Explore the initial steps in the BIM 323 course where you will learn to open up and manage files in Autodesk Revit. This brief overview guides you through the process of opening and upgrading the BIM 323 Electrical Starting Dataset in a new version of Revit, managing linked files, and setting up the user interface.
Key Insights
- This BIM 323 course allows users to enhance their skills in managing files in Autodesk Revit. The first step involves downloading the BIM 323 File Downloads folder and opening the BIM 323 Electrical Starting Dataset.
- When opening the BIM 323 Electrical Starting Dataset, users may encounter several warnings. This is due to the upgrading of the model from an older version of Revit to the current one. The upgrading process is fine and necessary for the course.
- Part of the initial process also includes managing linked files, such as the HVAC model and the architectural file. It's important to note that these linked models may also need upgrading. The user interface also gets upgraded to include the System Browser, which allows users to create the systems in the browser.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Welcome to BIM 323. Excited to have you here. Step one for starting our course is to download the content, the folder that is BIM 323 File Downloads.
Inside that folder you'll find several folders and our BIM 323 Electrical Starting Dataset. That's the file that we need to open up. Two options for doing this.
Actually three, but we'll avoid the third option. Option one is to right click and say Open With and we can pick the version of Autodesk Revit. The second option is to open it through Revit.
We'll open up Revit first and then open the file. The third option is to double click. We'll avoid that because we might have different versions of Revit installed and we don't want it to pick for us.
So let's jump into opening it from Revit. You'll open up your Revit and then open up a model. So I'm going to click Open and I will find that Downloads folder.
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Find BIM 323 Electrical Starting Dataset and click Open. We'll prepare ourselves for a lot of warnings. We are opening this project right now in a newer version of Revit so it's going to ask and tell us that it's upgrading the model and that's a-okay.
We're going to upgrade it from the version it was, 2024, to our current version of Revit and this can take some moment to run through this process. So I'll give a quick explanation for this class. We will be jumping into a lot of electrical Revit topics.
This is not an engineering course so we won't get into the finite details of balancing our loads, completing calculations, calculating, for example, voltage drops, perfectly balancing our loads. But we will cover some basic concepts that are electrical simply because that is required to operate the Revit electrical systems. I'm excited to jump through this course with you.
Here is our first warning. The distribution system of the electrical main bus is set to None. That's okay.
We'll be assigning a distribution system. And we have another similar warning. It's okay to click OK and let this continue running.
We can click Close when it tells us about schedules for analytical elements that haven't been assigned. We will assign them. So click Close and that will open up our project.
It's going to now tell us that Revit can't find two references. What do you want to do? That's a-okay. We can click Open Manage Links to correct the problem, but I want to run through this manually so that we know where to go if we have any further issues.
So I'm going to click Ignore and continue opening the project. We will notice the project opens up in this generic overall view and there's not a whole lot to see. What we're seeing here, all the scattered elements, are light fixtures and outlets.
We have a few outlets and light fixtures to get us started in this project. So let's bring those links in. We will go up to Insert and then find Manage Links.
When this opens up, we have two backgrounds. First is the HVAC model. I'll select this.
I will click Reload. There's an arrow next to Reload that I pull down and it says Reload From. I'll select that and I'll browse to the HVAC model.
It is also in our course file downloads. So I will go right to the linked Revit folder and find the background-hvac and click Open. It's going to give us a warning that this model also needs to be upgraded, and that's okay.
If we want to avoid future upgrades, we can open it separately, let it upgrade, save it, and then it will be in the current version of Revit. But for now, it's totally okay to let it upgrade the model as we go. This temporary upgrade it's going to do.
Once that upgrade is complete, we get a warning telling us that the nested links inside that model will not appear, and that's okay. We don't want to have circular references. We'll say Close, and this should update.
The status you can see right now is a warning. Now we have a blue check mark letting us know that it's loaded. Let's go ahead and close this window and see the result.
Now we see the HVAC model loaded in, as well as a few of those electrical components. Now let's take the next step. Let's go back to Insert, and then we'll go to Manage Links.
This time we're going to look for that architectural file. It's called Background Architectural. I go to the Reload button and find the small down arrow next to it.
Pull that down, select Reload From, and to rehash where we were, we are in BIM 323 File Downloads. Then we go to Linked Revit and find Background-Architectural and select Open. We'll get the same message that's going to upgrade the linked model, and that's okay.
It's telling us it's a temporary change. If we don't want to go through this process again, we can open up that model in a separate session, upgrade it, save it, and we'll be good to go. This one goes a bit quicker.
We will get that blue check mark, and then we can close this window. If we're successful, we'll see the full architectural model. We're working on a school building, so we have the two wings, gymnasium, library, and this is the building that we're going to work on to create our electrical systems.
Now to understand our systems and navigate the systems, we need to upgrade our user interface. To do that, we will go to the View tab. In the View tab, we will then find the User Interface button.
It says User Interface, and it has a little wrench. We'll click the down arrow next to User Interface, and we will turn on the check mark next to System Browser. This loads the System Browser, and we can make it bigger by stretching this window.
I hover directly over the break between the browser and my model view, and I'll drag it open to increase the size. Now I'll find a Systems Browser. I'll find Analytical Systems, and there are currently none to find, and Electrical Analytical Systems, and here we can see the unconnected elements and a switchboard that has an error.
We will work on creating the systems in this browser. At the same time, we'll have our Properties window opened up as well as our Project Browser. Now that we have our user interface set up, on the keyboard, we can click Z and then E to zoom extent, and we'll fill the center window with our model, and now we can save our project.
File, Save. In our next step, we will come back and analyze the building to understand the power needs and start to put together a concept for a distribution model for our electrical system.
