter of fact, if

someone else opens your file from their computer, they will not be able to make

any modifications Not only does your local file keep a live link back to the

cen-tral file, it actually knows who it belongs to Revit does this for a good reason

This file now represents you within the team

Working in the Revit shared environment

With the local model saved, you are free to work away As you’ll recall, the central

model was created with three worksets: Shared Levels And Grids, Workset1, and

Site You, as a local user, can just start working away! As you start making edits

to the model, however, Revit is making a note that you are actually borrowing

a workset Revit is also making a note that you physically own the item you are

editing

Borrowing? OK, let’s stop right there, and take a look at what this all means

In Revit worksharing, you can either be a borrower of a workset or an owner of a

workset If you are a borrower, the rest of the design team can make modifications

to elements in the workset but not to the specific element you are working on

The objective of the next exercise is to make a modification to the site and to

investigate what happens in the Worksets dialog:

1 Go to the default 3D view.

2 Delete one of the shrubs (Remember, we put the shrubs on the Site

workset.)

3 On the Collaborate tab, click the Worksets button.

4 In the Worksets dialog, notice that you are now borrowing the Site

workset, as shown in Figure 22.11 Click OK

Since there is no good way to have you go through an exercise, you can take

your hand off the mouse and read for a few paragraphs If you are at work and

have another willing participant, have them create their own local file, and ask

them to start making edits to the model

Notice that the Site workset still says No for Editable This means that if

Cassidy comes along and starts working on the shrubs right next to the one you

just deleted, she still can You don’t own the workset—you are just borrowing it

Now, if you simply changed the shrub to a tree (or made any modifications

what-soever to the shrub), Cassidy cannot make any edits to the new tree When she

tries to edit the tree, she will get the error shown in Figure 22.12

F i g u R e 2 2 1 1 Borrowing a workset

ge t in sy n C

Now that you have created the local model, you can see what others are doing, as well as publish what you are doing for the other users Just click the Synchronize Now button on the Quick Access toolbar, and you and your users are in sync

You may notice in Figure 22.12 that there is a button that allows Cassidy to place a request When she clicks this button, a request to relinquish is sent to you (see Figure 22.13) Also, she can check to see if any team members have placed a request to her

W o r k i n g i n t h e R e v i t S h a r e d E n v i r o n m e n t 9 0 7

F i g u R e 2 2 1 2 Eric is modifying the element.

er i C a.k.a Ca ss i dy

If Eric decides to not relinquish an item to Cassidy, then decides to close

his model and leave to go on vacation (ignoring repeated warnings), then

we have a situation, don’t we? His office door is locked, and we don’t know

his password What you can do in these trying times is click the Options

button at the bottom of the Application menu Select the General tab, and

change the username to the offender’s name You can now open Eric’s local

file and relinquish the worksets (See the following graphic.)

On the other side of the fence, there is no notification to you that anyone is

asking you to cough up some site! You can check, though, by clicking Editing

Requests on the Collaborate tab From there, you will be able to expand a list of

requests, as shown in Figure 22.14

F i g u R e 2 2 1 3 Requesting a relinquish

F i g u R e 2 2 1 4 Checking to see who is begging

Now, once you see that Cassidy is begging you to release an item, you get to

do the right thing and grant her the request You do this by simply clicking the Relinquish All Mine button on the Collaborate tab, as shown in Figure 22.15

F i g u R e 2 2 1 5 The Relinquish All Mine button

W o r k i n g i n t h e R e v i t S h a r e d E n v i r o n m e n t 9 0 9

See? We can all get along! Until you pull the next move Suppose you didn’t

want anybody else on the team to modify anything in the entire Site workset

There are times when this will occur To figure out how to do this, follow along:

1 On the Collaborate tab, click the Worksets button.

2 In the Site workset, select Yes in the Editable field, as shown in

Figure 22.16 Although Cassidy is a borrower, you can still take over

the workset

3 Click OK.

F i g u R e 2 2 1 6 Occupying the entire workset

N O T E If Cassidy was in the middle of an active edit on any items in

the workset, you would not have been able to take over You would then

have to place an editing request to her See? You should have given her the

shrub when she asked for it earlier!

And so the workday goes in an environment of sharing and getting along

Speaking of environment, suppose you could not care less about the site? There

is a good chance you don’t even want to see it Well, you are in luck Because

you have worksets enabled, you can make it so Revit doesn’t even load the site

into your local model

Loading or Not Loading a Workset

I’m making a big deal out of a simple task only because this simple task can speed

up your performance, and nothing can bog down a Revit model more than a huge site, complete with landscaping and maybe an image

Simply switching the Opened status to No in a workset will force Revit to not load it into your model If you make an edit that has an influence on the site, don’t worry Revit will take care of that in the central model

To turn off the site, follow this procedure:

1 Click the Worksets button on the Collaborate tab.

2 In the Site workset, change the Opened status to No, as shown in

Figure 22.17

3 Click OK Notice something missing?

F i g u R e 2 2 1 7 Changing the Opened status to No

Having the ability to turn off large portions of a model can be a tremendous advantage as you move forward in Revit You do need to exercise caution, how-ever You could easily deceive yourself into thinking that some portions of the model have not been created yet

A r e Yo u E x p e r i e n c e d ? 9 1 1

Are You experienced?

Now You can…

activate worksharing in a revit project

E

E

create a central file

E

E

create a local file

E

E

manipulate worksets

E

E

chAPteR 23

BiM Management

Well, here we are: the last chapter The ironic thing here is that the last chap-ter contains much of the information you will need to proceed with any of this BIM stuff All too many times I have seen firms do poorly with Revit Architecture due to one fact: they weren’t prepared “We did not find that Revit worked for us,” someone tells me I ask them what they used for a template to get started with their first project “The default one” is always the answer

Setting up the template





Managing settings





Creating and understanding shared parameters