Viz 2005 releases today...

[aaronrumple]

...no idea what it means for Revit models.

[GuyR]

Not sure this tells us much:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=4221978


Support for Autodesk® Revit® Files—Revit users can export a 3D DWG file from Revit and then link to the resulting file in Autodesk VIZ.

I take it you have to set up materials separately in Revit and VIZ? And when you export subsequently the definitions will update automatically?

Guy

[aaronrumple]

...the way I read it. Same old process.

ADT is sucking way too many Autodesk development resources.

[Danny Polkinhorn]

ADT is sucking way too many Autodesk development resources.

Actually, according to one of the Factory workers I spoke with at AU last year, there doesn't seem to be "any interest in this feature for Revit users".

Everyone who feels there's a need for integration with Viz should request it. I say 'yes'.

[Chad Smith]

I've just been over to the Autodesk web site and had a read of their new features for VIZ 5.0. I can't believe that we (Revit users) still have to export to a DWG file. I would hardly call that support for Revit users as Autodesk like to put it.

I was really looking forward to being able to do a direct file link like ADT users can. I found this to be a great tool, back in the days when I was an ADT pleb.
I'm certainly not going to waste my time with exporting a file everytime I would like to update my VIZ model. I won't be upgrading to 5.0 unless a service pack comes out for this support.

Very disappointing Autodesk!!!

Not like the VIZ developers visit this site anyway, but the Revit developers should have been pushing the VIZ developers for this feature. I'm sure it would increase the Revit sales and convert ADT users if it did.

I have sent numerous suggestions to the VIZ developers since using Revit, so I must be the only one doing so or they just don't give a damn.
I urge all that want this feature to send a comment to the VIZ developers, expressing your disappointment.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1073231

[PaulB]

Chad,

So you don't feel strongly about this ?

[GuyR]

Chad,

If you look at what happened with the PDF writer, money would have to be on Accurender disappearing. It's just when and in what form VIZ replaces Accurender.

It's certainly frustrating for those of us who want to use external renderers. .3DS export at least would gives us some more options.

My ideal would be a common interface to material definition, path definition etc and a rendering API that rendering companies can use to 'plugin' their rendering solution. That way we get a unifrom front end and choices for the backend.

Guy

[Richard McCarthy]

I certainly agree with GuyR, that Revit definitely needs more robust linking with VIZ. using File Linking is ookay, but every-damn-time when Revit file is changed dramatically, or geometry changed fundementally, the Materials applied are all lost or go all wonky. So, I suggest UV information and material definition needs to be linked seamlessly and dynamically from within Revit to the future version of VIZ.

[Andre Baros]

I would like to see Revit to be able to export .3ds files or even .max files by material instead of by layer for 3d files. The layers work great for 2d drawings but their useless for 3d. If models were exported on new layers based on material it would be easy to assign rendering materials from my existing Viz and Max libraries.

Right now the glass and the window frame both get exported out on the window layer even though Revit knows their different... and sorting out which is which is annoying in Viz and Max.

[Chad Smith]

Below is a snipet from a weblog by Chris Yanchar (ADT Product Designer).
Is it any wonder why ADT is still going strong, when as you can see below the VIZ team put so much time into making ADT a companion product to VIZ.


With VIZ 2005, Architectural Desktop 2005/2004 Styles, Layers, Materials, UV Coordinates, and VIZ Render Radiosity processing are fully supported.

- VIZ continues to have the file link abilities with ADT, being able to natively read in the ADT objects, but even better, VIZ 2005 can now understand the Architectural Desktop style information. This means you can select the components of an ADT object, like a door, and directly apply materials to those architectural components (frame, stop, panel, glass, muntins). Material assignments are then propagated to all objects of the same style. ADT 'material overrides' are also supported; meaning any component that has an override will not propagate its material assignments.
- Section body and section cut faces are also uniquely named/selectable in VIZ 2005 so that they can receive their own material. ‘Live Sections’ are also now supported when linked to VIZ 2005, including those that cut through multiple xrefs.
- VIZ 2005 also natively supports the ‘Architectural Material’ that was created for ADT 2004/VIZ 2004.
http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_walls/2004/04/viz_2005_is_her.html

For brief moments I sometimes wonder what the future of Revit looks like when Autodesk makes decisions like this. :evil:

[Steve_Stafford]

All I can say is...patience...I have to believe the folks at the factory are hard at work on this issue and there will be something for "us" in the future.

[hand471037]

Two things to remember about this, Chad:

1. Autodesk was thinking of killing off Viz althogther and forcing everyone to move to Max until there was such an outcry from the Viz users that they gave them a Version 5.

