I’ve updated the plugin to support Navisworks 2020. Existing users: run the plugin you have installed. An update button will appear with a link to the new package. Prospective users: to buy, click on the Shop link in the menu above.

This update also provides a bugfix – an unnecessary conditional statement that prevented exports of explicit selections and searches in the timeliner was removed.

I have replaced the old Paypal page and homespun download-email script with a professional eCommerce system and payment processor. Now, if you buy the plugin (or anything), the site itself will seamlessly deliver your digital download.
If you would like to pay with Paypal, you still can. The old purchasing page will keep its Paypal button until I add that option to the new system. Afterwards I’ll remove it and disable the script but retain the page and its comments for record’s sake.

Regarding spam, I’ve re-enabled comment capability but now with reCaptcha. Akismet comes with WordPress software, but it is not free for commercial use. My API key expired when they tied it to account possession and changed the terms. Soon after the site was flooded with spam and I had to disable comments for a while. Visibility is set to approved-only, so you didn’t see any of it, but it still required me to manually sort through it all in order to fish out comments from real visitors.
There’s a few that I see now that I don’t remember ever responding to, so if you asked for help with the plugin and never got a response I’m sorry. I’ll be sending a few emails out to those who haven’t been assisted yet. Anyone I’ve missed are welcome to post a new comment.
I will also be using your customer service requests to build a FAQ page. That should hopefully satisfy the more common questions.

NaviSet Transfer will be updated to support 2020 – it is an easy process, I just haven’t made time to do it yet. There are a couple bugs I want to fix, but no show-stoppers.

There will also be a new tutorial video. It’s about half complete, but that work was done almost a year ago… it still needs to be finished, so I’ll take care of it. It’ll come with the next release.

Akismet lapsed somehow so spam comments are out of control. You don’t see them because they require approval, but I’m currently dealing with 1200 comments… most undoubtedly spam. Unfortunately, the anti-spam service appears to be subscription based now – at least for anything not purely personal. I will have to find alternatives before I can turn comments back on.

For now, if you need help with the plugin, just send an message to the email account that sends you a link to the plugin. If you can’t find that in your records, you can also use the email given in the About window of the NaviSet Transfer Plugin.

The site itself will be bifurcated at some point to better separate my art from the plugin work… but as you can see I’m not in a rush.

I’ve updated the plugin to support Autodesk’s 2019 AEC Suite. To download it, run the existing NaviSet Transfer plugin. An update button will appear with a link to the new package.

The new update is now online. Current users will see an Update Available button appear when running earlier versions of the NaviSet Transfer plugin. Click that button to update.

• Timeliner Export:
  • Fixed bug that would cause Navisworks to crash when leaving planned task dates empty and attempting to export.
  • Added support for Actual task dates – if both Planned and Actual times exist, Actual task dates take priority.
• TimelinerSet maxscript: No-longer uses the Arnold-specific Mix Shader by default in Max 2018. Though Arnold is the best renderer included with that version, and the Arnold-specific shader is faster to process when using Arnold, many people use third party renderers. When it doesn’t work, they don’t realize why. To play it safe, the default is the one that works with most renderers – the old Blend material.

The new update is now available for download. Current users will see an Update Available button appear when running earlier versions of the NaviSet Transfer plugin. Click that button to get your free update.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

TimelinerSet MaxScript (version 1.1.1709xx)

1. Implemented a visibility workaround for Arnold and other such renderers that don’t respect the visibility controller. It scales objects to and from 0 within a fraction of a second with no discernible motion blur (Scale Fallback).
2. Added the option to use the Arnold materials for task colors.
3. All objects move in the correct direction regardless of their local coordinate system.
4. Reorganized and Improved GUI to follow expanded functionality.
5. The Clear Existing Keys button has been improved to work in all cases, not just straight construction tasks.

NaviSetImport MaxScript (version 1.1.1709xx)

1. Now creates a set called “User Managed Objects” allowing the user to pick which things he wants the script to ignore when resetting to tweak the animation settings.
2. The import cancel button works properly now.
3. Allows the user to change the file references seen in the *.dat file upon import. If the file name of your models ever change in your project at some point, you can still import sets generated from them.
4. Fixed the empty set problem. The export plugin would create an empty set if the entirety of that set were from non-Revit models. NaviSetImport now knows how to handle these, though as you’ll read below, the new plugin won’t create them anymore either.

NaviSet Transfer Navisworks Plugin (version 1.2.5.0)

1. No longer writes empty sets in the exported *.dat file.
2. It now exports timeline tasks as sets automatically. You no-longer have to create the selection sets yourself with the Timeliner’s Exports to Sets button. Naviswork’s function didn’t work all the time and it was a hassle to use for this purpose. I consider this the most important improvement of the update so far, next to the massive speed improvement from the previous update.

There’s more, but they’re little things that only matter to me (like the method for avoiding duplicate ID entries has been vastly improved to support the Timeliner task set export, the recursive ID scanning method has been simplified a bit, etc.

I’m an amateur programmer – it’s not my job description, so I’m thankful for your patience. This version will be out as soon as I check it for new bugs, write the new documentation, and create new tutorials.

There are three bugs that I’m working on.

The first one has to do with TimelinerSet, which may not even detect its own default values the first time it’s run. I believe this has to do with Maxscript weirdness regarding the GUI rollout commands… though I have some ideas of what’ll fix it.

The second has to do with users and files. It turns out a lot of people work with multiple versions of the same model file, usually as a result of using Revit’s collaboration features. Thus, what may work in Navisworks, may not work in Max, because different files were imported. If you import Midnight_Theater_David.rvt into Navisworks and run the export plugin, that’s what Max will look for when you run the NaviSet Import script.

The fix for that is to just let the user point the script to the new file.

The third bug has to do with how NaviSet Export records sets. If you have a non-Revit file in your Navisworks project, it alerts you to the fact that you won’t be able to export any sets selections for that specific file. It will then continue, and what should happen is that upon import into Max, those sets will be restored for everything but those aforementioned non-Revit models.

That’s an improvement over saying nothing, which is what it originally did. Yet meanwhile, if a set is entirely composed of items selected from a non-Revit model, it’ll be recorded as empty. Furthermore, if you try to export a Selection Set XML along with it (a feature for transporting selection sets to a new Navisworks file), that XML will be broken.

It turns out that the import script wasn’t able to handle empty sets without there being a chance of crashing (due to looking for an index to an temporary array that doesn’t exist).

The script side of that was fixed a few weeks ago, but I haven’t updated the official release yet. Two people have received the patched script so far as a result of this issue, but I wanted to wait to make these other improvements before I make it an official release.

What I need to do next is fix the Navisworks plugin side of the issue, which will restore the ability to export selection XMLs within that edge case.

And finally – I’ve recently completed a script that’ll emulate other people’s max files using nothing but the set file. It doesn’t regenerate geometry, all it does is generate cubes on a grid with a generic “element” name and the ID numbers from the sets file. This is essential for debugging their projects.

A lot of you are working under NDAs. Sending me your models may not always be possible. Now, you don’t have to. Thanks to this new script, from the set file I can emulate the conditions causing your problems and work from there.

All of that is what I’m working with currently regarding the plugin. I’ve also returned to school, and admittedly there’s very little time for me to work on this or help people – but I’ll try to get the new release out soon.