AU 2011

Autodesk University 2011 is almost hear and all the courses have been released. I have heard a lot of disappointment with the number of Revit courses this year especially when compared to RTC.

RTC is probably great if all you are wanting things that revolve around Revit. However, AU still has the better diversity for those looking to branch out and look to see what else they can do. Inventor/Revit, QTO/Revit, Autodesk Labs, etc.

A colleague of mine and I will be presenting and uncoference at AU this year "Extending Your Autodesk Revit Models for BIM to Fabrication." Hopefully this will be a great forum on how to take your Revit models past CDs.

Autodesk WikiHelp

Autodesk has recently unveiled a new website called Autodesk WikiHelp. As with any wiki site it in almost purely user supported with content, although Autodesk has started it out already with many sections full of content. This seems like a really great idea and the process to submit information is relatively painless. When you find a page you would like to add information to click "Edit Page" then type what you would like to, save, agree to their terms, and then wait for it to be approved (approximately one day the times I have submitted).

There are a few drawbacks I found, one is the log in...I am not sure if perhaps I did it wrong, but it seems to me that I now have an Autodesk login, Autodesk Student Community login, Autodesk AU login, and others....sure would be nice to just have one login and one profile. The other drawback I see is actually getting people to submit on it, right now there are many forums and blogs out there on Autodesk, Revit, BIM, etc...this is just one more site in the array of resources.

All in all this is a really cool website, one of my favorites is their video of Revit 4 which takes me back to when I first started Revit and makes me appreciate the new UI and all the other great additions they have done to Revit since....

Missing/Lost Sheet (2011)

So the other day two of my colleagues came to me because they had a sheet that they could not find in the project browser. We knew it was an actual sheet not a dummy sheet since we set it up and put views on it. It was not deleted because it showed up in the sheet list and we were not able to renumber a sheet to it's number.

This my not be a large issue to some, if you primarily go into the views to make changes rather than work of sheets, since the missing sheets still reference the same and print the same as well. If you need to get to the sheet to make changes, where did it go?

Ben May of Revit-Ninja pointed out a case where his sheet had been moved up with views in the project browser. This happened to be the case for me as well. So to find this sheet, right click on "View (Plans/Details)" in the project browser, and turn off any filters and folders. You should now just have a long list of all your views. Scroll down to where "Sheets" would be alphabetically (ie "Sheets: RF-102S) and low and behold there is your missing sheet.

That is the solution if you don't mind switching up your browser to find that sheet every time...if this is an issue you can always delete the sheet in the Sheet List (right click and delete row). This will release all the views from the sheet so they can be replaced on a new sheet of the same name and number. Granted this may not always be very friendly if you happen to have 30 or so details on this sheet.

Now, AutoDesk says this is a very rare occurrence, but there is no way to fix this instance of the sheet to get sheets listed back where it is supposed to under "Sheets."

Autodesk Nucleus

This is an item I would not be surprised to see in RAC 2012 or 2013....Nucleus is a Maya based modeling tool that is starting to be incorporated into Revit. For all of those who remember the massing overhaul a few years back, this transformation makes that look rather generic and archaic.

Granted, with a background in engineering this does make me cringe when I try to imagine all the new non-squared designs that will potentially evolve if this is pushed to be included in the OOTB Revit release. Nonetheless, this still seems like a REALLY cool tool developed and AutoDesk is allowing you to play around with it until the end of this year.

This also does have great potential on the engineering (structural) side as well with its proclaimed ability to simulate loading conditions. Their website says that it has the ability to display gravity, wind, and collision loadings, but I think where this could have a greatest significance in today world, if accurate, is with blast and seismic scenarios.

Though it does state that designs made with Nucleus will still function after the trial expiration date, I would still be wary of overhauling your library before (if) this becomes standard OOTB with Revit.

Mouse Hotkey

I recently came across a pretty cool tool called StrokeIT which attaches shortcuts to your mouse and how you gesture. Now I am the type that love using my keyboard short cuts and so to me I feel that this would be a little too different for how I prefer to Revit, but it is still a really cool tool and many out there may find this a nice alternative to browsing around for tools on tool bars and using the keyboard.

Below is a video of how it works. You can also see the video on this forum. I am not sure why the video is so blurry on here?

New Revit Forum

So as most of you are probably aware of AUGI seems to be tanking rather quickly and there have been many searching for new places to go for a resource and to connect with fellow Revit users. "Revit Forum" is very well laid out, and the development team seems to be very quick on getting changes, wants, and fixes made to the forum.

There also seems to be many Revit users already starting to use this forum, so if any are interested in finding a new place to connect I would highly recommend this forum, and I hope to see many of you on there!

"North Symbol on all Plans"

I recently read a post on AUGI and I thought it was an interesting way to automatically put a north arrow on all your plan drawings. Draw your North arrow as a shaft object rather than an annotation. Seems like a pretty simple solution, and rather innovative. Thanks to David Harrington for the post on AUGI.

I am trying to get some things together from a project in college, but I am hoping to have a post soon on the power and setback to Revit Scheduling.

