don't think: Do Revit

Where have we been?... Busy!!!!

2012-01-23T23:12:00.003-05:00

A concerned reader wrote a comment, asking where we went? What hole absorbed us, was everything ok?

The icons all represent something that has been keeping me quite occupied since mid November!

Since October 24th, I've been at home for a complete week three times. Other than that I've been on the road for business or the various holidays since then (or AU), and will be on the road this week and next. I finally get a break in Feburary while my babysitting heads west for a month of skiing (grandparents!).
Work is busy for me (keeping me on my toes), lots of things on my plate, and we need good (brilliant) people! Also, I will be speaking at an upcoming online event: BIM Spectrum

Did you know we have a one year old now! She talks, and talks and walks..... Stairs hold no fear for her!
We're doing this silly thing called building a house (and managing the construction)! I've posted pics on G+, I'm a bit behind, windows are all installed, rough stairs are done on the inside, and I've been told (as I write from a location somewhere in N. America) that first floor interior partitions were mostly completed today!

House Panels

2011-11-23T10:00:00.005-05:00

Our Revit model is soon to be created in reality. The panels have arrived at the fabricator.

Platforms vs. Products

2011-10-17T20:49:00.000-04:00

Depending on the tech circles you run in (or keep track of) you may have heard of (or even read) the following post that was made by a Googler who formerly worked at Amazon.

Stevey's Google Platforms Rant

Who knows if it is/had/or will have any impact within Google, but it is still a great, well thought out post/article/tirade about how to "design" something and quite honestly in my opinion the underlying tenets can be applied to the design or architecture of anything, not just software. If you're designing a building, do you want to design a "Product" or do you want to design something that people will be able to "plug into", make use of, and adapt to their needs? Sorry FLW fans, but in some respects he was a bit of unique genius like Steve Jobs, and most of us are just not that good, we can't design something that will perfectly fit the end user's needs 5, 10, 20, 50 years down the road, the best we can do is design something that will adapt well to meet those needs as they come about.

So besides a commentary on design over-all, why do I bring this up? If like me you're passionate about where Revit can go, and how it can help change the industry, or if you're just really frustrated with its current limitations and what it can't do right now, then I think it is important to look back at Revit's development history overall. Originally Revit was undoubtedly designed as a product. The stories from out of the Factory back that assertion up with no ifs, ands or butts; "tell me what they (user) needs it to do, and I'll (we'll) make a tool". That is very much a product mentality and quite honestly it is what is needed to capture people's imagination and more importantly market share, you need to be selling a product. However as the article makes note of, Facebook somehow someway did a great job of starting life as a product, and then became a platform.

And that, really is the key for Revit, and where we are today. Revit is quite clearly (and has been for the last four to five years) on a path to truly becoming a platform. The unfortunate reality though is that its taken a great deal of upfront investment that you can't see, to make that transition, particularly for a product that did not start its life with the idea to be a platform (the article also clearly talks about how this transition is not easy). The other part is that Revit isn't done yet, if you talk to anyone who knows anything about the API, they'll tell you there are numerous parts and pieces that they don't have access to yet, every year the API grows stronger, but only as feature teams tackle parts of the feature set that need updating, add news ones, or where adding API hooks are easy to add. Furthermore, developers have in the words of the posting started to "eat their own dogfood" in terms of developing against the API, and not creating custom hacks, and data transfers to make things work.

So why should you care (if you don't know already)? First off as Revit continues to evolve into a platform more and more you will see an ecosystem of Autodesk offered services (Autodesk Cloud) and tools as well as third party software tools and services that really start to get at "doing something" with these great models we've got (see my post "Quack!" for where I think the next big development bridge is). Up until recently most API tools were confined to aiding and assisting direct modeling efforts, however more and more there are tools showing up that are all about doing something more with the model data, whether it is Project Storm or Neon (structural analysis or rendering) or Newforma's plug-in (still needs some work) or some yet to be announced tools that I know are coming from developers (exciting stuff coming) or even experiments like Vasari, it is clear to see where things are headed, and none of it would be possible if Revit does not act and breath like a platform and not a product.

So for the Autodesk'ers out there that I know like to browse my blog, pay attention! I think you're already on this track, but this is only further re-enforcement of the direction that you need to head in; and for the users out there, have patience, the more that Revit acts like a platform, the easier (in the long run) it will be for Autodesk to add the new features you want, or have someone else add a feature for you, or potentially have both and you can choose.

A Tale of Two Normals

2011-09-12T22:44:00.000-04:00

As anyone who has used Revit to model geometry knows it does not really seem to care about "normals", which if you're familiar with most other 3D modeling software you know exactly what Normals are, even in Sketch-Up! But lets be realistic here, any 3D modeling software has to have surface normals, and occasionally even Revit can be bent to your will....

So, here's the scenario, lets say you have a solid box. If you create a spherical void that cuts the solid, you would expect the result in the second image based on how Revit "typically" works.

But what if what you were looking for was slighting different, what if you wanted the part of the solid that is being subtracted? Normally in the Revit "world" you would say you need to create a void that is on the "outside" rather then just a spehere, to get the result in the third image.

What is I told you that you can create the condition with the same spherical void! You might say, what! How! Well, its seems that normals sometimes do matter in Revit.

To achieve the result in the third image its is all about how you draw the arc that creates the sphere. In the first example the arc is drawn counter-clockwise from the "top" of the axis to the "bottom" of the axis. To get the result in the third image the arc must be drawn clockwise from "bottom" to the "top" of the axis. In this case the differing result is because the normal(s) of the surface that make the void are different based on the direction of the arc, which is controlled by how you draw it.

An interesting little "feature" in Revit/Vasari (to be honest I did this in Vasari), your mileage may vary on what you get depending on what you're doing, but it could be handy and it shows that it pays to pay attention to what direction you draw your lines, even in Revit!

AU 2011

2011-09-06T20:39:00.001-04:00

Registration is live, if you missed it earlier, I posted about the classes I'm teaching here.

The first session of the lab filled up quick (AU was in touch with Zach and I two days after early registration opened!). In any case they asked if we would do another session and I'm happy to say that Zach and both agreed to. Everyone really needs to thank Zach's wife as she had to give the final ok. Keep your eyes peeled for the second session for Thursday 1:00pm.

For more info on the lab, Zach has the whole break down on his blog.

It Only Takes a Spark....

2011-08-30T22:21:00.001-04:00

It only takes a spark to light a fire (at least that is how the song goes that I learned...). Already the blog-o-sphere & twitter (so I hear) have lit up with news about Spark. As Steve called it a "Revit Lite" as it were. What I do like about Spark is that while it is a great intro to Revit, it seems to me that once anyone is feeling comfortable with Spark, there is a good chance you'll be wanting to into full blown Revit in order to take advantage of some of the missing features. Speaking of which, here is the run down on what you should not expect to find in Spark:

Missing Revit features in Spark

Obviously Vasari fills some of the gaps missing from Spark, but there is also no clear or defined workflow between the two. Secondly, don't expect to be opening your Rvt file from Revit in Spark, it will be automatically converted to a link for you. This means that you can still at least link in a structure model or MEP model if you happen to be a small arch shop dipping your toes into Revit. There are a couple of missing items that I was a bit surprised by perhaps the most important "trusses". However, fear not you can still create line based families (which can be assigned to structural framing) so go ahead, make your own parametric pre-fab truss, it will probably look better than what Revit creates, and you'll learn how to build parametric families.

Look for a follow-on post in a few weeks where I plan to tie up a number of these lab items into hopefully an interesting (and perhaps compelling) workflow.

Cheers,
-R

A Storm is brewing....

2011-08-29T20:00:00.002-04:00

Well, actually it left yesterday, her name was Irene. But the word on the street says a Storm is coming to Autodesk Labs. I think it is interesting that we are starting to see a plethora of "apps" that leverage the model directly out of Revit for analysis. First we had "Conceptual Energy Analysis (CEA)", then project NEON (well not analysis, but cloud based computing for long duration tasks), now we have Elum tools under development (see Jason's and Steve's blogs), Vasari seems likely to continue to the trend of analysis for early stage design, what might be next? What's a big ticket analysis item that could be easily shoveled into the cloud....?

Revit Server Installation/Updating & Mosaic

2011-08-12T21:01:00.000-04:00

A Revit Server post to leave you with as I head out on vacation...

I recently ran into an issue with Revit Server that also caused another large firm quite a bit of distress. THe problem is this:

1) User A installs the Revit Server application onto the server OS/hardware.
2) User B goes to either update the Revit Server applicaiton or un-install. If the user runs the Service Pack EXE it reports the program cannot be found. If User B goes to un-install the Revit Server application the Add/Remove Programs dialog does not display the Revit Server application.
3) User A logs into the server and can update Revit Server or Un-install the application from the server.

So, the short story here is that if you only use Windows User accounts that are associated with specific users, then when it comes time to update or remove Revit Server you need to know who originally installed the software on the server. If you have a generic "Admin" account that can be used then that is your best chouice when it comes to installing and patching Revit Server. This "bug" in terms of Revit Server seems to likely be related to the increased security restrictions applied by the Windows 2008/7 environment(s) and how the installer for Revit Server works. This issue has actually exsisted since 2011, so it is not related to the new 2012 installer. In terms of getting it "fixed" I'm not holding my breadth as this issue is likely well embedded into how the software is installed in the first place.

One other note, Autodesk Labs has a new project called "Mosaic" check it out, I think it has some interesting potential if people take to it. It is kinda like a "Google" reader for AEC Tech geeks.

QUACK!

2011-07-26T19:01:00.001-04:00

Quack was the term we would toss around at Burt Hill when we would look into the future and attempt to divine what was next.

What was coming after Revit? Sure Revit is fun and exciting, but its just a tool, and there is always another coming. While the rumor is that there are software vendors attempting to pursue the market share that Revit has solidly locked into, that does not actually interest me that much, because at the end of the day the Revit ship has clearly sailed, and you're either on it or not (for whatever reason) and just as 20+ years later you can buy cheap 2D drafting knock-offs that do what Autocad did those 20+ years ago, undoubedtly the same will happen in the space of 3D modeling for AEC, there are and will continue to be multiple applications that generally do the same thing.

So if "Revit's" replacement does not really interest me (because I don't think there really will be one perse). What am I interested in? The first thing is I don't think the next big innovation will really be in what we might call the traditional "CAD (Computer Aided Design)" space. We have Autocad, we have Sketch-Up, we have Revit, and all the various permutations thereof. These tools will continue to develop and be developed, new features will come, etc, but new features are not the next big thing. Furthermore, as Phil has been writing over at Arch|Tech(1), innovation does not traditionally come from "big" companies(2), rather its small, agile companies that are able to make big moves. Yet, there are no small companies (that I'm aware of) playing in the CAD/AEC space; Autodesk, Bently, Google, Dassault, Graphisoft, are all "big" companies, so they're more likely to offer an alternative to what was the last big thing "Revit", not offer innovation beyond it. More to the point, I'm not sure what a company would offer in terms of innovation in the CAD space, a better "Revit" is not innovation, its just a better thing-a-ma-jig (so why not stick with what works, and press the owner to tidy up the strings that need to be tidied).

Secondly, I recently read a really interesting article by Clive Thompson in the most recent issue of Wired (which by the way subscribers now have free access on Ipad! Guess I need to get with the times(3)!). The thrust of his column was that most of the time innovation does not simply come out of no-where. For instance who remembers the Newton, I do (sorta)! It was a spectacular failure, but it laid the ground work for Palm, which lead to Handspring and somewhere along the way Blackberry showed up, and HP was in the fray, and it was all still generally rarefied and not ubiqitous, then what happend. Apple launched the I-Phone, and everyone sat up and said "Wow, that's cool, I want one". Yet it was all there for the taking by Apple, they simply had the vision to take and borrow from everything that came before them, throw in some good design and learn from history to create a product that quickly penetrated the market. If you look at history most "innovation" has come out of technology that has been percolating for easily 10 years or more. and someone simply came along, capitalized (innovated) and put something out there that people could not resist picking up and playing with.

Thirdly, I read this article even more recently on Forbes.com (9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft) which was interesting to me in a number of ways (and simply confirmed some of my own long held beliefs). The GDP graph and statistics are right on, and have not gotten nearly enough press as its much more fun to talk about how "bad" things are, and while it does suck to be out of a job, there is hope. Reading this article comes on the heels of a recent Lunch & Learn I attended by the Co-President of Vermillion Cost Consulting, where he was pretty much saying the same thing(4). But in the full context of "Quack" what is most interesting about this article is how much it highlights computers can and are doing for us, and what they may be doing that we already take for granted; Data Management & Clouds.

