Revit

To BIM or Not to BIM?

2012-01-26T13:33:00.000Z

This is an extract from Architects Journal from the 15/12/11, this article looked at trends in design & construction for the UK going into 2012…hopefully AJ won’t mind me highlighting the comment about Revit. :-)

Dude! Where’s my Nodes?

2012-01-26T09:09:00.000Z

Spotted this one yesterday. In Vasari, if you divide a surface & select the divided surface with a view to changing the Surface Representation, there is no arrow to the Surface Representation options dialogue.This is Vasari…. see..no arrow? No dialogue…no Nodes… :-(

This is the same thing in Revit 2012….arrow to access the Surface Representation options.

I thought I was going mad! Fortunately Zach K. put my mind at rest & confirmed it as an interface bug. The arrow is there, see the image below, but its hidden at the end!

Rebuilding forms in Vasari or Revit 2012

2012-01-25T20:22:00.000Z

This issue came up yesterday, a reasonable straight request…”I have built this surface in “PRODUCT”…….. (insert Rhino or AutoCAD). Can I rebuild it in Vasari or Revit as a water tight closed object, so I can do that I do that create floors by mass thingy?”

So here goes; this is what I was able to achieve. It should be noted that this may not work for all surfaces, but it certainly worked for this form. I started by creating a new mass family in Vasari / Revit. Next I imported the Rhino surface.

I then choose divide surface & picked the imported Rhino surface, you may need to tab select until you get to the surface, but you will be able to subdivide the surface.

I then altered the UV grid parameters to something sensible, in this case 4 x 10.

The UV grid would act as a template to trace. Then, under Surface Representation I enabled Nodes.

Using model lines > spline through points, I was able snap to the nodes to generate a profile following the surface.

I repeated this a couple of times to build a series of closed profiles.

Next I deleted the imported surface. I half expected everything to disappear, but fortunately I the model lines remained! I then converted these lines to reference lines & closed the gap at the base with another reference line.

Then selected all the model lines & chose create form to build the form.

As I suggested, it should work for simple forms & is a relatively quick way to rebuild in Revit or Vasari….but don’t assume it will work for all.

More colour stairs ;-)

2012-01-24T19:43:00.000Z

Like a lamb to the slaughter, I knew my stair post would get my ass kicked! So I would like to extend my thanks to all those that took the time to respond; as they say “there is more than one way to skin a cat”. So lets go through all the options….

tchuffart & unknown suggested……

You could turn the ghost surface on for the stairs, and it will match all the underlying colour you need.

Steve, Andy H , AFriend, Carlos Vav suggested similar approaches….

If you tick the transparent box in the views visibility / graphic override you will get the same effect but have the benefit that if the colour fill changes you don't have to amend each element. In 2012 this will not appear correct in the view but will print out correct (the ghosted one appears correct but doesn’t appear correct).

jojo1579 suggested….

There is a simple way to do this. In your Floor Plan properties change Colour Scheme Location from 'background' to 'foreground' on. (note the issue this is that the colour extends into the wall).

So there you are, take your pick!

Colour a stair

2012-01-23T14:21:00.000Z

This query has come up twice recently. “Is there any way you can stop a stair from masking out in a room colour fill, so that the stair itself is the same colour as the room fill?” In essence, what is not required is this……

Instead this is actually what is required…..

There is no automatic way to do this unless you setup some smart filters, but if you assign a colour override to the stair the same as the colour fill of the room, it works fine, not ideal, but it solves the problem quickly & promptly.

Remember the stair is not included within the room calculation & you can’t do much about the railing!

BIM in Small-Scale Sustainable Design

2012-01-23T13:43:00.000Z

At the beginning of last year I was contacted by Francois Levy, a registered Texas architect & researcher. He explained he was writing a book focused on BIM strategies for sustainable design in small & medium sized architectural projects. On further discussions he wanted to include a case study from this very blog; my parameterized Hauer Curtain Wall example.

As ever, I was honoured to get the opportunity to get my work published. So this morning I received a copy of Francois fruits of labour & on initial inspection the result looks excellent. I have heard it said many times, how does a small firm get into BIM? Isn’t BIM just for large firms? I would actually argue that with the right mindset, a clear strategy & willingness to make it succeed, then in many ways a small firm will find it easier to implement BIM than a large multi-national. Whilst I have yet to read the book from cover to cover, this looks to be a great read for any small firm who wants to understand how BIM & sustainability & tightly connected. Check it out from the Wiley website.

http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470590890.html

Once again I would like to extend my thanks to Francois for including my work in his book.

Scan to BIM

2012-01-23T08:53:00.000Z

This sneaked it way up onto labs at the end of last week. This is a preview technology for Revit 2012….be sure to check it out….

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

“Point Cloud Feature Extraction for Autodesk^® Revit^® 2012 software is a free* technology preview that allows you to work with point cloud more easily in Revit. This plug-in automatically extracts useful geometry features from point cloud of buildings and creates basic Revit elements to aid the building modeling in Revit.”

Revit history–back in the day

2012-01-19T11:47:00.001Z

If you are as passionate about the Revit technology as I am, be sure to read Jeremy Tammiks blog post on the Genesis of Revit & its API.

http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2012/01/the-genesis-of-revit-and-its-api.html

VEO™ Video Preview

2012-01-10T10:32:00.000Z

So you may have probably heard the buzz? I am guilty as most for banging on about VEO™, although I am under NDA, so I can’t be too specific. But if you really want to know more, go to this Linked in page!

http://www.linkedin.com/company/m-six/566626/product?report%2Esuccess=7ZNxzQ7qwKSLnUwPzMlc0NSwfaJl1iZvsHylsflisatINkcSHID5jnVaftJXqvclHlCVHE

After working for more than 4 years in stealth mode, M-SIX will soon launch VEO™, a cloud-based platform for use in the design, construction, and operation of buildings and other structures.

VEO™ Lux - Navigate and Visualize
VEO™ Logic - Coordination and Validation
VEO™ Time - Scheduling and Sequencing
VEO™ Track - Asset tracking
VEO™ Archive - Model-linked document library
VEO™ Pulse - Real-time sensor data

http://www.m-six.com/Video/li/VEO-Preview.html

I have had a couple of people ask me already what VEO™ is. So I will attempt to put in my typical plain English fashion. VEO™ is not a modeller, Revit can do that & it can do it very well, that is not the market that M-Six are after. VEO™ instead is a BIM aggregator, a lifecycle platform; in my humble opinion, the piece of the BIM pie which is truly missing; true BIM 360.

I have said it before & I will say it again, the last time I got this excited about a software product was when I first saw Revit & if my memory serves me correctly most out there didn’t get it & saw it as an annoyance. Now what is the preferred BIM platform of choice? ;-)

The state of UK BIM

2011-12-22T08:36:00.001Z

Following this years successful Autodesk UK BIM conference, Construction News In association with Autodesk published this article. Certainly worth a read!!

http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1v25l/ConstructionNewsBIMS/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Ffree.yudu.com%2Fitem%2Fdetails%2F452049%2FConstruction-News-BIM-Supp-Dec-2011

Very quick adaptive railings

2011-12-20T15:20:00.000Z

Just a quick share on the possibilities of using a very simple adaptive family to create a railing family. The “point” to watch is the need to make the adaptive points vertical on placement. :-)

Merry Christmas & a happy New Year

2011-12-19T12:26:00.000Z

I would like to wish all my readers & followers a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year. Thank you for the continued loyalty & look forward even bigger Revit & BIM stuff during 2012!

Use Windows Live Writer 2011?

2011-11-22T11:30:00.001Z

You should be aware of this rather annoying bug!!! Google or Microsoft please get it sorted!

http://blog.jtbworld.com/2011/11/500-internal-server-error-bx-7sd12g.html

11-11-11

2011-11-11T11:11:00.001Z

Are you going to AU2011? Do you Vasari?

2011-11-09T10:26:00.000Z

If you have answered “yes” to both these questions, be sure to sign up for Matt Jezyk & Zach Kron class entitled Autodesk® Project Vasari: Playing with Energetic Supermodels. Wow, what a title, the mind boggles!

Class No. AB9660-L

Class Description:
In this hands-on lab, you will explore experimental tools and workflows using Autodesk Project Vasari. Project Vasari connects the parametric modelling capabilities of Autodesk Revit® with many of the analysis and simulation capabilities available in Autodesk Ecotect® Analysis and Autodesk Green Building Studio. You will also learn about and use new performance-based design tools available from Autodesk Labs. First, you will create a few parametric building models and simulations. Next, the class will cover more advanced topics, such as how to create automated feedback loops. You will explore workflows where changes you make to the model cause changes in the simulation results, which then drive changes back into the model. You will use both out-of-the-box tools and add-ons currently under development to create parametric building models that respond to environmental conditions through both automatic and semi-automatic feedback loops.

Cave Mining

2011-11-08T07:58:00.001Z

Off to Reading University today to test a few models within their Cave facility. If you have never had a chance to try out a Cave, you should! Its a great way to immerse yourself within your design. It allows you to explorer the virtual world and make better informed design decisions. The other obvious benefit is that it reduces the cost for prototyping and creating mockups, you can also test as much of the building as you like! Yet another cool yet practical BIM benefit. :-)

Protect the Fluffy Kittens!

2011-11-04T13:55:00.000Z

James Vandezande has been tweeting that he gets upset every time someone says “BIM Model”. So much so he has suggested that every time somebody says it, a Fluffy Kitten is shot! Sad, cruel, but probably true! The debate & discussion on the term…..nahhhhh I won’t even type it BIM ##### will go on. James told me today that Mr Paul Morrell will even highlight that the term should change, after James mentioned it at this weeks BIMforum in Washington D.C during his presentation. :-)

RTC USA 2012 is announced

2011-11-04T12:16:00.001Z

I noticed today in my email that RTC USA 2012 is announced. If is was anything like this year, this is a go to event!

RTC 2012 North America will be held at the Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort, Stone Mountain, Georgia, USA from Thursday 28 to Saturday 30 June, 2012. Mark it in your calendars and we look forward to welcoming you to Stone Mountain in June 2012.

The event organisers are looking for Abstracts from individuals interested in speaking at the event. Note that this current call for abstracts is for the North American event only. More details can be found here….

http://www.revitconference.com.au/rtc2012us/index.htm

BIMshow Live 2011–Presentation & Content

2011-11-04T11:12:00.000Z

I was fortunate enough to be able to present at the inaugural BIMShow Live event on Tuesday the 1st November. With the UK government now mandating BIM, there have been plenty of BIM events & conferences over the last 12 months. However, BIMshow Live was different, as it was trying to cut the discussion & really showcase working examples of how the UK is using BIM. Think of it as the UK’s version of a mini one day Autodesk University or Revit Technology Conference. It was a great event & attracted at least 350ish paying attendees!

When I was originally asked to presented I decided straight away that I wanted to actually show some “live BIM” so attendees could go away & think that they could do what I showed; it really isn’t that difficult. Many say doing software presentations live is too risky, but I am confident in a live environment & if you are coming to BIMShow Live; then you are paying to see live BIM! Death by Powerpoint just don’t cut it!

My session covered conceptual design with Autodesk Vasari. I often get asked where should you begin with BIM, well in my humble opinion massing & early concept design is a great start point. Its part of the process. In the session I showed how to use BIM for concept form making. I reviewed how, even at the early stages of the design process you can use the power of software tools such as Autodesk Vasari or Autodesk Revit to provide immediate feedback & how it allows you to capture vital data to aid in the decision making process. Concepts covered:-

Generate forms
Use parameters to control geometry allowing you to test options
Schedule areas
Divide complex surfaces for early stage panelisation
Create solar studies
Generate basic solar analysis
Use CFD for wind analysis

Below are the two examples I showed live. The first is a simple parametric massing block, this introduced simple parametrics to drive a form.

The second example was a slightly more in depth example of the roof designed by HOK Los Angles & Parsons Brinkerhoff designed for the Artic Project in Southern California, USA.

I have also provided a link to the Powerpoint presentation I showed. I hope you find this useful as well as informative.Roll on to 2012, I expect BIMshow Live to be even bigger & better!

Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011

2011-10-06T12:54:00.000+01:00

Got the sad news today that Steve Jobs passed away after a long battle with illness. In my humble opinion he was truly a visionary, to some extent his way of “think different” is something that continues to drive me forward today. As my wife says “don’t be ordinary, be extraordinary” which is what Steve Job certainly was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

The trouble with BIM

2011-10-03T20:31:00.000+01:00

A thought provoking & maybe controversial view point from Martyn Day over at AEC Magazine on the Trouble with BIM….

http://aecmag.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=450

He raises, in my humble opinion some very interesting points.He is not saying BIM is bad, instead highlighting the current challenges.