2. Every new feature in Viz 5 is simply taken from Max 6. Viz is starting to look like a bit of a dead-end product, for the serous Viz users I know have all moved to Max or are thinking heavly about it.

Also be careful for what you wish, at least Accurender kinda works. The new Viz Render in 2005 isn't all it's cracked up to be, and another person here who uses ADT & Viz & Viz Render ran into MAJOR bugs with the 2005 ADT & Viz Render...

[Richard McCarthy]

I would like to see Revit to be able to export .3ds files or even .max files by material instead of by layer for 3d files. The layers work great for 2d drawings but their useless for 3d. If models were exported on new layers based on material it would be easy to assign rendering materials from my existing Viz and Max libraries.

Right now the glass and the window frame both get exported out on the window layer even though Revit knows their different... and sorting out which is which is annoying in Viz and Max.

andrebaros, Did you "tweak" your Revit export filter? because if you follow the autodesk Revit to VIZ4 white paper, you can get glass and window frame (mullions) exported individually to different layers and can easily assign different material to it. Once exported, you can import into VIZ4/MAX and just use pick by color/material/name dialog box to pick out the whole group.



The attached is my tweak of it, I know it is not perfect, but very rough but it gets the job done many times over :)

[Andre Baros]

Thanks,
I tried that once long ago but couldn't find all the options I needed so I gave up... I'll have to take another look because if that works, it's really all I need.

[SkiSouth]

For those who haven't rendered in Max note this - there is NO comparison to the ease of creating a camera view and having a rendering in Accurender and Max. I've been rendering in Max since 2.5. I couldn't believe how quickly I could render a proposal in Revit vs. the hoops to get one out of Max. Mind you, there is no comparison to the controls, lighting effects (and complexity) that Max can generate. I would rather that Adesk just buy McNeel's brains and complete product line (like another Microsoft - but that's another topic) and allow the Revit users to continue with Accurender and its links along with Flamingo etc. If they did not want to "share the wealth" and expand the license with McNeel - although the more fair approach..

Now, if Adesk is serious about Viz, the UV mapping, scaling, lighting issues and how to link would be a programming nightmare, but that's why those guys get all the bucks right? :lol: -

[Martin P]

I would say that if Revit has any future, we all assume it does :shock: Then rendering is going to have to be looked at sooner or later. But I dont imagine it is a small task. I wouldnt mind if we just got the full accurender package and some decent export options, but if we were to go with VIZ I would rather all the bugs were ironed out by ADT users, then we can have it when its nice and smooth!!

Short term it would be nice if there was an export layers option that took into account the materials, this I imagine would be a fairly simple step for the developers to take. It would also be very nice if we could get some indication of what they do have planned - if anything.

[aaronrumple]

"...I would say that if Revit has any future, we all assume it does"

I wouldn't put anything past Adsk. I know several developers there. The company has killed some very good products before they even had a chance to get to market. The GIS division doesn't have a clue. Doesn't undestand web services. They spend big bucks on Buzzsaw, Redspark, Streamline, DWF, Volo View. And yet most of their products can't even talk to each other. DWG is in total disarray. AutoCAD is frought with thousands of 'deferred' bugs and stuck in the dark ages of software because companies have invested too heavily in things like LISP.

ADT is "selling" well. We all know that everyone is really using Acad - but they get a good deal on the ADT flavor. This makes the ADT groups numbers look good and they get development money.

Discreet has very cool tecknology, but loses money for the corporation. Hence, Viz is now an orphan and in the hands of the ADT group. Some of the discreet guys re-wrote the whole code from scratch on their own time - I heard - using .Net and it is 5x faster. But that may never make it to market. They render on networked Sony Playstations!

Revit has a small user base. We all know it is better, but Carol doesn't care about that. Just sales numbers.

The ADT developers hate Revit. They say "the code isn't clean, they have a bad object model." However, ADT is buggy sh*t. Revit just plain works.

Of course with several rounds of firing - the developers must be worried. They just closed the St. Louis office last week. They were some good programers that really did a great job and more than earned their keep. But closing made the numbers looked good.

Carol told the entire staff they should be worried for their jobs and threatened them that she could get 13 programers in India for every one of them. ADSK is a classic "bad" American company. They suck, but the stock price looks good.

I for one, wish Revit had gone it alone....

[hand471037]

Hey, another tip when it comes to exporting out of Revit that they don't talk about in the White Paper: If you need to get simular objects onto sepirate layers (like two layers, one for Concerete Walls and one for Gyp Walls) simply make a workset for each, and export them sepirately as two different DWGs and link them both into Viz. Wala! Sepirate walls. Otherwise the walls all wind up on the same layer, making for more work when brought into Viz in terms of mapping materials.

