Kicked-Off

We are officially underway. Over the course of the last two days, I've had a conference call with 'The Specialist' in Texas, a few conversations with our Project Manager & the Sales Rep (from their local office), some e-mails, an FTP posting, and a few more emails.

The results? My doubts are hereby (almost) completely withdrawn.
What I thought was going to be tough to fit into the 2 weeks before our training starts will be taken care of without a problem.
What I thought was going to be 2 days worth of work in our office actually only took me a few hours.
Sometimes I think too much. Ya' think maybe?

Why? Because the Specialist will be creating the content we need (on his computer down in the heart of Texas) prior to the commencement of training. I uploaded a package of all that he needed, which included things like logos, linetype settings, layering info, text/dimension samples, and a number of other things. Standard stuff, really. But then, what else do you make templates out of anyway?

So, all I'm going to do now is try to get a little background "intro-training" for my people so they don't go into the classroom totally cold. If we go in there ahead of the game, we can skip the really basic stuff and get to the meat much quicker. Two years ago when I first went through training on my own, the first couple of hours was dedicated to learning the interface and finding your way around the program. Those are valuable training hours that we can better use doing anything other than "... and this is the Project Browser." That could really pay off in the long run.

We also need to decide what our training/pilot project will be. That is one other aspect that I really like is the fact that we will be using a Revit Architecture file from one of our best clients to do the training. Real-life training instead of everything being sanitized and only from the training manual.

This is going to be good. I'm feeling much better than I did before about the setup stage. It's far from over and there are many obstacles to overcome, but the guys at Avatech are making it a little more "warm & fuzzy" at this point.

It is T-minus 13 days and counting. Time to rally the troops. More to come as I/we get closer to Zero Hour.

RST Implementation Kick-Off

We have finally set a date for the initial "kick-off" meeting that starts the "pre-classroom" phase of the implementation: May 28th.

I am very much looking forward to getting this rolling, but I have to say that I am concerned about the small window of opportunity to get everything done before we hit the classroom. May 28th gives us eight (8) business days in which to pack a whole lot of prep before June 10th (when we go "back to school").

My concern is that Avatech will not be able to schedule their people to handle their end of the bargain during those eight days, and they will look to slide the training schedule. We wouldn't even sign their proposal in the first place until they committed to specific training dates. Why? Because we need to plan our whole schedule around those dates since the whole drafting department, our most experienced project engineer, and one of the partners will be out of the office during the three-day training session. Over half of our production staff will be unreachable during that time, and that is a hard item to try and coordinate - internally and outside of our office. I mean, we still have projects to work on during that time!

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that Avatech has dropped the ball or anything bad about them at all before 'it' hits the fan. On the contrary, I hope I'm dead wrong. Please make me look the fool! Implementation is their business and (hopefully) they know how to do it well. They do have considerable resources to pull from. I think it's just a small time frame to fit a lot of 'Revit-Prep' into. As we go through it, I'll be outlining exactly what it entails, but take me at my word that on paper it looks like "Whoa, Dude!"

It's time to put your Revit where your mouth is guys. Let's hope they can step up to the plate like David Ortiz instead of the playoff version of A-Rod.
Did the Red Sox fan in me just show up out of nowhere?

Revit Structure API & VSTA Overview

Revit Structure provides an Application Programming Interface (API) that allows you to extend the functionality of the product. Starting with Revit Structure 2009, you can use the API to define macros that can be saved with the application or project. For example, you might define a macro to add a grid to your project, to rotate a selected object, or to collect information about the square footage of all the rooms in your structure. Other general examples include:

• Locating and extracting Revit content to external files
• Changing geometry or parameters
• Creating elements
• Importing/exporting external file formats

Macro support is provided by the Revit VSTA plug-in, which you can install in conjunction with your existing Revit installation.

First, let's answer the question: “what are macros, and why would you use them”? Macros are programs that are designed to help you save time, by automating repetitive tasks. Each macro performs a series of pre-defined steps to accomplish a particular task. The steps should be repeatable and the actions predictable.

