Revit Export API and Bluebeam

[Ceorl82]

I have an interesting situation and I'd like to know if anyone else has ran into this before.  I have some code I wrote to export pdf files from Revit.  Everything works well, the pdf files look good, and the file size is small.  Everybody's happy...almost.  Whenever we load any of the pdf files into Bluebeam's signing and sealing utility, only the top-righthand corner of the file is displayed.  It's not scaled in any way, but rather 3/4th of the file simply doesn't display.  We've contacted Bluebeam and they don't have an answer, so I thought I'd reach out to y'all to see if anyone has possibly dealt with this.

Oh,

Revit 2022/Bluebeam Revu 20 and 21

Thanks in advance. 

[Ceorl82]

Thanks for passing it along.  We have also contacted our Bluebeam dealer and alerted them to the issue.  Hopefully, someone at BB will raise the issue too.  It's a tough one because nobody knows where the issue lies.  Is it a BB issue or a Revit issue? No one seems to know.

Anyway, safe travels to you, Jeremy.

[jeremy_tammik]

They respond: This doesn't seem to be a problem we can do much with. We create PDFs using Adobe's PDF library. They display great in lots of viewers, including Bluebeam itself, and one specific tool in Bluebeam messes up. We should be encouraging Bluebeam to investigate further what that tool is doing and why it ends up truncating the image. If there's something in our files that they think is the cause, we can try to find out why it's there, once we know what it is. This doesn't seem to fit with other issues about Revit visual fidelity of PDF export. The export itself is fine, it's just this tool messing up with it for some reason.

[ctm_mka]

@creole curious, the image you posted, is that the preview, or the final pdf? i just tested the same scenario, revit 2022, bluebeam 21, manually export pdf. the preview is messed up, but the final pdf after finishing the tool is fine...

[Ceorl82]

That's what the AOR's see trying to put their stamp on the drawing. It's a matter of not being able to place the stamp where they need it (an area in the bottom right corner of the title block), because they simply can't see where to place it. But yes, everything else about the pdf is fine.

[ctm_mka]

ah okay, wanted to make sure everyone wasnt missing something obvious (its happened before). That being said, is there something with the sign & seal tool you must use? if all you need is the stamp, the Batch Apply Stamp tool works just fine (its what we use).

[Ceorl82]

Yes, we need to be able to see where we want to place the stamp. We love the Batch Sign and Seal. You only stamp the first sheet, and the program does the others automatically. But we still to see where to place the stamp on the first sheet. The best workaround we have is to reprint the first sheet from Bluebeam and replace the original first sheet with the newly created one. Now that we can see where to place the stamp on the first sheet, the batch process finishes the others. We can also print the sheets and BB works fine. But printing has its own issues, mainly concerning fonts, so we don't like to print. Exporting gives us the most consistent results.

[ctm_mka]

yup, same workflow can be achieved with the apply stamp tool, the caveat is it must be done to a combined pdf. You place on teh first page, then right click and apply to all pages.  After flattening you then extract individual pdfs (if thats whats needed). But at least you can see what you are doing!

[Ceorl82]

Okay, so let's talk about that for a minute. What I'm seeing with the Apply Stamp is not so much "seeing" where to place your stamp, but rather assigning an x,y value. I could figure that out for one client, but we have a fairly significant number of clients. Not sure I want to keep up with that many. My other question is, how do you then handle the digital signatures that goes with the stamp?

BTW, thanks for discussing this.
-Chuck

[ctm_mka]

Well simple answer is we don't handle a digital signature at all. The stamp becomes its own pdf file, and there are three different versions for each signatory, they include the signature. The jurisdiction we are submitting to determines which version to use.

[dtpeter2901]

Or in other words, you're not digitally signing the documents.  You're affixing an image of a signature.  Which in many states, isn't technically allowed.  The Batch Stamping process works just fine.  It's the batch Digital Signature function that is the problem.

[ctm_mka]

Indeed we are not digitally signing, and in certain states, they still want ink stamps, but we get around that anyways, as the act of stamping, in reality or otherwise, is the important part.