Hey Vault! Where are my Model Space Views?

Before adding AutoCAD files to Autodesk Vault, you might want to change a setting.  One of the default settings for creating visualization files in Vault is to NOT include Model Space views.  This setting can help keep the amount of visualization files generated down to a minimum, and is especially nice if you rely solely on your Layouts for previewing documents.  However, if you need to be able to see the Model Space content as well, then you will want to change the setting.  Let’s take a look at how to change it.  Before we begin changing the setting, let’s take a look at the Preview tab of a file and take notice there is not a Model Space Preview (there are only 2 Previews, and they are layouts).

• To change the setting, first, go to Tools, then Administration, then Vault Settings

• In the Vault Settings dialog, select the Visualization tab, then the Options… button in the Publish Options section.

• In the Publish Options dialog box, from the drop-down list, select AutoCAD.
• Scroll down and notice the Include Model Space option is not selected by default.  Select the checkbox.  Click OK.

• Click Close, to close the Vault Options dialog box.
• Now you can update your drawing Preview in Vault. To do this, click on the Preview tab in Vault.  Next, click on the Preview itself.  You may receive a message stating that the preview cannot be displayed, but you can ignore this message (either way, you will need to update the Preview).

• The default method for updating the Previews is to Update Locally (this is seen by clicking the drop-down arrow. See image below).  Click Update…, to have Vault update the Previews.

• Vault will then process the new Previews.

• Now you can click on the Preview button to see your views.  Notice that there is now a Model Space view added.

Updating the Preview as outlined above (after changing the setting, of course) works great for a single file, but what if you have a hundred or even a thousand files that you just added to vault, that are missing the Model Space Preview?  Below, are the steps to automate this View Update.

• First, do a quick search in vault for .dwg files.  In the results pane, shift+click all the dwg’s to select them.  Then, click on Actions, Update View, Queue Update.  This will send the job of updating all previews to the Job Server.

• The Job Processor will then process the requested jobs in the Job Processor.

The process should go rather quickly.  I hope you enjoyed this post.  Till next time.