Now Autodesk has been a huge proponent of clouds for the last two plus years, and you might say the cloud is Quack, but I'm with Phil, moving Revit into the cloud is still Revit, just a cloudy one... :-). More interestingly the cloud is a vehicle, a platform, access to computing power that is quite quickly becoming ubiquitous in its power and availability (Carl says so after all). This simply suggests that the next big thing in AEC is likely to start, be based or make use of the cloud (proven technology) the innovation will be in solving a problem in such an elegant, easy to use way, that you can't help but say "I want that".

So, what problem do we need to solve? One word, Data, and once again I think Phil and I are on the same page generally speaking. Phil has laid out most of the issues, but to surmise:

Easy to use.
Easy to collaborate with others.
Easy to get what you need, and not what you don't.
Realtime (or near to).

What I see is a lot of different solutions for data management, people trying many different things, exporting from Revit, tools that plug into Revit, tools that do their own thing with or with Revit, custom solutions that firms or people might learn interesting things from, but are not 100% repeatable from project to project. Show me some examples you say?

Codebook

Trelligence Affinity

Revit DBlink

Onuma

NewForma

Navisworks

BIM Link

Excel

Access

Google Sheets

Custom API tools & databases

This is just a short list, and while many of these tools are quite good, and quite useful, at the same time people are trying to use any one of (or more) of these tools to build a collaborative, coordinated data sharing workflow, and once again as Phil says, it just doesn't really work. There was a speaker at the recent RTC USA from HNTB (Alejandro Ogata) who made many good points, but one of the most critical to me was that architects for a massive GSA project have had to learn how to be Access users. While I don't have a problem with that, we should also be honest, most architects don't want to be Access users, nor should they be. What we need are easy to use tools that make data exchange simple and dare I say it fun?

Maybe not fun, but at least seamlessly integrated with my workflow. The minute it becomes hareder, or appears to take time, the less likely it is that people will use a tool. Take NewForma for instance; great tool, hugely powerful, lots of great features, but actually talk to people using it, and you find out that most people barely scratch the surface, or at the very least don't leverage it to anywhere near its full capacity. Outside of being clumsy, the other issue with some of these tools is cost, Codebook for example doesn't work as a business model for small projects, unless you've got the big project(s) to cut your teeth on it and standardize it.

The problem I see is that as "integrated" as a Newforma might be, the end user does not see the value proposition or benefit to themselves to take the time to fully leverage it. The same is true for anything that helps to share data (of course first we need the data), it has to be easy, seamless and nearly invisible, people need to want to use the tool because they think (and hopefully are) getting something from using it. Just like the Iphone or Ipad, there were tablets and smart phones that came before, but none that made the broad consumer base say "I want to use that, because it does something for me".

To bring this full circle, why do I see seamless collaborative data sharing as the next "big thing" (Quack). Because the technologies are there and proven. Cloud technology works, no doubt about it, web based applications are here, the concept of task (or focused) apps that can be quickly downloaded and installed is here, ubiquitous data access is (almost) here, and lastly other industries have been managing large datasets for more then 10 years (take a look at all those wonderful mega banks, BoFa, Merrill Lynch, among others).

So, I don't know what the next big thing actually is, nor do I even know how its going to do it, but I think I've got a good idea of what the focus will be. Why do I think this is so important? Because the same speaker at RTC had another valid point, in the early 1900's we built XXX,XXX square feet using 8 sheets of drawings, now almost 100 years later, a project of similar scope requires the equivalent of a billion plus pieces of paper and a 1000 plus drawing sheets. Someone needs to come along and capitalize on what is sitting in front of us, and then we'll have innovation.

Have you got a Quack, a really good Quack? Cause I'm interested in talking Quack.....

Footnotes ---------------------------------------------------------------

1 - Why can't we be Friends?; Partly Cloudy; Starting vs. Starting Over.

2 - bummer for me I work @ one, ugh....

3 - Ipad or custom fit ski boots <sigh>, choices choices and they cost about the same... :-(

4 - His points; in another 5 years AEC will be busy again as we're going to be out of housing stock, which means starting now smart developers are already laying the ground work to build more, and with more housing the service industry will expand, etc, etc, etc....

Misc. Summer Post... (RTC, SP, AU)

2011-07-11T21:18:00.000-04:00

Three topics in one post today (though that won't help my post count!).

First up, as you've probably already read on other blogs RTC USA was just awesome!! The vibe was great, I learned a few things and it was great to share and network in such an intimate setting. As promised here is a link to the sample file that I created for the class I gave at RTC.

Panelize This! sample file

Next topic, the Revit Service pack release has gotten a fair bit of press.

If you're a Revit Server user though you don't want to miss the SP that was also released special for Revit Server. This is a separate download from the SP for Revit itself. There a few significant fixes, however the one I consider most important is improved ability to deal with "Orphan Locks" on your models. This has been a problem that has plagued Revit Server since first release, and it seems has only grown as more people adopt Server. This is not a "final" fix, but the patch in SP1 should at least make administration and management easier.

Revit Server2012 Service Pack 1

Lastly, I'm happy to announce that this year I'll be teaching/helping to teach three courses at AU:

AB4210 - Have it Your Way: Collaboration and Management with Autodesk Revit Server. I'm happy to say I have two co-speakers (Jason Bailey of HDR & Michael Coviello of TRO/JB) on board for this course who bring some great experiences with Server to the table. I feel like I'm just the editor here, helping to present lots of information on the topic.

AB4391-L - Twice Baked: Creating Your Own Adaptive Components and Panels with Autodesk Revit. Yep another lab, and yep Zach is back as my co-pilot. This is a follow-up to what I consider our outrageously successful set of courses last year; Parametrics Laid Bare: Panels and Adaptive Components in Autodesk® Revit® & Au Bon Panel: Baking Your Own Adaptive Components and Panels with Autodesk® Revit® Architecture. If you register for this year's lab we please, please ask that you review both before coming to our door, and the way last year's filled up, you better have your finger on the registration button when the clock strikes midnight!

AB4480 - Way Beyond Project Templates: Appyling Standards for Efficient Document Production in Autodesk Revit. So if you've been following me the last few years I've presented several courses on project templates, standards and the like in Revit. David Spehar has been (one of) my trusty co-speaker(s) for all of it, and this year we decided to switch things up. David is the pilot and I'm the co-pilot. We see this as a third installment of what has been so far a well received series of courses (I'm not sure what we'll do in 2012!) and if you went to or watched the first two, you surely don't want to miss the third (I promise it will be better then Back To the Future III).

If you're coming to my session @ RTC.....

2011-06-21T21:59:00.000-04:00

So, one thing I forgot in my handout is a legend to go with the charts that are in there..... So here it is! Sorry it did not make it to the print out.

I also have a sample file that goes with the course, still waiting to hear back from RTC if they have any way to distribute. If not I'll figure something out for distribution, so stay tuned! If someone has a website they'd like to offer as a host please feel free to contact me or leave a comment with your e-mail address (I won't post the comment).

See you in a few short days!

Restart Roulette & Taking Revit Server On the Road

2011-06-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

The posts on Revit Server just keep coming... The topics just keep coming to me as I talk to more people or have the opportunity to try things out, etc.

So, as we know (thanks to Mr. Baldacchino) we can install Revit Server on a Windows 7 computer running IIS (not supported by Autodesk in any way!).

Thus, springs the idea, let's put RS on a laptop running Windows 7, and then, when someone has to go on site, they can still work with the Central File, without having to use a remote desktop connection, detach from central or "check-out at risk".

As I mentioned in my previous post "Taking Revit Server Off-Road" the first concern is that you can't simply shut down Revit Server and everything will be all-right. If there is an on-going data transaction, then bad things could happen! I should add that if you have multiple files cached to your Laptop, then keep in mind all those files are going to update regularly assuming other folks are working on them, so it is not just a matter of being concerned about the file you just made changes to, but all files that are "local" to your Local Server.

So for fun, I installed Revit Server on a Win7 laptop (I actually had an excuse as I needed to verify some behavior quickly, but it is good to have those!). When I went to point Revit Arch at my new Local Server on the laptop, I had to stop and think.

Should I use the Hostname? But doing that would potentially (I don't know for sure) loop the data out and back on the network (which seems kinda silly).
Should I use the IP address? Which one? This is a laptop after all, I've got WiFi and Hard Wire among other things, and once again, that might loop the data out and back on the network.
Then is occured to me, I should use the "Loopback IP" (127.0.0.1) this would always work, regardless of which connection I'm on, and even regardless of computer name.

So, I plugged the Loopback IP in and everything seems to be kosher. I won't swear to doing extensive testing, but I was able to open a file, add some stuff and Sync back without any problems.

Now, all of that said, the other issue which came up recently is dealing with Server Restarts, particularly as they are related to Windows Updates. In his post David says:

"Next, I made sure to download and install all updates and set them to automatically install at the default time from there onwards."

Well, generally speaking updates come down in the middle of the night, no one is the wiser and no one cares. I don't know about you, but I've pulled some late nights in my architecture career (even professionally). To that end I would never want to have a production Revit Server set to restart automatically no matter what, unless I have something in place that is also going to gracefully shutdown Revit Server, and stop the restart if Revit Server won't shutdown gracefully. This is all goes to my original point in the Off-Road post about interuppting data transactions in Revit Server. Sure in the middle of the night there should be no data, because no should be working, but should and being 100% certain are two very different things and do you want to play Restart Roulette with your project teams and their data?

The Legitimacy of Data Back-up?

2011-06-03T22:13:00.002-04:00

Question One:
Why do we need to worry about running a back-up against the data stored on a Revit Central Server?

So this will perhaps seem like heresy to IT professionals the world round, and perhaps even to anyone who knows something about IT, or has lost work/data/files due to some type of hardware failure.

Question Two:
When was the last time that you recovered an active Revit file from a back-up?

Myself, never, and thats the point! Back-ups run at night, so unless your server fails right after the back-up has run, what use is it? Every user who is regularly working on a project should have a Local File on their computer. Furthermore Revit Server itself tells you who the last person was to complete a Sync With Central. Unless your entire office undergoes a disaster, then the "last" Local is the file you're likely to use to re-create your Central File if something goes wrong with Revit Server. If your entire office does under-go some type of disaster that affects every single computer, then it does not seem likely that you're going to be too worried about getting back to work right away.

Consider this instead, you're probably better off regularly archiving your Central File either manually or automatically (thanks to the API and additional Command Line options available in Revit Server 2012). If you are working in Revit Server, you are probably already creating files that you can count as archives if you have to send your Revit file to any consultants not working on your WAN. To send a file to consultants you likely either create a new local file, or use an existing Local File to send, those files can easily be stored on a normal File Server in an archive directory (which is probably backed-up every night), so that when disaster does strike, you at least have your archives.

Great Discussion on Revit Server

2011-05-29T10:13:00.000-04:00

So of late my post: Taking Revit Server "off-road" has proven to be on the of the most popular. It has inspired some great comments and discussion from several different people, and raised some really good questions about using Revit Server. If you have not gone back to see the comment thread, I highly recommend you do!

Some key highlights:

Q: Will Revit Server work better over slower connections then Citrix? A: Most likely it will perform better because for the most part RS has to move far less data then Citrix does on a per time unit basis (second, min, hour).
Helpful Tool! Rod Howarth has written a little app that can run on Server(s) to let you know when the server(s) is moving data.
Q: Does Revit Server synchronize all the data between Central & Locals? A: No, Revit Server should only synchronize data to a Local that has been called by a user connected to that Local Server. Keep in mind a call can be initiated by creating a local file, or via file linking.

There is more in the comments, so take a few mins to read through.

In regards to the last question, I think it is important to keep in mind that the Central Server plays no direct role in the caching of data to Local Servers. It is the Local Server's responsibility to get data from a Central Server. The Central Server does not sit around "broadcasting" that is has new data, rather each Local Server queries the Central on a regular basis (computer time regular basis) to determine if there is new data that needs to be cached. A user choosing to SWC or Reload automatically trips that query and when a user is pushing data back, it goes both to their Local and the Central server simultaneously.

Revit Technology Conference USA: Why you should attend

2011-05-27T20:33:00.001-04:00

Steve Stafford has been busy posting about how RTC Australia is getting underway (two thirds done now!) in the down under. So I thought this would be a great time (a little less then a month out) to remind everyone about RTC USA. Why you should ~~you~~ go?!

Intimate Gathering of industry leaders and experts - I happen to know the cut-off for attendees, and its less then 1,000. Compare that to AU where you're one of thousands.....
Top Experts in the field/industry - so you're with less then 1,000 people, and you know what, that means that more then 10% are likely to be those top experts and leaders, the people you always wanted to talk to, meet and ask important questions such as "What's your favorite beer/wine?" (oh wait, inside thoughts Robert.......)
Great classes and topics - I'm speaking for one course, but I'm just plain excited about the courses I'm going to, all of them somehow related to Revit its use and its ecosystem and none of the speakers are ~~afraid~~ knows better then to mention competing software companies too loudly. (Lets talk about the real world...)
Not AU - don't get me wrong, I love AU and I look forward to (hopefully) speaking again this coming year. But at the same time RTC is specifically not AU, its being hosted and put on by users for users of Revit (it is the Revit technology conference after all), its smaller, and more dedicated in some ways, and I think it will be a great experience!