Revit 2012 update 2 released

2011-09-27T23:23:00.001+01:00

With all the noise about the Autodesk Cloud tools which were released today, it will be very easy to miss that Autodesk have also released Revit 2012 update 2. You will certainly need this update if you plan to use the new Cloud rendering functionality. Get the update here...

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=16841348

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Autodesk Design Review Mobile

2011-09-26T07:07:00.000+01:00

With the advent of portable mobile technologies such as we Iphone & the Ipad Autodesk Users have been jumping up & down with anticipation for a mobile DWF viewer. Whilst AutoCAD WS was the first mobile cloud technology from Autodesk for true design review collaboration, this really wasn’t gonna cut it for the Revit User. So finally Autodesk sneaked Autodesk Design Review Mobile up onto the Apple App Store yesterday! Hurry for common sense! :-)

You publish your documents to a Autodesk Cloud account where they can then be downloaded to your Ipad or Iphone via the Autodesk Design Review app. Once onto your I-OS device, you can review any multi-page DWF. There is a basic information panel which includes the ability view properties, views, control layers & mark-ups. A simple double arrow allows you to navigate through the various DWF sheets.You can add text mark-ups & callout boxes mark-ups which get saved to the DWF.I haven’t tried it, but one would assume you could publish a DWF from Revit. Send it to a cloud account, download to a Ipad, Iphone, Ipod touch, add mark ups & pass those mark-ups as overlays in Revit. 3d DWFs can be navigated with one or two fingers using the typical pan & zoom functionalities associated with the I-OS.

At present the functionality looks limited, for instance you can’t control the graphic look & feel in 3d views or perspectives. Also, there doesn’t seem to be a magic marker sketch tool, but these are early days. However, these are really early days & I am sure it will come. So if you have an I-OS device, what are you waiting for? Get connected, go to the Apple App store & download Autodesk Design Review Mobile. Suddenly you will have a reason to use your Ipad for more than just Angry Birds. :-)

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/design-review-mobile/id459112753?mt=8

AU2011 – Citrix & Revit

2011-09-23T10:07:00.000+01:00

Wanna know more about Citrix & Revit? Then be sure to check out HOK’s John Bartolomi, Director of IT Services class. He will be giving a presentation at Autodesk University on the virtualization of Revit. Class detail & times are below.

ID: AB4595
Title: Autodesk Revit Virtualization Using Citrix® Technologies
Date: Thursday, Dec 1, 2011
Time: 5:15pm
Duration: 90 minutes

Vasari – BIMstore Special Editions

2011-09-20T21:04:00.000+01:00

I have been asked on a number occasions if I could share a copies of some my Star Wars Revit & Vasari families. Well I shared my Imperial Shuttle with the guys over at BIMstore, so get ya copy there! Be sure to check out the parameter names!

http://www.bimstore.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=142:the-bim-geek&catid=49:the-bimstore-blog&Itemid=297

BIMshow Live

2011-09-20T15:27:00.000+01:00

So BIMshow live is announced today! The BIM momentum is really (and some say finally) gaining traction in the UK. There have been numerous seminars & conferences, but BIMshow live aims to be different by showcasing BIM & BIM technologies live; how firms are using them & the benefits that this brings.

“This strategic event – BIM Show Live 2011 - brings BIM to a targeted audience in a way that is accessible providing a showcase of practical examples, through designated streams, highlighting experiences, challenges and advantages.

The use of BIM will be made mandatory on virtually all government projects within five years and this is a big policy change for the construction industry. A report by the Innovation and Growth Team in 2010, which recommended BIM being used on projects over £50m, was dismissed by Paul Morrell, the government‟s chief construction advisor, as “unambitious”. He said the only exceptions would be when using BIM made the project more expensive and said: “Within five years, all government procurement will be within 3D collaborative BIM, with specific exceptions where the cost might exceed the benefit, although I have to say I‟m struggling to think of obvious examples of that.

UBM‟s practical BIM Show Live 2011 will showcase and highlight the enormous benefits of BIM and also what BIM requires firms to do - to conform to a set of standard processes and 3D modeling of projects.
Come ready to learn so much of the latest new systems. Take away fresh ideas and forge new business contacts. Network, debate and listen to the challenges, advantages and latest trends and technologies”

More details can be found at the BIMlive website-

http://bimshowlive.building.co.uk/

Yours truly will be there to cover Conceptual Form Finding and Analysis. In my this session we will look at how to use BIM for concept form making. We will review how; even at the early stages of the design process we can use the power of tools like Autodesk Vasari & Autodesk Revit to provide immediate feedback during the concept development. You will learn how to:-

Generate forms
Use parameters to control geometry allowing you to test options
Schedule areas
Divide complex surfaces for early stage panelisation
Create solar studies
Solar analysis
Use CFD for wind analysis

Be sure to checkout the other speakers & BIM gurus on the agenda.

http://bimshowlive.building.co.uk/agenda/

AU2011

2011-09-12T10:08:00.001+01:00

So I will be going to AU2011. I will be helping rather than leading any sort of class. I have offered my assistance to Jason Grant in his class on Presentation Graphics.

AB4564 – Autodesk Revit for Presentations: Graphics That “Pop” Jason Grant

This class will focus on the art of a drawing and how entourage, tweaking settings, and not using Revit out of the box can add "feeling" to your drawings rather than just displaying your walls, doors, and windows. Focusing on using Revit as your main presentation tool and output, we will explore how techniques that are applied using other graphics and modeling software can be mimicked within Revit to create a more efficient workflow as well as drawings that will impress. Custom families and settings will be shared.

I will also be loitering at Roberts & Zachs labs class. If you didn’t make it last year, be sure to sign up this year. You will learn & ton & its great fun as well!

AB4391-L Twice Baked: Creating Your Own Adaptive Components and Panels with Autodesk® Revit®

This hands-on lab builds on the topics covered in last year's "Au Bon Panel: Baking Your Own Adaptive Components and Panels with Autodesk Revit Architecture." Revit 2012 has introduced the ability to place adaptive components directly into projects, which opens up even more possibilities of what you can do with this powerful family modeling tool. We will address more complex topics, including using hosted points and shape handles, and will provide tips on how to make use of nested components. Our examples will include both the practical and perhaps not-so-practical, including how to use Adaptive Components as “design aids” (“computational” design on the fly). You will learn how to build “stuff” that behaves how you want it to and not how Revit thinks it should. So, come prepared, review the classes from 2010, and get ready for a whirlwind lab!

Then my colleague William Lopez Campo & I have got the grave yard slot late on Thursday afternoon. This is an conferenced class on the concepts of BIM 360.

BIM 360: Autodesk® Revit® for Whole Lifecycle

In this unconference session, we will explore the use of BIM in the planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance of the building. Based on exploration made for a specific project, this class will show the lessons learned and best practices for using the information model throughout the lifecycle of a complex building, using Revit primarily, but far from exclusively, as the driving platform.

Grevity Blog

2011-09-12T09:50:00.000+01:00

Got pointed in the direction of this blog today by my old boss Tim Bates, who now heads up Newforma in EMEA. He said be sure to check out Andy Milburns Revit & BIM blog!

http://www.grevity.blogspot.com/

Andy is an architect working in Dubia for a firm called GAJ. Some really cool stuff here, be sure to take a look.

More on creating custom patterns - Hatch22

2011-09-09T20:53:00.000+01:00

A shout out to all those that pointed me in the direction of this free hatching creating application called Hatch22 which installs directly inside Revit 2011 & 2012.

http://mertens3d.com/tools/revit/2012/hatch22-2012/hatch22-2012-download-install.php

Also, Hatch 22 is free of charge to use. Go check it out!

What a piece of junk!

2011-09-09T11:28:00.000+01:00

Still working progress, but I thought I’d share. Why Vasari & Revit is my hobby as much as its my job!

Creating custom fill patterns the easy way

2011-09-09T10:16:00.000+01:00

So out of the box Revit comes with a useful set of hatch patterns which can be used in your projects to create drafting & model fill patterns. The hatch pattern file uses the same format as AutoCAD & ends with an file extension of .PAT. These hatch pattern file can be found in the following location……

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit Architecture 2012\Data

You can also create your own fill patterns directly in Revit, however you are limited to creating patterns which are either parallel lines or cross hatch.

What if you want to create custom fill patterns based on a material requirements or a specific design you have created? Well you are into writing the .PAT file, which is actually a simple plain text file. There is some great guidance on how to do this in Mastering Revit Architecture bible as well as the Revit help file.

Nether the less, architects are generally visual people, we draw & design; very few of us can write scripts & code! So this is where Hatch Kit Pro steps in. Its a $125 utility for creating hatch patterns & is well worth the money and it will save you hours of pain! Patterns can be created directly in the Hatch Kit Pro or imported as a DXF from say Revit or AutoCAD & then exported to generate the .PAT file. The following video steps through what I think is the quickest process for creating that pattern you have always wanted!

Feel the force! Vasari 2.1 update is here…

2011-09-07T17:03:00.000+01:00

Need I say more, Vasari 2.1 update is on Autodesk Labs, be sure to check out the wind tunnel feature, the coolest thing you’ve seen in a long time! :-)

Ecotect Wind Tunnel Analysis
Improved Automatic Zoning for Energy Models
Performance and Stability Improvements

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

(yep & before you ask, all modelled in Vasari 2.1)

Plumbline announce Revit content

2011-09-05T14:28:00.001+01:00

Plumbline have announced some very cool Revit content. They have updated their popular products from the Catalano range to Revit, making it easier for architects and designers to specify our products. Be sure them out…

http://www.productspec.net/cad-files.aspx?index=0&ext=.rvt&secondary=700&cid=1716

Project Spark – quick overview

2011-08-30T21:38:00.000+01:00

So what is Project Spark? Essentially Spark, is a cut down version of Revit, a sort of Revit LT or beginner’s version. Some probably thought that Project Vasari was gunning for the LT kingpin position, but really Vasari is geared towards early energy analysis & conceptual form making. Project Spark on the other hand is squarely aimed at those wanting to dip their toes into the Revit / BIM process.

It is obvious that there are some firms out there that want to get on the BIM band wagon, yet are not willing, maybe for financial reasons, to invest in going fully into Revit. Many architectural firms that I know use AutoCAD LT on a day to day basis & that serves them really well. However, these firms also realise that the BIM band wagon is rapidly over taking them (please note that I am not necessarily suggesting that by doing Revit you are doing BIM, instead see Revit as an enabler to do BIM).

Be aware that whilst Project Spark is that a cut down version of full Revit, there are various features which have been removed, but if you are new to the Revit tools, this really isn’t going to make a huge difference to start with. The missing tools are listed in the image below but the big ticket items to be aware of are “NO” API, collaboration, design options, massing, structure, rendering, in-place families …..

Another point to note is that Project Spark uses a different version of the RVT file format, so whilst you can link in a Revit 2012 file ( it will automatically upgrade the file when you link); if you create a Project Spark RVT you will not be able to open it in Revit 2012. This may change in the future. Also, if you try to open a Revit 2012 file in Project Spark it will automatically link rather than convert the file. This is the message you will get if you do try to open a full Revit file.

So how do you know whether a file was created in Spark? In the preview, you will see an icon with the letter “S”, which indicates it, was generated in Project Spark. If the file was created in full Revit, then no additional icon appears in the preview.

The download for Spark includes both a 32bit & 64bit version, full hardware requirements are listed here.

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/spark/system_reqs/

As a beginner’s version, there is also a heavy emphasis around learnability. There are quick start tutorials & movies to get new users started.

Project Spark does allow you to import & export DWG, DXF & DGN (v7) files. You can also export to FBX, so whilst you can’t render directly in Spark, materials applied to elements in Spark will get exported to the FBX file. These FBX files can then be linked or imported in 3dsMax Design & rendered.

One area where I can really see Project Spark having an impact, assuming Autodesk can address the file format issues, is in content creation. Spark includes a full family editor. The only families you cannot create are massing related families. For those that are just building content, I am thinking of maybe the supply chain or manufacturers, then Project Spark could be the solution to all their problems. If you are building content all day long, then full Revit is like a hammer to crack to nut.

For those of us who are already using Revit, Project Spark is not going to make a big difference, however you should be aware of this preview technology as strategically it could well make a big difference in the future. For those that want to get started in BIM, Project Spark is genuinely a great start point as long as you are aware of the caveats covered above. So go get it now from Autodesk Labs….

