I Love BIM

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

Vasari Experiment

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

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

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....

1. 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!).
2. 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

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!

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
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sent from my mobile
This email is intended for named recipients only.

Hacking Vasari

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....

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!

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

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:

1. Who has the file locked.
2. 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!

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??

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:

1. draw a detail line, which will snap to Revit's orthagonal snaps
2. Create an angular dimension an element in the view to measure the angle.
3. 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

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

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

Autodesk Blogger Day: Revit Server

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

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...

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

AU & Free Culture

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!!

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.