If you've been to AU before, and you can only talk your boss/management/SO into letting you go to one conference this year, I would highly reccomend considering RTC. I've always wanted to attend the one down under and I may make it there yet, but I'm excited that we're going to have our own here in North America. I hope to see and meet some of you there, and by all means, come on up and say hello!

Cheers! (as they say in the Queen's English :-) )

Fun Tech

2011-05-19T21:27:00.000-04:00

Jim Balding (The Ant Group) has posted up a demo he was apparently running at a trade show recently of what I consider some really fun tech. If you've been in a Lego store recently you've probably seen this, and Autodesk demo'ed something similar a couple of years ago at an AU keynote. What he is featuring is a an Augmented Reality (AR) demo that simply uses your webcam, a free player software and model.

What is particularly nice is that AR Media provides a free authoring plug-in (limited functionality) to play with, and the next step up is really not too pricey either. So head on over to Jim's website and click on the big buttong at the top of his site to download his demo files. AR has more demo files on their site too. What can you think of to do with this tech?

Taking Revit Server "off-road"

2011-05-01T14:40:00.000-04:00

Borrowing from the title of a recent post by Mr. Revit OpEd I wanted to bring up what I think is a rather critical point to be aware of if you're thinking of running Revit Server on your laptop to solve what is often termed the "Construction Trailer" problem. I've been in touch with the two sets of folks who I know have installed RS on a Win7 computer, that is Mr. Baldachinno and Mr. Cone (Beck / Aaron Maller). For David its an experiment in "low cost" servers for a small company. For Kelly & Co. its an attempt to make an easier way for users in a construction trailer to work on their Central Files.

What I want to highlight is if you're running RS on your laptop, so you can "work" on your central files live over the Construction Trailer's DSL connection with a VPN tunnel, is that your user(s) need to learn how to shut down Revit Server gracefully. The very clear and present danger here is that a user in the trailer, simply turns their computer off, or worse yet, "pulls the plug". I can guarantee that you're playing with fire here if your users do that. There is a good chance that at some point they'll corrupt some or all of the Revit data cached locally to their "server". Autodesk has some clear instructions on how to shut down a Revit Server properly, the problem is, that it involves locking the whole infrastructure while you take down whichever local server you're shutting down. The good news here is that there is a much smaller risk to the data on the actual Central Server. It does a good job of protecting itself and the data it is responsible for, so a Local Server suddenly going off-line should* not affect any of the data at the central server.

Just a word of caution for those attempting to push technology to the bleeding edge and not just the cutting edge.

*Note, I say should, there are conceivably instances where the sudden shutdown of the client or the local server might cause harm to the Central Server data store, but theoretically these should be pretty remote. Worst case is that a lock is left in place on the Central Server due to the "user" disconnecting in the middle of an operation. Keep in mind that when a user SWCs data is committed directly to the Central and Local Servers, and the data is not committed to the project data store until the transaction is 100% verified.

AEC Media Day Wrap up and final thoughts

2011-04-09T14:16:00.000-04:00

Still waiting for David to post the pic of Phil's slide, but we'll get there....

In any case I wanted to start this post by sending out a big thank you to Autodesk for hosting everyone for 2 days and particularly to my direct contact there and his efforts. Secondly as other bloggers have alluded to Wednesday afternoon we went into the bowels of the factory and met with various folks from the development teams and I want to send out a thank you to them too!

To that end, I think some of my fellow bloggers have alluded to the fact that we don't get to blog about what we talk about with development. With that said, what I can say is never under-estimate the complexity of a problem. As one developer said, let me sit down with one person for a day, to discuss a problem, and we'll have solution to the problem by the end of the day. The problem is, that it will be "Steve's solution to the problem" not Robert's or David's or David's (strangely we had an overwhelming number of Davids around), etc. The point being that particularly as Revit continues to expand its market presence internationally the Factory has to develop tools and features that are flexible enough to meet a variety of needs both in terms of "conveying information, be it 3D or 2D" and ease and intuitiveness of use. Its interesting to hear about the user research that has been done, and to see some of the differences that exist between the United States, Great Britain and Germany, all "western" countries in terms of how we build buildings, how we use tools and how we document the buildings to be built. Things like addressing multiple audiences gets even worse when you consider that contractors are using the tools more and they have their own set of desires, needs and goals.

We all saw what happened with the Ribbon on its first go around, and that was strictly UI development, and in an earlier post I observed that it was great that tagging between links had more functionality, but that 3D tagging suffers the same "almost but not quite" as we saw with link tagging in 2011. Thus I would posit that quite honestly, some of the places where "we" really would like to see increased functionality are quite complex problems and not even from a code development perspective, but from a user's needs, desires and results perspective. Certainly one can make the argument that in some cases some "small" changes would go a long way to satisfying user's needs, but the Factory has most definitely shifted towards taking a longer view (and the executives seem to support this) on feature development, and there is an interest in fully understanding the whole problem and developing solutions that not only meet immediate needs but are building blocks for further development down the road. On top of that, we still have to remember that there are only 24 hours in a day, and Autodesk is a company that needs to make a profit and only has some much money to invest, lastly at least in my experience working on Building Design projects simply throwing more money and more staff at a problem will not necessarily solve that problem any more quickly.

Error Correction: Tagging in 3D Views

2011-04-09T11:36:00.001-04:00

I will correct the original post, but I wanted to clarify, all Keynoting Features are available for usin 3D views, including tagging materials by Keynote. I was correct about not being able to tag materials directly, and what I didn't point is that you cannot tag Rooms/Spaces/Areas, but then we can't see them in 3D either.... :-(

Thanks to my friends at Autodesk for pointing out my mistake.

AEC Media Day: Update 8 - What's Phil thinking about...?

2011-04-06T11:00:00.000-04:00

Wrapping up with a presentation from Phil Bernstein and a couple of other "industry thinkers" at Autodesk.

What is an architect's role? What are we doing?

Pre-fabrication, with the Architect involved
Fewer spreadsheets, more data in the model, with better reporting out of the model
Using the model to generate "live information" to keep people up-to-date on progress ("live" 4D?)
Using BIM to really "digitally prototype" the building (same vein as what Peter was talking about yesterday and plenty of others before them).
Challenge the traditional relationship between O, C & AE so that information flows.

I think the best wrap up on what Phil is thinking about is the pic of the slide (coming David.....?) that David has posted on his blog, we need to "change" along three vectors, and Autodesk thinks that its technology solutions are getting closer to fully helping that change.

AEC Media Day: Update 7 - Trends?

2011-04-06T10:14:00.000-04:00

One thing that I'm taking away from Autodesk's message these past one and half days is that the "B" in BIM is/has/will moved away from being a Noun and more towards a Verb (at least that seems to be ADSK's marketing message). I think in some ways this is very true, and is more in-line with the direction many of us would like to see the industry move. That is rather then talking about a Building Information Model, ie an intelligent model of a particular building we seem to be moving to where we want to talk about Building an Information Model. This means we're more focused on developing information rich models to help plan, design and develop the built environment, and starts to encompass far more then the building I'm designing today, but the entire environment in which we live, work and play.

It seems to make sense to me, it will be interesting to see if industry as a whole begins to make this slight philosophical approach to what we've been talking about a number of years now.

AEC Media Day: Update 6 - @ the cusp

2011-04-06T09:56:00.001-04:00

The last future's direction presentation is more of "digital cities" (Project Galileo) and tools that allow you to deal with massive datasets to do conceptual planning within a 3D urban environment based on information from a variety of sources, GIS, Lidar, Revit, BIM, CAD, etc.

I feel like Autodesk has been spinning this story for several years now, but I also feel like we're closer then we've ever been. I still think there are going to be a number of issues with gathering the data and getting access to it, so you really can do all the things they propose.

We'll see what the future holds....

AEC Media Day: Update 5 - Looking Forward

2011-04-06T09:34:00.000-04:00

Presentation this morning on where Autodesk sees technology going/developing. Just had a really interesting film reel demo of what looked to be a derivative of Autodesk Lab's current Project Neon accessible from Revit. It makes sense, and hopefully this is representative of a tech preview we will see someday in the not to distant future.

They're also doing film reels of pushing Structural and Energy Analysis to the cloud from Structure and MEP so that as you design, your design is constantly being analyzed and re-analyzed. Cool looking stuff, though I think they'll have to be prepared to really answer Engineer's questions about calcs are being done, before they jump on the band wagon.

AEC Media Day: Update 4 - Suffolk Construction

2011-04-05T15:44:00.000-04:00

Awesome presentation so far from Peter Campot, President of Suffolk construction. He just put up a labor graph from a project, proving BIM works. They coordinated everything, verified, and started MEP 5 months earlier then usual, and built a building that went together exactly the way the computer said it would, which means their labor usage did exactly what we've all been predicting for years!!

AEC Media Day: Update 3 - Sustainable Design

2011-04-05T12:57:00.002-04:00

The "rumor" I just heard from the latest speaker is that Revit 2012 will include the Solar Analysis tool that had previously been an Autodesk Lab's plug-in, and then was rolled into Project Vasari late last year with its release.

Autodesk is also pushing sustainable design and that they have products that match all levels of design. I think the one caveat to that is that the wonderful narrative they just spun relied on several (more then three) tech previews on Autodesk Labs..... I don't know about you, but most companies don't like to use products that have "expiration dates" with no guarantee of renewal on projects that may continue longer then the life of the "product", or at the very least we need to access the data later.

Another important note, Autodesk is re-packaging their software into Suites (similar to Office or Adobe), all well and good, and it will be great for small and medium business. What I think is really, really cool, is that Sketchbook Pro is included in all the suites. Why is this important you ask? Well prior to the 2012 release Sketchbook was always a stand-alone license and if you were in a large network environment that was problematic at best. Now with the suites, if you buy network license versions Sketchbook is part of that network license pool, which is great! Now you can make it available to anyone to play with, use or do whatever they want!

AEC Media Day: Update 2 - BIM 360

2011-04-05T09:59:00.001-04:00

So Autodesk has laid out a new imitative that they intend to focus on and provide (or adapt) technology solutions for the AEC space. For Autodesk BIM 360 is focused on providing a robust set of collaboration and coordination tools that help all the stakeholders in a building project share and "see" all the data related to a project and provide a scalable, enterprise quality set of products that are secure and easy to use.

So the cornerstone starting out is Autodesk Vault, adapted for, and integrated with the AEC products (ACAD, Revit, etc). Most importantly the whole thing becomes an umbrella for a variety of technologies with Vault providing the back-bone. So under this "new" product we'll see direct integration of products like Navisworks, Design Review, Buzzsaw, Revit Server, ACAD WS, and Project Bluestreak.

This is particularly important to large enterprise customers (me now...) who need secure, scalable solutions for sharing data internally and with external consultants, that doesn't compromise data integrity. In any case, still light on details, but it all sounds promising, ADSK says a "product" (Vault for AEC) will be available in May, with more details to come.

ADSK Media Day: Revit 2012 - Tagging 3D Views

2011-04-05T08:51:00.003-04:00

So, Autodesk was kind enough to invite me again to Media Day. The highlights for me being that I can blog more about 2012, renew aquatenance and connections, and maybe have some side conversations whose content can't be shared. :-)

Today's agenda looks interesting, I'll get to learn some more about this whole "suite" thing and it looks like some interesting outside speakers will be talking about what they've been doing with Autodesk tools.

In any case, chatting last night a topic came to mind about Revit 2012.

Per other bloggers you should already know that you can now "lock" a 3D view to help prevent accidental changes to the point of view such that the view can be placed in a document set and you know it (hopefully) won't change. I say hopefully because someone can still choose to unlock the view and manipulate it. The other really critical part is that you can now create "Tags" in 3D views (note this does not include perspectives) rather then just text. Combined with the lock functionality this allows you to have a consistent "2D" 3D view to put into a document set.

So we're all excited about consistent 3D views we can annotate, right (I know I am)!! The important caveat, at this time, particularly for Architects, is that you ~~cannot use Keynotes in the 3D view and you~~ cannot tag Materials or Rooms/Areas/Spaces (still not visible in 3D). This limitation is a bit disappointing particularly as it brings to mind last year's release where we could tag across links, but could not tag Rooms, Areas, Spaces, Beam Systems & Keynotes. The good news though is that all of that was fixed in this year's release, so hopefully next year the limitations of tagging in 3D views will be addressed. Before grumbling too much about these limitations, I think it is also important to note (or be aware of) the business case that drove this tool into the product. While it is considered a "platform" enhancement much of the dev was driven from the MEP side, particularly because they need "riser diagrams" (yes architects have been asking for tagging in 3D for years, but it was MEP that finally pushed it over the edge). So, in that that light, one can see where Materials ~~and~~ ~~Keynotes~~ took a "back seat" in terms of priority if the major concern is to show significant duct and pipe risers.

