Dear Mr. OpEd - A Letter from Autodesk

I received an email from Autodesk yesterday. They are policing the use of their trademarks in domain names. I am not alone in this. I have heard from many others that have already been through this.

This blog uses a primary domain www.revitoped.com as a redirect to this blog's address at Google's Blogger (revitoped.blogspot.com). The essence of the letter is a demand to surrender the domain (and domains for Revit Inside and Revit JOBS) to Autodesk. I registered the domains to shorten the URL required to get to the blogs. It's easier for business cards and little easier to remember.

Obviously I'll deal with this outside of this blog. Pending that outcome I may end up making some changes around here. Maybe I'll call it tiveR OpEd instead?

In the meantime, I thought I'd share the letter I think I should have received as they are actively enforcing their trademarks. This is NOT the letter I received.


Dear Mr. Stafford

We are writing to you because you are the registrant for three web domain addresses and blogs that use the registered trademark "Revit" in them: Revit OpEd, Revit Inside and Revit JOBS.

As you know we are a company that offers many products in the marketplace. Many companies register trademarks. Revit is one, of the many, trademarks Autodesk has registered. In order to maintain and demonstrate active ownership and control of a trademark Autodesk is required to continuously police the use of its trademarks or risk losing them. Any person or company that uses a registered trademark needs to do so within boundaries and guidelines set forth by law and by the registered company's policies.

We have visited each of your sites and reviewed the content therein to determine how each bears on the trademark and Autodesk's own goals and objectives for Revit. We observed that each is focused on the needs of Revit users and is not merely a site focused on generating income by misdirecting or attracting click-thru traffic based on a domain name likely to appear in common search criteria by Autodesk Revit users.

We also asked our own product and marketing staff about your sites to get a sense of their impact on and/or relevance to our customers. Their feedback reinforced our own observations and we are grateful for the support your sites have given to our products and customers.

We have attached a Fair Use Agreement for you to review. To summarize the agreement, it stipulates that as long as you continue to operate your blogs in the manner you have already demonstrated for many years you can continue to do so, and continue using these web domains with Autodesk's permission.

We are looking forward to hearing from you so we can continue to support each other and Autodesk's customers.

Autodesk Legal


To close this post, in my view, there is nothing that prevents Autodesk from granting me permission to use their trademark in my domain name, other than a willingness to do so. I understand their situation. Where they lose my understanding is how they approached the situation with me personally. If they did a modest amount of research (externally and internally) they'd realize they are "poking a friend in the eye" over nothing. This really isn't a "slippery slope argument", that granting permission for me means they have to do so for everyone, though they ought to. I don't think their customers care if I use their trademark in my blog domain. I seriously doubt there is even the slightest consumer confusion. The reality is my blogs are such a small piece of the Internet that it is bit amusing that this is even an issue. That it is an issue is definitely a waste of resources.

I'll follow up with another post to indicate if I'll be making some changes or continuing on as before as soon as I know, either way.

Copy Then Paste a Level

Ever have someone want to use Copy to Clipboard and then Paste Aligned to create a new level? I haven't but it is technically possible to create a new level by doing it.

Example 1:
Open an Elevation view
Select Level 2
Use Copy to Clipboard
Open the floor plane for Level 2
Use Paste Aligned > Aligned to Same Place
Result - A new level but on top of Level 2.

Example 2:
Open an Elevation view
Select Level 2
Use Copy to Clipboard
Open the floor plane for Level 2
Use Paste Aligned > > Aligned to Current View
Result - A new level but using the same elevation offset (distance) as Level 2

Example 3:
Start with a new template
Create a new level with the Level tool
Adjust all three levels so they are each 12'-0" apart
Open an Elevation view
Select Level 3
Use Copy to Clipboard
Open the floor plane for Level 3
Use Paste Aligned > > Aligned to Current View
Result - A new level but using the same elevation offset (distance) as Level 3

You can also place a new one with Paste Aligned > Aligned to Selected Levels, choose the appropriate level in the dialog that appears.

It isn't the first thing I'd think of to create a new level, but it IS possible.

Revit MEP - Free Size Parameter

If you use the Free Size parameter instead of Size you might notice a subtle anomaly.

In elevation views where we only see one dimension of a duct Free Size does not switch between WxH and HxW, the Size parameter does switch. In other views they both display width x height. In section or elevations that show the profile of a duct both dimensions are measurable and each parameter is consistent, they default to Width x Height.

It does seem like an oversight on their part, they ought to be consistent whether we use Size or Free Size.

Revit MEP 2014 - Reapply Type

This button snuck past me in my reading about what's new. I don't see anything at all about it in the What's New documentation at the WikiHelp pages at Autodesk either.

Originally I was preparing for my What's New session at RTC (happening right now!) and while I was working through various tasks I noticed the button and thought, "Hey I don't remember that in 2013!"

Well my memory isn't that good anymore apparently because it IS in 2013 too.

I don't see it in the What's New for 2013 though and I didn't find it in 2012. Perhaps I am sort of correct (a little?) that it is new, or at least undocumented? I guess this fits into "What's old is new again"? I left a mention of it in my What's New class handout even though it isn't new to 2014.

If you haven't noticed it then let me explain.

Imagine you've placed a lot of duct and then change the related duct system settings about which fittings should be used. Nothing will happen to the existing duct. The Reapply Type button will take whatever duct you select and REAPPLY your recent changes (to the type) to your selection. Once a duct is placed it more or less remains inert unless another duct it trimmed or extended into it, touches it. When the duct is harrassed by another Revit will start to refer to the settings to determine what fittings to use.

Here's to "new" old features!

Five Minutes Working with Rotated Views

A common question from people with experience using AutoCAD is, "Does Revit have a UCS too?". There isn't a literal equal tool in Revit, no UCS button. In Revit we manipulate views to make it easier to work with different orientations. This means making some extra views. We can move back and forth between any number of views, as often as necessary. If we don't need them anymore, we can just delete them (thus the notion of a "working view").

There are several ways to manage working with different view orientation:

1. Turn on and rotate the Workplane, turn on Workplane visibility, Revit will snap architectural elements to the workplane (not effective for MEP elements)
2. Rotate the crop region of a view (rotation is in the opposite direction to the orientation you need)
3. Scope Boxes - associate views to a scope box that is rotated by the angle required. The scope box controls the crop region (see 1)
4. A Callout View can be placed and rotated to generate a view that is oriented to a desired direction

How about a video?

There is another way to rotate a view but it is related to the orientation of the view to the sheet it is place on. Imagine a portrait orientation of a view on a landscape oriented sheet. I've seen this used for overall elevations of tall buildings. It is a property of a View or it's Viewport called: Rotation on Sheet.

Post was inspired by my response to a thread at AUGI.

Revision Numbering

A month or so ago I received an email from a friend asking about dealing with revision numbering in Revit. Apparently the project team is expecting some specific habits to be followed that Revit doesn't support adequately. My response to him was much calmer than the curse words I muttered to myself. I wrote this post then and let it simmer till now. I'm all for Revit being better. It's just that I think sometimes we get a bit carried away with "our" methods or systems.

In California (where I live), and most any other for that matter, they manage to uniquely identify millions of cars with 8 characters (yes I admit, a combination of letters and numbers). In Revit we can choose between Numeric or Alphabetical (or no numbering), not a combination of them. Let's say for example we could live with Numeric. That means every revision will get a unique number starting with 1 or a letter like A.

But Steve we want the revisions to be like this: 01, 02, 03 (those first nine numbers should start with 0), or we want 1A, 1B, and then to start again with 2A, 2B, or we want architecture revisions to be A1 and structural revisions to be S1 and so on and so on.

It takes effort to resist the urge to be unpleasant...

1,2,3,4,5,6... aren't those bloody unique enough! Just say'n...

Let's not kid ourselves, it really does cost money to "do" things, especially things that a given (Revit) software doesn't support. Does providing the fussier nicer numbering scheme make the project recover money lost to a revision? Does it prevent the expense in the first place? Does it save "man hours"? How many man hours does it actually cost to do what "they want"?

I'd rather use the feature as intended, live with the limited sequence of numbers or letters, than put more energy into creating additional bureaucracy for a team to deal with (and yes cost "us and them" money). Working within the Revit system, however flawed we view it to be, will at least ensure that our documents are consistent, predictable.

Creating and applying workarounds opens the door to the very circumstances we hope to avoid in the first place. We aren't just typing "dead data" into text or attributes like drawings completed by hand or with CAD. The clouds, tags, sheets, views, schedules and revision dialog are all working together to organize them into something we can rely on (assuming we know how to use the tool at all).

Failing that, I sure hope we'll be compensated for the hassle of dealing with it in some other way. If not I hope we'll keep track of the time and effort so next time we'll know how much it really cost?

Perhaps the time and money could be put to better use to avoiding the circumstances that created the need for them (revisions) in the first place?

Cheeky Devil - Support Requests

When Revit crashes it will often generate a dialog prompting you to provide some information about what might have caused the crash and a way to contact you if they need to. In the past I wrote about a cheeky response I used once about the computer I was using not having enough memory. In that post I encouraged Autodesk to put enough RAM into their software so I don't have to worry about it.

I was working with Camtasia the other night and I thought of this cheeky support request.

Dear Autodesk,

I recently purchased a high quality microphone to use with my computer. Now when I open Revit it doesn't acknowledge this microphone at all even though other programs do. Camtasia works great with it. I've checked all the settings I can find but nothing seems to resolve the problem.

Here's the thing, I spent a lot of money for this microphone. I should be able to talk to Revit and tell it what I want it do instead of having to use this silly mouse all the time. If Revit isn't going to recognize it and do what I say then I think you should refund the money I spent on this microphone. The microphone works fine so it isn't fair to return it to the manufacturer.

It's just your software that isn't working properly!!

Is there a service pack, hotfix or patch I can download? If not, please let me know how soon I can expect this to be fixed, thank you!!