AutoCAD Drawing Housekeeping

As an Application Specialist at Ideate, one of my primary roles is to provide technical support to our customers. I'm still surprised to discover that many support cases are related to drawing file housekeeping. Periodically running the following commands could save an AutoCAD user hours of time and frustration:

AUDIT

RECOVER
RECOVERALL
-PURGE (All, Regapps, Orphaned Data). 

AUDIT
Use this command when the drawing is open. It attempts to find and fix drawing errors.  I recommend running AUDIT at least once a day.

RECOVER
Use this command when the drawing is closed. It tends to do a more thorough job of fixing errors than the AUDIT command. I recommend running RECOVER on a drawing weekly.

RECOVERALL
This command will not only run RECOVER on your host drawing but all of its drawing Xrefs as well. Upon completion, a report is generated that can be copied to the Windows Clipboard and pasted into Notepad or MS Word for review. I recommend running RECOVERALL weekly on a drawing with Xrefs.

-PURGE
This is the command line version of PURGE. It gives you additional 'object' types to purge out of your drawing not available in the classic version; such as unreferenced REGAPPS. I recommend running -PURGE>All and -PURGE>Regapps bi-weekly on your host drawing and its Xrefs.
 

The important point about purging Regapps is that an excessive amount of unreferenced Regapps can cause drawing performance issues. Your host drawing can even get them from Xrefs. Recently I ran the command on a customers' drawings that couldn't be referenced; many had over 80K!  Afterwards, they stayed attached and opened much faster.

Another object type that should be purged is Orphaned data, -PURGE>O.  Unmapped DGN linotypes can unexpectedly bloat the size of the drawing causing serious performance issues. This option is available out-of-the-box beginning with AutoCAD 2015. A DGN hotfix is available for AutoCAD 2012, and for AutoCAD 2013-2014 products. 

If it gets to the point where you are constantly having issues with your drawings to include crashing, the Autodesk Knowledge Network article on How to repair corrupt AutoCAD files is a great resource. It includes all the drawing housekeeping commands discussed above as well as workarounds for saving most of your data.

Lastly, please submit the Autodesk Customer Error Report with your email address each time an Autodesk product closes unexpectedly/crashes and the dialog appears. You may not think sending them in will help you. However, they are used by the development team to identify defects for Hotfixes and Service Packs. A potential immediate benefit is that we can create an Autodesk Support case asking to locate the CERs, review them, and provide feedback on what may be causing the crashing.

So, as you are feverishly working on your design projects, remember to periodically run the above drawing maintenance/housekeeping commands.  They only take seconds to run, but can save you hours of lost time and frustration. Now if only Autodesk had some commands to keep my cubicle in order and clean.

  

Thank you for reading. For more information on AutoCAD and other Autodesk products, and information on training and consulting for the various products Ideate services, visit our website at www.ideateinc.com.

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Daniel Armstrong

ENI Application Specialist

Daniel is an Application Specialist for Infrastructure Solutions at the Ideate Sacramento office. He is a California licensed Civil Engineer and LSIT with over 9 years land development design experience and 6 years Civil–GIS software consulting. Additionally, he provided 6 years of engineering support at a municipal public works department. At Ideate, Daniel assists Civil Engineering and Surveying firms in maximizing their utilization of AutoCAD Civil 3D through consulting, training, mentoring, and technical support. He conducts standard classroom and custom training on AutoCAD, Map 3D, and Civil 3D.
 

The Importance of Auditing Revit Models

We have recently had several cases come through tech support in which folks were receiving error messages when attempting to edit their families in Revit 2015 R2. The message states "Family <family name here> is corrupt and cannot be edited. Please reload the family to repair the project." Receiving messages such as this one can be a little disconcerting, especially when you are in the middle of a large project. The fear is that the Revit model is corrupt or heading for corruption. In most cases, you may have to look for an archived version of the model or a local file to create a new Central model from, since most corrupt models are difficult to manually repair.

