I read with interest the problems Alan over at Revit Learning Curve was having with printing from Revit 2012. More details on his challenges can be found here.......
http://cadalot-revitlearningcurve.blogspot.com/2011/04/printer-plotter-bugs-with-revit-2012.html
Now this opens up an interesting debate; Is this a bug with Revit 2012 or during the update of Revit 2012, has what ever changed made the drivers incompatible? In my view, two different items. Now I have never really been a big fan of Kip printers; they are cheap and do a reasonably good job, but they are hardly Oce Printers. But not everybody can afford Oce devices! I remember as far back as Revit 5 having stability issues when printing from Revit to a Kip printer. Anyway, after trying various different driver versions, we got one which provided reasonably good results.
Anyway, to the point of this post. Let's assume there is a genuine issue with 2012; who's fault was it and why wasn't it picked up before? Those that Beta tested the product or Autodesk? Now I will put my hands up and say, when I was testing Revit 2012 I did not attempt or try printing from the beta software, which I have to admit is very poor! Thinking about it, we all talk about the virtual model, but printing the deliverables is still part of the basic delivery process. So I wonder if anybody else tried printing during the beta? Alan did you try printing during the beta? because if you had, I wonder if you would have picked up the problem then? Should we be blaming Autodesk? I have visited the factory a number of times and I certainly didn't find a room packed full of all the latest printers run test plots from future versions of Revit.
I guess this is the real issue; we get so excited about the new functionality, yet we miss the fundamentals. The nature of software will mean there will be issues, the beta program is supposed to pick up these issues, but the fragmented nature of the Windows platform will mean that things sometimes get missed. I am sure Autodesk will put there hands up and say that there is an issue, which they will fix. Maybe it's not; it could fall on the printer firms to fix there drivers, if this is the case, you may be waiting a long time! However, its also up to those that get invited to test the software to help QA the product. Once upon a time I couldn't wait to get the latest version installed onto my laptop, nethertheless these days I take the view, wait until service pack 1!! ;-)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
3 comments :
As a Beta tester, I will admit I didn't print anything to our plotter (Oce). However, it must be understood that most beta testers use either their home computers or virtual machines on their work computers to test as instructed by Autodesk to avoid corrupting their production versions of Revit 2011. Very few of us have access to good 64-bit machines in our office that aren't being used for Revit work on a day to day basis, and using an old 32 bit machine from the office graveyard would be pointless. Working in a virtual machine is bad enough. I doubt anyone bothered to load the drivers and path the plotter to a virtual machine that is only going to be used for a few months.
So is it bad that the Beta testers didn't pick up on it, yes. But Autodesk doesn't exactly enable us to test plotting very easily.
CHEAP!!! I don't think $30,000 is cheap....
Darin
Post a Comment