Fabrication CADmep 2018: Top 5 Questions

By Justin Doughty 

I thought it would be a good idea to put some of the most common Fabrication CADmep queries together into one easy to find place, my top 5 questions.

1. Unknown Command
Usually to start CADmep from inside of AutoCAD the TAKEOFF command is used. If this returns a “Unknown command” message, we have to manually load the application first.

Enter APPLOAD into the command line.

Browse to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Fabrication 201*\CADmep

Select the CADmep .arx file from this folder and Load, depending on year, this number will vary:

2. Missing Interface Elements
You may find the default tools for CADmep are missing from the Interface. There are commands to toggle these on and off.

TBAR toggles the CADmep toolbar

USESYSTEMS toggles the display of the Systems and Services Palette

3. Selecting a Configuration
By default when starting CADmep, you should be presented with a choice of what configuration to use. If you do not get this, want to change, or even add a location of a new configuration, we use the Edit Configuration program that comes with the installation:

Here we are presented with the option to pick a configuration, remember it for next time, and start a new one.

To get the choice back, simply untick “Remember this next time” and OK.

4. Version
How do you tell what version or update of CADmep you are using? AutoCAD has the ABOUT command and screen, but the information from CADmep is not there.

Use the APPINFO command to show your Build Number:

5. Using a Fabrication Configuration in Revit
If you have both CADmep and Revit installed, when in Revit, you may not see all of the same configurations listed in CADmep. This is because that specific configuration database has yet to be assigned a GUID.

To fix this, go to the Database in CADmep

Under Configuration, click on Version

Here press the arrows icon to generate a new GUID for the database

Click OK to save

Then when we go to Revit, this configuration will now be available in the list: