AVAIL 2019 Summer Release

AVAIL Behavioral Change.

With the latest update we’ve made significant underlying changes to the way we can identify content being managed on the AVAIL platform.

AVAIL has always relied on using what is known as a Hash to uniquely identify content.  The Hash is important in being able to automatically identify and associate metadata with content.  This is what allows AVAIL to recognize duplicate content across your file system even if the name of the file has been changed.

Another important piece of information that can be used to identify content is the Location of the file on the host File System.  It’s important to understand that files stored on a file system can have only one Path/Address on that file system.  That is both a strength and weakness of file systems.

For example, image A is located at \\unc_path\demo\ImageA.jpg.  A copy of ImageA.jpg is made, renamed and stored at \\unc_path\another_demo_path\ImageB.jpg.

ImageA.jpg and ImageB.jpg are exactly the same file contents which means they will produce the same Hash.  But they are stored in two different locations on the file system which gives each file a unique Location.

File Name    |       Hash       |                Location

ImageA.jpg |as3w-wa25 | \\unc_path\demo\ImageA.jpg

ImageB.jpg |as3w-wa25 | \\unc_path\another_demo_path\ImageB.jpg

From this example, while the Location is important in referencing where the file is located on the file system, that information does not tell us that these two files are copies of one another.  The Hash, on the other hand, tells us that these two files are exact duplicates of one another.

How Do We Store Data In AVAIL?

Rather than rely exclusively on the Hash of a file for identity in the AVAIL database we are now assigning what is known as a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) to content indexed into AVAIL.  Along with the GUID we then can store a Hash, Location, and other Tags (metadata).    This allows AVAIL to reference instances of the same file (Hashes the same) stored in different locations on a file system but assign different Tags.

Why Is This Important?

These changes allow us to develop more robust Tag management capabilities that leverage both Location and/or Hash information.  It is also important as use cases for AVAIL expand beyond static content libraries.  When using AVAIL to manage project information it is common for content from source libraries to be copied into project-related areas on the file system.  On the initial indexing of the copied files, the Hash helps us understand where the source file originated.  Once that file is edited for use in a project the Location becomes the most important identifying piece of information.

Sound Confusing?  It can be :). Thankfully most of you don’t spend much time diving into the intricacies of file systems.  It seems simple on the surface but when you begin digging into different use-cases, identifying and managing content gets complicated.

How Does This Affect Me?

  1. The upside… If you index files into a Channel of AVAIL and edit those files while they remain in the same location, AVAIL will not treat the edited file as a new reference (GUID) as it has previously.  New references will not be created via manual indexing or via AVAIL Stream.
  2. Be aware… If you index files into a Channel of AVAIL and need to re-index those files from a different location, AVAIL will create new references (GUIDs) representing the new file system locations.  As long as the files haven’t been edited, they will Hash the same and any Tags you’ve assigned will be copied to the new GUID.  The downside of this change is that you’ll need to manually remove the original file references in the Channel if the originals no longer exist (or let AVAIL Stream do the work for you :).

Randall Stevens, CEO

Major Enhancements to AVAIL

In the sections that follow is a brief summary of the major enhancements for the August Release of the AVAIL Product Suite.

AVAIL Desktop v3.12
  • Text Search and Tag Search Now Linked – Text Search and Tag Search are now co-dependent and will update based on the results of each other
  • View Websites within AVAIL – Like the PDF preview, you can now view full websites for URLs that are indexed into AVAIL.
AVAIL Database Maintenance
  • Search Database Update – Re-engineered the Search Database to increase search performance and in preparation for new search and channel features
  • Indexed Content Behavioral Change – Content is now based on location first, hash ID is now second where previously these were combined
AVAIL Release Notes

The following are the enhancements and fixes to the current released version of AVAIL.  These enhancements apply to the AVAIL Desktop and AVAIL Browser for Revit

AVAIL DESKTOP – VERSION 3.12

Text Search and Tag Search Now Linked – When using the Text Search Box, the Tags within the Filters Panel will now automatically update per the results of the search.  The ‘Clear Search’ options will now clear all selected tags and text.  Based on the search and/or Tag selection, Tags in the Filters Panel are highlighted with medium gray to represent that these Tags will not result in narrowing search results.  Tags highlighted in black represent that the tag has been selected by the user.

View Websites within AVAIL – Like the PDF preview, you can now view full websites for URLs that are indexed into AVAIL.

IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES

AVAIL Desktop

  • Improved UI performance of displaying content and content scrolling in a Channel when viewing in the ‘Thumbnails’ view mode.
  • Improved the performance upon switching of Channels
  • All search terms and selected Tags will be reset upon launching of AVAIL
  • Added ‘Clear Search’ button in Filters Panel upon the text and tag-based search
  • Access Channel Details within the Properties Panel by right-clicking on Channel and selecting ‘Edit Channel’. Must have ‘Edit Permissions’. Displays the Channel Owner, date created, and date modified in the Channel Details when ‘Edit Channel’ is selected.
  • Fixed latency in retrieving Tags for a selected piece of content that previously caused Add/Remove Tags dialogue not to populate correctly.
  • Fixed the process of indexing a file with no extension that resulted in an empty ‘File Extension’ tag.
  • Fixed the failure of a large preview not re-loading in the Properties Panel.

AVAIL Browser for Revit

  • Fixed the loading of External Type Catalogs to accept the proper encoding
  • Fixed the loading of multiple model groups (Details groups) where previously it would only bring in the first

AVAIL Database Upgrade

  • Overhauled the entire Search Database to not only improve search performance but to set the stage for upcoming features that support new publisher tools around keyword management and ability to edit/update/change content without re-indexing.

AVAIL Spring 2019 Release

Spring is here!  Time for an update and spring cleaning.  We’re releasing updates to the AVAIL Desktop (3.11) and AVAIL Browser for Revit (4.2).

We continue to focus on the goal of providing rich information related to content you’re managing in AVAIL for quick decision making and access.  In this update to the AVAIL Desktop we worked on two major features, both interrelated.  We’ve added native support for viewing PDF documents directly within the AVAIL Desktop interface.  Now you can quickly view PDFs without having to open external software. This is a great way to view PDF documents of details, sheet sets, specifications and manuals; all without having to launch another PDF application.

We also shed a little love on the entire Properties Panel strategy.  When you open the Properties Panel to view a PDF document you now have a one-click expansion option that will maximize the viewing panel.  This is a great new feature not only for PDFs but also for improved viewing of Photos. You’ll also see a fresh new docked panel of icons on the far right providing quick access to Properties, Channel Details, Comments and Shared Users.

You asked for it, you got it!  Those of you using AVAIL to manage your Revit content libraries will love the new Filters Panel feature in the AVAIL Browser for Revit.  Mimicking the Filters Panel you see in the AVAIL Desktop, the new Filters Panel in the AVAIL Browser for Revit means you can use tag-based or text-based searching in Standalone Mode.  Simply increase the width of your AVAIL Browser and the Filters Panel will automatically appear.

More details about this release are below.  We hope to hear from you as you begin implementing these new features.

Randall Stevens, CEO

Major Enhancements to the Current Version of AVAIL

In the sections that follow is a brief summary of the major enhancements for the May Release of AVAIL Product Suite.

AVAIL Desktop v3.11

• View PDF in Properties Panel – Enables user to preview full PDF from inside the Properties Panel.
• View YouTube Video in Properties Panel – Enables user to watch a YouTube video in-line from inside the Properties Panel.
• Upgrade from .Net 4.5 to 4.6.2 – Required in order to support the chromium browser for PDF and YouTube support.
• OS 64-bit Support – AVAIL Desktop no longer is supporting 32-bit operating system installations.
• Re-positioned Display Controls – Moved controls above the Filters Panel to enable further user experience improvements.
• Side Panel Controls – Moved the ‘Properties’ and ‘More items’ buttons to a new bar on the right-hand side of the Content Browser
• Share Channels Button – Visible next to the Channel name at the top of the Content Browser.
• Filter Grouping for Indexing – Filters now have logical ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ associations between them to allow for more robust filtering of your content.

AVAIL Browser for Revit v4.2

• Revit 2020 Support – Revit 2020 add-in is now fully supported.
• Revit 2015 Support – Revit 2015 Support is now discontinued, v4.1 will be the last version to support Revit 2015.
• Tag-Based Filtering – The AVAIL Desktop Tag-Based filtering is now available when the AVAIL Browser add-in is widened.
• Channel Filtering – Support pinned, recent and all filter options along with ability to pin and unpin specific channels.
• Swappable Panel Support – Added functionality to swap content browser and properties panel depending on personal preference.
• Installer Upgrade – Added support for Autodesk-recommended certificate installation to remove ‘new add-in found’ warning.

AVAIL Release Notes

The following are the enhancements and fixes to the current released version of AVAIL Products. These enhancements apply to the AVAIL Desktop, AVAIL Browser for Revit and Stream Products unless otherwise noted.

AVAIL Desktop – Version 3.11

View PDF in Properties Panel – Enables user to preview a full PDF from inside the Properties Panel. After selecting a PDF in the Content Browser, you can then click expand the Image icon to preview the PDF.

View YouTube Video in Properties Panel – Enables user to watch a YouTube video in-line from inside the Properties Panel. Like the PDF preview above, you can now also view YouTube videos within the Properties Panel.