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

For online support check out the support pages…..

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Project-Spark/bd-p/354

Project Spark goes live

2011-08-30T18:45:00.000+01:00

Be sure to check out Project Spark live on Autodesk Labs! Its essentially a get started in BIM application, a kind of Revit LT. :-)

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

System requirements.

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/spark/system_reqs/

More thoughts & feedback to follow.

AUGIuk Revit Camp 2012

2011-08-23T16:54:00.000+01:00

I spoke to Alan Wooldridge last week; he mentioned that AUGIuk are looking for speakers for the February 2012 AUGI Revit camp. More background & details can be found on Alan's blog…

http://cadalot-revitlearningcurve.blogspot.com/2011/08/augiuk-revit-camp-call-for-speakers.html

Disney & BIM

2011-08-11T10:12:00.000+01:00

James Vandezande sent me this great article yesterday. Well worth a read…

http://www.stitchkingdom.com/disney-new-fantasyland-imagineering-technology-17327/

RTCUSA 2011 content from Stephen Taskins

2011-08-09T13:28:00.000+01:00

I’m not one for ripping other peoples content off, but I really could not get away without sharing this with you. Stephen Taskin has kindly uploaded his parametric content from his RTCUSA 2011 session. Be sure to check it out cos this is stunning work! Stephen, thanks for sharing!!!

Autodesk Revit making a parametric weaving system

Revit Advanced Conceptual Massing-Extrude&Twist&Taper

Revit 2012 – pebbles / ellipses

2011-08-08T16:43:00.000+01:00

Much fun! Some interesting pointers from Phil & Zach on my ellipse blog post from last week. Check em out here….

http://www.architecture-tech.com/2011/08/creating-elliptical-walls-in-revit.html

http://buildz.blogspot.com/2011/08/self-rationalizing-ellipse.html

Combing pebbles & ellipses!

Revit 2012 – pebbles

2011-08-05T16:40:00.000+01:00

Be sure to checkout Zach Kronz cool post of creating pebbles forms in either Revit or Vasari…..nice.

http://buildz.blogspot.com/2011/08/pebbles-bam-bam.html

Yep, that's right, this is Revit…..

Revit 2012 – dept of unfair – ellipses

2011-08-05T16:36:00.000+01:00

Elliptical elements have always been rather awkward to create in Revit. For instance you can’t create an elliptical wall without first creating an elliptical mass & then performing the wall by face function.

Whilst you could easily argue that ellipses are the scourge of architectural design, cause they are a pain in the arse to set out. Nether the less they are an important form to any designer or interior designer. Anyway, I was having some fun the other day looking at the best way to divide an ellipse into a number of equal segments. My old school CAD head kicked in, draw the ellipse, draw a series of circles on the perimeter on the ellipse then draw lines from the centroid of the ellipse to intersect with the ellipse of the circle. So I started in a new Revit project, followed the above procedure only to find I could not snap a line to the intersection of the ellipse & the circle??? Hmmm this seemed a bit odd….a bug may be? Anyway, I jumped over to the conceptual massing environment ( CDE in project as well as a family), did the same exercise & everything worked peachy here!

I don’t know what the project environment has against ellipses, but it needs to get learn from its sibling conceptual mass environment & get with the kids! One for the development team me thinks.

Revit 2012 – massing & voids

2011-08-02T18:23:00.000+01:00

This may seem rather obvious to the seasoned Revit user; but for the new kids on the block, when using voids to cut massing geometry in Revit, sometimes you need to think a little differently. The process of using voids to cut geometry can be a bit confusing. This is especially so, since the way voids cut in the conceptual massing tools is a little different compared with voids in say the in-place editor or family editor.. For instance, take a look at the image below. This was created by generating a freeform surface using the massing tools….then roof by face to generate the actual geometry for the roof.…it looks reasonably straight forward to achieve, but you need more then two voids to cut the initial massing surface.

Let me explain in more detail…..

So the surface was created using the massing tool, which consisted of a series of spline reference lines, then a surface generated between the reference lines. As indicated below.

Next up, a inner boundary & a outer boundary of reference lines where sketched. These will be used to form the voids which will cut the surface.

Now the natural logic here is to also create a large rectangle to go beyond the surface, like this…..

However, this is not going to work for us, because if you try & build the void, from the rectangle & trimming reference lines you are going to get the dreaded “Unable to create form element error”.

Instead, you need to create two voids from reference lines to cut away the excess surface. With a reference lines configuration like this.

The image below, hopefully explains it a little better.

All we then need is to create a void from the inner reference lines to cut the opening & we are good to go.

You may need to use the Cut Geometry tool to force the cutting.

I hope the above makes sense, I guess I should really do a youtube video to explain it in more detail, but this should at least give you some useful guidance.

Saving in-place families

2011-08-01T11:09:00.000+01:00

Be sure to check out Luke Johnson tip on saving in-place families!!! Nice one.

http://whatrevitwants.blogspot.com/2011/07/save-in-place-family-as-rfa-for-use-in.html

Revit System Wall Families - UK Localisation

2011-08-01T10:59:00.000+01:00

Thought you might be interested in reading Alan Wooldridges article on Revit System Wall for UK localisation.

http://cadalot-revitlearningcurve.blogspot.com/2011/07/revit-system-wall-families-uk.html

Ralph Pullinger (Autodesk) and Alan are looking at developing a UK Based System Wall Family Template, however they require your help. In order to achieve this they will need a little background information and briefing on the kind of information we need to included. Pop over to Alans blog & provide some input.

Disappearing 1560 Trapelo Rd, Waltham, MA

2011-07-27T09:58:00.000+01:00

I am starting to wonder whether Autodesk have introduced a new cloaking device to evade the competition down at the “Factory”? Now you see us, now you don’t!

Student Showreel 2011 TU Graz

2011-07-27T09:23:00.001+01:00

I got an facebook message from Philipp Müller yesterday. Phil is a student expert team leader from the TU graz in Austria. He & his team have just created a new youTube video show reel which showcases projects created in Revit & 3ds projects from student experts and the students that where taught at the TU Graz in Austria. Be sure to check it out, cos there is some great work here!

Simply Complex Blog

2011-07-27T09:14:00.000+01:00

After RTCUSA, Marcello Sgambelluri (he of Revit elephant fame) dropped me a note to say he has started a blog. He has started his blog site to be able to profile projects and Revit families that incorporate complex geometry. Be sure to check it out…

http://therevitcomplex.blogspot.com/

Pattern Plugin for Vasari

2011-07-13T17:32:00.001+01:00

This appeared on twitter yesterday….the video does all the explanation!!!

Revit 2012 - Reporting Parameters in CW Panels

2011-07-12T16:37:00.001+01:00

I must admit, I don’t why I hadn’t picked up on this one before, but at RTC USA there was an interesting discussion that took place as well as being highlighted by Harlan Brumms in his class on solving common Autodesk Revit Architecture problems on using reporting parameters in curtain wall panel families.
This got me thinking, if reporting parameters can indeed be used in curtain wall panel families, they should be able to drive the depth of panels. If you can report the width & height of a panel, this will provide you with an area value. This could then be used in conditional formula which will parametrically alter the overall depth of individual panels.
For this exercise I started with a curtain wall panel.rft

Next I drew a very simple extrusion in the front elevation plan & locked the extrusion sketch to the reference planes.

I then dimensioned the vertical & horizontal reference plans. Its important you dimensions the reference plans & not the level embedded in the family.

Then select the horizontal dimension you just created & pick the label feature to turn the dimension into a parameter. Name the parameter to something like “width”, set it to an instance parameter & ensure you check the Report Parameter radio button.

Repeat what you did for the width parameter, turning the vertical dimension into a reporting parameter labelled as “height”.
Go to the Ref. Level view, select the extrusion; in the Properties Palette, locate the Extrusion End parameter, hit the Associate Family Parameter button.

This will open up the Associate Family Parameter dialogue box. Hit the Add parameter button & create a new instance parameter called “depth”. This doesn’t need to be a reporting parameter.
Go to the Family Types dialogue & create a new Area parameter as a instance.
Go back to the Family Types dialogue box & do the following; in the formula for the Area parameter we will multiply the width X height to give us our Area.

Next we will add a conditional formula to the depth parameter. So we will use this formula as a test example.
if(area < 4 m², 1200 mm, if(area < 6 m², 600 mm, 100 mm))
What this conditional parameter will do formula is allow the depth of the panel to change based on the resulting area value of the panel. If is less the 4m squared it will be 1200mm thick, less the 6m & it will be 600mm, else it will be 100mm thick,

Next save your panel family with a suitable name. Start a new project, load your newly created panel family into the new project. Using the wall tool draw a straight segment of curtain wall. With the curtain wall selected, go to the Properties Palette, pick the Edit Type button, this will open up the Types Dialogue box for the Curtain Wall.

Set the Curtain Panel to your new loaded curtain wall panel. The cw system will automatically file with the new panel. Finally, using the Curtain Grid tool, start to divide up the curtain wall.

As you divide the curtain wall, depending on the panel size, the area of the panel will be calculated in turn informing the depth of the panels.

The values I added to the conditional formula are not cast in stone, you can easily modify them to get different results or even make a more complex conditional formula. I have quickly knocked up a youTube Video which supports the above workflow, although I don’t follow it from start to finish, but it should reinforce what I did.

An open Revit Standard?

2011-07-09T20:51:00.001+01:00

There has been much discussion on Twitter recently amongst the Revit community about an Open Revit Standard. Now their are many standards out there, but nothing really free or open for the new Revit user. The New Zealand and Australian standards go a long way, so do the AEC UK Revit standards, but nothing typically open source which can be tweaked to you needs. Therefore, be sure to follow the discussion at ....

http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23OpenRevStds

if you want to get involved in this project truly global project.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Lock profiles in Revit / Vasari conceptual massing

2011-07-01T16:05:00.000+01:00

This came up a couple of times during RTC USA, but it seems that some people, whilst they are aware that the sketch profile feature got re-introduced in Revit 2011, they are not aware that you could lock the top & bottom sketches. This concept will only work with forms created from model lines; take a look at the attached youTube for more details. Sadly no audio, but you should get the general concept.

Days 2 & 3 – Inaugural RTCUSA

2011-06-30T22:01:00.000+01:00

Day 2

So Day 2 of RTC started with a thought provoking class by Alexjandro Ogata of HNTB on BIM Beyond the Documentation. This was a great class & it seems that HNTB are using similar techniques we are trying to implement at HOK. What was very apparent is that team structures & leadership skills fundamentally need to change when implementing a BIM process. The typical roles are changing & the knowledge required to fully implement BIM are not being fully understood by many firms.

After meeting with Newforma & discussing how it could potentially be used for FM, I caught the tail end of Doug Williams of Perkins & Wills class on “How to Establish a BIM Execution Plan to Assist Your IPD projects”. After lunch I sat in on Lee Millers class on using Revit for Urban Design. Even though I know most of what Lee showed as I have seen it many times before, it always amazes me how impressive this is. I hear it again & again that Revit really isn’t the right tool for this type of work. However, if you set things up correctly & utilise some of the scheduling capabilities of Revit, this is “so” the right tool. Towards the end of the day I drifted into Marcelio Sgambelluri class on adaptive families. I just wanted to see the parametric elephant & cow for my own eyes! Marcelio is an insane genius! It was then onto the RTC BBQ. Steve Staffords son DJ’d & my kids had a blast.

Day 3

I joined Lee Miller & Matt Jezyk in Stephen Taskin class on Conceptual Massing. A superb class to start the day. Stephen showed some incredible panelling concepts, both Matt & I where equalled excited about what we saw. To quote Matt “holy shit, this stuff is insane”! After a short coffee break I joined Jason Grant class where he showed how he has developed presentation techniques to improve the quality of output from Revit. Everything you see in the screen grab below was undertaken in Revit; no Photoshop work here!

During lunch Matt J then showed some secret squirrel stuff he & his team are working on. More details to follow on this in the next month or so.

It was then onto the closing speeches by Alan Preger of Newforma & then Paul Doherty of Screampoint to close RTC USA. Paul highlighted some great development technologies he & his teams are working on. Some of it was rather scary stuff, but as Paul emphasized, Architects need to realise that they will be the masters of this new digital world. This will provide Architects with greater business opportunities over & above just designing buildings. His most thought provoking comment, was in the very near future “architects will be in a far greater demand” which certainly got a laugh from the audience. Whilst I am not an architect, just a humble technician at heart, I hope Architects do realise that this is genuine opportunity & they need to think beyond just good design & traditional ways of working.

