Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Revit Architecture 2010 massing tips

Harlan Brumm at Revit Clinic posted a number of really useful tips when using the new massing tools in Revit Architecture 2010. Below are couple of extra tips which expand on what he suggested.

Unjoining challenges

One the nice features within the 2010 concept massing tools, is the ability for a void object to automatically cut solid objects. If you create a solid form and then create a void form, they just cut. However, what happens if you have two solid forms which are overlapping and then you add a void form? By default, if the void form intersects both solid forms, it will cut both solids.

unjoin_1

Now this is fine, but what happens if you then decide that you only want the void to cut one of the two solids? To do this you will first need to select the intersecting void. However, the problem is actually selecting the void. The best way to select the void is to move your point over the void and tab select, cycling through the selection until you pick up the void.

unjoin_2

Once you've got hold of the void you can then choose uncut geometry from the modify tab, then select the solid you don't want to cut.

unjoin_3

 

Can't add a profile or split a face?

If you join to solid objects together, although you can go into x-ray tool and see how each individual form is made up, you will not be able add a profile to either form when in x-ray mode. You need to first unjoin the two solid forms if you want to add a profile.

The same situation occurs if you have two solids join and you want to split face of one of the solids. Again, you need to unjoin, before using the split face tool.

Painting patterns

When working with massing we can divide a surface and apply a surface pattern to a divided surface. If you divide a number of surfaces and a apply a surface pattern to one of the divided surfaces, we can use the "Match Type" tool to match the surface pattern to multiply divided surfaces.

matchtype

Thursday, July 23, 2009

More Opus Panels in Revit 2010

Ok; you guys set me a challenge. After showing the Opus panel I created in Revit 2010, which I posted earlier this week, you asked when was I going to add thickness! Well, after some head scratching, here you are. :-)

opus panel_v2_0

Here are a few renders....looks far better when it has thickness.

opus panel_v2_1

opus panel_v2_2

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Something to put your tired head on

I got asked yesterday whether it was possible to model a pillow in Revit 2010, not sure why, but it certainly set down a challenge:-) Thanks to Zach at Buildz for a few pointers...I will post the file when its completed.

revit pillow

Autodesk finally support the Mac

I guess most Mac users will have seen this by now! Being a Mac user, I have screaming out for this. Thank you Autodesk :-)

Autodesk Expands Support for Mac Users

Autodesk is now officially supporting Apple Boot Camp, a component of the Mac OSX operating system that enables customers to run Windows on their Apple Hardware, for users of AutoCAD 2010 software, 3ds Max 2010 software, 3ds Max Design 2010 software, Autodesk Inventor 2010 software, Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010 software, Autodesk Revit Structure 2010 software and Autodesk Revit MEP 2010 software.  A growing number of Autodesk customers are working in environments with Apple hardware and have requested support from Autodesk to use our design and engineering applications on that platform.    With Autodesk support for Boot Camp, customers can now run their favorite Mac applications and Autodesk applications on the same computer.   This will also enable customers to run Autodesk applications at full speed on a Mac and leverage its native graphics capabilities.  We know some customers have been successfully running their Autodesk software under Boot Camp for years, so we’re pleased to finally offer official support.  See www.autodesk.com/mac for more details.

For AutoCAD specific information, you can also refer to Product Support's page:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13578583&linkID=9240617

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Hauer Opus Panels in Revit 2010

Thought I'd share this with you all. Last year I managed to create an Hauer Opus panel in Revit 2009. This was achieved by nesting various components into a cw panel family. So when 2010 was released, I was keen to find out whether I could create the panel using the new cw pattern based family. Its taking me a couple of months to find time to look at this, but I have been working on this challenge now for 3 days and I have finally got there! I need to get out more! :-)

2010_HAUER_1

I will explain more in a future post. BTW it does have parameters, so I can control the shape.

2010_HAUER_3

2010_HAUER_2

Monday, July 20, 2009

More Spikey Panel fun! ;-)

image

Thought I'd share these with images with you. I took the panel pyramid from last weeks post and added a height parameter to the panel. This allowed me to adjust the apex of the pyramid. I then just loaded the family back into the massing family, adjusted the panel height parameter to give me a really spikey form!

image

image

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Building Coder and Revit Form Creation API

Jeremy Tammik's Building Coder blog has a amazing article on form creation using the API in Revit Architecture 2010. Not being a programmer, most of its gone over my head (need to get on a API class I think!!). But check it out here.....

http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2009/07/revit-form-creation-api.html

Friday, July 17, 2009

Spikey Panels in Revit Architecture 2010

One of the cool new features in Revit Architecture 2010 is the new curtain wall pattern based family. If anybody has seen Zach Kron's Buildz blog you will have seen some of the cool stuff he does with this new family. Now a few years ago I remember playing with curtain wall panels (old school Revit) and trying to create a spikey hedgehog type form. The trouble back then was it was not possible to build a cw panel the would fit into a double curved surface.

spikey panels 2008

Fast forward to Revit 2010 and its finally possible!

spikey panels

Take a look at this video on how I created the panel above. I hope you find this useful.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

How to create a sheared tube in Revit 2010

image

Here is an interesting challenge that somebody gave me last week. How can you create a extruded tube in 2010 and then  shear the tube so that the circles that make up the tube remain concentric top and bottom? After thinking about it, I came up with this as a solution. A combination of points and reference lines will solve the problem. Enjoy. :-)

Solar radiation tool preview for Revit

As part of Autodesk's ongoing commitment to sustainability, they have released a technology preview of a Solar Radiation tool for Revit Architecture and Revit MEP 2010. You will need to make sure that you have web update 1 installed, but the preview can be downloaded from the Autodesk Labs web site.

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/ecotect/

solar_rad

This is an exciting development, because for the first time the architect will have graphical analysis tools embedded within the Revit Architecture environment.

AECBtyes Revit Architecture article published

Lachmi Khemlani has written a good article in AECbytes on this years release of Revit Architecture, 2010. It is well worth the read if you have the time and she certainly makes some positive comment about both the new users interface and the mass tools.

http://www.aecbytes.com/review/2009/RevitArch2010.html

“…Revit’s conceptual modeling environment is much more powerful and sophisticated [than SketchUp]. The heads-up dimension display that shows the dimensions as you are modeling and allows them to be edited—which is so helpful in the detailed modeling stage—also allows conceptual masses to be created to the exact level of accuracy desired. The ability to tie geometry to reference lines and planes, and add constraints and parameters makes it easy to iterate through many design variations easily and quickly. The new surface dividing, patterning, and panelizing capabilities makes Revit’s conceptual modeling environment even more compelling."