Re-positioned Display Controls – Moved to above Filters Panel to continue user experience improvement. This cleans up the top content search bar and leaves space for some additional search options in the future.

Side Panel Controls – Moved the ‘Properties’ and ‘More items’ buttons to Side Panel. This feature expanded Channel Details, Comments and Shared Users.

Share Channels Button – Is now visible next to the channel name at the top of the Content Browser. Similar to the icon controls, this was to help clean up the search area.

Filter Grouping for Indexing – Filters now have logical ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ associations between them to allow for more robust filtering of your content.

 

AVAIL Browser for Revit

Tag-Based Filtering – The Filters Panel that you are familiar with is now available in ‘Stand-Alone’ mode inside the Browser for Revit. This tag-based filtering is able to be seen when the browser panel is expanded to a minimum width. 

Channel Filtering – Now supporting pinned, recent and all filter options along with ability to pin and unpin specific Channels. This provides each user the ability to highlight and list their favorite Channels right within the AVAIL browser add-in.

Swappable Panel Support – Added functionality to swap the Content Browser and Properties Panel. Once you open the Filters Panel, a button will be displayed to allow you to swap panel views based on your personal preference.

Fixed and Known Limitations

AVAIL Browser for Revit
• Fixed issue with delay of detection of connection with AVAIL Desktop
• Fixed issue with display of “Loading…” message when transitioning AVAIL Browser Panel from hidden to shown within Revit
• Addressed errors when detecting changes to active document in Project Mode
• Addressed errors when detecting view activation in Project Mode
• Fixed reference to dependent assembly System.Windows.Interactivity for Revit 2016-2018
• Fixed DPI scaling bug for Revit 2016 & 2017 for Hi-Res displays
• Fixed version conflict with shared dependency with Dynamo
• Fixed issue with broken Upgrade file command

AVAIL 3.10.1 Update Now Available

What better way to kickstart 2019 than with an AVAIL update!  We’ve made improvements you’re not going to want to miss across AVAIL Desktop, AVAIL Browser for Revit and AVAIL Stream.  This release concentrated on improving the experience of sharing Channels with members of your team and marks the commercial release of the Standalone Mode for the AVAIL Browser for Revit.

We had a major overhaul to the setup and configuration of what we now call Teams.  The manage portal on getavail.com was recently updated. What used to be referred to as “Manage Users” is now “Team Members”.  For those of you not using SSO (Single Sign-On) you’ll find a new “Team SignUp Mode” that makes it easy to add members to your Team via a Shareable Link.  You can also now restrict new users by domain making it easier than ever to build out your Team.

AVAIL Desktop 3.10.1

We made improvements to the Shared Users feature with the AVAIL Desktop to take advantage of the improvements to building your Team.  Now everyone, including Enterprise customers using SSO, can easily search for members on their Team using First Name, Last Name or Email.  As you begin typing in the Search Members box you’ll see a list of Team Members matching your search criteria and easily invite them to your Channel.

Users of the free version of AVAIL can also now create Teams and begin sharing Marketplace Channels and their own two free Channels with others in their firm.  Subscribers to ArchVision RPC or ArchVision Family and Detail Warehouse can also now login to AVAIL using their ArchVision account for authentication.

Bug fix:  At some point we introduced a bug that was causing Keys that you had set in Tags & Filters Editor to not remember the new Key when indexing new content with the same Value.  We fixed that!

AVAIL Browser for Revit 4.1

We made some major updates to the AVAIL Browser for Revit including:

  • Standalone Mode!
  • Support for Assemblies
  • New Marketplace download feature
  • Persistent user settings
  • Full thumbnail support for non-Revit content
  • Improved Thumbnail Generator
  • Improved Installer
  • Improved Login Support

We’re officially now out of beta with the Standalone Mode of the AVAIL Browser for Revit!  What does this mean? It means you can now view and search for Revit content directly in the AVAIL Browser for Revit without opening AVAIL Desktop. You now have the option of running in either mode (Standalone or Desktop). The AVAIL Browser for Revit will recognize when you launch the AVAIL Desktop and switch modes automatically!

We’ve also improved some usability within Standalone Mode such as the ability to Pin Channels as well as remember the last Channel you were using upon launch.

For you Publishers we made some improvements to the Revit Project Thumbnail Generator.  You now have the ability to select Families, Drafting Views, Sheets and Other Views independently for processing. A great time saver when you only need to update specific thumbnails.

 

On the admin front we improved the installers to adhere to Autodesk-recommended certificate installation in order to suppress that pesky “new addin found” warning.