Of important note to architects, you may want to see my previous post about a "technique" for creating a camera callout in your plan views (huh, I wonder, why I was so concerned about calling out 3D views in December....).

When you have a hammer, everything is a nail.....

2011-04-02T09:15:00.001-04:00

Ok, so not quite true, but one must ask the question, now that '12 supports placing Adaptive Components in project, what are we to do with them?

Well the first answer is, just about anything!!! Remember that AC's can have a single placement point (they don't need multiples) meaning that the family will behave very similar to placing any non-hosted family. I'll let Krista follow-up with a post on this brilliant work-flow, including my suggestion on how to "circumnavigate" the issue of limited category options for AC's.

On to the main subject of this post....

Since time eternal (or at least as long as I can remember) Revit has had a 1D array (ie, define a start point an end point and elements are arrayed between them). However in architecture there are certainly a number of occasions where a 2D array would be far more useful (ie create a "grid" of elements rather then a single row). Now this little technique will not solve all problems, but it may help with some, and inspire others.

My use case is this, we do a number of education facilities at our firm, which means classrooms, classrooms often means regulated "arrays" of chairs or desks, rows and rows of them in fact. So what if we could simple define the outside corners of where we want our furniture, the distance between each row and column, and let the computer do the rest, including dynamically updated if we change the size, interested!?

Enter adaptive components. The first step is to create an AC with a flat plain, that is actually a "void" (thus not visible as a piece of geometry). Each corner (however many you want) is of course an Adaptive Point. Once we have the Void Surface, we can divide it (clever tick huh?) so now we have a grid that we can control with parameters. Did I mention that we can also put the AC into the Furniture Category (kinda useful).

Now that we have our armature, we need some panels to go in our grid. Time for a new family, this time a Panel by Points family (also can be put into the Furniture Category). This family is a little more complicated, you could model your actual furniture here, but my suggestion is to load a family built from the standard template(s). The trick is locating the family in the panel. Here, I've created two sets of crossing reference lines that lock my tablet arm chair to the center of the panel. You could always look at doing an offset, or something else, but for the purposes of demonstration, I decided to keep it "simple".

Once you have your furniture panel, you can load it into your array family. Place the panel (of course you have multiple panels, and allow users to use a Type Parameter to switch one from another) into the divided surface, and now we have a 2D array of chairs. Once that is done, load the array family into your project and start placing.

As with just about anything that uses Adaptive Components, more CPU power is going to be your friend. Regen times can be high with Adaptive Components, though as long as the nested family is not too complex, you should not see anything to far out of the ballpark here.

Lists

2011-03-29T09:36:00.003-04:00

One drawback to switching directly from 2010 to 2012 you start using features that were in 2011 that you had forgotten about.

Oh lists, where have you been all my life? :-)

Some downsides to the list text feature is:

1) You can't break text into separate columns and continue the numbering.

2) You can't start a list with anything other then 1., A., or a. What if I want to start my list at 32?

Fun little things you find...

2011-03-24T21:45:00.000-04:00

So, I suppose this has been posted on AUGI or blogs and such, but since I'm back to working on projects it is always fun when you find something "interesting". I never knew (until today) that you can't use the line work tool on objects that are contained in a design option. Of course the simple way to deal with this is to make the design option editable, but its still bit odd to me given that the linework tool is effectively a graphic override in the view you're working in.

Something else that I came across that is rather annoying. When you're drawing Drafting Lines, you can change the type of curve you're drawing, ie straight, arc, tangent arc, etc, but you can't change the style you're using, ie Wide Lines, Thin Lines, etc.... Rather annoying when working, but such is life...

Perspective Graphics

2011-03-22T12:01:00.003-04:00

So here's a realistic example of where I've used some of the new graphic features in 2012.

We have a revolving panel that can be rotated out of the way. In previous versions if you set the view to realistic you wouldn't be able to see what the space would look like closed unless you move the panels out of the way. But now with 2012 you can.

So you just simply right click on an object & go to Override graphics in view by element:

Then Click on Ghost Surfaces:

And Voila! Ghosted panels that give you and your client an idea of what the space will look like with the panels both open & closed.

When will 2012 arrive?

2011-03-22T10:36:00.001-04:00

And when will this new release happen ....

Sometime in mid April.

The gag order is lifted!! Its 2012 Time!

2011-03-21T19:59:00.000-04:00

Yep, that time of year again folks a new release is right around the corner! With any luck I'll have some follow-up posts but I'm working a on a project these days as the PA, so that has been keeping me a bit busy! I have to say I would love to get my active project into 2012 for a variety of reasons (most of which are listed below).

While I would not consider this year's release to be a blockuster, its still solid. As has been typical for the last couple of years Architects will mainly benefit from what are considered to be "platform" enhancements (because in reality they're useful to everyone) but I would say are mostly driven by Architecture customers. This year's release I would also say has a bent towards addressing issues that large projects (and therefore mostly large firms) have to deal with. Structural folks who are really interested in the analysis model, and looking for analysis packages to more easily talk to Revit (bi-directionally) should also be jazzed as much of Structure's enhancements revolve around completely rebuilding the analysis engine, for that they have the "Core Modeling" (conceptual massing environment) enhancements from '10 & '11 to thank.

Lastly '12 sees the release of new tool subset (currently only available in Architecture and Structure), we now have version 1 of "Construction Modeling" tools. While targeted as a toolset for contrators or design build shops working in Revit, I think that as these tools develop, they should prove quite useful for architects and engineers too.

Things that excite me about this year's release:

Tagging Rooms, Spaces & Area across links.
Tagging Keynotes across links.
Revamp of "Graphics Display Options" dialog:

Ambient Shadows print/export.
Ambient Shadows in Hidden Line (really sweet....).
Shadows in Consistent Colors (a little odd I know, but in line with traditional colored elevation techniques).
Ghost Surfaces (the biggest complaint will be no way to adjust the level of ghosting, but still great for diagramtic views).

Adaptive Components can be placed "in project"*
Revamp of CAD export dialog, most importantly settings are stored in the project now, so no more custom export files, except to define specific standards to be used for different clients/jobs.
Construction Modeling**:

Parts - has great potential for panelized wall systems (a pet interest of mine).
Assemblies - has lots of potential.

Introduction of Workplane Viewer to the project environment (still needs some work, but plenty of potential)
Worksharing Display (visualization of use of worksets):

Similar to the Temp Hide/Isolate and Reveal Hidden Commands.
Four modes: Checkout Status, Owners, Model Updates, Worksets

Revit Server improvements:

Cache files are cleaned up.
Permission data is cleaned up.
Admin console provides more detailed information about SWC's and Model Size versus Data Size.
Compatible with 2008 R2 and VMware.
Comprehensive API, including the ability to create new locals files with programming.

Point Cloud integration: built using Autodesk's existing technology, also "version 1" but a good start and it has full API support, so software vendors specializing in Point Clouds will be able to build Revit Addins that take advantage of their technology and integrate with Revit.

* With great power comes great responsibility... Alas the number of categories that AC's can be in is rather limited, mostly out of concern of potentially "breaking" the software. With any hope that list will increase over the coming years.

** Remember this is version 1 of a whole new toolset. There are most definitely some limitations here but also a huge amount of potential in the long run. I'll be covering "Parts" to some extent in my RTC course this June.

Those are the things that most interest me. MEP as expected continues to see a great deal of development, but at this point I'm just not enough of an engineer to appreciate the improvements. As with any Revit release there are subtle fixes (bug or otherwise), background improvements that you'll never really "see" and plenty of small enhancements and features.

With any luck I'll be following up with a couple of posts on "practice" adaptive components, but alas one is "in the shop" right now being looked at by the experts as it seems I've managed to break Revit (as usual).

Star Wars

2011-03-21T08:06:00.002-04:00

More to come ....

Placeholder Sheets

2011-03-10T12:14:00.006-05:00

I was reminded how great the placeholder option is.

I needed to create a drawing schedule but some of the sheets we don't need right now

but will need later. So I created some placeholders (the top three sheets seen below).

Now I need to issue schematic design without those placeholders included so I clicked on Hide and voila:

Now how do I know what sheets I have yet to create? Click on Isolate & tada:

I Love BIM

2011-02-08T13:34:00.002-05:00

Kiddos attempt to convince me she can go to work with me:

Vasari Experiment

2011-01-24T21:01:00.000-05:00

So, "everyone" (not really sure who everyone is, but I know they're out there) "says" (at least I think so) that the Massing environment is not useful to them, because they don't do twisty curvy buildings, they only do straight boring buildings. Well, I have a little example of a "boring" little house:

This house actually is already built (and its not quite so boring), but thats not the point here. The owner of said house was interested to know if the location (Bolton VT) would likely support the use of Solar Panels for domestic hot water and potentially some heating. The house is also located in valley, but generally has good southern and western exposure. So the task was simple, do a quick mock-up to get a sense of total sun exposure at the worst time of the year to validate what we intuitively suspected.

So how did I get 5 square miles into Vasari? Sketch-Up & Google Earth of course! At the scale I was operating at, Sketch-Up's rough approximation of terrain from Google Earth was more then sufficient, and Sketch-up's DWG export go us what we needed. I supposed if I was really enterprising I could've placed points on the intersections, then made splines, and then created smoother surface. But really, who has that kind of time!

Once I had my terrain a simple analysis confirmed what we were pretty sure we already knew... Plenty of sun in the afternoon, not much in the morning.

Big (old) news

2010-12-15T20:55:00.000-05:00

So I'm like two weeks late on this, but it was official on the last day of AU. Burt Hill has merged. I'm now officially an employee of "Uncle Stanley". Still not quite sure what it means in the long term, but at least I have a job, and so far the people I've met and talked to seem to like me... :-)

Inspiration from AU

2010-12-08T22:34:00.001-05:00

Where did we take that photograph of existing conditions?
Where am I standing while looking at this rendering?

Familiar questions when working with Revit, right? Revit provides no good way to mark, or locate cameras, renderings or photos, right? Well earlier this year I created a generic annotation component to callout "cameras" this came out of the need to identify photo locations on a site. It was nice, but completely manual in nature, particularly in terms of setting the detail and sheet numbers, which also meant it did not update correctly.

Ever since the customizable elevation tags came out I've tried to think of something useful to do with them, sure you can finally "tweak" the OOTB content to look exactly like what you drew on mylar, but really? How important was that? Inspiration finally struck when I was hanging out in the AEC lounge at AU answering user questions, you can use a custom elevation view type to "callout" a photo or camera location!

click for enlarged view

How does it work you ask? First I've got a custom pointer family and body family. These are assigned as a new elevation tag, which is then assigned to a new Elevation Type. The last trick is, when you go to place the elevation, you choose "Reference other view" in the Options bar. From Reference other View you can choose either drafting views (good for site/existing condition photos) or any view saved as a "rendering" (image) in the project. Once placed you can rotate and adjust as needed, since it is not a "live" view, these annotations will only show up in the view they're placed in. Of course, because its an elevation tag, it will carry the sheet/detail number references when you place your drafting or rendering view onto a sheet.

So, there are a few "drawbacks" to this approach....

You can't actually directly reference a real "camera" (Autodesk are you listening?) but you can save a camera view as a "rendering" in your project browser tree (warning, this is the same as inserting an image in a drafting view, so watch your file size!).
You can't really adjust the size of the "Field of View" without having multiple custom Elevation Tags assigned to multiple Elevation Types (could get quite messy in the project browser).

Other then that, I think this is likely to work really well for a number of people, particularly if you're dealing with photos or renderings, annotated 3D views might be trickier. One solution might be to place the actual camera view on a sheet, reference an empty drafting view and place the drafting view on the same sheet, and use its title and detail number to identify the annotated camera view. Not perfect, but better then anything else, right?!

AU 2010

2010-12-01T13:02:00.002-05:00

Somehow it is already Wednesday!

I'm finally actually taking a class being given by James, Phil and Jim about "Future Technology". On Monday I had the pleasure once again of attending the third annual Computational Design Symposium. Of note from that event was a company named "Evolute". While they don't have a a software tool for Revit (only Rhino) there is some interesting potential if you're using Revit's conceptual massing tools and exporting to Rhino to leverage their tools to help further rationalize the form.

The classes I'm teaching/running have all gone really well so far. The recording on Sunday for the Virtual session on collaboration in Revit (Revit Server) went really well, both lectures are done, with a crowd that stuck around and the first lab went very well with most people keeping up!

