Dynamo 2.0 is now available

A couple of months ago I’ve made a Sneak peek into Dynamo 2.0, showing you some of the upcoming changes to the “Next gen Dynamo”. And now that Dynamo 2.0 has finally arrived, you can do the following:

1. Read the official release notes here: To Dynamo 2.0 and Beyond.
2. Download Dynamo 2.0 release version from the official repository @ DynamoBuilds.com
3. Back up your existing Dynamo library:

   %appdata%\Dynamo\Dynamo Revit\1.3

4. Completely uninstall Dynamo 2.0 pre-release build if you have one.
5. Install Dynamo 2.0 release version and play with the new features.

Please note that there are still some issues with this release

(see this page @GitHub for reference: dynamo known issues):

• Node library search may not work properly (GitHub issue 8757 & GitHub issue 8769)
• Dynamo 2.0 has a conflict with Revit 2018.2’s and 2018.3’s (GitHub issue 8768) implementation of P&ID Modeler (thanks jmmkm for the tip in the comments section below) resulting in the library/browser now showing. This issue is not present in 2018.1, or Revit 2019. If you want to use 2.0 with Revit 2018.2 or 2018.3, you will need to remove the the manifest file

  C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit 2018\AddIns\PnIDModeler\PnIDModeler.addin

• For custom nodes, using dot-notation in node Names or Categories will result in additional nested sub-categories. The “.” will work as a delimiter to determine the additional hierarchy. This is new behavior in the library for Dynamo 2.0.
• If the network drive pointed to by “Manage Node and Package paths” is > 1TB in size loading Dynamo may take a minute or more, irrespective of actual package size. We recommend drive size of 100GB or smaller.
• Toggling the freeze state can cause a node to be executed twice after editing a Code Block Node.
• Installers fail to prompt for missing VC++ components which causes Dynamo to silently crash at load time
• Packages that deliver DynamoServices.dll may have corrupted multi-output port nodes; instead of multiple output ports, they will be collapsed into a single output port.
• Some JSON graphs may open and erroneously appears to have unsaved changes as shown by the asterisks in the workspace tab.
• If your workstation contains multiple major versions of Dynamo, e.g, Dynamo 1.x and Dynamo 2.x, Dynamo Player will start with whichever version you select for Dynamo for that session.
• Custom node libraries that contain the same category and node names result in unexpected library organization.

If this list of known issues is not critical for you, feel free to be an early adopter.

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Navisworks 2019: nothing to see here, move along

This year’s Navisworks 2019 has been around for about two weeks, being released rather quietly. And the reason for this is pretty obvious: there is nothing new inside, except for the version number, desktop shortcuts, and a splash screen.

Considering the huge amount of time and effort that Autodesk spends with BIM 360 products, it is no surprise that Navisworks becomes abandoned. New features are coming to the cloud, leaving desktop products obsolete, and this is inevitable.

All of these machine learning and artificial intelligence stuff just can’t fit into the single desktop application. And we’ll probably see the other products shifting to the cloud in the coming years.

Quick Access Toolbar missing in Navisworks on Windows 10 with UltraHD (4K)

If you are using Navisworks 2017 / 2018 on Windows 10 with UltraHD (4K) monitor, then you’ve probably seen this picture:

Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) is invisible, while the buttons are still in place (hover over them with mouse cursor, and you’ll see the tooltips).

The problem is caused by WPF hardware acceleration, which is enabled in Navisworks by default. Here are the steps to switch off WPF hardware acceleration and bring Quick Access Toolbar back:

• Open Navisworks options > expand Interface menu > select Display
• Switch off the WPF acceleration:

• Click OK to accept changes
• Accept the warning message and restart Navisworks:

• After Navisworks restarts, you’ll see the QAT:

Where to find Navisworks 2018 / 2019 language packs

Autodesk has changed the way to distribute Navisworks language packs. Previously you could have found them via the Autodesk Knowledge Network portal in the Downloads & Upgrades > Service Packs & Fixes menu.

Starting from Navisworks 2018, there are no links to download language packs. Why? Because now language packs for Navisworks are already contained in the software package.

All you need to do is downloaded the software package (which is usually an sfx archive) and extract its contents:

..\Autodesk_Navisworks_Manage_2019_Multilingual_Win_64bit_dlm\x64\

Find the folder with the language code you need:

• en-US (for English localization)
• de-DE (for German localization)
• es-ES (for Spanish localization)
• fr-FR (for French localization)
• it-IT (for Italian localization)
• ja-JP (for Japanese localization)
• ko-KR (for Korean localization)
• pt-BR (for Brazilian Portuguese localization (documentation only))
• ru-RU (for Russian localization)
• zh-CN (for Chinese (PRC) localization)

Each of these folders contains both Navisworks language pack and Navisworks exporters plugin (NWEXPORT):

Open the folder with the language pack you need and launch the *.msi installer:

 

After installing the language pack, modify the Navisworks desktop shortcut.

Right-click the Navisworks shortcut > Properties > Shortcut > add the language code in the Target field:

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Navisworks Manage 2019\Roamer.exe" -lang de-DE

Save the changes and launch Navisworks.

Toggle contour lines in Navisworks section

Sometimes it could be frustrating to navigate in Navisworks section views when you look at the cut elements without contour lines. The edges of elements can’t be easily distinguished, so that your view becomes messy:

Since Navisworks 2018 we can change the way Navisworks renders cut elements in sections. This option is called Sectioning and lies inside the Interface menu in Navisworks options:

Open Navisworks options > expand Interface menu > select Sectioning

From there you can enable / disable contour lines and switch their color. This is how the same model looks like after changing the options:

 Even while Navisworks does not ‘read’ elements as solids, they could be easily distinguished with contour lines.