Help

Revit Quick Start

1. Sign in or create an Autodesk account.
2. Download and install the Revit Add-in.
3. Open a project in Revit 2012. In the ribbon, click Web Services > Render Online.
4. If requested, sign-in using your Autodesk ID.
5. Select views, adjust settings and click the Start Rendering button.
6. Review and download the completed images online.

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Before You Render

Set up 3D views, lighting and other parameters in Revit, exactly the way you want them, before using the Render Online feature. Read on for additional preparation tips.

3D Views
The rendering service relies on 3D views created in Revit. You can render any or all of the 3D views found in your project file. The service does not work with 2D views.

Sun Settings
Only the Still and Lighting types of Solar Studies are supported at this time. Views using Single Day or Multi-Day Solar Study settings are not supported.

Materials

The renderer is a new highly optimized engine and is not the same as Revit. Some differences in materials appearance are expected.

Projects created with Revit versions prior to 2012 are translated to the Revit 2012 format when opened in Revit 2012. Rendered results may look different after this translation.

Textures
Only image-based textures are supported at this time. Procedural textures, (Checker, Gradient, Marble, Noise, Speckle, Tiles, Waves, and Wood) are not supported.

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Uploading

Revit files cannot be uploaded directly to the rendering service. Instead, use the Neon for Revit 2012 add-in to access the service directly from within Revit 2012.

Using a previously uploaded file

Previously rendered files are saved securely in your account, making it unnecessary to re-send a file when you want to render more images from it later.

There are two ways to use a previously uploaded file:

1. On the Select a Source File screen, select a previously uploaded file or an Autodesk sample file from the list at the bottom of the page, then click Continue to advance to the Adjust Settings screen.

2. On the My Render Gallery screen, click on the thumbnail menu from any thumbnail image and select Re-render using new settings…

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Data Security

Revit project files are never uploaded directly to the rendering service. Instead, translated files containing just enough data to render accurately are created by the add-in and uploaded to the service, where they are stored at a secure data center. Your translated rendering files cannot be viewed or downloaded by anyone. Only a person signed into the rendering service with your user name and password can access the files, and then, only to render them with the service.

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Settings

After clicking "Render Online" from the Web Services tab in the ribbon the Render Online dialog box appears. Use the controls in this dialog box to set up the renderings of your Revit project.

You can adjust the following settings:

• 3D View: Select the desired 3D view from the list. Select "Render all 3D Views" to render images of all 3D views simultaneously.
• Render Quality: Select the desired rendering quality from the list. See the table below for a comparison of the differences between each quality level.
  

  Draft	Standard	High	Best

• There are four Render Quality settings in the rendering service, each with a different balance of three rendering quality variables: Eye rays, reflection samples, and lighting accuracy.

	Quality Variables
Setting	Eye Rays	Reflection Samples	Lighting Accuracy	When to Use	Speed
Draft	0.25	1	Low*	Optimized for speed. Perfect for a quick preview of your scene.	1x
Standard	4.0	1	Low	More accurate than Draft. Perfect for quick visualization during design.	4x
High	16	8	Med	Greater detail than Standard. Perfect for high fidelity presentation work.	10x
Best	32	16	High	Lower noise and broader tonal range than High. Perfect for archival rendering, when speed is not a priority.	20x

• Note: Speed comparisons shown are relative. The overall rendering time for any image is a function of render quality, image resolution, and complexity of the scene.
  • Eye Rays: Ray tracing analyzes the way simulated rays of light bounce around in your 3D scene. Eye rays refers to the number of initial simulated light rays being traced per pixel in the final rendered image of your scene. The more eye rays that are calculated per pixel, the greater the accuracy of its final value.
  • Reflection samples: The quality of a calculated reflection depends on the amount of detail in the texture of the surface. Reflection samples refers to the amount of detail per eye ray. A higher number of reflection samples results in reflections that appear more photo-realistic.
  • Lighting accuracy: Rendering a scene requires analyzing all of the light sources present, for each pixel in the final image. This analysis can often be simplified with little perceptible effect, resulting in dramatic speed improvements. Lighting accuracy refers to the amount of simplification applied to the lighting in your scene when calculating each pixel in the final rendered image. *Draft quality mode further simplifies the lighting calculation by averaging groups of pixels with similar properties.
• Image Size: Select one of the preset image sizes from the list. Note that larger images take much longer to render than smaller images. The maximum image size is 4000 x 4000 pixels.
• File Format: Select the desired file format for your completed images. File format has no effect on rendering time.
  • PNG (Lossless) - 24-bit Portable Network Graphics file. This is the best format for most purposes.
  • JPEG (High Quality) - 24-bit JPEG file. File sizes are greatly reduced. Minor loss of quality may be visible.
  • TIFF (Uncompressed) - 24-bit Tagged Image File Format image. Identical in quality to PNG, but may save you a conversion step if your application requires TIFF.