Jim Baldings ANT group finished off proceedings with “glorious gadgets”. Doug from P+W showed how they had developed Ipad apps to showcase projects, Eon Reality showed 3d glasses & we where also exposed to some amazing VR stuff.

Wesley Benn wound up the formal side event with the assistance of Phil Read before the Gala Dinner.

Steve Shells band Shell Shock rocked the night away, with a drum appearance from Steve Stafford. Is there no end to this guy’s talent? A good drummer & a sound Revit aficionado.

My children then ripped up the dance floor with the likes of Jim Balding, , Wesley Benn, Dave Conant & others!

So my opinion of RTC USA? It was beyond excellent. It had a totally different feel to AU. The quality of speakers was brilliant, I didn’t attend one duff class. The venue was extremely good & the connectivity with others within the Revit community made this event invaluable. RTC plan to move the event around, so maybe it will be on the East Coast next year. Running an new event in this continued challenging economic climate is always risky, but the RTC team certainly pulled it off. I would guess the biggest challenge for the RTC event organisers will to maintain the events sense of community social feel without growing too large.

Day 1 – Inaugural RTCUSA

2011-06-24T08:04:00.005+01:00

So after 8 years, RTC has finally made it to the USA. The first RTC conference was held in the Auz in 2005 & was the brainchild of Wesley Benn. It has grown in size year on year & it seemed timely to bring RTC back (in terms of country) to the birthplace of Revit. I remember speaking with Steve Stafford at AU in 2009 & their where plans back then to try & bring RTC to the USA. However, the economic downturn put pay to that. A year on & a slow improvement in the globally economy; 2011 suddenly looked a good bet for RTC in the USA.

So why RTC you may ask? I have attended AU for the last 5 years, it’s a great event, I have even been involved in co-presenting, but its big, to some extent its too big. Also, in my humble opinion, it’s the wrong time of the year. The Autodesk portfolio is released mid April each year, AU is at the end of the year. For a firm who is utilising Revit & BIM, this is not a lot of good to you. You want to know about the current release, what’s new, how it’s going to affect your business & what steps you need to take to implement the new release. Come the end of the year you have gone through that pain & are thinking about the next release! So to have RTC so close to the annual release date of Revit is actually a smart thing.

I managed to tie my RTC attendance in with a family vacation. Holding it at beach resort is sheer genius as the family can do the beach & pool thing whilst I geek at Revit “stuff”. It also gives the event a total different feel to the dry air condition environment of Las Vegas.

Wesley Benn opened the inaugural event with some history & background about RTC. Wesley also mentioned that they are looking to move the event around the country, so maybe next year it will be on the east coast. Lets hope they also consider Europe.

RTC was fortunate enough to get Autodesk CEO Carl Bass to give a keynote address. Carl has always been passionate about Revit & was one of the key decision makers in the purchase of the Revit product. Carl avoided getting involved in Revit technicalities, as he openly acknowledged it was like being in the Revit lions den, realizing the room was full of Revit experts! Instead he wisely focused on new technologies, in particularly the concept of infinite computing. It was a great speech & you realize how much things have changed in the last 10 years. Its kind of scary & exciting to think what will be possible in the next 10 years!

After a short break, it was onto classes. I attended Dave Conants class on Design a Revolution. Dave gave us a history lesson on the humble beginnings of Revit to where it is now. If you are a Revit geek like me, it was one cool class. To see prototypes of the original Revit concept as well as interface designs made you realise that you have been involved with something which is very, very special. Did you realise the original mockup for the Revit concept was drafted up in AutoCAD? ironic? Maybe? Much like many others, when I first encounter Revit I was fixed, I realised there was no going back.

Next up was Kelly Cones class on conceptual massing where he gave a case study of a project he has been involved with in South Korea. Be sure to check out his chapter in MARA 2012, where he showcases this particular project.

After lunch I attended Jeffery McGrew & his wife Jillian Northrup’s class on Five Common Pitfalls of Digital Fabrication from BIM. Jeff & Jillian are doing some amazing work; Jeff made some very interesting comments. Whilst Autodesk highlight that Inventor is ideally the tool of choice for digital fabrication, the Becausewecan team buck that trend & instead choose Revit. They have worked hard to establish their tool workflows. To be honest, if you see their work & understand that Revit is indeed a solid modeller with a parametric design pedigree, you will release why they choose Revit over Inventor. Just because it says BIM on the box, doesn’t necessarily mean it should be confined to designing buildings only!

After a tea break it was onto Harlan Brumm class on how to find solve common Autodesk Revit Architecture problems, or as I liked to call it, how to fix things when users screw up! Some great tips here. The finally class of the day for me was Jay Zallans session on Revit for planning & programming projects. I kind of knew a fair amount of this stuff, but it was always good to get a different perspective on how others utilise Revit for this type of work in their practice. After classes it was onto the welcome function, sponsored by Kelar Pacific. I meet up with my family, got pizza before going back to the welcome function. It was strange seeing my two young children, Elliot & Bethan & my wife Becky mingling with so many Revit geeks. In the hallway the children both bumped into Phil Read. Uncle Phil then sat with them for a good half an hour keeping them entertained on his ipad! Or maybe he was explaining the merits of thinking different?? :-)

Overall a great first day. The calibre of classes were excellent, the social aspect & connectivity could only be achieved at an event of this scale & this looks set to continue for days two & three. The RTC committee should be congratulated for pulling off what looked the impossible. Finally, be sure to follow me on twitter where I will giving an hour by hour update of RTCUSA 2011.

Legless AT-AT

2011-06-16T16:31:00.001+01:00

The HOK London office have recently purchased a 3d printer. To be honest I am not the most practical of people, just ask my wife! But the 3d printing thing is good fun. I have put a few models from Revit & Vasari through the system with varying results. I was keen to see if I could print the now legendary Revit AT-AT but although the whole thing printed just fine, the legs where obviously too flimsy for the main body. You live & learn.

The AT-AT appearing for the depths of the dust.

At this stage he was still in one piece!

Oh dear me…..… :-)

More Project Neon – Revit 2012

2011-06-14T22:08:00.000+01:00

I quickly threw a few more files at Neon today, nothing particularly spectacular, but I was keen to see how far I could push it. Overall very positive results, although I did get one file which went a little screwy…be sure to read the online help as there are some useful tips to guide your through the rendering process. http://neon.labs.autodesk.com/index.aspx

Project Neon – Revit 2012

2011-06-14T12:12:00.000+01:00

Be sure to check out Project Neon for Revit 2012.

http://neon.labs.autodesk.com/index.aspx

Project Neon has recently been updated to allow you to do cloud based rendering from Revit 2012. Just sign up, download & install the Revit 2012 plugin & you are good to go! I threw a couple of render at the system today & I am very impressed. It will even notify you once you render is complete!

Once the plugin is installed, you will find another tab which allows you to publish your render online or to view your render gallery.

The images can be rendered using all the normal settings with Revit. You simply click the “render online” button, pick your 3d view you want, set the image quality, then the image size, followed by the File format. You have three file formats to choose from PNG, JPG & TIF ; then just hit the “Start Rendering” button.

Your file is the published to the cloud where a host of super computers rip through the render in no time at all. Once the render is complete, you are alerted via email. Login to Project Neon & you can view & download your completed render from there. You will need to set up the exposure settings on your host workstation before hand but that's a small price to pay for the speed of rendering. Be sure to give it a go! This is genuinely an exciting development for the Revit user & harness the essence of cloud based computing.

Social Media @ HOK

2011-06-02T16:07:00.000+01:00

Ken Young, Senior Vice President and the Chief Information Officer for HOK shares HOK’s experience on social media.

Image composition – Revit & Vasari

2011-06-01T17:28:00.000+01:00

I’m not even going to attempt to take credit for this, but at the recent Excitech Revit forum, Paul Grimston, one of Excitech technical consultants, showed how to use rendering in Revit & Photoshop to create some incredibly compelling renderings. Its nothing I hadn’t seen in the past, but the using of ambient occlusion was very interesting. Be sure to checkout the download pdf for the Revit Architecture forum which explains a bit more.

http://www.excitech.co.uk/news/events/spring_forums.asp

RTC 2011– The master or the apprentice?

2011-05-27T14:58:00.000+01:00

You now only have 26 days to go; so you need to hurry if you want become the master.

http://www.revitconference.com.au/rtc2011us/index.htm

Digital Workflows - Vasari to 123D

2011-05-27T13:45:00.000+01:00

If you haven’t had a chance to download & have a play with the Beta of Autodesk 123D yet, you should! It can be downloaded from here http://www.123dapp.com/.

Now one of the very cool features about 123D is that it can open up various file formats including SAT, Sketchup, Step & DWG files.

So with this in mind, I thought I’d take a look at creating a form in Vasari & export this as a SAT file, then see what happened when I brought it into 123D. I started by creating a very simple form in Vasari.

This was then exported as a SAT file directly. Application Menu > Exports> CAD Formats> SAT

Next I fired up 123D. I am still relatively new to the product, but if you know a bit of Inventor you will easily get up to speed. So in 123D I opened my exported Vasari SAT file.

This is what the imported SAT looked like.

Next I set too & started to use the fillet tool to round off the edges of the form; I have to say that this type of real time editing is very simple compared with Vasari or Revit.

You will find you can make also sorts of edits to the form using the various tools included.

For fun, I then saved the 123D file as a SAT & passed it back to Vasari.

Nuformer & Kinects

2011-05-25T13:43:00.000+01:00

You have got to check this out…..

NuFormer – 3D video mapping interactivity test, April 2011 from NuFormer Projection on Vimeo.

Project Vasari 2 released

2011-05-23T22:02:00.000+01:00

So Autodesk have released Vasari 2.0, an updated version of their Autodesk labs preview technology. I joked last year with Matt Jezyk, the Product Manager for Vasari, saying that this could easily become one of Autodesk’s most popular preview technologies! I don’t know the exact number so far, but it’s more than a few hundred. :-)

So what goodies have the Vasari team served up for us with this update. The code base for Vasari 2.0 is now based on Revit 2012, meaning that Vasari 2.0 is compatible with Revit 2012. You will be able to import models from Revit 2012 & Vasari 2.0 files can be passed to Revit 2012. From this, other enhancements include:-

Import Image to 3D Views – You can now import raster images into a 3D orthographic views to use as background images or as visual aids during model creation. This is achieved by going to the Application menu, click Import > Image. Once you image is within the working canvas, you can scale the image up or down using the grips or alternatively control the size from the properties palette.

The resulting image resized with the modelling environment, although it should be noted that you will need to enable realistic view for the bitmap to appear as a full image.

Import Scaled Satellite Image into 3D View – Now you can import a scaled Google Map satellite image into a 3D view using the Import Site Image dialog. On the Analyze tab, click Project Location panel >Location. In the Location dialog, select Import Site Image. This is a really neat feature & provides you with a rapid way to kick start a sketch design with ease.

Location Control on the View Cube – The current project location is now displayed in the drawing area underneath the ViewCube. Now you can access the Location dialog by clicking Location value>Set Location.

3Dconnexion 3D Mouse – Now you can reorient and navigate a model's view using a 3Dconnexion 3D mouse. 3Dconnexion support in Revit 2012 was highlighted in one of my recent blog articles. A 3D mouse lends itself to the conceptual massing environment, where you want to be able to rapidly navigate your 3D environment.

Enhanced Visualization Capabilities – Enhancements to graphics include new Display styles for Conceptual Analysis, improved grips, improved tessellation of small objects, more flexible visual style combinations, added categories to Graphic Display Options, the ability to control edges in visual styles, and new ghost elements to facilitate the display of obstructed elements.

Formula Driven Component Types – You can now have Formula Driven Components. What this means is that you can use conditional formula parameters and apply this to a divided surface. A new parameter called “Family Type:Divide Surface” allows you to drive the display and type of a pattern or a component.

Split Face for Custom Glazing – Now you can use the conceptual design split face tool to add surface sub-regions. These sub-regions can be used for custom glazing or other conceptual constructions.

Hosted points on lines & arcs - The other minor improvement is the control of parameter values for points hosted on line or curves. Now you can still express the normalised segmented length between 0 and 1, but you also have additional parameters for segmented length, normalized segment length, chord length, angle, non-normalized curve parameter and normalized curve parameter.

Material – As with Vasari 1.1, if you have Revit 2012, AutoCAD 2012 or 3dsMax 2012 installed on your workstation or laptop you will get access to the updated materials dialogue, as Vasari will share the same pro-materials library as these products.

