Revit 2011 User Assistance

Be sure to check out the Revit 2011 User Assistance, some every useful stuff here.

http://docs.autodesk.com/REVIT/2011/ENU/landing.html

So Revit Architecture 2011 is finally here

As noted yesterday, RAC 2011 is available for download from the subscription Centre. Its a fairly heavy download, all 2.6 gigs worth of it, but its worth the wait!!

It can also be downloaded from the Autodesk website

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=14973244

After all of the excitement of the trip to the Autodesks Offices in Waltham last week, I got a rather nasty flu bug which was knocked me out for the last 6 days! Mind you, if Autodesk had decided to hold the event this week, I would have been stuck in New York as the UK is currently a no fly zone. This is due to a Volcano in Iceland spitting out ash into the atmosphere and this has drifted into the UK airspace. Aeroplanes and Volcanic ash don’t seem to make a good mix!

I’ve been helping James Vandezande on a section on concept curtain walling for the forthcoming “Mastering Revit Architecture 2011” he, Phil Read and Eddie C are working on. I managed to get the draft over to James on Thursday after some initial edits. I believe its been forwarded to the technical editor to pull part! I’ve seen some of the sections and I reckon it will be an awesome book when its finally published. Get your Amazon orders in now!

Revit 2011 – subscription download

It would seem that Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 is available for download from the subscription centre, download all 2.68gigs of Revit 2011!

Autodesk opens its doors and we look inside

Its the 6th April 2010 and I have joined other bloggers, press and industry people for the Autodesk 2011 Media day. Autodesk often gets a regularly kicking from the wider user community, so this was a great opportunity to look inside this software machine and something that I have personally wanted to do for sometime. 

Much has been written about the IPD project for the Autodesk Waltham offices, but its not until you actually get here and see the quality of finish and the materials used, that you really appreciate why the IPD process really works. The quality is as good as you would expect from a high quality fashion store such as Gucci or LV. The workspace also looks fun; the guys and girls who work here look like they have a total blast and they are genuinely passionate about what they do.You get the feeling that everyone, I mean everyone wants to make the solutions better and better.

The morning starts with breakfast followed by an formal introduction to the days events from Paul Sullivan and Jay Bhatt. Jay explained that Autodesk where very proud of the 2011 release and that everybody within Autodesk had worked very hard over the last 12 months; especially during difficult economic times. He is well aware of some of the negativity that surrounded 2010, but explained that much work had taken place in terms of foundation building and with 2011 you now start to see the fruits of the labour.

So after the introductions, a number of us (me, Robert Manna, Steve Stafford and David Harrington) where sneaked out the back door for a secret gathering with Chauncey Wilson and Chris Yanchar to discuss, well…… some secret stuff! Time seemed to fly by as grilled us over some stuff (NDA’s are in place, so I can’t talk about the “stuff”). All I can say is it was good “stuff”! :-)

We then took a break for a coffee and the group split. Steve and I then meet with Erik Egbertson and Jean to discuss more “stuff” this time about railings. You should check Eric blog post as he wants your feedback on railing terminology. It was disappointing that time was not kind to us. An hour was just not longer enough as both Steve and I had so much to share with the Eric and Jean on the challenges that the everyday user encounters when using the railing tools.

We then broke for lunch and this was followed by a presentation from Commonwealth of Massachusetts who explained how they where using Revit and the BIM process to deliver their projects.

After this Robert, Steve and I where whisked off to join Greg Demchak for a scoping meeting with some of the other development team to review a “future” Revit feature. This was very interesting as it gives you a good insight into how they scope and plan for features within the time constraints of 12 months. You can see how they plan for immediate delivery as well as the long terms goal.  The whole process of scoping and planning is very much how a design team would work with a client to plan and deliver a building project.

After this we strolled over to catchup with Zach Kron at his desk.Scott Latch (RAC Product Manager) joined us as we all got geeky about adaptive points and massing! Be sure to checkout Zach’s blog and rest assure, he has some create articles coming around some of the 2011 features.

Steve had to split as he had a flight to catch and we said our goodbyes. We where then taken back to the hotel where we freshened up before being take to the Concord Inn for dinner. The Concord Inn dates 1700’s.In 1775, part of the Inn's original buildings was used as a storehouse for arms and provisions.  When the British came to seize and destroy the supplies, the Minutemen met them at the North Bridge on April 19th for what became the first battle of the American Revolution. As you can imagine I got a bit of s**t from all the Americans who where with me for dinner, about how the Yanks kicked are arse at the first battle of the American Revolution! My response was, lets just see you guys fair come the 12th of June 2010 when we meet you in the World Cup! All good fun and if you are in Boston at any time, be sure to go to the Concord Inn.

Then back to the hotel as I had an early wakeup call to catch a train down to the HOK New York office.

I have to say, I would like to extend my thanks to all at Autodesk who made this such a wonderful event. Especially David Mills, who went beyond the call of duty to get us all there and was a great host.

Where in the world am I?

Well, I’m sat in a hotel looking out of the window at a very sunny area just outside of Boston, MA. I’m here for the Autodesk AEC 2011 Media launch. This is the first time I have been to Boston; looks like a great place. Kind of strange, as on my way to the hotel, I passed a sign for “Winchester”; I had only left “Winchester, Hampshire, UK” just 9 hours earlier!

http://www.visitwinchester.co.uk/ 

I guess the first settlers who landed here couldn’t think up any original names, so to make them feel at home, they used City names from the UK. My American history is very poor, so I feel I need to know more.

Autodesk Revit Civil - not

You only need to speak with somebody who has been using Revit for a long time and one of their biggest complaints is the limited site tools in Revit. Whilst you may argue that Revit is a building modelling application, buildings do sit on sites and are not in isolation, so this is something which is essential to the whole BIM process. Having spent many hours fighting with the terrain tools in Revit Architecture myself, it’s interesting to hear that Autodesk are starting to consider this particular area for Revit. So one thing that you may or may not of heard too much noise about is a couple of Civil focused extensions that may get released for Revit. Having spoken with a couple of Autodesk insiders these tools are in pre-alpha at the moment, but code named “Dig-it” and “Bucket”, these extensions may well start to drive a Civil focused version of Revit. “Dig-it” will be an advanced ground modelling extension, which will address the sort falls provided by the current terrain tools with ability to make road and pavements. “Bucket” will provide far more robust cut and fill calculations. So hopefully Autodesk will see the light and will release “Dig-it” and “Bucket” to resolve all our dirt problems.....