A huge thanks to all of my co-speakers and lab assistants who helped out and Autodesk staff who provided technical review of the documents related to worksharing and Revit Server.

All in all a very succesful AU so far!

See you @ AU!

2010-11-26T18:11:00.001-05:00

I will be in town as of Saturday night. If you're around and looking for someone to have dinner with, reach out. Private messages on AUGI are the best unless you already have my email or phone.

See you there!

-R
Robert Manna
Burt Hill
---
sent from my mobile
This email is intended for named recipients only.

Hacking Vasari

2010-11-23T09:53:00.000-05:00

The Best of Both Worlds part II

So I've tooled around with Vasari a little bit, in some ways it is quite liberating because it is so "lite" in other ways it is quite limiting, for obvious reasons.

One of my favorite commands in Revit is "Create Similar". It makes it so easy to create something in canvas without having to go use the Type Selector or do much else, click on the item and use the keyboard shortcut (CS), or right click and choose "Create Similar" from the context menu.

One of the interesting things about Vasari is that its still "Revit" and while they've turned off any number of tools and what not, a command like "Create Similar" is so ingrained, and so low level that it can't really be turned off (not to mention it has its uses in any context in Revit). Its almost like the "sleep" command Data used in TNG to stop the Borg from attacking Earth. Who would think that such a minor little command could wrought such interesting possibilities!

Anyway, if don't have a full blown version of Revit Architectture, but you download Vasari, fear not! Grab a Revit file from any number of locations (AUGI, Revit City, Autodesk) that already has some walls, floors, doors, whatever created in the file, and go to town! You can use Create Similiar to make your own elements, all without the convenience of the commands found in the Ribbon. Now this is not to say you'll be able to do everything and anything, but I do think it would be possible to do some fairly rudimentary modeling in Vasari with "typica"l Revit elements.

If you were really enterprising, you could create a "template" file for yourself with a bunch of elements created in an orderly fashion, that can be used with the CS command to begin modeling what ever you want.

Happy explorations!

We didn't design this one in Revit....

2010-11-20T13:04:00.001-05:00

We've built a family, just not in Revit...

Thanks to Steve Stafford for the shout-out. Yes, I'm still planning to be at AU, and yes my wife is a saint. She did contribute to the Beyond Project Templates course, though I'll have to speak for her I think.

See you in a week!

AU Handouts!

2010-11-14T21:48:00.000-05:00

One hundred plus pages later, all four handouts for all four AU courses are done! I'm not sure when they will go live for attendees, but the due data for speakers is tomorrow (Monday 11/15). Lab content was due about two weeks ago, so the big push has been finishing up the other three courses. My many thanks to all of my co-speakers!!

Each class is only 60 minutes long, so thanks to my co-teachers hardwork we've packed a huge amount of content into each handout. I figure with a 60min class, we're looking at a 20 - 30 slide presentation at best, since each handout is at least 20 pages that is at most a slide per page!

Enjoy and see you in a few short weeks!!

Cheers,
-R

The Danger of Shared Coordinates

2010-11-10T20:35:00.000-05:00

So many people have seen or gotten this error before:

"Linked file File FILE NAME.rvt cannot be saved because it has changes in more than just shared coordinates and therefore can invalidate Local Files owned by you."

What this error hints at is that Shared Coordinates are invasive and indicate that even when you think you've done nothing, something has occurred between linked file because they have Shared Coordinates. What we've seen recently with our project that is in Revit Server is that shared coordinates are very invasive! We've seen a number of "false" locks on Central Files from users who are not actively working on the Central File that is locked. Instead the presence of Shared Coordinates between linked files causes a lock on one of the linked the Central File by a user working in the host file.

To be clear, none of these false locks have caused lost work, or prevent team members from getting their work done. There have been a few delays, but mainly it has left us scratching our heads, attempting to determine:

Who has the file locked.
How the lock got there in the first place.

Without Workshare Monitor to tell you what is going on in the Central File (and more importantly who is "working" on the file) its a bit more of a challenge to track down the issue. Bluestreak's Activity Monitor does not really help either, because it only reports what has happened, not what is happening.

New toys, free toys!

2010-11-09T09:58:00.000-05:00

This caught my attention...

http://insidethefactory.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/11/weve-been-busy.html

I think that it may introduce a few spruced up features, but this is really about encouraging people to get into using the Conceptual (core) modeling environment in Revit. Oh by the way, since it will likely be on Autodesk Labs that means its Free! Install it one whatever computer you want, and have fun. I suspect they're aiming to have live before AU, but that is just a guess on my part, or maybe right after or during.

Rotated Views??

2010-10-07T22:34:00.000-04:00

Had a user come to me with an off problem last week that had me stumped until I got into the file....

The user said they had some enlarged floor plans that were slightly rotated, needless to say this didn't look very good on the sheets. My first reaction was:

draw a detail line, which will snap to Revit's orthagonal snaps
Create an angular dimension an element in the view to measure the angle.
Rotate the view based on the angle.

Well, that did not work....

So then, what was going on? The view was a floorplan, not a callout, so it was not a relationship to something like that. I checked true north versus project north, that was ok. I created my own floor plan view, and rotated it, and followed my own instructions, and they worked. That meant there was something controlling this view (and four others). I stared at the view properties, and then it hit me, hiding at the very bottom "Assigned Scope Box"!

Now I'm glad that someone on the team was smart enough to use a scope box to control view extents, and attempt to rotate the view 90 degrees. The problem is, when they rotated the scope box, they obviously snapped to something, rather then typing in the desired rotation angle! Worse, you cannot snap to, or otherwise determine the rotation of a scope box. The only solution in this case was to create a new scope box and re-assign the views to the new box.

I'm actually a little disappointed in myself that it took me as long as it did to find the scope box issue, but at least I did finally narrow it down. A good lesson in how to control views, but also a good lesson in troubleshooting, don't rule anything else, and look carefully at properties in Revit, the answer is usually there!

2011 Subscription Advantage Packs Live

2010-09-29T14:40:00.000-04:00

Available for download from the Subscription Website.

Another note, "instructions/help" for the CEA tools and Revit Server can all be found on Autodesk's wiki.

This is a new approach, so we will see how it goes. They are actually interested in user contribution to the site, and I already have a few things to add, if they are not already there.

More specifically:

Revit Server Installation
Revit Server Administration

Conceptual Energy Analysis

Conceptual Design Workshop

2010-09-28T12:13:00.003-04:00

I won't be able to go to this (past my no travel date) but in case you're interested:

http://www.acadia.org/acadia2010/

"- The 3-day Conceptual Design workshop will explore the new Revit conceptual design workflows, specifically parametric modelling and performative design using Autodesk® Revit®. The first two days of the workshop will focus on the ins and outs of the new form making and manipulation tools including creation of parametric rigs to drive and modify form, surface panelization, reporting parameters and adaptive components. The second part of the workshop will focus on analysis applied early into the design process (conceptual energy analysis, solar radiation, use of structural analysis plug-ins), and will also provide overview of API features such as Analysis Visualization Framework and Dynamic Updating.

- The 1-day Sustainable Design workshop will be focused on using Ecotect to explore the boundaries of generative and performative design using Autodesk® Ecotect® Analysis, Autodesk® Green Building Studio® and Autodesk® Revit®. The workshop will focus on the use iterative techniques and automated feedback from performance analysis to optimise and refine building geometry. While developing scripts in Autodesk Ecotect is quite easy and the fundamentals can be picked up during the course of the workshop, some experience with programming concepts and/or languages will be advantageous."

CEA Tools Diagram

2010-09-27T12:55:00.003-04:00

Autodesk Blogger Day: Revit Server

2010-09-27T12:36:00.002-04:00

So, I've had to sit on this for quite some time!!

Autodesk is releasing a product for subscriptions customers called Revit Server. This is an internally run software solution for sharing Revit Central Files across a Wide Area Network (WAN).

This is not a "cloud" solution, rather it is meant to be installed on your servers within your firm. We have been working with this software for some time at Burt Hill and the feedback and experience has been exceptionally positive. There are some limitations since it is Version 1, but for the first time I can truly say we have feasible, solution sourced from Autodesk that allows our different offices to collaborate together on projects.

I can also finally admit that my AUv course "Virtually" There: Using Revit with Geographically Dispersed Teams: AB22-1R" is intended to primarily focus on Revit Server, implementing it, and our experience using it on a real project team involving multiple offices and an external consultant.

Autodesk Blogger Day: CEA Tools

2010-09-27T12:35:00.000-04:00

What are CEA tools you ask?

"Conceptual Energy Anaylsis" - (CEA)

The point of these tools was to make it easier to run early energy analysis of building designs, and primarily various massing options of a building. It is important to note that Autodesk's internal (cloud based) analysis (GBS / DOE2) is great for the 30,000' view of building energy analysis. However, what is particularly nice is that these tools result in a much cleaner gbXML export that what you typically get from Revit now. The problem with Revit as it is now, is that the gbXML output is derived from rooms or spaces, and often results in errors. With the CEA tools you can fully control the volumes that you are going to analyze, which also means that you can create a more simplified "zone" model of a building for export to more detailed energy analysis programs. For instance if you want to use IES, and your design is in DD, you can be a simplified mass that represents the overall building form and major zones, based upon the DD model, and export the gbXML to IES. This is a bit of a manual process, but results in a cleaner, better model for use in IES, Ecotect or Equest.

Its raining in Boston...

2010-09-27T08:35:00.000-04:00

But I'm huddled in a conference room in Waltham MA. We will see what develops today....

AU & Free Culture

2010-09-20T18:53:00.000-04:00

Our second go at the lab course will be Wednesday afternoon 3:00-4:00, so as long as you're not more interested in Fuzzy Math (really good course BTW) come to our lab!! If you don't get into our lab, go learn about Fuzzy Math!

Something else of note that I found interesting, this Saturday is Museum Day, sponsored by the Smithsonian. You can get free access to museums all around the country, one that caught my eye in our area is Walter Gropius' house. Unfortunately due to a prior commitment, we won't be able to go, but maybe you can make it!

AU update!!

2010-09-15T15:36:00.000-04:00

So, the lab course I'm running (Au Bon Panel: Baking Your Own Adaptive Components and Panels with Autodesk Revit Architecture) was apparently so popular, and in such high demand, we're going to be doing part deux!!!

That's right look for a schedule update with a second session available to sign-up for!

The teaching team (Zach, Steve & David) will be meeting in a week and a half to do a dry run on this puppy, so hopefully we can live up to expectations!!!

If you're already signed-up, or do, look for more direct communications via the AU website. We want to live up to what you're looking for, but we need the students to do the same!!! Labs are tough nuts, and we need as level as a playing field as we can get.

News!! AU & more!

2010-09-09T21:33:00.001-04:00

So we've been quiet for quite some time, because there are just sooo many things going in our lives!!!

First off, I will be presenting at AU this year. Two Classes, One Lab and one Virtual Session. Thankfully I have a great supporting cast around me, and each is only an hour long:

Parametrics Laid Bare: Panels and Adaptive Components in Autodesk Revit: AB223-1
Beyond Project Templates: Managing Company Standards and Best Practices in Autodesk Revit: AB234-4P
Au Bon Panel: Baking Your Own Adaptive Components and Panels with Autodesk Revit Architecture: AB316-1L
"Virtually" There: Using Revit with Geographically Dispersed Teams: AB22-1R

Hopefully Krista will be co-speaking (via Skype) with me for the Project Templates course, but alas, she may be a little tied up with our new baby who is due on Nov. 13th!!

Lastly, if you have not heard or seen the most recent big news, you may want to read the press release here.

Look for some more posts later this month, but I suspect we will continue to run pretty silent, stay tuned!

Time to retire....

2010-07-22T08:03:00.000-04:00

32bit that is! I've been waiting for this post to be published by the Revit Clinic folks. I've been working with Ryan for a month now on a user that continues to crash no matter what. The current thinking being that it is the issue of stability of 32 vs 64. Needless to say we've tried and exhausted just about every other possible option, and no, this user is not working on huge Revit files at all either.

Navisworks 2011 Addin file

2010-07-19T19:10:00.000-04:00

Ugh! More then a month since I last posted, and that was from my BB while at Dev Camp.

Dev Camp was fun, too bad I've not really got back into programming. :-(

However, one thing that was further clarified for me was AddIn files and lo and behold, I need to make one!

We're in the midst of prepping for full rollout of ADSK 2011 BIM products here, which includes Navisworks. I manually installed Navis, and noticed that it modified my Revit INI in order to load the export plug-in! Well that was just annoying, modifying the ini is a pain, especially with packaged deployments, the new manifest files are much friendlier to packaged deployment of software, rather then having to make sure an INI file is properly modified. So, I wrote my own!