Vasari WikiHelp – WikiHelp provides access to the full Autodesk-provided Help content, and lets you rate, comment on, and contribute content (articles, images, videos) to share with your peers

design-cubed blogspot

2011-05-20T12:22:00.000+01:00

I thought I’d share this blog with you, from Stephen Blowers of Design Cubed here in the UK. I have known Stephen for a number of years, he is an architect, is as passionate about technology as me, is a Revit User, is a member of the London Revit User Group, is a 3dsMax User & has recently started his own design firm called Design-Cubed.

His recent article about using the Ipad & Adobe CS5.5 is very interesting. Yesterday, Stephen showed me how he had taken a series of images from Revit & used these to create an interactive architectural presentation for use on the Ipad. Trust me I got “very” excited, really cool stuff. So be sure to check his blog….

http://design-cubed.blogspot.com/

Revit – More Baku Flame Towers

2011-05-18T23:17:00.001+01:00

Thought I’d share these cool picture with you, kindly passed on by the project architect. Real site photos….

Vasari Tech Preview 2

2011-05-18T23:10:00.000+01:00

As posted by Steve Stafford…..new toys are coming :-)

Revit 2012 – Workplane Viewer

2011-05-13T19:16:00.000+01:00

The Workplane first appeared in the Revit 2011, but was restricted to the conceptual massing environment only. Fortunately, for UI consistency & to help improve your workflow, Autodesk have made the Workplane Viewer available in the normal Revit modelling environment as well as the family editor. The Workplane Viewer is a temporary view which opens as a separate floating window to allow you to edit selected elements.The viewer displays elements from the selected Workplane making the editing of items easier, rather than having to fight your way through the project browser to find the appropriate view. It should be noted that the Workplane viewer is totally separate to the project browser.

To enable the Workplane Viewer, go to the home tab & find the Workplane tools, then locate the Viewer icon.

Clicking the Viewer icon will open up the Workplane floating window. This can be resized & repositioned as required.

When the Workplane viewer is opened, it will display the active Workplane. You will noticed you have a “view cube” icon in the top right corner. By clicking on this you can orient to different views of the active Workplane without disrupting the view you are working on in the active Revit window.

If you change to a different view in the main Revit canvas, say from a plan to an elevation, the Workplane Viewer does not automatically follow & update its view so they correspond.

However, if you choose to edit a wall profile in an elevation view, as soon as you select the wall, the Workplane Viewer will indeed follow & the Viewer will update to display the active or selected plane.

Choosing to edit the wall profile will obviously enable the sketch mode. The nice thing here is that you can also edit the sketch in the Workplane Viewer.

A point to watch; if you decide to edit a wall profile; before editing the wall, it will display as a element which can be selected in the Workplane Viewer.

Refer to the image below, see how the item can be selected…..Now, if you decide to edit the wall profile, you will notice once you have edited the wall you can no longer select from the Workplane Viewer as its greyed out. I am not sure if this is “as design”, but its one to watch out for.

Revit 2012 – missing content

2011-05-10T14:52:00.000+01:00

As highlighted by Kathryn Langan over at Revit Clinic, if you are missing your metric templates after installing UK Metric Content, you need to add the missing files by downloading US Metric Content. Do this by going to Windows Control Panel > Programs & Features > Revit 2012 > choose Add or Remove Features…..

Then choose “US Metric” or whatever other content you would like installed.

RTC 2011 USA

2011-05-09T11:37:00.000+01:00

OK, time is moving along….you now only have 44 days until the inaugural North American Revit Technology Conference. The conference is being held at the Hyatt Huntington Beach, Orange County, California from the 23rd to the 25th June 2011. Key note speakers include Autodesk CEO Carl Bass as well as Paul Doherty Senior VP for Screampoint with sponsorship from AEC Systems, Prop Repro Graphics, The Ant Group as well as Newforma.

So I am hearing you say “A Revit Conference, by the sea, in the sun! This must be a jolly?” I think not, if the USA event is anything like the Australian event, which is now in its seventh year, this looks set to be a serious education conference…...

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Cultivate important business and professional contacts that can benefit your company and your career.
Come to learn from the experts and leave with a wealth of knowledge, practical methods, and new ideas.
See how Revit and related applications drive ESD analysis and simulation.
Unlock the potential of BIM to streamline the building procurement and construction process.
CPD formal and informal points

So who should attend? If you are involved with Revit & BIM, seriously, this looks set to be an essential conference for you to attend. All your normal Revit stars will be performing including Paul Aubin, Jim Balding, Dave Conant, Kelly Cone,Jason Grant, Eddy Krygiel,Robert Manna, Lee Miller to name but a few. Also, much of the content will focus on the Revit 2012 release, which is a real bonus if you are about to move over to the RAC 2012 platform.

If you need to know more, be sure to go to the RTC North America Website for more details. http://www.revitconference.com.au/rtc2011us/index.htm

RTC 2011 – technology preview

2011-05-09T09:55:00.000+01:00

Got an email from Tim Waldock pointing me towards a preview of his presentation called "Designing in Revit Using Parametric Formulas" which he will present at RTC Auz & RTC USA. The example uses adaptive components and the "Reactor Pattern" principle to examine facade design.

Build it Bigger –Revit – Baku Flame Towers

2011-05-05T21:39:00.000+01:00

Be sure to check this out! Build it Bigger : (discovery channel programme). Look out for Baku Flame Towers, designed by HOK London.

For the record, the original concept model was conceived in Revit Architecture 2008. The more recent interiors and shopping arcade where documented in Revit 2010 / AutoCAD 2010.

Off Topic – Hobbies, BMX, Revit

2011-05-03T22:06:00.000+01:00

So this is a little off topic, but I thought it was worth sharing. So when I’m not geeking with Revit or spending time with my family I do have a hobby which harps back to my youth! I am 80’s child at heart and one of the cool things that came out of this era was BMX! So when I have time, I like getting knackered and trashed BMX bikes and refurbishing them back to their former glory. If you don’t know much about BMX, the craze started back in SoCal in the early 70’s, but really hit the big time in the 80’s. After dropping off the radar due to the mountain bike movement, its more recently hit the mainstream once again, with BMX heros like Mat Hoffman and Dave Mirra helping to drive the sport forward. BMX racing is even an Olympic sport. One particular firm which I have a lot of respect for is S&M Bikes, American owned, American made, these bikes have collected a cult following over the years. Anyway, a few years back I bid for a S&M Dirt Bike frame on Ebay, the image is below. I knew exactly what it was when it appeared on Ebay and was determined to win this!

Anyway, I did win and I didn’t pay over the odds. When the frame & forks arrived I stripped it of all it parts.All the value was in the frame and forks; hand made in the USA from 4130 cromoly tubing.

I then stripped it back to bare metal.

I got the frame & forks powder coated red, as near to the original RAL colour as I could. But I also wanted to recreate the decals. I managed to get the original decals off the frame ok, which I then scanned in on my Mac. After cleaning the scans up in Photoshop, I then fired up Revit! I created a new drafting view and imported the jpeg scan.

I then traced over the scan using detail lines and solid fills to end up with this exact copy of the original artwork.

I then tracked down a firm on the internet which supplied clear decal sticker paper and printed the art work using my Epson Inkjet printer.

Then all I had to do is get the decals onto the frame!

So this is the completed bike!

So the next time somebody tells you that you can’t do that it Revit, you tell em’ that Revit can even do artwork !!! BTW, if you have old bmx bike or frame, I am particularly interested in tracking down Skyway TA frame & forks, Haro Master or Haro Sport from the mid 80’s, let me know. :-)

Revit 2012 – position the type selector

2011-05-03T08:56:00.000+01:00

One of the nice features when Autodesk switched to to the Ribbon interface with Revit 2010 was the ability to have the Type Selector positioned in the Ribbon. Whilst, I would agree it took up valuable screen real estate, it was useful to have instant access to to all the Types of a particular element, such as all Wall Types, when accessing the Modify Tool. With Revit 2011, the type selector within the Ribbon was stolen from us, as it migrated its way to the Properties Palette. Whilst this was probably a good move in the long run, what if you wanted access to choose a new Wall Type and yet you didn’t have the Properties Palette open? No Properties Palette, no Type selector!

Therefore with Revit 2012, the type selector in the ribbon is back! So how do you position the Type selector back into the Ribbon? Start by opening up the Properties Palette. (PP – keyboard shortcut)

Next right mouse click over the type selector in the Properties Palette.

A drop down menu will appear, where you can choose to either add the Type Selector to the Quick Access Tool Bar (QAT) or add to the Ribbon Modify Tab.

Choose Add to Ribbon Modify Tab.

Now when you select say the Wall tool, the various different Wall Types can be instantly accessed from the Type Selector position in the Ribbon.

Need to remove the Type Selector from the Ribbon? Just Right Mouse click on the Type Selector and choose Remove from Ribbon Modify Tab.

After writing this post on the train this morning; I noticed that Erik over at Inside the Factory also did a technical low down on the Type selector Improvements, which goes into a bit more depth.

Revit 2012 – spin that rotation

2011-04-28T08:42:00.000+01:00

Explaining how the rotate tool works in Revit has always been an interesting experience in any training class I have ever run. Half the students get it, the other half are left scratching their heads. I suspect much has to do with the engrained AutoCAD mentality. So Revit doesn’t work like AutoCAD? That’s weird; don’t these two products come from the same company? Anyway, I remember struggling with the rotate tool the first time I encountered Revit. Not that I couldn’t understand it, I just didn’t have a clue how to alter the center point of rotation. It took some smart arse to tell me I have to drag the rotation icon!

Revit 2012 has put pay to all that frustration and tweaked the way you interact with the tool.So when you choose the rotation tool now, you can move the blue dot by dragging it to a suitable location to define your center point of rotation.

You can also define center of rotation picking the “place” button, this allows you to pick a center point of rotation on the canvas.

As you would expect, when you choose the “place” button, the rotate point can be snapped to other elements.

Revit 2012 – 3d mice – 3Dconnexion support

2011-04-27T13:39:00.000+01:00

It’s been a long time coming, but finally Revit 2012 now has 3Dconnexion 3d mice support. I remember around 3 years ago speaking with Richard Gladman of 3Dconnexion UK about using a 3d mouse within the Revit environment, at that time it was not supported. So with the support finally in 2012, does the hype match up with the reality?

I managed to acquire a 3Dconnexion SpaceExplorer 3d mouse, courtesy of 3Dconnexion UK to test. 3Dconnexion produce various different mice; the SpaceExplorer is the mid-range version, this includes quick view keys as well as additional navigation settings.

The SpaceNavigator is the entry level 3d mouse, which I suspect most users will opt for, especially if cost is an issue. The SpacePilot Pro is the Ferrari version!

The box from 3Dconnexion duly turned up and I unpackaged the device. Placing it on the desk it looks like something out of the film Minority Report. There is an air of beauty about this sculpted techno geeky device and that was even before I plugged it in. I decided to go the 3Dconnexion website and download the latest drivers rather than install the ones provided on the shipped cd-rom. Once the drivers were installed; I plugged the 3d mouse usb cable in and then the blue light lit up on the navigation cap. I was ready to go! Can somebody tell me, why blue lights or highlighted blue buttons look so cool? There must be some research that has taken place that says blue = techno cheek porn; you must buy! Anyway, I was expecting to have to install special drivers to get full support with Revit 2012, but that wasn’t the case.

I fired up Revit 2012; the first thing you notice is that an additional icon is included within the navigation bar.

If you click the arrow below the icon you can access a 3Dconnexion control panel where you can assign different commands to the various buttons on the mouse.

Interestingly and as highlight by Tom over at Inside the Factory, you can actually add custom commands and string together multiple commands, which is extremely useful. Be sure to check out his youtube video which will explain more, as well as how to customize a SpacePilot Pro.

I used my now legendary at-at.rvt model as a test to put the 3d mouse through its paces. Whilst navigation does take some time to get used to, it’s really cool being able to navigate and view a Revit model using this device. Here is me messing around with the at-at, I am sure the more I use it, the better I will get an navigating!!! Hand eye coordination has never been a strong point. :-)

The hot keys on the SpaceExplorer allow you to rapidly orient the model to various elevation views. I set too and tried different graphic displays. I actually found that the newer graphic modes of consistent colours and realistic mode operated faster than hidden line and shaded with edges. I believe this is because the newer graphic modes utilise the full support of your graphics card, whilst the legacy modes are still reliant somewhat on the processor to display the graphics. I certainly noticed a bit of lag when rotating the model. Therefore, your best option is to use the newer graphic modes when using the 3d mouse.