Oh, and some bug fixes including:

  • Fixed issue with loading of view names containing multiple dash characters.
  • Fixed issue when reloading Families with a Type Catalog.
  • Ability to add the AVAIL Browser for Revit to the Quick Access bar in Revit.
  • Corrected Analytics reporting of Project Name vs Filename.
  • Fixed issue with drag and drop of views when drilling into views of a sheet.
  • Fixed display of blank view upon upgrading within Content Mode.

AVAIL Stream 1.4.1

Stream has been updated with full support for Revit parameter harvesting.  The same Revit configuration file you use with the AVAIL Desktop is now supported with Stream.

If you’re a Stream user contact support@getavail.com for the update.

Autodesk Forge and the Benefits of Horizontal Thinking

I attended Autodesk University 2018 in Las Vegas week before last along with several others from the AVAIL and ArchVision teams.  That included participating in the Autodesk developer conference on Monday now known as Forge DevCon. Thanks to everyone who stopped by the AVAIL booth to say hi or attended one of our after hours events.  It was a great chance to catch up with longtime friends as well as make new acquaintances. These conferences are always a great way for us to learn more about specific industry challenges and trends as well as dig into the intricacies of workflow challenges you each face.  That’s the primary reason we attend and thanks to everyone who shared insights with us.

Long plagued by fragmentation, the AEC industry is at an inflection point.  There’s no doubt that consolidation is happening at all levels. I’ll focus here on the software and technology aspects of the industry.  I thought I’d share some thoughts on the prevailing theme for both Autodesk and the industry as a whole.

The AEC industry has not taken advantage of standardizing across design and production workflows as have vertically integrated industries like automotive and aerospace.  They’re not apples to apples comparisons I know but I think everyone can agree there’s much to be learned by studying these more vertically integrated industries and applying what we can.

I believe Autodesk is making some good moves with their Forge platform with this regard. Over the past three decades Autodesk has made its mark developing desktop applications that became the backbone of many AEC industry workflows.  The challenge was (and continues to be) efficiently moving data between these applications. The data is often stored (and transferred) via proprietary file formats and moving between modeling and visualization, documentation to construction and eventually facilities management has appealed only to the masochist among us.  With Forge, Autodesk is building a new common data layer on which multiple services and applications will be built. Forge promises to make the transfer of data across those services and applications more painless and they’re once again focused on supporting an ecosystem of 3rd party developers to build specific solutions on top of the platform.  Forge promises to break down the dozens of application silos Autodesk built (or acquired) over the previous three decades.

After talking with hundreds of customers over the past year it’s evident that application (and thus workflow) silos are one of the major hurdles facing every firm.  How do you efficiently manage data and information that needs to flow across dozens of applications you’ve chosen to use across your firm. There are multiple challenges with the siloed approach to application and data management that plagues our industry; 1) Infrequent use of secondary systems means employees must basically relearn applications with each use, 2) Inconsistent design philosophies and nomenclature across applications becomes confusing, and 3) the managerial cost of supporting multiple solutions is unbearable.

To add insult to injury we’re now muxing on-prem and cloud-based solutions.  This threatens to become the new bane when managing workflows across these new silos.  We’re paying extra attention the complexities this causes regarding “content” and file management.  “Where” a file is (or needs to be) is becoming increasingly ethereal in this new era.

At AVAIL we see efficient content management across the project life-cycle as one of the major challenges to the industry.  We’ve taken a decidedly horizontal approach to the problem ensuring that AVAIL can handle a variety of basic needs across oft complicated workflows.  AVAIL customers are managing their 2D and 3D models in the same system alongside their visualization assets, photos and other precedent materials, scripts and documents.  The design teams use the same solution servicing the marketing department. This approach ensures that everyone using AVAIL is learning to use the same solution regardless of the content or application.  By knocking down siloed solutions and replacing them with a single-point-of-truth AVAIL is doing its part to make you, your firm and the industry as a whole more efficient.

AVAIL 3.8.1 Release

Wow!  We think that’s going to be your reaction to this latest release.  Even though the dev team here at AVAIL were calling this a “hardening block” of work, the impact on you and your team’s workflow is tremendous.

Both the AVAIL Desktop and AVAIL Browser for Revit updates are available here – https://www.getavail.com/Download

We’re excited to share the highlights with you …

Revit Parameter Harvesting!

You can now automatically harvest Revit Parameters as Tags in AVAIL!  This is unbelievably cool if one of your primary use-cases for AVAIL is managing your Revit-related content.  You can now define any Revit Parameter to automatically become a Tag when indexing .rfa, .rte, .rvt and .rft files.  It’s as easy as…

Once this is configured, every Revit Family and Project file indexed into AVAIL will automatically have a Revit Version, Revit Category, Host, and File Type Tag.

