Revit using split wall in phases

One of  Revits drawbacks is the difficultly and intricacy in phasing partial demolition and additions / reconstruction of existing small and residential buildings. Particularly where the existing model elements such as walls and roofs are neatly joined up and trimmed and you dont want to loose this. The existing phase needs to show correctly after new phases have been added and parts demolished.

Link to Hatch Hacks - What Revit Wants

Great post on What Revit Wants gettiing further beyond the rather basic and limited out of the box hatch patterns in Revit     http://bit.ly/1eC6CwQ

Transfering mullions between projects

Picked this method up http://bit.ly/1gzx5t1 from Revit Forum Revit doesnt allow curtain wall elements to be pasted between projects to quickly inherit the system family properties and this seems a good although complex workaround. I adapted for a quick import of mullion types by just setting up a duplicate CW type and added all the mullion types I wanted to the available fields, then a straightforward PST.

How to transfer and overwrite curtain wall mullions between projects (yes it works)

This is also posted on AUGI 2014 How to transfer and overwrite curtain wall mullions between projects (yes it works)

I've been tasked with finding a way of cleaning up mullions in a hospital campus project with one project file per building, and a master file

Not Revit! Updating attributes in drawing sheets in Autocad

I dont use Autocad Architecture much these days but its moved on with even more complexity in commands. My drawing sheets which were set up some years ago with a full set of attributes to enter all the project variables needed some updating with an addtional "status" variable. I remebered how to use Attdef in the sheet block but save it and return to the sheet the new attribute wasnt there.


The fix came with a bit a searching and its run the command attsync and just select the block (ie drawing sheet) and "yes". Why does it need to be so complicated! About half an hour to fix this!  Thought Revit Project Params and getting sheet params to work was quite a handful but having to sync one block (not the project) manually seems bizare.

Windows passwords

I have a laptop with Windows Vista that hasnt been used for over a year and the Administrator password was lost.  I tried Offcrack which uses a Linux type boot disk and then analyses password tables to reveal them.  Several attempts and could not locate tables and looked for something else to try.

Next off was PC Login Now http://bit.ly/MEaORP. Really simple to make an ISO image boot disk and boot from this - the password accounts are revealed and just select them one by one and delete.
Boot normally and disk check will have to run before Windows loads. Then should be able to login to the Adminstrator account without a password. Took about half an hour. Windows security?

Revit door and window families with splayed jambs/surrounds

I needed to make up some door and window families with splayed jambs typical in northern UK 19thC and earlier traditional vernacular