As we discovered, the recent rash of corrupt families within a Revit model has to do when a Revit model was upgraded to Revit 2015 R2. This corruption was more than likely due to the end user not selecting the “Audit” checkbox when opening (or upgrading) their Revit projects for the first time in Revit 2015 R2. Had the “Audit” option been selected, the family corruption issue may not have occurred.

The audit feature in Revit will scan, detect and sometimes fix corrupt elements within a Revit model. So when should you select the “Audit” option?

1. Whenever upgrading a Revit project from one version to another. For example, if you want to upgrade your Revit project from Revit 2015 to Revit 2016, select the “Audit” checkbox prior to opening it for the first time in the newest version.

2. Select the “Audit” checkbox when upgrading ALL models to Revit 2015 R2 for the first time.

3. If your Revit model is starting to take its time opening or you notice general performance issues, then auditing it may improve the time it takes to open your project.

4. If you receive messages such as "Data in file <revit project name.rvt. is corrupt and needs to be manually recovered" or "Family <family name here> is corrupt and cannot be edited. Please reload the family to repair the project."

5. If you are doing any sort of Central File maintenance, including creating new Central Files.

Remember, it is always a good idea to make an archive copy of your model prior to Auditing and Upgrading to the next release of Revit. The reason being is in case the upgrade process introduces errors or corruption issues that cannot be repaired, or if you find a compelling reason to go back and work in the previous version of Revit.

For information on training and consulting for the various products Ideate services, visit our website at www.ideateinc.com

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Sash Kazeminejad, ACI, LEED AP
AEC Senior Application Specialist
Sash brings proficiency in Autodesk solutions including AutoCAD and Revit Architecture to Ideate customers. His industry experience includes project management, BIM Management, and design for Architectural firms in California, Montana and Oregon. He is LEED accredited professional and is on track to achieve California licensure with Oregon to follow. In his academic life, Sash was awarded a variety of college scholarships, earned a BA in Environmental Design, a MA in Architecture from Montana State University (MSU) and taught Building Information Modeling courses at MSU Gallatin College. As a Revit Architecture Autodesk Certified Instructor, Sash provides Revit Architecture training and support for AEC firms. @sashpdx

Get it. Know it. Use it.

Spring Cleaning for Revit 2015

Now that Revit 2015 has been published, many of our customers are starting to do their early prep work in advance of their official migration to Autodesk Revit 2015. In light of this work, here are a few simple spring cleaning tips for your consideration.

Before You Migrate to Revit 2015...

Family Audits

1. Open your office standard family (.RFA) files created in the past one year.
2. Launch Ideate Explorer for Revit.
3. Review all contents and delete anything that surprises you.*
4. Purge and then repeat to ensure nested content has been removed.

Template Audits

5. Open your office standard template (.RTE) files.
6. Launch Ideate Explorer for Revit.
7. Review all contents and delete anything that surprises you.*
8. Purge and then repeat to ensure nested content has been removed.

If you don’t have time to review all your new content (hah!) then at least be sure to audit your templates and your Titleblock and Annotation families, as they often have non-standard lines and sometimes an import or unexpected raster image may sneak in.

*Use Ideate Explorer’s built-in audit filter to find the most common culprits.

A toilet and title block family as seen by Ideate Explorer within the Revit Family Editor

Upgrading a Revit Project to Version 2015

Important information from Autodesk about the upgrade process, new to 2015.

Autodesk’s best practices when upgrading your project.

About the Author

Glynnis Patterson, NCARB – Director of Software Development Glynnis is a Registered Architect and has worked with the BIM industry since 1998. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, she has worked as an architect, educator and construction site manager. Glynnis is currently the Director of Software Development Services at Ideate, Inc. and continues to work with AEC clients across the nation, developing, and implementing best practices solutions. In her spare time Glynnis does volunteer work and builds Lego projects. @GVPinNJ