Opening files directly

- [Instructor] Navisworks will open any file type. Well, not really. Although it looks like you can open, say, a Revit model directly, essentially what Revit does is exports that model for you as you're opening it behind the scenes. Then it makes what's called a Navisworks cache file. This file serves as kind of a transfer station between Revit and Navisworks. Let's take a look. I'm going to actually jump into Revit. I'm just going to model something up really quick. Under Projects, let's go to Architectural Template.

Now, what I'd like to do is go to my South elevation. I'm going to right-click on Level 2, and I'm going to Create Similar. On my Draw panel, I'm going to click on my Pick Lines button. I'm going to give it an offset of 10 feet. If I pan down, notice, I can offset Level 2 up. Now I have Level 3. Hit Escape a couple of times on your keyboard.

Select Level 3 and rename it to Roof and hit Enter. Would you like to rename corresponding views? Select Yes. Now, I'm going to go back down to Level 1, by double-clicking on the little Datum bubble right there, so double-click on that, you're down in Level 1. Now, on the Architecture panel, I want to click the Wall button. Under the Properties, I'm going to click the dropdown here, and I'm going to scroll up and I'm going to grab Exterior Brick on Metal Stud.

Up here for my Height, instead of Unconnected, I want to go up to the Roof level. I'm going to pick a point right here, and I'm going to draw a line out 80 feet. I'm going to come straight up 80 feet, I'm going to come over till it snaps to here, and I'm going to come back down to 80 feet. It's just a box. I'm going to throw a door in it. On my Architecture tab, I'm going to click Door. I'm just going to put it right here and I'm going to swing it out.

Hit Escape a couple times. Now, I'm going to go up to my Roof level in my Project Browser under Floor Plans, I'm going to double-click Roof. We can't see our Roof, but if we scroll down in our Properties, for the Range Base Level, instead of None, click the dropdown and let's go to Level 2 and click Apply. Then our walls will show up. Now in the Architecture tab, I'm going to click the Roof button, make sure Define slope is checked on, and for an overhang, I'm just going to type in a 2.

On my Draw panel, I'm going to make sure my Pick Walls button is checked on. Now, I'm going to pan around in my drawing area by holding down my wheel button. If I come over to this wall and hover over it, notice I get a little line that shows up to the left of it. Once I see that little line, I'm going to hit my Tab key and I'm going to select it. Hit Escape a couple times. Now click Finish Edit Mode. Let's go to a 3D view.

Let's set our Detail level to Fine. Now, let's set our Visual style to Realistic. Now, let's save our model, so click on the Save button. I'm going to browse to where I'm keeping my Exercise files. I'm going to put this in Chapter 1, go into Chapter-1. For my file name, I'm going to call it House.

For my Options, I'm going to click Options, and my number of backups is going to be one. I'm going to click OK. Now, I'm going to hit Save. Excellent. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to go into my Add-Ins tab, I'm going to go to External Tools, I'm going to go to Navisworks 2017. Now, I'm going to go to my Navisworks Settings. Under my File Readers for Revit, I just want to check a couple things.

For my Coordinates, I want to go Project Internal. I don't want to Convert linked CAD files, and I don't want to Divide Files into Levels. The Export is the Current view, click OK. I'm going to go back to Revit. Now, I'm just going to click Cancel. Now, I'm going to go to Navisworks, I'm going to click on Open. I'm going to browse back to where I'm keeping my Exercise files. Now, I can't see it in here, because it's looking for a Navisworks model, so I'm going to click the flyout here, and I'm going to find Revit.

Here's my house. I'm going to select House, and I'm going to hit Open. If I hold down my Shift key and my wheel button, now I can spin it around, and I've opened this model seemingly directly. If I go to my Selection Tree, we'll see that my House.rvt file is here. Now, what I want to do is hit the Windows key and the E to open up Windows Explorer, and I want to go to where I'm keeping my Exercise files.

Notice that Navisworks did is it created a NWC file and parked it next to the Revit model. Now, any changes that are made in the Revit model, if we're in Navisworks, we can refresh it, and it will update it. So that's how you open a Revit model supposedly directly.