MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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More of a gripe really but I'm looking for a work around here. I work for a very small m&e consultancy and we have 2014 revit and up till today no major issues. But I got a file today from an architect which would not open as it is a later format (2015) so here's the issue... We have only stand alone licences for all our software and don't pay for support and to be fair we don't really need the updates etc or at least didn't but we never realised revit couldn't be back saved like acad. So now most of the files coming our way will be a later release and un openable unless exported in IFC which some architects seem reluctant to do. Work will not fork out for a new release as we don't use the software all that much at the moment and they run a tight ship. This could be a real issue unless there's something I'm missing here? I mean if you were a one man band doing freelance design work etc would you really be expected to cough up for a new piece of software every year...
Yep. The "future" that is revit is a clunky expensive racket for software companies and those geeky enough to become "bim managers" if there was some competition in the market it would disappear pretty quickly I reckon.
Autodesk have now stopped software upgrades unless you pay for the yearly subscription. It's annoying but paying £180/year for the sub is cheaper than upgrading the software yourself. With the sub you get free upgrades to the latest version, plus a load of other stuff.
Oh, and I completely disagree with munky's assessment: I think Revit is a great bit of software. Its not without its issues, hit then again I haven't found a bit of software that doesn't have issues.
I've never heard of Revit, but is there such a thing as a free viewer you can download?
I'm speaking generically here: The same goes for the majority of software and operating systems. A company (even a small one) should budget on what keeping IT systems up to date will cost them and have a plan to follow so the funds are there to do it and nasty surprises are kept to a minimum.
Doing it this way and staying not too far behind the latest release ultimately costs less than than trying to milk old licences for as long as possible and then perform an expensive/disruptive upgrade.
The problem is that no of the vendors work in step so it feels that as soon as you have upgraded one part then you need to start planning the upgrade to the next whilst now discovering that you have compatibility problems with your clients or vendors who have not yet upgraded.
It makes sense for companies to nudge you down the subscription route; I think we will see that happening more and more as they then get a continual income from you and you are always in support and able to install the latest versions.
Revit is just bizarre. It's so secular with regard to other Autodesk products. I'm sure, knowing Autodesk, they'll re-write the code again in the future to address this issue and make more people take up subscriptions or buy new kit.
IFC is your only way around this at the moment and I've always found IFC conversions work well and it's just architects that are dragging their feet as normal. Unless they use AECOsim and then their fine 😀
I've not been much help but it's not often you see a CAD based thread so I felt I had to reply.
Have a good day and I hope you find a way that works for you.
Three seconds on Google later,
By default, installing any Revit product will also install the Revit Viewer. Revit in Viewer Mode does not pull a license or require activation on a machine that does not have a full seat installed.
Use your existing software to create your own, er, whatever they are, and install the newest version sans licence on another PC to view the ones created with later versions. Job jobbed.
I suppose the other answer would be to mail the sender and ask them to resend it in 2014 format, assuming it supports such things.
That's the problem cougar it doesn't support back saving like Civ3D and Vanilla Can does, once one company upgrades the requirement snowballs as everybody needs it.
Subscription allows you 3years worth of releases I think which is fine if you are on the newest release but still forces purchasing a yearly release.
I no nothing about revit because Civ3D is where the cool kids play.