RTC 2012 railing porn

So myself, Robert and Krista Manna ran our Stair and Railing class yesterday at RTCUSA 2012. I think it was well received? One assumes that everybody knew the new stair and railing tools in 2013, but that wasn't necessarily the case. So, I thought I'd share show of the railing examples I produced for my portion of the session. These files will be uploaded for all to download once the event is finished.

Project Vasari - new Dynamo

The Vasari team have just released a brand new Dynamo as a WIP. This looks extremely exciting and after attending Matts class at RTCUSA, this is really pushing the boundaries of what Revit and Vasari can do. There are installers for Vasari and Revit as well as lots of examples on the Autodesk labs site, check the link below.

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

Key new features include:
User Interface -- side panel to allow you to search and then drag and drop new nodes in to place
User-created nodes – you can make 'sub-nodes' and then reference them elsewhere, these act like writing a reusable function in a programming language
Python Scripting node
Math, logic and other nodes – many new nodes added to support evaluation, iteration and looping

Free Auto-Section Box tool

 

Reference to this tool appeared on twitter the other day from Luke Johnson over at what Revit wants blog. The Tool is from Coins & is called Auto-Section Box.  It can be downloaded from the Autodesk Exchange Apps site for Revit 2013 only.I downloaded the tool yesterday to play with it. What is of most interest is that you select objects to automatically create a cropped 3d section. As Trey from Autodesk suggest on the Autodesk Wiki, you can achieve the same result using a Callout & a default 3d view. However, further investigation you can just select rooms & use these as the crop extents.

So in a plan view select the room.

Next go to the Add-ins tab & select the Auto-Section Box tool (assuming you have installed it). The following dialogue will appear.

The Size “Elements Extents, plus buffer” is the dimension which will form the extents of the section box around the selected room. In this case 300mm or 12”. Next Select ok & a new view is created based on the room. Those that are doing healthcare & S&T work may see some real value in this!

designbymany - REskin

Be sure to check out the latest designbymany design challenge, called REskin which asks participants to cleverly reskin a decaying urban building in New York City. The competition is FREE to enter. Autodesk are sponsoring this first challenge & design submissions can range from a focused investigation to an entire reskinning of the building. The skin should be both inventive and buildable. All final submissions must be Revit models.  More information about the challenge can be found - 

http://www.designbymany.com/challenge/reskin

The winner of the REskin challenge will be chosen by a panel of judges, including Autodesk’s own Zach Kron, & HOK’s very own Greg Schleusner and will receive a full license of Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2013. Go for it! It will be fun.

So you think you are a DJ?

I can blame James Van for this! Did you know that James is a very good DJ? I ‘m expecting to see a decent DJ jam between James & Stephen Staffords son Jake, at RTC 2012!

Anyway, James pointed me towards this site, its a basic mixing setup in your browser. So if you think your are the next Tiesto, give it a go. Have to say, its the best fun I’ve had in ages. And if you are really crap, you can always enable the Automix function!

BIM Handbook

I totally forgot about this, but I managed to get a “very small” piece in the BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and Contractors By Chuck Eastman, Paul Teicholz, Rafael Sack & Kathleen Liston. You need to a guide to BIM? get this book! As always, it available from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/BIM-Handbook-Information-Designers-Contractors/dp/0470541377/ref=as_li_tf_mfw?&linkCode=wey&tag=httpautodeskr-21

RTC North America 2012

So with less than 2 weeks to go & with me me dragging my feet due to my laid backed approach from my 2 week vacation in Jamaica ;) Robert Manna has finally submitted our class documents for RTC 2012. Robert Manna, his wife Krista Manna & myself will be presenting a labs class at RTC 2012. I have to say I thought this session may be too basic for some but the class is entitled “Implementing & Teaching the Revit Stair & Railing tools in your Organization.” Trust me, on the face of it the new stairs & railings may seem straight forward, but there are loads of gotchas & we hope our class will prepare you what you need to know from a “train the trainers” perspective. Certainly we have dug up a lot of dirt on these new tools so I am confident its going to interesting & fun at the same time!

If you haven’t booked for RTC 2012, there is still time! There is a stunning line up or presenters & speakers from all around the world. Be sure to check detail here if you are contemplating attending….

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

Our yeah & did I say that RTC is coming to Europe in 2013? Watch this space for more details. ;-)