[SkiSouth]

cool trick Thanks for the heads up. Yeah, been down that road of "Now how the heck to separate without picking every little vertex?"

[shaunv68276]

Aaron
I for one, wish Revit had gone it alone....

I am extremely Passionate about the use of Revit and the solutions it brings to the table. My wish is to see that it develops in leaps and bounds, far exceeding expectations and killing all sorts of concerns. Its all up to.......... :twisted:
As for the rendering thing. I have been a long time supporter of both Accurender and Max (Viz is for Kids). I too would like to choose in which I would like to render in and it should be available for me to do so with ease! All this linking and exporting
I refer back to a forum about BIM in which FRAME (an Adsk Revit Developer) wrote
References to bygone tools have no place in the realm of next generation design tools. The world has moved on, the information age, the post-industrial society, is here and now, and continues to expand. The machine age, having run its course, is coming to and end.....These tools are the tools that can, and will ‘do it all’, tools that enable total collaboration across disciplines.

[GuyR]

Aaron,


I wouldn't put anything past Adsk. I know several developers there. The company has killed some very good products before

Yeah, but had they paid 133 million for them? That's a big write off.


ADT is "selling" well. We all know that everyone is really using Acad

ADT is good for resellers. They have an API, it's a pig to use so people need lots of training, etc. The big problem IMO is the reseller model of selling/supporting is wrong for Revit. You need companies/personal who understand architecture/ 3D design, the effect Revit has on your 'process' and who are proactively researching the role of BIM for their local markets. These people need higher level access to development than they get currently through the reseller system and they should be making more margin because of it.

When Autodesk showed Revit to all their resellers those that said 'this is the future' should have got exclusive reseller rights. How Solidworks/ ArchiCAD is sold is a much better way for software like Revit. Inventor 'sold' more seats last year than Solidworks but Solidworks made considerably more profit on those slightly lower sales. What doesn that tell you?


Some of the discreet guys re-wrote the whole code from scratch on their own time - I heard - using .Net and it is 5x faster. They render on networked Sony Playstations!

Doesn't really make sense does it? .Net is primarily about web services and it only runs on windows unless you use Mono etc. The C# language isn't as fast as compiled code. If it's 5 times faster it's not because it runs on .Net (assuming my understanding of .Net is correct). I really hope Revit doesn't go down the .Net route.


Revit has a small user base. We all know it is better, but Carol doesn't care about that. Just sales numbers.

I reckon Autodesk aren't going to get really serious about pushing Revit until there is MEP and some sort of API. Until the large firms using ADT for these tasks have a migration path they're not going to move. Remember Autodesk purchased Revit for the push into large firms.


The ADT developers hate Revit. They say "the code isn't clean, they have a bad object model." However, ADT is buggy sh*t. Revit just plain works.

How would you feel if your boss went out and purchased another architects design because your work wasn't good enough? You'd have to imagine there's a fair bit of internal friction between the Autodesk/Revit development teams at the moment.

Looking at ADT, Arch. Studio, DWF you'd have to wonder if Autodesk have a cultural problem developing user friendly programs inhouse.Excluding Revit, perhaps they're destined to always be a purchaser of innovation rather than a developer of innovation? Watch out Sketchup....


ADSK is a classic "bad" American company. They suck, but the stock price looks good.


I for one, wish Revit had gone it alone....

You can't change the past, and the architectural professions lack of interest in Revit when it was Revit speaks volumes. Look how many people are only using Revit now because it's sold by Autodesk.
I'd still like to know why Dassault didn't want to support them more, particularly given their deal with Gehry Technologies and the obvious synergies with Solidworks/CATIA.
Mind you, with Revit's approach to marketing at the time some of us wondered if it wasn't always Revit's plan to be purchased by Autodesk....

Guy

[hand471037]

ATD is good for resellers

I wouldn't be so quick on that one. I just started working for a reseller here in San Francisco that is really excited about Revit, because it means that we can do three things: Sell people a product that really meets thier needs (meaning it's easyer to sell), Sell to a lot more people than just the CAD manager types (meaning much more oppertunity for us), and Sell something that's easyer for us to support and train people on (meaning more success stories and happy customers to use as references).

So I think that, maybe in the short term some Reseller's myopic focus on ADT might be good for them, but disasterous down the road. For every time I do a Revit demo now, where thier ADT obssesed CAD Manager might be stonewalling thier Principal is listening and looking at the bottom line and watching me in the demo produce more complex work in minutes then they can do in a day with ADT... well...