If you feel like using an Addin file to integrate Navisworks into your 2011 installations, just copy the code below into a text file (I recommend Notepad) and save the file as a *.addin file. Place the new file in your addins directory, remove the nasty code from your ini, and presto, you'll be all set!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RevitAddIns>
<AddIn Type="Command">
<Text>Export to Navisworks 2011</Text>
<Description>Exports an NWC file from Revit for Navisworks</Description>
<Assembly>C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Navisworks\2011\nwexportrevit2011\nwexportrevit2011_8.dll</Assembly>
<FullClassName>NavisWorks8.LcRevitExportCommand</FullClassName>
<ClientId>AB6AC86F-532E-439C-B3D4-D34F660CDD54</ClientId>
<VisibilityMode>NotVisibleInFamily</VisibilityMode>
<LongDescription>
<p>Use this command to export an NWC (Navisworks Cache file) file of your Revit model. NWC files can be opened in Navisworks and saved as NWD files.</p>
</LongDescription>
</AddIn>
</RevitAddIns>

Dev Camp AEC Keynote

2010-06-08T11:53:00.002-04:00

A few interesting tidbits out of the keynote this morning by Nicolas Mangon.

Point cloud support is coming (someday) to Revit. Nothing specific, in terms of time, but I would say '12 or '13. This information supports my suspicions as in '11 you'll note a bunch of .dll's for "AmberCore" which turns up some interesting Google results.

Another interesting note, it sounds like for MEP '12 we can expect to see a focus on Plumbing/pipe development/improvements after this years focus on M and E improvements.

Autodesk AEC Dev Camp 2010

2010-06-08T08:46:00.002-04:00

Spending yesterday, today and tomorrow at Dev Camp. So far its been interesting. Today we'll really get into the "meet" of the classes, I'm looking forward to some solid re-enforcement of what I've self taught myself, plus learning new tips, techniques and best practices.

What is particularly nice is the high ratio of Autodesk staff to attendees, its a great chance to network and really talk about some "under the hood" type stuff.

Guide Grids

2010-06-03T20:42:00.001-04:00

I’ve been exploring these a little bit as we get ready to roll out 2011 to the firm. I have to say they are an odd mix of Revit objects and attributes. For instance;

How do you delete a guide grid?

Well oddly enough, to detele a Guide Grid from a project, you simply select it, and delete it! If you have multiple Guide Grids defined you cannot purge them, and they don’t show up in the project browser. They simply exist in the sheet view(s). What is even odder is what this behavior implies. A guide grid is effectively an instance of a datum object similar to Grids, Levels or Reference Planes. There are no type properties of a Guide Grids, there is a single “Type” within a whole project. When you manipulate the Instance Properties of a particular Guide Grid in the Properties Pallette, it updates the Grid in all the sheets you’ve “placed” the grid in. In fact what you’ve really done is actually make that particular instance of the Type Guide grid visible in the particular sheets you assigned it to. You don’t actually place the Grid. What this also means is that the location of any particular grid is based on the origin of a sheet view.

Interestingly enough, if you get to thinking about it, Sheet Views are really nothing more then a Drafting View whose behavior has been specialized to allow Views of the Model to be added to them. They have an origin just like drafting views, but “we” can never see or find that origin perse (its important to note that using the API you can find the origin in both Drafting and Sheet Views, or using a linked DWG).

The point is, that the Guide Grid function operates based on the premise that your titleblock locations share a common origin, much as Grids operate on the premise that your model is built around a commong origin from floor to floor. If you move your titleblock (for whatever reason) within the Sheet View Canvas, the Guide Grid will be in the same place, but not relative to the Titleblock.

What this also means is that even though the Guide Grid uses a very basic implentation of the “Pattern” functionality to create the graphical grid, it effectively represents the coordinate system of the Sheet View(s) with the one minor fact that you don’t know where 0,0 is.

What really gets me about this whole thing is, why implement each individual grid as a separate instance of a single Type? Why not allow multiple Types to be defined? Multiple Types would make more sense in the long run, and would allow for some type of “management” console to see all the defined type at once, and delete/modify, etc. Instead all we get is a drop down in view properties, which in reality is simply turning the visibility of a particular instance on or off. Furthermore, when you click on the “Guide Grid” button once again you’re creating “new” by way of placing a new element of an existing Type. Lastly, this comes back to the “delete” issue. In Revit “delete” can be and sometimes is confused with “removal”. One can easily imagine a user opting to “delete” a grid from a particular view, when in fact they simply want to make it no longer visible in that one view. Hitting delete however may have the un-desired effect of completely removing the Guide Grid from the whole project (which might be a big problem!).

I have to say, the one really nice thing about the functionality they did add, is that if, like us, you’ve added your own “grid” and visibility controls to your Titleblock families (with Symbolic Lines) then you can actually use that to snap to and align your views (or offset them from the grid to a specific point, etc.). What is nice about this approach is that the grid is relative to the Titleblock, so if you move the Titleblock, or for some reason delete it, then add a new one back later, you will always have the “same” grid no matter what.

For now, even though there are some drawbacks in terms of management and printing with our own TB grids, I think I’ll generally stick with them, as it seems to have fewer pitfalls, and is potentially less confusing in the long run, then Guide Grids.

AU 2010 Voting Is On!

2010-05-17T19:32:00.003-04:00

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!?

2010-05-13T18:14:00.001-04:00

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.

Revit 2011: Stepped Foundations with Adaptive Components

2010-04-16T22:26:00.001-04:00

So, if you want to learn all sorts of impractical for the new Adaptive Components (AC) you can visit Builz. But if you're interested in some more practical applications you've come to the correct place.

I don't know about you, but I've always found modeling stepped footings to be a bit of a pain. There were several techniques, but they all had their drawbacks. I think the newest technique that AC's offer us is the best yet. It is still not perfect, but its quick and easy! This quick demo illustrates some of the flexibility AC's actually offer, and the concept of thinking of the Conceptual Mass Environment as a wrapper for working with these elements.

AEC Media Day: Time Spent with the Development Team

2010-04-15T22:11:00.000-04:00

So, I did promise to get back to this topic, and I have at least a few more posts about 2011 to come to. Steve's review of the whole day was good, so I wanted to focus in particular on the time we spent with a development team.

No, I'm not going to give you any insights into what is coming in terms of features, instead we had a fascinating opportunity to get an idea of how the software we use every day is developed.

The Cast

As Steve said we got to visit with Greg's development team. So we met (most of) them in a conference room. Hopefully I get the titles right: Greg the Product Designer was there, then there was a gent from the Quality Assurance part of the Factory, Erik was there for a few minutes, but had to pop out (he is product design too) then we had Lev Lipkin (long time Revit developer), two more developers (whose name's escape me) and one last developer on the phone.

So what is everyone's roles in creating a new feature? Obviously the developers write the code that makes the software run. I'm assuming there is some further breakdown in terms of responsibilities, but we did not get into that level of detail.

Product Designers provide the specification of what the new feature is, what are the goals it is supposed to achieve and what is the required functionality.

This then leaves you to wonder, what is QA doing there? Well QA in the Factory is an interesting role. They not only test the software as it is developed, and test again, and retest, and test some more, but they also regularly use the software, and they typically have a design background, so they're familiar with our collective industries. QA and can offer input from a user background, their interaction with clients, and their experience troubleshooting bugs and other problems that users do run into. Lastly, QA is valuable because they are the ones who have to test and effectively approve new features for release. Therefore when considering the time for a development cycle (effectively about 9 months, when you take out 3 months for project scoping and research) you have to consider, is it realistic to test the proposed new feature set in that length of time, when you consider all the other things that have to happen to develop new code or modifying existing.

This is a critical part in the software development process that I think a great number of people underestimate the complexity and time involved. The QA team has a "huge" server room dedicated to their work where they run, and re-run thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of tests on the software (every night). Everyday a new build of Revit is released in the factory and every night those builds are tested. Furthermore, as the software grows, the number of tests continues to increase. These are all tests to make sure that:

New features don't break old features.
Modified features continue to work.
New features aren't broken (this can't be done until you have a test for the new feature).

So a new feature is a big deal, you have to test is against what you already have, then you have to design a test for it, to make sure it continues to work, and that takes a great deal of time. Even with what is a pretty darn good QA process, and really, really good QA team, bugs still find their way through to us the end users, and we don't even catch them all in Alpha or Beta either.

The Process

In the discussion we were part of, Greg began by going through an outline of what the end goals were for the feature, also recognizing that this feature would only be one small step towards more features in the future. From there the discussion commenced....

QA was concerned about scope. In particular there was concern about enough time to fully the test the new feature and there was concern that the Revit team, would start to take on and own something that was not previously "theirs" in terms of development responsibility and support. This is actually a big deal, its kinda like the architect saying to the Mechanical engineer, "oh don't worry, we'll make sure to put all the HVAC diffusers and returns in the all the right spots". In many cases we might do pretty well, but we're not experts, and do we really want that responsibility in the first place? So the Factory has the same issues to contend with in their world.

So, this issue of ownership then led to a discussion about, what could be done internally in Revit, to support the proposed workflow, without taking on scope that Revit did not have previously. This then led to a discussion about what did users really, need, what could they get by with, and what might have to just wait (no matter how much the users might want it).

Essentially then feature development becomes a process of risk analysis. What is the minimum required to keep users happy? What is required for the feature to be useful? Can the code be written and tested to meet those needs? This is not to say that it is only a discussion of numbers, but no matter what, the bottom line is the bottom line, code cannot be changed until the 9th hour, its just not how it works.

So the discussion then really became focused on what would meet the user needs, and really focusing in on what the core goals were that Greg had in mind, and what could be "stripped" away to meet them, or what was the best way to meet them. This is where development starts to speak up, because they have an idea of what they might be able to do with existing code, and they also (mostly) know where the the Jimmy Hoffas of the Revit world are buried ("we" learned about at least one which I think took a few people by surprise....) The ideas of the developers are interesting, when compared to how an end user might consider something, and it this mix of Product Design, QA and Developers that eventually leads to a finalized feature.

As "flies on the wall" we were able to "speak up" from a user's point of view and hopefully provide a little bit of insight (Product Designers also have the responsibility of interviewing and researching real users, like us). Steve even got up an drew on the white board!

There is more I wish I could share, but it would reveal too much about the feature being discussed. In any event, it really was quite a unique experience, and educational. As we all left, the comment from the Factory staff was "this is what we do all day every day", a stretch perhaps, but quite telling. Not a single bit of code has been written for this feature yet, and won't be for probably several more months, instead there will be more meetings, more discussions, analysis of user interview data, and debate how best to achieve the goal. That way, when the developers do sit down to write the code, they can focus on writing code that immediately produces the desired results, rather then writing and re-writing code, because it does not do what "we" thought it would.

Revit '10 crashing & UIState.dat

2010-04-13T22:49:00.000-04:00

A quick search on Google will reveal a number of posts about related directly to the UIState.dat file. Much has been made about deleting the UIState file in order to "reset" 2010's ribbon interface (Autodesk even publishes a tool and instructions). However, I've recently learned that corruption of this file is heavily suspected in cases of Revit 2010 crashing for no other obvious reasons.

As I've made mention before in different forums, generally my firm has held back from moving to 2010. However, its been un-avoidable for a number of reasons, on a number of projects. What has been alarming is the frequency of crashes we've seen/are seeing with users in 2010. Part of this may be in-sufficient hardware (as 2010 simply seems to be more intensive then 2009) or, another reason to blame may be more complex models. Several of our 2010 projects have structure and MEP (one of the reasons they are in '10 to begin with) which even on a small project greatly increases overall memory footprint when all files are loaded.

However, it turns out that the real cause of blame may be the UIState.dat file. I've been told (off the record) by reliable sources that if we have un-explained crashes (no warning, no recovery save, not in the middle of a significant operation) and in the journal file we see just prior to the journal termination/exception error then there is a good chance that deleting the UIState.dat file will alleviate the crashing.

So far we've deleted the file on two PC's (mine being one) and with fingers crossed, we have not seen more crashes, but we need to give it some more time. I expect we'll be deleting the file from other's PC's in the near future.

The really wacky part was a case last week (while I was trying to enjoy Media Day). We had a user who, when he logged into one of our 64bit remote workstations, the moment Revit finished opening a file, and he did anything to affect the Ribbon, Revit crashed! It turned out that Revit was not creating any type of UIState.dat file for this user (though when I logged in, it created a UIState.dat file for me just fine). Furthermore the user could run Revit MEP without a problem.

Autodesk's only suggestion for this case was to delete the user's local profile from the machine, as there also seems to be cases where the whole local user profile becomes corrupted in some way.

Once the profile was deleted, the user logged back in, and Revit created a UIState.dat file without any problems, and so far has been stable.