You’ll find a configurable RevitTagGenerator.xml file located at %ProgramData%\AVAIL\addins.  Simply open the file with a text editor like Notepad to edit.  There’s a full set of instructions inside the file.

The great news is this was implemented under a new AVAIL “plug-in” architecture for file-type handlers.  We’ll be adding data harvesting capabilities for other file types.  Be sure to let us know what which ones should be on the top of our list.

AVAIL Browser for Revit 3.1.1 Update

The new AVAIL Browser for Revit is now out of beta.  Besides a gorgeous visual overhaul there are several reasons you’ll want to grab this update ASAP…

  • Support for beautiful new thumbnails for all your Details and Sheets that makes browsing your Revit Container Project files sing
  • New Project Mode (for Team and Enterprise customers) provides a visually stunning new way to browse the content “in” your Revit Projects.
  • Support for Nested Families
  • Ability to selectively display only certain content from an RVT file (This is an incredibly powerful feature for publishing System Families and Details – register for the upcoming webinar for more details.)

Note: You have control over the roll-out of these new features across your enterprise here – https://www.getavail.com/Manage/Settings

AVAIL Desktop (General Speed and Responsiveness)

  • You should see improvements to the startup speed of the AVAIL Desktop app
  • We made some great improvements to scrolling in the AVAIL Desktop app. Way to go Zach!
  • If you have as many Channels as I do you probably avoid clicking Browse Channels. You’ll be happier now 😊

Tip:  Did you know you can Ctrl-scroll to adjust thumbnail sizes in AVAIL Desktop?

Publishers (We didn’t forget about you)

  • Now you can see what additional Channels a piece of content exists in before making edits. Look in the Properties Panel just above the Tags list.
  • You can now index URLs directly into an AVAIL Channel. This is an awesome new feature.  Just drag and drop a URL from your browser directly onto an AVAIL Channel.  This is great for linking to intranet locations or manufacturer information on a website.
  • We’ve made it easier to copy Tag Values from Properties Panel.

AVAIL Stream

Stream is a game-changer for the AEC industry.  AVAIL Stream means you no longer need to manually publish content, the bane of content management solutions everywhere!

We’re continuing to roll stream out to AVAIL Enterprise customers.  The latest release has knocked out several in-the-wild obstacles we uncovered earlier this year.

If you’re and AVAIL Enterprise customer and not on the Stream install list email info@getavail.com to start the process.

AVAIL Analytics

We made a major overhaul to the way AVAIL reports analytics data providing you with even more granular insights into what and how people are using content in AVAIL and your Revit Projects.

AVAIL now takes advantage of what are called “Custom Dimensions” in Google Analytics but it requires you to set them up in your account ☹.  There’s 20 of them but you only have to do this once 😊.  Do it today because without them you’re not capturing some of your most important data.

A full set of instructions can be found in the new AVAIL Analytics Resources – Getting Started Guide here – https://www.getavail.com/Manage/Analytics

Upcoming Webinars

As you can see, we packed a lot into this release.  We’ll be hosting a couple of upcoming webinars for a little deeper dive.  Join us – https://info.getavail.com/webinars

 

 

 

AVAIL Browser for Revit BETA Update

New AVAIL Browser for Revit BETA Release now available!

We’ve released an updated version of the AVAIL Browser for Revit BETA and it’s now available here. Update now to get the best out of your BETA program participation and be part of the movement to improve your Revit experience.

The AVAIL Browser for Revit BETA can help bring order to chaos, add time to your day and make your team better. It also helps you quickly find exactly what you need without changing how you work, so you can spend more time designing. For the first time, all content has thumbnails.

  • No more cryptic Family file names; get a graphical preview of the Family right in the browser
  • Browse, search and load Families, Views, Sheets, Schedules, Legends and Groups
  • NEW! Support for Nested Families and Legends
  • NEW! Identify and jump right to content loaded anywhere in the model!

Reduce steps in your workflow

  • New scalable thumbnails help save time by previewing content before placing it into your project

20180205_views-thumbnails     20180205_families-thumbnails

BETA Program Highlights:

  • Visually browse Revit project content such as Details, Sheets and Families with thumbnails right from within Revit
  • Understand your project, visually, without double-clicking yourself to death opening view, after view, after view
  • See how many instances of any family exist, jump to and select them, and even see the hosting element, all right from the AVAIL Browser for Revit plugin

Updates since 3.0.4:

We’ve been working hard to address the feedback that we’ve been receiving so far. So far, most of the feedback you have already provided has been around Thumbnail generation, which we thought might happen. We’re laying the groundwork for addressing your requests and will continue to do so throughout BETA period. But, we need your continued feedback… so:

We want to hear from you! We’re all ears! Join our slack channel by clicking here.

slack-logo

We’ve squashed a bunch of bugs and added some cool new features which are described in detail below.  Enjoy!