Revit and Construction

So I have recently started working at a new firm. I used to work for an Architectural firm/Construction firm, and now work for a structural firm. The things I am doing for the structural firm are all construction related, such as rebar shop drawings, steel stud lay out designs, roof construction sequencing and weights, and similar. What has been noticed the most about doing this type of designing with Revit is that there is still a lot of development and improvement with Revit that would make using Revit for shop drawings much more efficient.

The first area would have to be rebar. By pure time, volume, and frequency, rebar shops are something that could easily take off in Reivt and have a fairly high impact on construction cost and time. There are three major areas that would significantly improve creating rebar shops in Revit:

1. Placement of rebar around openings and non-squared edges
   *Right now there is not a way to easily take rebar around openings and along non-squared edges.
   
2. Tagging of rebar sets.
   *Rebar is fairly similar to a beam system in its looks and how it functions, it would be great to have a tag that recognizes this and would act as the beam system tag does by placing arrows to the extents automatically of the rebar set.
   
3. Customizable schedules.
   *This seems to be the simplest yet most helpful, it would be extremely helpful to have better control of schedules in Revit so users could make Revit populate a Bar Mark rather then a user generated mark. Not being able to convert a number to text and not being able to use bend types and bar sizes in formulas are each humps when trying to force Revit to automatically populate a Bar Mark. For example if a bar is a #7 17A bar, there needs be a way to combine these to 7-17A that is both able to be scheduled and tagged.
   

Scan to BIM from BIM Manager

I noticed a new post on a colleague's blog today about bringing scanned point clouds into Revit. I feel that this is a great opportunity for numerous expansions utilizing the Revit platform anywhere from high end industrial work to building remodels. I think this also could have a great impact on as builts and also facilities management.

http://www.avatech.com/solutions/building-design/product-details.aspx?product=90

http://bimmanager.blogspot.com/2010/11/scan-to-bim.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BimManager+%28BIM+Manager%29

Apple's 3D Head-tracking for BIM

Since tomorrow Apple is said to be holding a press conference tomorrow I figured I needed to get this published beforehand.

Apple is in the works of creating and patenting a head-tracking system that would manipulate the screen based on head positioning...http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/construction/apple-3d-the-ultimate-display-for-construction-plans-1121809/. This link, published by Houston Neal, shows an example of how Apple is trying to program the technology for use with BIM.

Though I still am trying to picture how this would play in takeoffs and estimating with interfacing programs such as Revit -> Autodesk Quantity Takeoff -> and Sage Timberline, I do see a great benefit for this type of system as an addition or in great competition to programs such as Navisworks, Synchro, and others.

Thesis

Hello all, thanks for the heads up about my last link...filedropper removes files with slow activity, so hopefully dropbox will do a better job of hosting my file.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3837393/Thesis.pdf

This link will take you directly to my PDFed Thesis

Please be courteous if forwarding on or utilizing any of the information from the document. If anyone has any questions, comments, or issues with the file please let me know. Please also leave comments on what you think.

Thanks

Grant Doherty

November 1st 2009 Update.

So it has been a few months since I last posted. For those who didn't see, the Autodesk University class Tony and I were scheduled to participate in was canceled because of lack of attendees. So right now I am working on putting some protections on my thesis pdf file and I hope to post it to the net soon for any of you who would like to read through it.

My thesis takes an educational look at BIM and collaborative methods of delivery such as Integrated Practice and Design-Build and how curricula should start mirroring these changes. Right now, I feel that Architectural Engineering is the closest thing to an integrated curriculum, but most schools that have this type of degree do not incorporate all architecture, construction, structural engineering, and mechanical engineering. So what my thesis does is tries to form a curriculum around integrating courses and teachings so to help introduce students to be collaborative rather than polar with each other as past deliveries have spur.

I am still hoping to go to AU this year, but as of right now because of my unemployment its all on me, so we will see how things work out. So I hope to see/meet some of you there. I am also going to start working on a journal article for the Architectural Engineering Journal released by ASCE. Keep checking back this next month for journal publications and my thesis post if you are interested in reading it.

Using BIM in an Integrated Educational Environment

My colleague, Tony Denzer, and I are currently working on our presentation for this year’s Autodesk University. It is entitled "Using BIM in an Integrated Educational Environment" and is aimed towards universities and other colleges just beginning the move towards BIM or even those interested in other directions for BIM. A portion of this class will go over a verity of trials conducted by the University of Wyoming in conjunction with my thesis on "How BIM and Integrated Practice May Change Architectural, Engineering, and Construction Education." After this course we hope that those enrolled can come away with and be able to:

• Apply BIM tools to accreditation requirements in AEC disciplines
• Understand the challenges and benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration for students in AEC disciplines
• Understand best practices for using BIM in the classroom and design studio
• Apply key benefits of using BIM with AEC students
• Develop strategies for introducing BIM tools to beginning students.

Though the course is geared towards AEC schools and universities others may find how some in the educational side are dealing with BIM and the growth of integrated practice and design build.