Thus, all I can offer, is that if you have random crashes in Revit 2010, and they can not be reasonably attributed to anything else, and your journal file matches up with the above description, chances are you should start by deleting the Dat file, and if that does not clear the problem, delete the user's profile (by the way I take no responsibility for lost data if you do delete a profile, its up to you to know what you're doing, our IT staff already has it down to a science).

I'll also say, that off the record Autodesk is quite hopeful that this issue is resolved moving into 2011, however, even with Beta testing the numbers are simply not there to reveal a problem that is so hard to troubleshoot and hard to even be sure when it is happening. Indeed, to date I've not seen this problem myself in 2011, even though its occurred to me in 2010. We can but hope that this page has been turned.

Subtle Updates in 2011

2010-04-10T17:08:00.001-04:00

We'll get back to Media Day, but for now Steve does a good job of recapping most of what went on etc.

First up on updates in 2011, everything that was previously only available for Subscription customers (Q3 Subscription Advantage Pack) is available to everyone who buys Revit, needless to say, Autodesk's sales pitch is, "buy the subscription pack it will be worth it" (something confirmed at the Media Day and recent Boston Revit User group events).

So what about these subtle changes?

The first one quite handy, "Save View as Image", You can right click on any view in the project browser and choose "Save View as Image". This is a great way to "freeze" a drawing, without having to export to CAD, and it keeps everything in the model. The same functionality is also exposed in the API. One presumes that this is all part of the new "Analysis Styles" view framework meant to make it easier to graphically convey and save analysis data in the model.

Next, we have some changes in the user interface. Autocad users can rejoice, Revit's UI now supports activating a modifier command (such as Copy, Rotate or Move) before selecting any elements. Once the command is activated, you can select elements, finish the selection and execute the command. This means that combined with more keyboard shortcuts, mouse clicks to the ribbon can be greatly decreased.

Lastly, Revit Structure provides a number of enhancements to framing, particulary in terms of cleaning up slanted columns, trusses, and how you can place edit these elements. All these changes are available in Architecture too. I have to say I think the method of placing a slanted column is quite elegant (not the only one either) and the new ability to manipulate the top and bottom of a column is quite handy to.

Autodesk: AEC Media Day, Revit 2011 Text & Labels

2010-04-05T22:37:00.001-04:00

Well, technically media day is tomorrow, but it started tonight with a reception. Quite the crowd they've brought in, and I appreciated being invited and entertained too. Steve Stafford, David Light David Harrington, Lachmi Khemlani and more were all there.

Tomorrow we get down to all the "real" release info, a chance to ask questions, and perhaps, if we're lucky some goodies that we probably won't be allowed to blog about anyway (pesky NDAs....).

Text & Labels

A small, but possibly overlooked new feature in 2011 is a change to Text and Labels (you may have already heard Text is going to support bullets, numbering and several other new features). What I want to focus on in this post is the new border feature.

In both text and label types you can check to show a border around the text in the object. The size of the border is controlled by the size of the text/label box and the offset in the type properties. I tend to equate the offset to being the "margin" around the text, but since this offset also controls where a leader terminates, I guess they've used the correct term.

Of course, this means you better start thinking about redoing all your tags and annotations! Think of all those families with boxes draw with symbolic lines, that don't adapt to text size! No longer a problem, with the border feature. Line weight of the line is controlled by way of the Text/Label type properties. However, its important to note that the box and any associated leaders will have the same line-weight. It also means that the line-weight will be consistent in all views. The only way to override the line weight is an object specific override. It would be ~~preferable~~ possibly useful if the leader and border had their own subcategories, under annotation categories, but perhaps next year..... On second thought, perhaps it should remain a type property? Or possibly, both? Allow the base value to be defined in Object Styles, overrides in Visual Styles, and then, last a property in Type Properties that has "By Category" by default.

Video's up and running

2010-03-29T19:53:00.001-04:00

For those who are subscribed, etc. The videos are up and running again via YouTube.

Screencast Bandwidth Limitations

2010-03-28T18:33:00.003-04:00

Hey all,

Just as a warning, apparently I have a limit on bandwidth transfer for my Screencast account, and given the length, size and (apparent popularity) I'm at risk of maxing out (which means you won't get to watch my videos).

~~So dealing with YouTube was not so bad. One more video uploading, but the rest are there and "live".~~

YouTube was out, as they won't take SWF files, same with Vimeo. I'm investigating options, but if anyone has suggestions throw up a comment. If anyone has some spare server space and bandwidth, I'll take that too.

Thanks to Kyle's tip on a conversion program, we're back in business. Videos uploaded to YouTube. I may have to give up on Jing do to what seems to be slightly poor conversion quality from SWF to FLV to YouTube. But, it should be good enough that you get the idea.

Cheers!

Revit 2011: Custom Elevation Tags

2010-03-28T10:09:00.006-04:00

So, this feature was not on my personal list of requests, but obviously it is/was on someone's given its persistent presence on AUGI wishlists (along with site tools*). I have to say, it will be nice to be able to create Elevation tags that are smaller, and will fit better into small interior spaces.

These new tags are pretty straight forward. You have to create a "body" which can hold as many pointers as you like. The pointers allow for the creation of elevation views. There are some limitations as you will see in the video, but overall the implementation is really good (and I wish it would come to section heads too). There is a new property for text and labels that controls the relative rotation of the text to the symbolic geometry. Lastly, the same problem that has plagued section heads, plagues elevation tags too, where masking regions will mask symbolic lines. Thus you either must create many separate masking regions to get all your required edges, or skip the masking regions, which can be a problem in complicated spaces or when floor patterns/finishes are visible in views. See the video for a fairly quick demonstration of the new feature(s).

* A brief note on Side tools, a bug in 2010 when a sloped pad was adjacent to a level pad resulted in a teeny tiny sliver of "site" extending up past both pads has reportedly been fixed in 2011.

Revit 2011: Reporting Parameters

2010-03-26T13:06:00.009-04:00

2011 is here! As I post, I'm participating in Autodesk AEC's blogger day event. Much like David Light, I've had to sit on most of this information for 9 months+ now (and its been soooo hard!), I can also say that I expect to see more! Maybe not tomorrow, not even next month, but soon!

There are a growing number of posts in general about the new features in 2011, so I decided to focus on something near and dear to my heart (supposedly my case-study provided good reasons to move forward with this feature) Reporting Parameters.

Reporting Parameters are a hugely powerful feature (as mentioned by other posters). So I thought that I would do some movies to demo how they work, and what they do. I've got four movies lined up, each builds on the next in complication.

First, the basics. Creating a reporting parameter, and showing what it can do. Note, a reporting parameter does not have to be shared, but combining reporting parameters with shared parameters, means you can get that information into a schedule (or tag).

Next up, a little bit of what you can and can't do with a reporting parameter in a family. For instance you can use dimensions from "Host Geometry" to drive elements in families. However, reporting parameters driven by non-host geometry can only report the information, you can't use the value in a formula. Note, you also cannot directly drive geometry with a reporting parameter, you should set another parameter equal to the Reporting parameter in the formula column.

Third a creative application of the reporting parameter in Curtain Panel. Note that when a curtain panel is loaded into a project you can already schedule Width & Height, so if you create reporting parameters to do the same thing you should probably name them differently (particularly if they're shared).

Are the idea juices cooking yet? Here is one more example, also making use of the new "Adaptive Component". Note that these components can only be placed in a Conceptual Mass family (think of the mass family as a "wrapper" but you can change the category of the Adaptive Component, as well as linking parameters and geometry, to give the user in project full control of the Adaptive component (within reason, there are still some limitations).

Room Separation in Group

2010-02-05T14:38:00.004-05:00

I was working on a space plan on a project today & came across something slightly annoying.

I created a group for each workstation with it's associated chair. Copied it all over a plan. Then copied the group to the plan above. After doing this for 4 full floors, I then realized that I needed to have room separation lines to create rooms so I could easily color code the plan. So thinking that since I already have the groups I can just add room separation lines to the group & voila I'd be done in 5 minutes flat. Everything was fine until I started editing groups that had been copied to the floors above. All of a sudden after editing a group on floor 1, "random" room separation boxes showed up on floor 1. After some investigation, I discovered that these were actually from rooms on floor 2. Some of the instances of the group their room separation lines were located on the floor 1 even though the group was located on floor 2.

I tried copying & pasting the lines in edit group mode from floor 1 to floor 2 to try & fix the problem but that only made things worse. The groups that were on floor 1 now had their lines on another level. The only solution that I found to work was to delete & replace the offending groups (which is a pain). So instead I created new groups of just room separation lines and spent more time copying those around the plan.

So as a warning: Room separation lines & groups do not always get along.

-K-

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

2009-12-23T12:41:00.006-05:00

(Artwork by Krista)

Re: Coworker Looking for Job in DC

2009-12-11T14:11:00.004-05:00

Due to a change in life circumstances, one of my coworkers is looking for a job in the Washington D.C. area. She's an interior designer with two years experience. She's been working in Revit for the past year and in my opinion is really good at Revit and has the ability to learn things really fast. Please feel free to email any inquiries to her directly at: cganderson85@gmail.com

I want to wish Colleen all the best of luck in her new adventures. We'll all miss her here at NELSON/Black Cow.

-K-

AU Project Template Survey Results

2009-12-03T14:01:00.000-05:00

The results of the Project Template survey are available to browse and review.

Link to Results

Thanks to all those who responded.

AU First Day

2009-12-01T20:38:00.000-05:00

AU officially underway. Yesterday was the second annual Computational Design Symposium hosted by Robert Aish. It was interesting just like last year with some excellent presenters, well worth it if you can make it next year. The evening was full of various mixers and socials, Speaker and Blogger Socials and the AEC mixer. What was quite interesting is several of us got a chance to chat with Carl Bass (ADSK CEO) at the speaker social, turns out the software he uses the most is Inventor, and he rated himself as a “fair” Revit user. Not bad for a CEO I guess, ;-)

The rest of the night was quite nice catching up with folks from across the country. Got some good tidbits out of folks from the factory, but of course I can’t share… ;-). All I can say is that I continue to look forward to future releases of Revit both this coming year’s (2010) and future years.

Class today not too bad. Interesting and picked up some good tips and thoughts. The conference keynote was excellent hopefully the AEC keynote will be as good. The technology behind Avatar.... just plain cool!

For those less fortuate folks

2009-12-01T12:15:00.002-05:00

For those of you who are not in Vegas right now, don't forget that if your company has a subscription that you can attend AU virtually. Not quite the same but you can download all course content provided by the speakers.

-K-

Arrived AU

2009-11-29T15:52:00.000-05:00

I'm checked in and hanging out at the 'Bay.

Still tweaking the presentation but pretty much done. 112 responses to the survey, so still not even 50% of possible class attendees, but oh well. The data is interesting, and has helped.

Realized I uploaded the PPT the other night with a bunch of template slides from Autodesk, those have been removed.

See you here! Drop an e-mail or comment if you want, killing time today (Sunday).

Launch your own SlideRocket presentation!

AU 2009! Project Templates

2009-11-15T18:01:00.000-05:00

Its the final run-up to AU2009. I know attendance is going to be down this year, but still looking forward to seeing old friends.

I'm teaching a course on Project Templates this year. I'm really interested in getting feedback from many users. I've had several conversations and calls with folks from around the world about project templates in an attempt to gather as many points of view as possible. But I'm not done!!! Even if you can't make it to AU this year, take the survey now!

Click Here to take survey

Results will be integrated into my presentation materials, which will be posted on the AU site. If you're a subscriber that means you can get the info. It also means that if they decide to record me, you'll be able to watch the whole thing.

Good Autodesk® Revit® Project Templates: Keys to Efficiency

I'm also running an UnConference session all about Project Templates:

What Makes a Good Autodesk® Revit® Project Template

Multiple Match Type

2009-10-30T21:05:00.000-04:00

This little feature has escaped me for who knows how long, and I confess to finding it in 2009, and not 2010 (though I grabbed my screen shots from there). 2010's Ribbon also makes it far more obvious then in the old UI. But here it is. When you use Match Type (MA on the keyboard) in the options bar is a little check box option appears "Multiple". Check it, and you're dropped into a selection mode where it is very easy to select multiple objects whose Type you want to change to your "base" type. Click on the "Finish Selection" button and all the types change at once!

Subscription Advantage Pack available

2009-10-22T09:03:00.000-04:00

Sometime in the last 24 hours Autodesk posted the new Build, Revit Extensions, Model Review (aka BIM Review) and DB connect on the subscription website. Enjoy!

Follow-up from Revit Blogger Day

2009-10-20T20:54:00.000-04:00

First, no, I'm not getting paid (though I keep hearing "the check is in the mail"....) ;-)

To dive into a little more detail Autodesk will be releasing the "Subscription Advantage Pack" essentially this wraps up things like "Revit Extensions" or the brand new "Wood Framing Utility" as well as including a special Revit build that includes new features for subscribers only. This new build and any new features will of course be compatible with non-subscribers, however those of us who work for companies that do subscribe will now get tools such as what was listed previously.