Content Mode bug fixes

  • Fix for issue with drag & drop of families from a project file
  • Fix for inability to access file info when file is open by another user

Project Mode updates

  • Added feature to immediately load thumbnails for an active project after thumbnail generation
  • Fix for issue with active projects failing to load in Project Mode
  • Fix for thumbnails that would not load properly after generation (correlated to incorrect thumbnail filenames)

Thumbnail Generator updates

  • Fix for exporting thumbnails with incorrect filenames (correlated to some thumbnails not loading after generation)
  • Removed default thumbnail export location going to Project Directory
  • Added messaging feature about setting the thumbnail export location on your online AVAIL Management Portal
    • Thumbnail location MUST be set from getavail.com/Manage/Settings
  • Based on all the great feedback, we’re working on making the Thumbnail Generator even better.

Other Updates

  • Installer check for minimum AVAIL Desktop version requirement; 3.5.3.0
  • Analytics reporting feature added for AVAIL Browser for Revit BETA

We want to hear from you! Be sure to tell us what you love, want to see more of, think needs to be tweaked – whatever! We’re all ears! Email us at info@getavail.com or join our slack channel by clicking here.

 

AVAIL Release News: Project Mode is now Live!

Happy 2018 everyone! We’re kicking off this new year with some really great new updates, and some really great news across the board!

First, the newest release of AVAIL, version 3.5.3!

You can now download the latest release of AVAIL Desktop and the AVAIL Content Browser for Revit HERE.

Here’s a summary of what we’ve been working on:

  • AVAIL Browser for Revit BETA – Project Mode is now Live and available for Team and Enterprise customers!
  • AVAIL International Expansion (Sydney & Pacific Rim)
  • Search bar improvements
  • Stream availability is close!
  • Various bug fixes and performance enhancements

Project Mode

First, many of you have heard us talking about a few things that we’ve been working on for a while now, and we’re excited to announce that the AVAIL Browser for Revit – Project Mode is now available in BETA for Team and Enterprise customers! If you’ve heard us talk about Project Mode, or actually seen a demonstration of it, you know how anticipated this release has been and we can’t wait to hear what you think!

Project Mode is a graphic browsing interface for your Revit project files. Any Revit user knows that the standard Revit project browser is, quite honestly, lacking a little bit in design, and with some added functionality over the standard project browser in Revit, AVAIL Browser for Revit – Project Mode is something that all Revit users have been waiting for. Thumbnail preview images of your loaded Families, Views, and Sheets in a tabbed interface provides a beautiful browsing experience and enhanced understanding of your Revit project files. Finally, a Revit project browser that thinks the way that building designers do!

20180205_views-thumbnails20180205_sheets-thumbnails

20180205_families-thumbnails

 

International Expansion

Additionally, you may have noticed some spots of Scheduled downtime lately… We’re very excited to announce an AVAIL international server for Sydney, Australia! For those of you using AVAIL in offices in closer proximity to the Australia/New Zealand region than to the USA, you will experience faster response times overall. We always strive to enhance AVAIL’s performance and this is just the latest of improvements that we’ve made.

Search Improvements

Speaking of improvements, we’re always trying to make your digital life easier here at AVAIL; in fact, that’s ALL we want to do. To that end, we’ve released our third iteration of Search Bar functionality! Previously, using the search bar was a great way to search across relevant filenames in a Channel of content… Well, as we’re always listening to our customers and trying to improve, we’ve expanded the Search bar functionality to now search across Tag data as well as filenames! Search results are always ranked in order of relevance, so what you’re looking for should always be right at the top of your search results. Please let us know what you think about the new Search results at info@getavail.com!

Stream

Those of you that have been around AVAIL for any amount of time have probably already heard of Stream. Stream is our rules-based content-routing technology that will monitor for files on your network, and show them in a Channel(s) of your choosing in AVAIL. Well, a lot of our work over the last couple of months have revolved around the development of Stream, and we’re happy to say that we’re getting very close! We’ve already started talking to some of you about Stream and it’s availability, and we’ll be continuing to do so throughout the rest of this month. We will start the first installations of Stream in Beta this quarter, and we’ll be posting more about it soon!

We love hearing from you so always feel free to contact us at info@getavail.com. Cheers!

PRESS RELEASE: ARCHVISION & AVAIL KICK OFF 2018 WITH ADDITIONS TO EXECUTIVE TEAM

Lexington, KY – January 30, 2018 – AVAIL and ArchVision announced today that both companies have made new hires to augment their executive lineup. Corey Rubadue joins ArchVision as Chief Executive Officer and Jim Clifton joins AVAIL as Chief Operating Officer.

