Need to work remotely with Revit

[jordannw]

Hello All!

I am currently working on my firm's pilot project in Autodesk Revit, which is a 60,000 sq. ft. design/build. This coming Friday I must move about 90 miles away from my office and MUST continue to work on this project as I am the main drafter and just about the only proficient Revit user in the office as of now. How can I go about setting up the workflow and remotely working this far away? Would it be possible to save back to central remotely? I have considered using a VPN, but am not sure if this is best. Any information about working remotely in Revit would be great! Thanks!!!

There will also be one other peson working on the project in our home office.
We are using Revit Architecture 2008 and have a 512MB bandwidth. Money is not an issue regarding this situation.

-Nick

[ford347]

I've done a lot of research in this area since I have two people doing the same thing. Unless you spend the money in some big hardware such as steelhead products, I wouldn't recommend doing this over the internet, and so does autodesk according to some support requests I have filed.

My solution off the suggestion of a user in these forums was to use remote desktop to control a PC at the main office location so everything still stays local except you. this actually works very well.

I actuall went from using Remote desktop to using Logmein. The colors are not 100%, which I think can be controlled with a setting, but unless you are specifically doing rendering or things of that nature, this is actually faster for us and it has some good settings for controlling the view of the monitor of which you are remotly using.

Read the posts in the Revit Architecture Hardware sections of these forums and you'll find plenty of posts regarding this issue.

Hope that helped.

Josh

[jordannw]

That helps a lot! Thanks for your reply!

[sbrown]

Yes, the only way I know of(the way I do it) is to use Gotomypc.com or remote desktop. I set my colors to 256 and its almost seamless if you have a good internet connection. I can even work from dialup.

[jordannw]

awesome. thanks scott

[cphubb]

We also use Remote desktop over a VPN router with secure client (Sonicwall)
Money wise you need a Revit capable workstation free at the main office and the router. Bandwidth does not seem to be a big issue as I have worked over my cell connection, but it does appear to improve respoise time a little. You do not need a license of Revit on the remote computer as you will be working remotely. The biggest problem we have had with this system is people turning off the workstation. Post its work well to solve the problem.

[Fred Blome]

We've done both:


Saving to Central over the internet is loooong, but if you are the only user, it maybe okay as long as you time it correctly, like when you quit at the end of the day. You should grab all of the worksets first thing in the morning so that you are not getting privileges on the fly over the internet as you are working
If you are the only user, it might be simpler not to enable worksets, and just sync your file over the internet.
An easy way to VPN is using Hamachi (owned by Logmein now). If you use MS Remote Desktop, you just put in the Hamachi address instead of the your IP address and you're connected, right thru any firewall.Revit works pretty good that way.

[clog boy]

This is a very interesting thread.
Do you guys use Revit on the original workstation and work through a screengrab refresh? Or do you have Revit installed on the remote machine and just use remote control as a proxy to the network? I'd figure the first approach is slowest, but doesn't require you to download the entire project.

[jordannw]

I am not very network/IT savvy but we are going to use a remote desktop connection through windows XP (SP2) Professional. When working remotely, we do not need to have Revit on the mobile workstation (only on the host).

btw, thanks for everyone that helped, we have decided to use remote desktop as our solution to working remotely. I do have one more question though. When using remote desktop, will the hardware of the mobile workstation be used or the hardware of the host computer back in the office be used?

[Fred Blome]

.....When using remote desktop, will the hardware of the mobile workstation be used or the hardware of the host computer back in the office be used?You are mostly dependent on the host, but potential Remote Desktop lag may override any hardware issues. I think it is ideal if the screens are the same resolution or same aspect ratio, but not necessary.

You really should test under actual conditions before making a final commitment.

[ijnicholas]

The hardware of the host will be used. However, there are settings in the remote desktop where you can bring the audio from the host to the mobile system!
The remote desktop just refreshes the images from the host over the network.

[jordannw]

oh ok, i see. Thanks, Fred.

Nick

[jordannw]

so there is no advantage to having awesome hardware on my notebook if using remote desktop because it uses the host??

that sucks!!!!

[jordannw]

thanks for all the input everyone!!

-Nick