So what's coming, I think my previous list of new "features" was pretty self explanatory. What else is coming...

For Revit Arch & Structure there will be a new extension for wood framing. What this does, is it allows you to select you walls (yes walls only) and generate wood framing following various rules, you can adjust the framing in an editor. When you're done, push the magic button and you get wood 2x's modeled all over your model... pretty sweet (almost makes me want to do plain old residential construction).

The Revit DB link (which had previously been posted on Autodesk Labs (with a built in timebomb) will now be available.

"Model Review" this looks like Avatech's BIM Review, but more tightly integrated with Revit, I know there is a very close relationship there, so to say "I'm not suprsised" is not to much of an overstatement. Part of Autodesk's plug with the new Model Review extension is that it will allow you to validate a model is ready for energy anaylsis, and help to identify what needs to be fixed in order to get valid results.

There is a bunch of feature ports in the custom build. For instance; architects will be able to:

Create Sloped Columns
Create Curved Beams
Create complex Trusses
Cope beams
Create slabs with integrated metal decking profiles and slab direction

The "split wall with gap" tool has moved out of the realm of an INI mod, into a real feature. Autodesk can't say much about overall performance of this tool, other then that is has been in use for awhile. What is nice is that when used, it maintains the wall as a single object, even though it has been split. It seems like this tool has some useful possibilities, but I'm not totally sold, yet....

Structure is getting some improvements to the bridge tool. MEP is getting all new content particularly for electrical stuff besides Power & Lighting. MEP is also going to get tempory dimensions when in layout mode (which should prove useful).

You'll find other folks blogging about this new stuff, so be sure to see what I missed, or get their take.

More from ADSK blogger day...

2009-10-20T13:55:00.000-04:00

Autodesk is releasing a "Subscription Advantage Pack" which will basically wrap a bunch of things that were released by themselves for subscription members, plus add new things like New Features.

Coming in a few days for all Revit products:

Shortcuts for draw commands
Keyboard shortcut manager
Conditional formatting
Text format shortcuts (cntrl+b, i & u)
Text Find & Replace
Convert lines (model/drafting)
Linked file performance improvements

Autodesk Revit blogger day!

2009-10-20T13:09:00.002-04:00

On the Webex now, more "pre-release" info to come!

I'll take a double please....

2009-10-02T21:51:00.000-04:00

A double skin that is!

I took a little more then a week, but I finally managed to build a working double skin panel. It still needs some refinements, but it at least works! While this may not be perfect for full on Consrtruction Documents (yet) I think this holds a lot of promise for some of the more practical things you can do with the new tools that showed up in Revit 2010.

Things I've learned (mostly from Zach):

Points - its all about locating points! Then creating geometry.
Workplanes!
Build everything off the corner points.
If not the corner points, then driving points on the default reference lines.
Did I mention workplanes? "Set" workplane should be your next favorite tool.
Dimensions need to be set to specific workplanes too.
Did I mention points are important? Make the reference planes of the points visible (properties).
Use the reference planes defined by reference lines.
The "host point by intersection" is a handy tool.
Did I mention points?
Workplanes.....

Invisible to be Visible?

2009-09-30T22:02:00.000-04:00

This is what I would I consider to be an "old technique" but it has come up recently around the firm. How to make objects that are above the view's cut plane (in plan) visible (I suppose it might work in section/elevation, but I never tried).

If you've read the wonderful Revit series "Introduction to Revit Arch" & "Mastering Revit Arch" (both solid books, thanks to the authors, whom I've been meaning to blog about), you should already know that certain objects will show-up, even if they are above the cut plane of the view. All of the categories are categories that are "cut" in plan and it mostly has to do with architectural convention about showing some stuff in a plan, even if it is not "technically" visible in the plan.

So that works really great, for those categories. However, what if you have a light fixture (say a wall sconce) that you also want to show in your plan, but of course it is mounted at 5'-6" or 6'-0", what do you do! Even if you put in symbolic geometry it won't help, as the view is not cutting the object, or the object is not below the cut plane. One solution would be a plan region, but they can be wonky at best, and would you really want to do a plan region for every wall sconce...? Or meven worse, modify the cut plane for the whole view? More then one view ! What we really need, is way to convince Revit that it is "cutting" through the object, even when its not.

Enter the Invisible line, an unseen friend! Take your wall sconce family, and you'll note that among the various Line Types (really subcategories) available to you with which to draw lines is "". Now, simply draw a line from the reference level to your wall sconce geometry (you can do some align/locks if you so choose). Pop the family back into your project, and viola! You're sconce will show up in your plan, with no extra effort.

Now wait! You might say, what is going on. Quite simply Revit is obeying its own rules (kinda like Kirk in the Kobayashi Maru, but not really), while we can not "see" the invisible line, when Revit's view cuts through the line, its there, and it "sees" it, which means it sees the object. Since a light fixture is a "non-cuttable" category, that means Revit must render the fixture in projection, since this is a plan, that means to render the light fixture in projection would require that the "top" of the fixture be shown in the view. Therefore, the light fixture is displayed in plan the way you want it to, all because of a simple invisible line.

I've not done an exhaustive review, but I beleive invisible lines are only availble in families that belong to categories that do not cut (which would make sense), I'm also not sure if the line style shows up if you make a family first with a generic template, then change the category. I'll leave it up to you the reader to explore and learn on your own. I do know it works for light fixtures and speciality equipment (the two I deal with most often, and where the issue is most likely to crop up).

Classic Roman Architecture anyone...?

2009-09-25T10:27:00.004-04:00

This started as a little "show & tell" to Zach, and now its a movie... (mine didn't work nearly as well as his).

I think this goes further to suggust what you can do with these tools to handle complex geometry we just could not model before. Easy? No! Cool? Yes!

Further disclaimer - Zach made the video, not me. I just got the conversation started..... (my panel didn't work nearly as well as his)

When E is not... E?

2009-09-24T17:49:00.000-04:00

I was working on a family here at the company, and it turned out we need to use a formula that involved using a Log function (you remember Calculus right? Cause I don't.....). In excel the Natural Log (that is the log taken of e, your handy dandy mathematical constant) is notated with the function ln(). Which is fine and dandy. If you look in Revit help under valid syntax, is conveniently says that the "log" can be taken of any number, what they fail to mention is the base the Revit log function operates in, which is 10, not e (bummer :( )

But....! If you do enough research (or remember enough Calculus) you find out that Logs in base 10, can be converted to Logs in another base, by some simple alegabra. (hooray!) Even better, Revit help clearly states that the function exp() will raise e to the specified power, so therefore we could write:

= log()/log(exp(1))

and we would get the result we need, since a number raised to the power of 1, will simply be the original number. This is good, because theoretically this means that Revit (and or your computer) will use e calculated to the most accurate value the program (Revit) will accept (you're still with me, right?).

Yet, for some reason, Revit's result did not agree with Excel . With a little more help from some friends (read the whole AUGI thread here) it was discovered that the function exp() resulted not in raising e to the specified power, but 10!!! So, exp(1) = 10 in Revit, contradicting Revit's own help documenation!

Now I ask, why would we ever need a function that raises 10 to a power? I can always write: 10^2, 10^2..... I can even use parameters for both values if I need to, 10 is a number, not too hard to deal with. I would much rather have access to e particularly since I need it!

For now, we're using a truncated value for e in our formula, and its close enough, but I would say, with relative certainty that somewhere (quite a long time ago) someone made a mistake...

Not that too many people are running around using Logs and e in their Revit formulas, but with the advent of the new massing tools, it could become a possibilty. Besides, its the principal of the matter, right, we should have access to our standard mathematical functions, and the documentation should be correct!

Streaming Revit!?

2009-09-22T08:59:00.003-04:00

Autodesk Labs has come out with something new and interesting. The ability to test drive and stream apps from their servers:

Project Twitch

This is really interesting to me, as it means that potentially we could do something very similiar internally, or, eventually, like many "cloud computing" applications, we need only pay for how much access we require to applications like Revit, Maya, Autocad, and our IT deptartment does not have to worry about maintaing the high powered comptuers or software.

Now, I realize that likely in the short to medium term server side apps will not replace the functionality of having something like Revit or Maya local on your computer, however, with a decreasing need for 2D Autocad, I could see high value in being able to "buy direct" from Autodesk, how much, and when we need access.

The future really is coming...

2009-09-16T17:58:00.004-04:00

Steve Stafford recently had a really good post about "the future" here is another.

Indiana University has released BIM standards for project delivery, to be followed by BIM contracts. They cite a number of sources I'm familiar with, including the State of Wisconsin, which has also released BIM standards.

These standards are real, and they're detailed. Generally I don't take much issue with them, and most of them assume you're working Revit. However, I did note in IU's standards they require all wall finishes and materials to be included... paint anyone? It will be interesting to see how all this plays out. I have to assume that any of these organizations are willing to negotiate once you get to the table, since most of them require some sort of "plan" with regards to how the design team and contractors will work together, and the required model deliverables.

WE'VE MOVED!

2009-09-15T22:19:00.003-04:00

We apologize for the lack of posting recently. For those who don't know .... you guessed it ......

WE MOVED!

Some of you who come to Boston RUG meetings will know this but we've moved to Boston!

And in case you didn't know this is Robert's wife Krista posting because I got tired of waiting for him to "get around to it". Thanks for the patience and we hope to get back to our regularly scheduled Revit posting soon.

An eye into the future.

2009-07-14T09:30:00.003-04:00

I'm a little slow on the blogging here, but very excited to see this new tool released at Autodesk Labs: Revit Solar Radiation Tool

This is the kind of melding of design and anaylsis tools I've been waiting to see for a long time, just waiting to give it a try here. Note you need to update your Revit 2010 install with the latest service pack according to the info on their page.

In other news, I should mention that AUGI: AEC Edge, the new quarterly magazine focused on technology in the Design and Construction industry is out, and I'm in it, along with many other fabulous authors, give it a read when you get a chance.

AU classes

2009-06-19T21:14:00.003-04:00

I'm happy to report that my two courses on Project Templates (an UnConference Session and a 90 minute class) were accepted for AU 2009. Assuming everything is scheduled properly the "conclusions" of the Unconference discussion will be incorporated into the 90 minute class (should make handouts a challenge ;) ). If people have thoughts on what makes a good (or bad) Project Templates, feel free to either comment or drop me a line via e-mail. I'm also looking forward to a good discussion at the UnConference session.

edit: Thanks to everyone and anyone who voted for my sessions.

Cheers,
-R

Fun with Rigs

2009-06-17T18:37:00.004-04:00

Fun with Rigs thanks to Zach's latest post. I don't know what it is, but it was fun to build, and it doesn't break!

Classic UI in 2010.....?

2009-06-10T19:36:00.001-04:00

Hopefully Phil can shed some additional light on this subject.....?

Are you a contractor, looking for work?

2009-06-07T22:34:00.004-04:00

So if you follow this blog at all, you know we are planning and designing a new home for ourselves to be built in southeastern Massachusetts (AKA the South Shore).

The house design uses SIPs for the exterior walls and we've been working very closely with a company located in New Hampshire who will be providing our exterior walls, roof(s) and floor system(s). We're still not sure what the foundation will be (we've looked closely at ICF's).

There is a great deal of interesting information out and about these days with regards to how a house can be "pre-fabricated" but not in the terms of building giant pieces of house that get shipped down the highway. One might call this a "hybrid" approach to prefabrication (don't miss a very good rebuttle). Some of this information is old news, but I've found it useful.

To get to the point, we're preparing to do an RFP process for GC's to help us build our house. We're looking for smart, intelligent partners, both at the GC level and the subcontractors who will work for them to build our house cost effectively, and intelligently, to help save some money and help save our environment.

Think you're qualified (or know someone who is), interested in doing business in a new way, up for a challenge? Then get in touch!

Article of Interest

2009-05-10T19:22:00.002-04:00

I'm not usually a big fan of the Architecture critic our local rag here in Philly, but for once she has a decent article: Changing Skyline: Building a McMini

Interestingly they're using SIPS, which is what we intend for our house (see previous post). Now I realize that prices don't scale linearly, but given their cost (around $100,000, not including land, etc.) I'm hopeful that we will be able to bring our house in at a reasonably price point too (do the math and they're somewhere around $100/sq ft).

House Renderings

2009-05-08T13:18:00.003-04:00

Thanks to some tips from Buildz I've generated these recent renderings of our house design, doesn't it look warm and welcoming!

Also ran this interior rendering awhile ago:

2010 Graphic Error

2009-05-07T14:39:00.004-04:00

This may just be my machine but when I switch scales I get the following image until I hover over the button with my mouse.

-K-

Edit: This happens with both hardware acceleration turned on and off.