Mr. Rubadue has refined his knowledge of visualization development and software engineering during his experience with ASGVIS and Chaos Group. First-hand knowledge of the challenges faced in architecture led to the founding of ASGVIS in 2005 and pioneered the integration of the V-Ray renderer into SketchUp and Rhino. ASGVIS was acquired by Chaos Group in 2011 and Rubadue and his team continued to refine the software. In late 2016, he oversaw the launch of V-Ray for Revit. In August 2017, Rubadue founded Oonix Solutions LLC to expand his focus on visualization to support a broader range of technologies and applications.

“I’ve always had a great appreciation of the ArchVision technologies,” says Rubadue. “Joining ArchVision is a strategically aligned fit with where my professional sights are set.”

“Corey’s expansive experience in the visualization industry is unmatched and he brings a wealth of partner relationships he has developed over the past 15 years in the field. I’m looking forward to having Corey at the helm of ArchVision and know that he will lead the company to the next level”, said Randall Stevens, founder of ArchVision.

In Mr. Rubadue’s new role as ArchVision CEO, he will oversee Product and Content development, Sales, Marketing and Personnel.

Mr. Clifton comes to AVAIL most recently from Bluegrass Vascular Technologies where, as Chief Operating Officer/Founder, he developed technology from product concept to regulatory approval to initial market launch. With over twenty years experience in software product management, Jim provides energy, drive, and creative force to early stage, complex technologies.

“Jim’s experience with every phase of the product development process makes him the perfect candidate for his new role as Chief Operating Officer”, said Randall Stevens, CEO of AVAIL.

Mr. Clifton will focus on developing and refining AVAIL’s go-to-market process and provide oversight for Sales and Marketing, Operations and Finance.

About ArchVision

Founded in 1991, ArchVision improves design modeling and visualization with RPC technology that provides architectural entourage in the form of people, tree & plant and automobile content and environment clutter. The newest product to the ArchVision lineup, Family and Detail Warehouse, is a collection of over 27,500 Roof, Window, Door and Foundation details, available as native Revit Drafting Views and AutoCAD DWGs, with unlimited downloads. ArchVision currently serves customers located in over 100 countries. For more info visit www.archvision.com.

About AVAIL

AVAIL’s enterprise and content management software solution indexes content and helps users find it in new ways. Based in Lexington, KY, AVAIL grew out of a need for a better way for AECO professionals to access the voluminous content being managed across their enterprise. With over 50 combined years in the AEC industry, the AVAIL team is passionate about helping firms discover a new way to find and manage content. For more info visit www.getavail.com.

AVAIL Release 3.4.1

We’ve learned a lot by talking with our users over the last few months, and many of the new features described below come from listening to you. The best part is, there’s more to come… the next few releases will be really exciting. There is some seriously big new stuff coming and we think you’ll really like what you see!

You can now download the latest release of AVAIL Desktop and the AVAIL Content Browser for Revit HERE.

We’ve been hard at work making a lot of great improvements recently. While many of these improvements are behind the scenes to increase performance, there are several new application features that you will get really great benefit out of!

Here’s a summary of what’s new:

  • ReSync feature automatically updates AVAIL when files are renamed on your network server
  • Large, expandable and full window previews make seeing your detailed content and custom thumbnail previews much easier
  • Collapsing Keys make large tag sets easier to use and manage
  • AVAIL Marketplace has been introduced
  • Improved Flags & Comments Panel
  • Bug fixes and improvements (the Sync Spinner is fixed!)

ReSync
“What happens when I rename a file on my server?” Well until recently, you had to re-index that file in AVAIL to update the index. No more. Now, if you rename a file, AVAIL will automatically repair that index location and filename with no need to re-index. In essence, it corrects your file names without you having to do anything at all, just work as usual.

Large Previews
In AEC, many of the assets in use are very graphic in nature. Whether it’s Revit families, details, PDFs or photos, seeing a picture can make a world of difference. With that in mind, we’ve introduced scaling thumbnails, a large preview pane in the Properties panel, and a full window preview. You can now view that detail or photo in full scale before bringing it into Revit or Photoshop.

Collapsing Keys
With large data sets of Channel contents and Key and Value pairs, the Filters Panel can accumulate a lot of rows. Now, when a Key has no more Values associated with it, the row will collapse and no longer be visible until filters are cleared that repopulate it. This makes the Filters Panel with many lines of Key Values in larger Channels a little nicer to work in.

AVAIL Marketplace
Ever wish digital content could be delivered to you, instead of having to go search for it? Now it can. The AVAIL Marketplace is live!