So who will use a 3d mouse you may ask? I guess it depends on the type of work you do within Revit. I am thinking that designers are going to love it or anybody who will need to review models for consistency and virtual coordination. However, if you are just doing production work, you may not see any benefit. If you regularly navigate the Revit environment or you are a techno geek, then this is a must have device for your desktop!

Blogpress for iPad

2011-04-22T15:29:00.001+01:00

These days I am trying to extend my blogging capabilities. Our household has so many different electronic devices connected to the Internet I thought I would try to blogging from each of these different devices. I have recently purchased a copy of Blogpress for iPad.

http://blogpressapp.com/

So far it works very well, maybe not as good as Microsoft Live Writer, but great for blogging on the go.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Revit 2012 printing issues

2011-04-22T15:18:00.001+01:00

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

Newforma Addin for Revit

2011-04-18T10:11:00.001+01:00

If you don’t know by now, I’m a big fan of Newforma! Whilst on the face of it you may think I am biased because my old boss now heads up the EMEA division and a few others friends have set up a the first Newforma reseller in the UK. Far from it, I remember seeing Newforma well before Tim Bates joined Newforma and I was instantly struck by its ease of use, flexibility, understanding of the architectural workflow and density of functionality. Whilst I have heard a few (and you know who you are!) just say that the Newforma is only great for managing emails, maybe readying this article will give you a different opinion.
http://www.newforma.com/getdoc/9477e984-3ab5-4ca9-8eb4-26b37af8a53a/Article-CADUser-Synchronicity.aspx

Rambol Evolutionary Design

2011-04-14T21:29:00.001+01:00

So I have just attended the Rambols Computational Design presentation with some of my hok colleagues at London's Design Center.

Rambols showed some amazing work, much which was created using customized scripts generated in what looked like java to solve complex structural and facade issues. It was all very impressive. Of particular interest was where Rambols team plan to go in the future. They mentioned the use of bim as the future, which drew a groan from the audience, much to my surprise! I wondered why? Having seen the funky use of parametric scripts to generate complex forms to rationalise designs which in essence contained rich data about the make up of the form; I struggled why this was not considered part of the bim workflow. Its a model and it contains information which is associated with a building form.....am I missing something here? Not being an architect and just a poor old technologist, is there some secret code that I don't know about? Am I not being purist enough? So like a dog with a bone, I did some digging. I asked a few people after the presentation why they thought it was different, what was the issue? People automatically seemed to associate Revit as bim! So if i buy a copy of Revit I am doing bim and thats the only way to do bim. No Revit, no bim. I argued that if a model, any model, which contained information was not a information model, what the hell was it? After fighting my case they did start to see my point of view.
Whilst I don't hang out in the higher echelons of the architectural world, I am just a technologist at heart; so what it indicated to me is the total missing understanding in the industry of what bim is. Whether people are fed up with the term or they don't believe the hype, I really don't know. But virtual environments for designing building forms which contain valuable data are here to stay. Whether you use products like rhino, Revit, gc, autocad, scripts to develope your design models really doesn't matter. Its more important to utilize this data throughout the design life cycle and to collaborate; each time increasing the richness of the data at the appropriate stages. If this is not bim or virtual designing, then I really need to go back to the drawing board! So in conclusion, information modelling is a process and as I continue to say, you don't buy a box of bim......

Bisley – Revit Content

2011-04-12T08:25:00.000+01:00

If you ask any interior designer want they want from Revit, apart from the normal comparisons with sketchup; the second most important item is content.

With this in mind, last year my colleague Mark Pritchard and I set about a task of contacting all the main furniture suppliers we worked with to see if…..

they actually knew what Revit was?
they had Revit content or where planning to build Revit content?

It was a very interesting exercise as it highlighted a genuine knowledge gap in the industry. The BIM message may be getting out to the architects and designers, but there is a disconnect with the supply chain. Overall it was a successful exercise as we managed to highlight the importance of manufacturers content. So much so, many of these firms where going away to investigate what was required to build Revit content.

However, one particular firm stood out over and above the rest was Bisley.

http://www.bisley.com/

Bisley are manufacturers & suppliers of office storage equipment.After meeting with Gareth Evans from Bisley last year, he went away and did some research on Revit. He got Bisley to invest in Revit, he put himself on a Revit training course and started building content!

This is a comment from Gareth “I have started to draw up our pedestals and am loving using Revit over AutoCAD.”

Bisley are working on a place to post all there content and I will let you know once this has happened. In the short term, Gareth emailed me over three examples, which can be downloaded from here. If you have any comments, please feel free to post them and I will pass them on to Gareth.

Now some people are going to disagree with me, but good quality Revit content isn’t something you should have to pay for. Good quality content in my humble opinion is a marketing opportunity for the supply chain!

Knowledgesmart

2011-04-09T10:03:00.000+01:00

If you don’t know what Knowledgesmart is, you should check it out! I was speaking with Robert Manna last week and like me, he has found it invaluable to assess staff abilities. Knowledgesmart is great for understanding skills gaps. More detail can be found at the Knowledgesmart website.

Anyway, I got an email from Rory Vance from Knowledgesmart on Friday saying that they have produced a series of blog articles, which explain how to use the various tools in the KS admin dashboard. Be sure to check the blog….http://the-knowledgesmart-blog.blogspot.com/

Boston 2011–Autodesk Media Event

2011-04-08T09:02:00.000+01:00

I thought I’d wrap this week by sharing a few photos from the Autodesk Media trip and some comment. It was a great trip and I would like to extend my thanks to Dave Mills, Bruce Finch and many others who in many cases went beyond the call of duty. It was good to see so many friends and contacts from the world I immerse myself in.

The event itself was enlightening and to some extent a little depressing at the same time. Not that there was anything wrong with what Autodesk showed, in fact there is some great work being undertaken using Autodesk technology; more that BIM still has a long way to go.There are firms that are pushing it very hard, but the industry as a whole still needs a serious kick up the arse. So when will it change? hmmmm I’m not too sure. I spoke with a number of journalists who attended the event who write for architectural and new media magazines. They where all extremely impressed and maybe their message will get out to the masses who continue to put there heads in the sand.

There is a cost to implementing BIM, but then there was a cost when you shifted from the drawing board to CAD; funny how conveniently people forget this! The world has changed, the global downturn should be forcing firms to look at new ways of working and being more efficient. The technology exists now; whilst I write this, I am sat in a train carriage where there are more people readying from mobile devices than from a newspaper. That in itself should show the technology shift. So AEC UK community, get with the picture!

The Copley Plaza Hotel built in 1912 is well worth staying at if you ever get to Boston. Its a great location….thank you Mr Finch!

The monument at Bunker Hill.This must be the most photographed office on the planet!!!

The tweet war begins; my screen in the foreground, Steve Staffords in the background to the right.

Mr Stafford tucking into his dinner at the top of the Prudential Tower, notice the UFO hovering over his head.After dark these strange space craft could be seen hovering above the city.

Martyn Day of AEC magazine kicks off a game of BIM jenga; the new party game for the AEC industry!

Boston Day 4

2011-04-06T23:27:00.000+01:00

Day four of my Boston trip and day two of the Autodesk media event. So after checking out of the Element Hotel it was over to the Autodesk Offices for the visionary / futures session. We where bombarded with various exciting technologies, many which can be found on Autodesk Labs. What was of particular interest to me was Project Dasher, be sure to check it out here….http://www.autodeskresearch.com/pages/dasher

Whilst still a research project, Dasher showed the potential for downstream use of the Building Information Model. As the site says “Project Dasher is a web-based application that helps to augment existing Autodesk® Revit® design models with real-time building submeter and sensor data on electricity and occupancy.” The use of the model for downstream use is extremely high on my priority list right now, as I am work with a client who really wants to leverage the BIM for full lifecycle use.

After a short coffee break it was over to Phil Bernstein for a Pecha Kucha style presentation which he shared with two of his colleagues. This was a look at trends and changes in the industry as well as how new technology is changing how we deliver design and construction. Cloud Computing and mobile technologies are the take home here….these two trends alone will transform how we will work now and into the future.

Then onto the Q&A. Robert Manna asked a very interesting question about the term BIM. He said he saw a shift by Autodesk from the B in BIM being a noun to a verb. Its all about Building the model….

After a lunch it was on to the secret squirrel Revit futures session; continued NDA’s are in place so I am sworn to secrecy! These sessions, in my opinion, are one of the most exciting aspects of these visits. It allows you to get a good inside track on the challenges that the guys and girls at the factory have to deliver the tools we require. I am going to sound like a cracked record; but once you truly start to see the amount of feedback and viewpoints the factory have to accommodate, you really start to understand the magnitude of the challenge.

There were 5 of us, all well-known bloggers, who attended the session. We were asked to provide feedback on a particular piece of proposed functionality that is currently being worked on. The 5 of us provided 5 different responses to how we thought the task should be solved! None of the responses where right or wrong, in fact they were all valid answers. It is this sort of feedback Autodesk look for. Dave Conant from Autodesk, who was fielding the questions, highlighted that this is typical of user responses. It is said that there are many ways to skin a cat, so if there was just one simple answer to the problem then it would be easy. Revit as a technology to deliver BIM is now a solution which is used in many different geographical locations; no longer can you think of it as a product which needs to work only in your backyard. Each country has different building codes / regulation and Autodesk needs to be able to address these to satisfy everybody's needs. Therefore, many of these large development projects are multi-year operations and with our continued year on year Revit fix, we still feel we want immediate gratification and bang for our subscription bucks. Cut the development time, then you are going to have a half backed solution. I think the user base needs to start to understand this and if you think just throwing resource at the problem will sort it, then you are wrong. I have seen architectural firms do this on projects; thinking that by having more people on the project it will ensure the delivery goals are meet. Generally this never works, because people just get in one another’s way and it creates more tension and project instability.

Anyway, I would like to extend my “thanks” to the development guys and girls who took time out of the busy schedule to share what they are doing. As always, it’s enlightening and exciting at the same time. It gives me the confidence that things are genuinely moving in the right direction and makes me proud to be part of the Building Information Modelling revolution. Nevertheless we still have a hell of a long way to go; we need to continue to educate the AEC community, clients, the authorities and general public, only then will BIM become mainstream. I’ll give you an example; I recently changed my car insurance. As part of the exercise to get the insurance quote I was asked what I did for a living…now go try and explain that you are a Revit Specialist helping to deliver Building Information Modelling on architectural projects! In the end I resorted to IT manager as my final response…….

Boston Day 3

2011-04-05T23:15:00.002+01:00

So another early start. Over to the Autodesks offices for a 7.15am breakfast and then straight into the media event.
A full on software "new feature" packed session introducing design suites, new versions, bim 360 and much more. It was really intense! Infact there was so much, it was not easy to keep up. The design suites look to offer users real value, however be aware you can't split the bundle.
After lunch it was onto the typical Aec session. Revit architecture,structure and mep. People have whinged on about limited functionality in arch and structure this year, but I totally disagree, more I see these new versions there is plenty in this release for everybody. Mep also playing serious catchup to it to older siblings; this version is a game change for the Revit bim platform. I would guess the US is a head in Revit mep use, so lets hope use Brits wake up and smell the coffee and start moving on mep adoption.
Autodesk are finally taking the construction space very seriously. With parts and assemblies in Revit 2012 and switchback functionality in Navisworks 2012. I was very impressed and I really linked the ability to link dwfs with the 3d model in Navisworks.
As the afternoon progressed Steve Stafford and I played a game of out tweeting one another, Steve won that one! However, I am learning from the master and between the two of us we totally stomped the twitter airwaves. Hopefully we got the message out to the industry on some of the new toys which will hit your desk very soon.
After the main marketing "stuff" it was a trip by bus to the prudential tower, for an amazing panoramic view of the all of Boston. I am lovin this city!

Autodesk Revit Blogspot - Stats

2011-04-05T12:04:00.000+01:00

Do you have a blog? Well if your are using Google Blogger to host your blog you will have noticed a new feature which has sneaked its way in. Typically I have used Google Analytics to track my blog activity. Not for any particular reason, just because I find it interesting to see where the pockets of Revit activity is happening around the world. However, a new feature is available to you when you login to you Blogger Dashboard. You will discover a new tab called Stats.

This is like a realtime version of Analytics. You can view allsorts, you can even see which posts are being read at a particular moment in time. Be sure to check it out as its fascinating.

Also, check out William L Campo’s post on different ways to view Blogger.

http://undernda.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-point-of-view.html

Finally, a quick shout out to all those that have linked to my Revit Architecture 2012 preview post. So far it received 12647 viewings; I am glade you have found it useful and I am humbled….

