AU 2010 Voting Is On!

So, voting for AU 2010 classes is upon us!

This year I’m somehow involved in Six! Courses and Krista has three.

First up, Zach of (Buildz) and I teamed up for a lecture and a lab focused on the how to create good Panels by Points and Adaptive Components. Those two courses are:

Au Bon Panel: baking your own Adaptive Components and Panels with Autodesk Revit – 2hr lecture

Parametrics Laid Bare: Panels and Adaptive Components in Autodesk Revit – 3 hr lab

We actually think that our two courses, combined with what the BIM Troublemaker and David Fano have submitted would make a really awesome mini-powertrack dedicated to the Core Modeling (Conceptual Design) tools. So if you are so inclined to vote for our course, please vote for their’s too!!

Next I’ve submitted the same course twice, but in two different formats:

Using Revit with Geographically Dispersed Teams – 1hr lecture

"Virtually" there: Using Revit with Geographically Dispersed Teams – 1hr virtual session

I actually would prefer to do this course as an AUv course, not a lecture, first off it lets me do it ahead of time, and somehow, it seems fitting that a course about teams collaborating virtually should be taught virtually. The description(s) on this course are a little vague, but I have some good reasons for that, so all I can ask is that you have faith! I also think that with the AUv session that the on-line chat/QA will be helpful, and useful to you, the attendees.

Lastly, to follow-up on my course last year, which was a great success, I’ve submitted an hour long course focused on Source Files, which are the little brother(s) of your Project Template, there were a number of questions about how we use these files, so it seemed like an hour would be just about right to share our experience and knowledge. Krista will be helping me out on this one too, as she has some good experience thanks to the work her firm focuses on.

Beyond Project Templates, Techniques for Managing company standards and best practices in Revit – 1 hr Lecture

Krista has put together two of her own courses. The first one, (with me as co-speaker) is going to take a look at really leveraging the room and area data in Revit and get into some of the nitty gritty details of working with this stuff in Revit.

Get with the program: how to better validate building size with Revit Architecture – 1hr lecture

Secondly, she is going to offer up a course focused on color, we both really believe that color is under utilized in Revit, particularly by Architects and Interior designers. So here is a chance to learn some good examples and techniques for employing color in not only in your drawings but also as a design tool.

            Revit in Living color – 1hr lecture

Last but not least! I’m also co-teaching with Jason of (Adaptive Practice) to talk all about how to understand your models once you’ve got them and how to help keep your teams on the straight and narrow of good Revityness.

Revit Autopsies: Structured Model Examination and Assessment Techniques – 2hr Lecture

So please!! Vote early, and vote often (ok, you can't vote often) for our courses, and our friends courses, I also want to throw out reminders about other great presenters who always have something new and interesting to share:

Steve Stafford – professional Revit instructor

Jim Balding – runs his own AE research lab!

James Vandezande – two years off from AU, you know he’ll come back strong

David Light – fellow blogger and awesome Revit user

David Baldicchino – also a couple years off from AU, lots of practical experience

Scott Brown – too many people missed a really great course by Scott last year about interior design in Revit (bad scheduling!!!)

Upgrading to 2011: Deleted Levels!? Broken Plan Regions!?

So I came across this error quite by accident. The good news is if you don't care about the explanation, you can stop now and safely ignore the warning/error (shown below) that might be posted when upgrading a file from any previous version of Revit.

So what might you ask is going on? I'm glad you asked! :-)

As I said the short story is that this error is harmless (as far as anyone knows). I've now seen this error show up in three different models, two from 2009 and one from 2010. At first I wrote it off, as the first two models were not 100% familiar to me, and I assumed it was some type of error related to the files, and something the user(s) had done. However, when the error(s) above showed up in the model from 2010 I started to wonder as I'm much more familiar with the 2010 model.

So, off went an e-mail to my Autodesk contacts... and low and behold we've got ourselves a reasonably straightforward answer.

<snip>This warning is a result of fixing one of the bugs I was assigned right before code split. Basically, when the slanted columns project was originally done, a level id was stored in the view range dialog used by plan views and plan regions. At some point, the design changed, but the data was left in place. Somehow, and I’m not sure how, lots of plan regions are storing a stale element id. That was the source of the bug I was assigned.  This warning just indicated this is such a plan region. It can be ignored. There should be no consequence to the user.<snip>

So, basically when they first wrote the code for slanted columns the data mattered, but it doesn't anymore. Now we get a warning that is meaningless. If anything I think an example like this really illustrates the complexity of a piece of software like Revit. One might argue that they should be doing a better job of making sure random bits of data are not stored (taking up space) but given the complexity of such things, its not really surprising. A great deal happens as they write the software, and just like architecture and engineering the design changes. Have you ever sat there looking at a drawing, wondering how a design decision was arrived at....? Decisions and changes get made, and sometimes we loose track of the history and process, we're then left to clean it all up later on down the road.