From the Browse Channels tab, you’ll see a new area called Marketplace. This is where content can be delivered to you, already tagged and ready to download or add to your internal AVAIL Channels, from the outside world. Have a favorite building product manufacturer that you want to deliver their content into your AVAIL ecosystem? Please let us, and more importantly them, know that you want them to be on the AVAIL Marketplace.

Family and Detail Warehouse from ArchVision is the first content available in the Marketplace. F+DW is a great collection of almost 30,000 drafted details and over 1,500 native Revit detail components and other families. This content can be delivered into your firm with Tags already applied, ready to download and put to use immediately!

Other Updates
There are many other updates in this release. Flags and Comments Panel has had a makeover and is easier to understand. Moving / Copying content between Channels is easier as you can now not only search for a Channel to Copy / Move content into, but also Create one on the fly. For Channel Publishers out there, the Primary path for content is now indicated graphically for easier understanding. Among other more minor bug fixes, the Synchronization notifications have been fixed, and now reflect when your content has completed synchronizing.

As always, we want to hear from you so please stay in touch. Until next time!

AVAIL Release 3.1

The first few months of 2017 have gone by so fast that it’s amazing to think what all has transpired! And now with Spring well underway here in Central Kentucky, and AIA, BCS and BiLT conferences rapidly approaching we find ourselves settling into this new year. Headphones on, nose to the grindstone… we are getting A LOT of good work done here at AVAIL.

The Big Picture

Speed is crucial when you’re trying to produce on a daily basis, and it’s something that you should expect from your Enterprise Content Management system. We’ve spent the first quarter of this year mostly behind the scenes in an effort to continually enhance speed and performance. You may not overtly see most of the improvements that were made in this newest release materialized in the interface itself, but you’ll notice remarkably enhanced browsing and searching speeds. As Ricky Bobby famously said, “I wanna go fast!” It’s been our motto around here lately, and we can hear the engines roaring!

New Features

  • Improved and enhanced indexing experience
    • Ability to use regular expressions to include or exclude desired content in very specific ways
    • Use pattern matching such as ‘begins with’ or ‘contains’ options to find relevant content
    • New feature to NOT add tags automatically upon index, just add content and path locations, or use to re-path content
  • Filters Panel is now re-sizable!
  • Faster search and indexing due to optimizations in the AVAIL back end services
  • Minor bug fixes.

At it’s core AVAIL is an Index of your content – and that initial indexing experience is now more powerful. The use of Regular Expressions, or RegEx, is now supported. RegEx is often used in software engineering and is a powerful way to be extremely specific about the results of a search. We have provided some simplified RegEx indexing options in pattern matching such as the ability to specify “begins with”, “ends with”, “exactly matches”, or “contains” in a file path.  This is one of the new features that you will see in the Indexing Filter interface, and AVAIL also supports specific full Regular Expressions.***

As an example, let’s say you want to be able to utilize all of the detail drafting views from previously completed and closed-out school projects, but don’t want to manually go searching through your entire project database to find each one of them. And perhaps you only want projects from the past 5 years. Designed in Revit. But just Elementary schools. Sounds like it will take forever to find these, right? No, it won’t, just use RegEx inside of AVAIL to search for, and find those files, and use the AVAIL Content Browser for Revit to easily access the content buried within them!!***

Automatically tagging content is great, but sometimes, you just don’t want tags to come in automatically. For example, when the path of a piece of content changes and you just need to add a new path. We’ve got you covered! You can now choose to not automatically add tags, and just index to update path locations.

We get lots of requests and do our best to incorporate all that we can. You’ve asked, and we’ve listened. The Filters Panel is now re-sizable! Now… onto incorporating an ‘Easy Button’.   😉

There’s a lot to say about the optimizations that we’ve made behind the scenes, but let’s just simplify it all and say; we think that Ricky Bobby would be happy. It’s fast. And we have no intentions of slowing down anytime soon.

See you next time!

***Let's pretend that your firm standard names project files with a specific format, let's use {ProjectNumber_Project Discipline code_Project Name_Project Phase}.rvt. A matching file name could be: 15224_Arch_Harper Elementary School_Archive.rvt. The project was started in 2015, and the project number reflects this by the leading '15' in the project number. An example  of matching Regular Expression search (though other expressions would work as well) could look like:

^1[2-7][0-9_ ]+_[a-zA-Z0-9_ ]+Elementary+[a-zA-Z0-9_ ]+Archive.rvt$

This expression would return the following results, as well as others matching it:
15224_Arch_Harper Elementary School_Archive.rvt
143766388_Arch_Laurel Elementary_Archive.rvt
134_MEP_Elementary School_Archive.rvt