Revit Architecture 2012–Spanish

2011-04-05T11:43:00.000+01:00

Do you need your Revit Architecture 2012 new features fix in Spanish? Be sure to check out Alberto Cerdans blog where he has translated my Revit Architecture 2012 blog article into Spanish.

http://www.acercas.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=479:davidlightnews2012&catid=58:noticias&Itemid=69

Boston Day 2

2011-04-05T01:54:00.001+01:00

So early wake up to checkin with the office in the UK. Then Zack Kronz dropped by to give me a lift into the Autodesk office, where we had a quick breakfast meeting about all sorts.

Returning back to Zachs desk we continued to have a chat about some geeky vasari stuff. Later I sat in on a few meetings, which is always interesting. Matt J joined us for lunch and I showcased a few hok projects which had caused our designers some real headaches.

In the afternoon I settled in like a new employee and did some real work. Skyped the family in the UK and then around 6ish the media event started with various bloggers and media people turning up for a reception with drinks and nibbles.

We left Autodesk offices around 8ish (myself, Robert Manna and his wife and Steve Stafford) for a meal in Lexington. Jason Grant has joined us for a drink and we are now waiting for our meal...ok my steak has arrived ..I need to eat.

BIMstore is open for business

2011-04-04T02:52:00.000+01:00

I got an email from the guys over at BIMstore to say that after an intensive beta testing process, BIMstore is now officially open for business!

www.bimstore.co.uk

So what is BIMstore? Well its a place for manufacturers to place content and its a place for designers to find content. As the site says, “all content and downloads are totally free. The content is created in cooperation with manufacturers, ensuring accuracy and quality. The BIM components are”virtual models” of real manufacturers products and contain all the data for design, analysis, scheduling and specification. They can be used throughout the design process, from concept designs all the way through to construction. Some can even be used beyond construction and utilised for FM”.

A quick browse through the site and you will discover the content uploaded so far is of a very high quality.

You will find content from the following manufacturers….generic content is still limited, but expect that to grow over the forthcoming months.

Boston day 1

2011-04-03T20:33:00.003+01:00

So arrived safely got a good nights sleep. Started my day early @ 7am hiking around the freedom trail; not many people around that early on a Sunday morning in Boston which was a little weird. Anyway, after trashing the credit card I am due to meet Robert Manna this afternoon, then of to my next hotel.

Saveas an older version of Revit

2011-04-01T08:20:00.000+01:00

Ok, so this has been a long standing request by many a Revit user, the ability to “saveas” to an older version of Revit. How many times have you heard users say that they have opened a Revit file in the wrong version and saved? or that the partnering consultant you are working with can’t open the latest version of your file because they are still on Revit 2009?

Well maybe this might be the answer…I got an insider track the other day from Steve Goutcha of Pillaroof Architecture. They have a couple of inside API guys who are working on tool which will allow you to migrate the Revit database to an older version. To good to be true? Well I exchanged mails with Steve……“as users of Revit ourselves, we understand the issues that many Revit users have; the ability to do a saveas to an older version seems to be a high priority and this seems even more important as the adoption of Revit grows. If you think about it, you have been able to this in AutoCAD or ACA for years. We have been able to get under the bonnet of the Revit API and our tool allows us to save back as far as Revit 2009. Obviously each release of Revit includes new functionality so our tool will convert newer Revit elements into generic models. You won’t be able to edit these objects because effectively they are embedded IFC components, but this should be a great step forward”…..Want to know more? Be sure to check out Steves website for more details.

Size isn’t everything

2011-03-31T16:07:00.000+01:00

I am currently building some title blocks for one of our clients. I had just completed the A1 sheets and everything was going swimmingly….next up A0 sheet. Let me explain my process; I always use the out of the box title block templates…import a DWG, as often you are just recreating a DWG variants in Revit. Then I trace over the imported DWG add linework, parameters, logos etc. Then I copy to clip board, start yet another new template and paste in what I previously create. The reason being is I don’t want all the embedded DWG “stuff” sneaking its way into my spanking new title block.

Anyway, the point of this post is when I got to the A0 out of the box template I noticed a minor error. So the ISO A0 size is 1189 x 841 right? The out of the box Revit A0 template is 1190 x 840…..ok 1mm is 1mm and its only small, but this really is a genuine mistake. Lets hope this is sorted for RAC 2012.

Blogging from the Android

2011-03-26T21:37:00.001Z

So after announcing that I could blog from my phone I had yet to give it a go. So here is my first test.

Revit 2012 – Construction Modelling

2011-03-24T13:21:00.001Z

Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012

2011-03-22T00:02:00.001Z

Today Autodesk announced details of the 2012 AEC portfolio and once again this is my yearly roundup / review of the Autodesk Revit Architecture product. Similar to last year, the alpha for this release started particular early, so those involved in this feedback process got a good insight into what was being proposed. In fact when I visited Autodesk last year I go an early preview of some of the work that was taking place. I was fortunate enough to sit in on one of the development meetings where the concept scoping document was being discussed on a particular feature in this release. This was extremely enlightening; my overall opinion was that it was very similar to how the AEC industry works. In our case, we are the clients, we decide what we want and propose this to the researchers (the architect), the researchers then work with the developers (the contractor) to see how best to actually build the design. It is the architect as well as the contractor’s responsibilities to work within the budget constraints and to deliver the product on time. Fair enough, this is a simplistic view on the situation and it is probably not as black and white as what I have described, as there are many factors that could and will disrupt the development process.

So back to the Revit Architecture 2012; I will just be covering the Architectural and major platform enhancements and features; I am sure others will do a better technical review of Structure and MEP improvements than I will do.

So the key highlights include:-

Revit Server
Citrix Ready Release
Autodesk Vault Collaboration AEC
Linking Improvements
Work Sharing
Improved DWG export fidelity
Visualisation Enhancements
3d Tagging
Modelling Enhancements
UI tweaks and adjustments
Performance
Construction Modelling
Massing enhancements
Materials
Point Cloud Support
IFC

Revit Server

Revit Server was introduced as part of the mid-year subscription drop; my blog article back in October provides an overview of RS if you need to know more. RS has been further enhanced in 2012 and provides new platform server support for VMWare and Windows 2008 server release 2. More detailed historic information is available from the Revit Server administration tools and there is now support for editing requests and notifications. Another nice feature is the new command-line “RevitServerTool”, this has been provided to allow you to create a local file from a central stored on Revit Server, without having to use Revit itself. RS also provides support of all the new working sharing enhancements in this release, more about those later.

Linking Improvements

As project teams push Revit harder and the tools gets utilised on more challenging projects the concept of linking models together has become more prevalent. The original concept of one super model which can do everything has migrated to a more holistic and realistic approach of linking models. With this in mind, the need to enhance the linking abilities between models has become a user priority. The 2011 release saw a number of key improvements within this area, 2012 sees these extended further. Tagging has been extended to allow you to Tag Rooms in linked Architectural and MEP files. Spaces can be tagged in linked MEP files. Keynoting tags now work across all linked file types whether they are Architectural, MEP or Structural files. Area tagging now works on linked Architectural and MEP models. The ability to Tag Rooms alone is worth its weight in gold as this limitation causes projects teams major headaches with the need to setup linked views etc to accommodate this previous limitation. The managed links dialog also see some minor tweaks. The Revit links tab is now positioned first, Users can now sort the columns by clicking the header of the columns. The default columns sizes have been improved to make reviewing and reading easier. Building on 2011, additional MEP elements categories have been made available to the copy / monitor function.

Working Sharing

I would have to say that one of the biggest areas of improvement for Revit 2012 is within the Worksharing workflow. It pulls together a number of outstanding requirements, requests and disconnected technology implementations and delivers something which addresses everything that I personally saw as a shortfall in Worksharing. A new feature called Worksharing Visualization allows you to view in canvas the ownership status of elements, specific owners of elements, when elements are out of date as well as which elements are assigned to a particular Worksets.

A new view control bar has been added to each window which allows you to access these new Worksharing graphic features. When you go into a particular mode text in canvas is used to indicate which temporary display mode you are using.

The tool tip feature has also been expanded providing the user with more Worksharing information as you hover over a particular element; where once you had to wait a fraction of a second for the tool tip to appear it is now instantaneous. A major limitation of Revit in previous years has been the inadequate functionality of the edit requests feature. This tool, has from my memory never been improved? Where project teams have been disconnected geographically or just within the office, the use of instant message tools has become the norm to let team members know that you have placed a request or borrow an element or to get someone to relinquish and sync to central. The Worksharing monitor released a few years back did go some way to assist, but it was really on stop gap solution. However, when Revit Server was introduced, you quickly discovered that the Worksharing monitor was not supported in the environment! So it is refreshing to see that Revit 2012 now provides balloon notifications when editing requests. When you receive request, you can use the buttons provided to show the elements that need to be relinquished. No more throwing items at your team members to get them to relinquish borrowed items!

Its pleasing to see that Workset Visibility can now be managed by view templates!Another minor improvement is the introduction of a Starting View. We at HOK along with many other firms, choose to have a starting view. This view in our case is a drafting view which indicates project details and is the neutral view we encourage all our users to save in. This ensures that everybody gets the same view when they create a new local copy and experience has shown that this view opens quicker than having to wait for a large 3d view to appear on the screen. Therefore, the new Starting View command allows you to specify which view appears by default when you open the file. Another minor tweak is the ability to change the Workset parameter without first needing to borrow an element.

Finally, the most potentially useful as well as “dangerous” feature is the ability to disable Worksets. This really has been a long standing request, because once Worksetted, officially you were unable to disable Worksets. Technically this is not true, as this functionality has been lurking around in the background for some time, but it has never been exposed to the user. Whilst it will be a very useful feature, without careful and proper management it could spell disaster if it gets into the hands of the Revit novice! Therefore, this feature has been hidden out of the way and has been integrated into the detach from central workflow. When detaching from central you can detach and preserve Worksets or you can detach and discard Worksets which in effect turns it back into a standalone file.

DWG Exports

DWG export fidelity from Revit has been well…….fine for the purpose it was intended for! I have said for a long time that it’s ok, but will never provide the same quality you would get if it was drawn in AutoCAD in the first place. But it has been a long standing request by many to improve the output that Revit provides. Now this creates a tricky challenge as you are trying to convert the output from one technology suitable for use in another technology. We are often the executive architect and we produce the designs in Revit up to DD or stage D (RIBA); the local architects we often work with don’t have the latest technology, so AutoCAD is often their delivery tool. So in this occasion the best quality dwg export is the order of the day. As more firms become Revit enabled this will be less of an issue.

Revit 2012 sees improvements across the board; the export user interface has been updated, pre-sets can be saved once you have configured the output to your requirements. The export settings can be transferred between projects, using the Transfer Project Standards command. Revit 2012 is now able to export style based dimensions; this will ensure that the dimension text is controlled by the text style and the tick mark is controlled by the arrow heads properties; no more proxy graphics to represent dimensions in the DWG export.

Lines, Patterns, Text and Fonts, Colours, Geometry type, Units can also be customized to a far more granular level of detail. In the case of Lines types you can map Revit to use a .LIN file and Hatch Patterns you can map to a use a .PAT file. All this should help to improve the clarity of DWG exports from Revit. I do hope it will meet most users’ needs, especially where you need to match to existing DWG CAD standards. But I will reiterate, whilst it is a major improvement, you shouldn’t take for granted that this will resolve all your DWG clarity problems, there are some very complex CAD standards out there!

General Platform Improvements

Revit 2012 release also sees a number of improvements to the user experience. You will find that the highlight and selection colours have been updated. Another obvious improvement is the New Grip Graphic; these now appear visually better on the screen. The temporary Dimensions graphics have been tweaked and these are now blue rather than black. These are just minor tweaks, but they do improve the interaction experience and it genuinely improves the fit and finish of the product.

The Graphic Display Options Dialog box has also gone through a major overhaul. You are now able to create a View Template directly from this reconfigured Dialog. After user feedback from Revit 2011, there are now a number of additional visual styles such as:

Realistic with Edges mode with Realistic views.
Ambient Occlusion for Hidden Line mode.
Ambient Occlusion along with Shadows for Consistent Colours mode.

Another sneaky little gem is the ability to print Ambient Occlusion! You will also find the introduction of Ghost Surfaces. This is a new graphic mode which will display surfaces with 30% transparency. This is particularly useful and will provide the user with additional control over complex 3D visualisations. The Ghost Surface feature can be applied to whole view, by category, by element or as a filter. Below you can see the image has had the Ghost Surfaces applied.One of the foremost benefits of working in Revit and 3d is the ability to generate assembly 3d views and 3d details. I have said it many times, but give somebody a 3d isometric of an assembly and they will have a better understanding of how the components go together. The guys over at Lego have been doing this for years!!! So Revit 2012 now includes a new 3d view lock feature which allows you to lock to an orientation of a 3d and then tag elements within the view. The user has 3 possible options available; save orientation and lock the view, restore orientation and lock the view, unlock the view. This is control via the View Control Bar.

