How Revit Network Version Works

There seems to be a misunderstanding of how Revit (well all Autodesk products for that matter) runs in a network environment but it’s really quite a simple process. 

Understand that CADD programs are too large and to processor intensive to run across your network as they would grind all network traffic to a halt, therefore CADD programs need to be installed on the users local computer & not on the server.  There is a very small program that sits on the server and sends a tiny file to each users computer to track license checkout status.  When determining the number of licensed seats a company needs to purchase the question is not how many users we have corporately but rather how many users need to be running the software concurrently.

This means that you may actually deploy 10 installations throughout your CADD department but only purchase 8 network licenses.  While all 10 machines are capable to run the software only 8 may be in use concurrently.

Sketchbook Designer

Autodesk put out this handy program so I wanted to take a look at it and see what it could do.  I’m pretty impressed with it – kind of looks like an Autodesk version of Photoshop merged with Illustrator as SketchBook does both raster & vector graphics based on layers.  The interface is a little odd (some tools were tough to find & I would suggest you get in the habit of selecting the mask selection tool as the default or neutral tool).  I would say it is good for designers who are used to sketching rather than using CAD to design.  Try the tablet version as it is easier to doodle using a finger rather than a mouse!

So to give it a bit of a run I merged 2 jpg files much like i would have done in Photoshop, cropped one a bit and moved it into place – all based on Photoshop methodologies and so far this looks like a useful program.  (the image I created follows below)

What is really great about it is that it imports & exports the vector information to and from DWG!!  This means any DWG plan (elevation / section…) can be brought in, sketched on to convey revisions and then re-imported into the CAD file to make the changes.  The other use I see is an elevation (or a 3d view) can be imported and then layered over & coloured in for presentation purposes to change the look away from a hard lined CAD type of feel.

Anyway as I stated above here is the composite image I made, for the originals visit ArchiteXts