New to Revit Architecture

[tra1133]

I am the CAD Manager for a firm that is testing the Revit Architecture 2010 to see if it is viable for us. From what I have played around with so far, I love it. I think it flows from start to finish better than Autocad or Architecture. I think this is what AutoCad Architecture should have been.

Having said all of that, how do I set this thing up in a network setting. My boss ordered 4 stand alone licenses (which i wish he would have ordered networked versions so more people could have shared licenses for training purposes) and the setup is so different from AA2009. I have found 3 files that I can see need to be set up on a server; the default template file, the default path for family template files, and the render appearance library location. What else do I need to do?

We have two offices and with the ACA 2009, I had to maintain two locations for settings or else one office would have been slow. If there were any changes made to one, I would have to make a physical copy and update paths. I would like to have it set up so that settings are centrally located but project files are on two separate servers.

Also, any ideas for what should be in a template, families, sheets setup? Aubin's book doesn't come out until August and the book I bought by Eric Wing (RAC 2010 No Experience Required) is very elementary (useful and helpful but not enough advanced issues).

Thanks.

[Scott Womack]

Having said all of that, how do I set this thing up in a network setting. My boss ordered 4 stand alone licenses (which i wish he would have ordered networked versions so more people could have shared licenses for training purposes) and the setup is so different from AA2009. I have found 3 files that I can see need to be set up on a server; the default template file, the default path for family template files, and the render appearance library location. What else do I need to do?

We place the main content library on the server as well. We also have a separate, but parallel set of directories for custom content created by the firm. This needs to be kept separate, or you could risk loosing modifications the next time a release installs content.

Revit is pretty good at doing network deployments, so the stand alone licenses are less of an issue for installation.

We have two offices and with the ACA 2009, I had to maintain two locations for settings or else one office would have been slow. If there were any changes made to one, I would have to make a physical copy and update paths. I would like to have it set up so that settings are centrally located but project files are on two separate servers.

Tricky subject this one. Unlike AutoCAD, with Revit all the work in an architectural file should probably be in just one file when ever possible. This means that if people from both offices are working on this one file across a WAN, this has to be thought out, and investigated thoroughly. You can look into both offices having a Riverbed hardware solution, but both office will need a significant amount of bandwidth as well to make this viable.

Also, any ideas for what should be in a template, families, sheets setup?

Put only what TRULY applies to ALL of your firms projects in this. Smaller, the better.

[jeffh]

...and the render appearance library location.

It is NOT recommended to place the render appearance library on the server. In Revit the materials/renderappearances travel with each individual project. The render appearance library is the mental ray "shader" information. The "shaders" are universal settings that are then altered by settings made at the project level. If the shaders are placed on a network resource it will significantly affect rendering performance.

[tra1133]

Thanks for the quick posts. I figured there would be less work setting up network connections.

I am still playing around with setting up templates, families, and sheets. Are there any web sites with tutorials on how to do this. Like I said, I usually just wait for the Aubin book to come out, but since we are super slow, now is the time for upgrading and training.