Whilst I am on the subject of 3d, final Revit 2012 sees 3dconnexion device support. You will need to install the current drivers for you 3dspace mouse, but when you do an appropriate 3dspace mouse icon will appear on the Navigation Bar.

When Autodesk switched to the Ribbon, one rather nice feature in 2010 was the ability to have Type Selector positioned in the Ribbon. Revit 2011 stole us of this feature and the Type Selector migrated its way to the Properties Palette. But I am glade to say the Type Selector in the Ribbon is back. If you right mouse click over the type selector in the Properties Palette you can add it to the QAT (Quick Access Toolbar) as well as the Ribbon.

Schedule and legends views can now be created directly from the project browser. Just go to Schedule / Quantities or Legends in the Project Browser, right mouse click and choose from the drop down menu.

Other user experience tweaks include the ability to export Family Types from a Project to a TXT file, import types into a family from TXT file, save all families from a project or a family, customizable equality text, a number of improvements to Dimension Leaders and a new Round Function for Formulas.

As with every release of Revit, Autodesk strive to improve the product performance. Purge Unused now includes unused Imported Categories and Object Styles, loading elements into memory now has multi-threading support. Also Multi-threading has also been extended to the calculation of silhouette edge graphics as well as graphical representation of model elements in open views, when changing view properties of a view.

Core Modelling

You will discover various number improvements that were implemented in Revit 2011’s massing tools have migrated their way into 2012’s project environment. The solid-solid cut tool can now be used on family instances.

The workplane Viewer is now available in the project environment and you can now use Adaptive Components in the project environment; you will discover that shape handles have been provided to improve the placement and positioning of AC’s. Although it should be not that there are some restrictions on the use of AC’s, you will only be able to use AC’s in Revit Architecture, no Revit Structure or Revit MEP support for the time being. The creation of surface sub-regions on non-planar surfaces in the Conceptual Environment, which first appeared as part of the subscription drop, has been enhanced further. It is accessible via the Split Face tool in the Geometry panel. This allows you to draw on the surface of non-planar surface and apply different materials to the sub-region using the Paint tool. An essential feature when apply materials to masses for energy analysis exercises. A long standing request from the Revit community is to allow families to cut other families. So 2012 now allows face-based void families to be hosted on and cut Structural Framing, Columns, Structural Foundations or Generic model families within the Project. Also, families which just contain voids only and don’t actually cut anything in the family itself can be used to cut walls, floors, roofs, ceilings as well as the family types mentioned previously. This starts to resolve a number of use cases such as holes in beams or the ability to automatically cut an opening in a worktop when placing a sink.

Revit and Construction

As the Revit platform starts to take its grip on the AEC industry as the BIM technology of choice, Autodesk is starting to ensure that Revit can be utilised in other parts of the AEC workflow. A number of contractors have made a serious investment in Revit and are utilising the tool in their workflow. If anybody has seen what Tocci Construction are doing with Revit, you will know exactly what I mean. Therefore, to start to move into this arena and to address the complexities and finesse of Construction Modelling, Revit 2012 introduces the ability to Create Parts and Divide the model. These features are purely focused at construction engineer who needs to split the model into smaller component parts.

Parts are produced by breaking down the compound components which make up walls, roofs, ceilings and floors. When you select a wall for instance and choose to create parts, the wall will break down into its individual component layers. The individual parts do retain the geometric relationship with its original element. However, Parts do have their own properties, so they can be scheduled and can be modified independently. By enabling the grip handle functionality available from the properties palette you can pull the various layers around. Once Parts are made, you can then use the Divide Parts Command to divide the compound Part further by using sketch lines on the active workplace.

Assembly and Assembly views have been introduced to resolve certain pre-cast construction workflows. To generate an assembly, you select the elements you want to group as part of your assembly, and then choose the Create Assembly Command. Once you have created the assembly and named it, it will appear under assemblies in the project browser. You can then generate views from the assembly by clicking on the create views commands. This allows you to create shop drawings of components which are independent of the main model. Both these features have massive potential; it will start to allow for more granular detailing. A word of warning though, these feature are only available in Revit Architecture and Structure; when you break your model into parts it will add weight to your model as the original element is still retained. I joked last year when I saw this feature that I could see some going mad and breaking everything and anything without understanding the consequences!

Massing Tweaks

There have been a couple of useful tweaks to tools in the Conceptual Massing Environment. You can now have Formula Driven Components. What this means is that you can use conditional formula parameters and apply this to a divided surface. A new parameter called “Family Type:Divide Surface” allows you to drive the display and type of a pattern or a component. The other minor improvement is the control of parameter values for points hosted on line or curves. Previous to 2012, whilst you could host a point on a line, the parameter was normalized between a value of 0 to 1. This got even more confusion on circles as the value was expressed in radians. Now you can still express the normalised segmented length between 0 and 1, but you also have additional parameters for segmented length, normalized segment length, chord length, angle, non-normalized curve parameter and normalized curve parameter.

More Material Changes

There have been some fundamentals changes to how material work. Whilst much of this work is on-going and will not be immediately obvious to the user this is the first steps of a large project to focus on delivering models with Physical Materials. The Paint tool has undergone a change, so when selected it will automatically open the materials dialog box to allow you to preview the material before applying to an element. The Remove paint tool allows you to remove materials you have already applied. You can also schedule materials that have been applied by the Paint tool.

The management and control of material has been upgraded; for instance you can now create property sets for materials. These are collection of properties that are used to define the aspect of the material. The management of property sets are managed through an overhauled Material Properties Library Dialogue. This work has accumulated into the ability to have libraries that can be present in a project or an independent file which can be shared between users as well as other Autodesk applications such as 3dsmax. With this change we can again create customized libraries for project or for your office, something which was not possible when Autodesk changed from Accurender to MentalRAY. Finally, the icing on the cake, you can now purge unused materials from a project, no more keyboard combinations of selecting and deleting one at a time!

Point Cloud Support

One of the most exciting features in Revit 2012 is support for Point Cloud data. Times have changed; one of the outcomes of the recent global downturn is that clients are now looking to refurbish their existing building stock rather than finding a green field sight and plonking down a new building. Refurbishment has a direct correlation with the sustainability agenda; what could be more Green than taking an existing building and refurbishing to meet current regulations and requirements? Maybe that is a rather unsophisticated view on the situation, but when talking with many of our clients here in London, this is how they are thinking. Therefore, how does the notation of BIM interface with the world of refit and refurbishment? How do you capture what already exists and utilize this to develop the BIM?

The concept of laser scanning it nothing new; the use of the technology has certain accelerated in recent years, with more and more surveying firms offering laser scanning services. But capturing the data is one thing, utilizing data to develop a Revit model has, up until now, been extremely challenging.

Revit 2012 sees the use of Autodesks propriety point cloud engine to access large point cloud datasets. The following raw formats .las, .xyb, .pts, .ptg, .fls, .fws.are supported. You are able to insert a Point Cloud file via the Insert > Managed linked tab but due to the nature and size of point cloud files they are referenced into the project rather embedded.

Once linked into a project, a point cloud file behaves like any other model element. It will appear in views and can be selected, rotated, copied, deleted and mirrored. You have the capability to link multiply point cloud files and you can obviously control the display of the cloud file via Visibility / Graphics. All the normal Revit rules apply so, plans, section as well as section boxes can cut through the cloud file which is particularly useful if you need to isolate a particular areas of the cloud data.

Okay, so you have the cloud data linked into the Revit project, what next? Geometry can be used to snap to planar surfaces that are dynamically detected in the point cloud. Revit will only detect planes that are perpendicular to the current workplane. The snap tool feature streamlines the model authoring process from the cloud data. There are also various API enhancements which I am sure, will open up opportunities for more enhanced geometry creation tools to be developed by third parties developers. I have heard through the grape vine that the new Point Cloud feature will happily manage Point Cloud datasets up to around 30 gigs. Whilst many may never utilise this functionality, I do foresee many firms who do refurbishment making good use of this powerful feature.

IFC Tweaks

The IFC export engine has been tweaked and is now “layered” on the Revit API. This has allegedly addressed a number of export bugs. I personally have mixed views on IFC; I so want it to work, but without the necessary appetite from AEC firms to sit down and work together to get it completely working , then it will still remain what it is today. Autodesk is the biggest player in the AEC software market, you would certainly think it was in there interest to drive the IFC discussion and put some real effort in. More and more countries are demanding BIM, with the deliverables being of an open standard. Therefore, if Revit is to be the BIM authoring platform of choice, the IFC output needs to be the best it can possibly be. I am aware there is much work taking place in the background with the IFC schema, so I do hope I can report back in the near future on the efforts.

Summary and Final Thoughts…..

So in summary and in my humble opinion, Revit 2012 is overall a positive release. It has some superb features particularly around large team workflows and the support for point cloud data is an excellent move. There is also Citrix Support as well as Autodesk Vault support. I will cover these features in a future article, as I am currently testing these in my office.

Will Revit 2012 keep the die-hard Revit user who wants long standing items like better text tools, improved typography and site, stairs etc….happy???? hmmmmm probably not! But I would have to argue that whilst some of the improvements to big ticket modelling items have yet to appear, there is still plenty in this feature rich release to make most users content.

But a word of warning Mr Autodesk; some of these long standing requests really do need to be addressed over the next 1 to 2 releases. I see users fighting with some of the trickier tools on a day to day basis and I feel their pain. However, I have a pragmatic view on much of this now as I have come to realize that there is no utopia and Rome really wasn’t built in a day. As the Guinness Ad says, good things come to those that wait. Nevertheless, improving model quality and construction assembly by providing flexible, easy to use software tools most be the end game. Without this, there will always be an excuse by some diehards that this “BIM thing” is just not worth doing.

One final point; the content and views expressed in this article are purely my own. Some will be thinking, does he get paid for writing this stuff???….nope I don’t. My passion for the Revit technology and BIM has become engrained in my DNA; it’s just what I do. It’s what makes me wake up of a morning and travel to work :-)

Revit 2011 plus 1

2011-03-21T10:51:00.001Z

All will be revealed later today. Come back for more details……

Cat let out of the bag

2011-03-18T14:08:00.001Z

Next week…the cat will be let out of the bag! On what you may ask? hmmmmm come back here next week and you will learn more.

The Galaxy is coming

2011-03-17T07:14:00.001Z

Come back here early next week for exciting news about this image! :-)

Collecting packaging

2011-03-14T15:21:00.000Z

I’ve read it somewhere that there are people who collect packaging…much like people who collect say Star Wars toys or model trains; people also collect things like old cereal packages and coke cans. Weird….anyway, in the early days of Revit I started collecting old Revit installation CD / DVD packages. I recently found a version or Revit 4.1 to add to my collection! (pre-Autodesk) Mind you I am sure there are some out there who will have versions older than 4.1.

Sadly my collection hit a barrier when I went to work for the reseller as we didn’t get our software sent on media; instead it was downloaded from a secret Autodesk media website. :-) But then my media collection was always destined to meet a rapid end when Autodesk moved from supplying media to internet based distribution. Shame really, as my collection will go no further than Revit 9.1.

Project Vasari - Website

2011-03-11T21:11:00.000Z

Be sure to check out the new Project Vasari website, you will find images, forums, videos and other useful “stuff”.

http://projectvasari.com/

Lumion

2011-03-04T22:46:00.000Z

You have got to check this out…..I have downloaded a copy and have started playing….weird voice over in the tutorial below…..but go with it!

http://lumion3d.com/

Nesting Generic models into Curtain Pattern Based Families

2011-03-04T22:40:00.001Z

This comes from a query I received recently and also extends back a few years ago; since I came up with a similar challenge creating a curtain wall system for a proof of concept project I had to do when I worked for Excitech. This really will scare the BIM purist, but it may be useful. :-)

In the example above I have used a generic model family and nested this into a curtain wall pattern based family, which in turn is loaded into a divided surface. If you build the generic model in Revit, this principle will work in Vasari as well.

What is interesting about this is you can pull points and edges of the divided surface and the panels will cut back.

This may be useful when you having to quickly produce a concept study and find it quick to build old school geometry rather than work with points and reference lines to build the panel.

generic model nested into a pattern based cw panel