  By default you will receive an email notification when all your images are ready, or if there are any errors that need your attention. Uncheck this option if you do not want to be notified by email.

Click the Start Rendering button at the bottom of the screen to start rendering.

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Rendering

After clicking the Start Rendering button on the Render Online dialog box your scene will be translated and uploaded to the rendering service, where it will be queued for rendering.

If you wish to monitor the progress of a rendering, click My Render Gallery from the Web Services tab in the ribbon. The My Render Gallery screen will open in your web browser. Here you can view your completed images and monitor any renderings still in-progress.

A small progress bar appears beneath each image as it is being rendered. Hover over the image with your mouse cursor to reveal an information popup with the details of the image.

Click the Cancel Rendering button on any in-progress thumbnail to stop rendering the image. Canceling a rendering in progress cannot be undone. Click the New Rendering button to start over if you cancel a rendering by mistake.

Once rendering has begun you are free to close your browser window. Check the box Email when complete to receive a notification when your images are ready. Sign in to the rendering service at any time to monitor in-progress renderings and review your completed images.

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Viewing, Downloading and Deleting

Once an image is rendered it is viewable in a gallery of images from the same source file on the My Render Gallery screen.

Navigate the images in galleries containing more than 7 images using the left and right arrow buttons on either end of the row of thumbnails.

Hover over a thumbnail to review the rendering and image details.

Click on a thumbnail to open a larger preview image of the rendering in your browser window. If the preview is already showing, click the thumbnail to hide it again.

Hover over a thumbnail's icon to select actions:

Re-render using new settings…
Set up one or more new renderings based on the same source file as the image.

Render as Panorama
Renders a full 360 degree panorama of the current view. See below for more details.

Show preview image
Open a larger preview image of the rendering in your browser window.

Download image
Download the full size rendered image to your computer.

Delete image
Permanently delete the image from your gallery, (cannot be undone). Click "Delete All" in the title bar of a gallery if you no longer want any of the images in that gallery.

 

Panoramas

Panoramas are full 360 degrees views of the scene from the current view camera position. The quality and size of a panorama image is dependent on the quality and size of the view used to create it. if the panorama quality looks poor, re-render the view with a better quality and larger image size, and then create a panorama from the new higher quality image. Panoramas are visible through an embedded panorama viewer. Use the mouse to explore the 360 degrees environment.

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Troubleshooting

Installing the Revit Add-in:

• You must download and install the specific version of the add-in to match the version of Revit 2012 you are currently running:
• Click "Revit 2012" if you are running the release version of Revit 2012 (build 20110309_2315).
• Click "Revit 2012 Update 1" if you have installed the service pack to Update Release 1 (build 20110622_0930).
• After installing a Revit 2012 service pack, the previously installed version of the Rendering Add-in will stop working. Download and install the correct version from the New Rendering:  Select a Source File page.
• The Rendering Revit Add-in is currently only available in English. Other languages will be available soon.

My rendered images don't look like I expected them to:

• Try rendering with an increased Render Quality setting.
• Try adjusting the lighting Revit.

My rendering does not update or respond:

• Try reducing the complexity of the source file.
• Try rendering with a smaller Image Size.
• Try rendering with a reduced Render Quality.

Unsupported features:

• Some lights parameters cannot be changed or will not match the original settings:
• Color temperature
• Light loss (all settings)
• Spotlight Field and Beam angles
• Dimming light color temperature shift
• Haze is not yet supported.
• Views using Single Day or Multi-Day Solar Study settings are not supported.

 

Differences with the Rendering tool in Revit:

• Exposure
• Scene exposure is automatically calculated by the rendering service. Exposure settings from Revit are not used.
• Materials
• The rendering service relies on a new, highly optimized rendering engine. Minor differences in the appearance of materials should be expected.
• Projects created with Revit versions prior to 2012 are translated to the Revit 2012 format when opened in Revit 2012. Rendered results may look different after this translation.
• Custom materials and textures used in RPC are not currently supported and will appear in Neon with their default settings. Examples: Notebook Computer screen, Picture Frame frame material, and Steelcase chairs fabrics.
• Image quality
• Some noise may appear in the final image if interior environments have insufficient lighting.
• Project size
• When rendering a very large Revit project, the size of the rendering data file generated may exceed the upper limit permitted by the rendering service. If this happens, a thumbnail representing the failed job will be shown in the gallery. Try rendering just one 3D View, or reducing the complexity of your project file.
• My rendering does not update or respond
• For security reasons your computer clock and time zone must be set correctly. If they are not, your rendering files cannot be stored on our servers and processed.
• A rendering may fail if your Revit project uses custom texture files in material appearances AND you have stored these texture files in the default "Autodesk Materials Library" directory.

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