Revit provides an Application Programming Interface (API) that allows you to extend the functionality of the product. Experienced developers and Autodesk partners may already know that the Revit API lets them add customized commands to the Tools > External Commands menu, or add new menus and toolbars.

In addition to those API extensions, starting in the Revit 2009 release you can use the API to define macros that run in Revit. Unlike external commands and external applications, the macro functionality is available to Revit after you install an “add-in” called Revit VSTA. We will explain the API differences later in this topic, but for experienced developers, note that you do not need to register the macros in Revit.ini, or add RevitAPI.dll as a reference.

VSTA is an acronym for Visual Studio Tools for Applications. It is a Microsoft technology that provides the .NET framework for creating macros in C# and VB.NET based on specific applications. VSTA is the next evolution of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) that appears in several existing Autodesk applications.

Expect API Changes

It is very likely that the Revit API will change in subsequent product releases. This means that after installing the next Revit release, you will need to edit and rebuild your macros to reflect the API changes.

Revit VSTA Components

To create macros, you must install Revit VSTA on top of your existing Revit installation. The Revit product and Revit VSTA versions must be the same.

You can use the Revit VSTA macro features in all Revit products: Revit Architecture, Revit Structure, and Revit MEP. However, a separate Revit VSTA install, described in this topic, is required for each Revit product in which you want to run macros. In this topic, we refer to any of these products generically as “Revit” without a further qualifier.

Once installed, Revit VSTA provides:

• New items on the toolbar’s Tools menu:
• Tools > Macros > Macros
• Tools > Macros > Launch VSTA IDE
• Macro Manager, a user interface launched by the Tools > Macros > Macros menu option. Macro Manager presents a list of macros you built previously that you can run, edit, or debug (StepInto). Macro Manager also provides options to create new macros using different types of templates.
• An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) built into the product, the Revit VSTA IDE. You can launch it several ways:
• Tools > Macros > Launch VSTA IDE
• From the Macro Manager, by selecting the New, Edit, or StepInto buttons
• Full access to the Revit API.

Workflow Overview: Initial Steps with Macros

The following diagram illustrates the initial steps with Revit VSTA and macro development:

{Revit Structure 2009 User's Guide}

Some New Project Settings

There have been some improvements in the area of project settings. Nothing to call the Vatican about, but still nice improvements.

Suppressing Trailing Zeros and Spaces

You can format project units to suppress trailing zeros (for example, 123.400 displays as 123.4) and suppress spaces (for example, 1’ - 2” displays as 1’-2”).

• Click Settings menu>Project Units, or type the keyboard shortcut UN.
• In the Project Units dialog, select the discipline.
• Click the value in the Format column to change the display value for that unit type. The Format dialog displays.
• Specify Units, if necessary.
• For Rounding, select an appropriate value.If you select Custom, enter a value in the Rounding increment text box.
• For Unit symbol, select an appropriate option from the list.
• Optionally select:

Suppress trailing 0’s :: When selected, trailing zeros do not display (for example, 123.400 displays as 123.4).
Suppress 0 feet :: When selected, does not display the 0 foot value (for example, 0’ - 4” displays as 4”).This option is available for Length and Slope units.
Show + for positive values :: Do I really need to explain this one?
Use digit grouping :: When selected, the Decimal symbol/digit grouping option specified in the Project Units dialog is applied to the unit value.
Suppress spaces :: When selected, suppresses spaces around feet and fractional inches (for example, 1’ - 2” displays as 1’-2”). This option is available for Length and Slope units.

• Click OK.

Decimal Display and Digit Grouping

The decimal display option for project units has changed. When you select the decimal display type, you can also select how to group the digits in the unit value.

1. Click Settings menu>Project Units, or type the keyboard shortcut UN.
2. In the Project Units dialog, select a value from the Decimal symbol/digit grouping list.
3. In the Format column, click the button for the unit you want to use this setting.
4. In the Format dialog, select Use digit grouping.
5. Click OK 2 times.

{Revit Structure 2009 User's Guide}