Images from a Revit Project

I always like to see the results of people who've taken a class from me. Below are some images from Joe Russo of Techcon Dallas, Inc.

He took a Revit class from me a couple of years ago and sent me these the other day. Reprinted with permission, these are images of a project done completely in Revit Architecture and rendered in Autodesk 3D Studio MAX.

Second Life and Virtual Architecture

If you have not yet heard of Second Life, climb out from under your rock!

I'll admit - I've got a free account, but whenever I visit I find it a bit wierd - kinda gives me the oogies. But maybe it's a generational thing.

Once I get beyond that, however, there are some interesting things happening there. I saw on the news recently that several candidates in the recent French presidential elections had virtual campaign headquarters on Second Life. And... just as a test I logged in the other day and did a search on some of our own US presidential wannabees - guess what? Yeah - go ahead - see for yourself.

The other day, my boss emailed me a link to this article concerning educational institutions and their experimentation with student projects on Second Life. Very interesting indeed. If you have a Second Life account, you can teleport directly to some of the virtual projects from the article.

Dang Information Age - I Can't Keep Up!!!

Make it stop! Stuff comes at you too fast sometimes. I've been falling behind in keeping up with new sites, new posts on other blogs, etc.

There's far too much been going on in the blogosphere and other locations lately for me to try to encapsulate it all at once, so let me just list a few things here that I thought were noteworthy as I attempted to condense the BIM-world down to what I could read during a morning cup of coffee today...

A lot of this came from Steve Stafford's Revit Op-Ed blog, so I'll just reference his posts:

First, Jeld-Wen Windows are now available as Revit Families - check them out. Maybe if everybody starts buying their stuff because of what's in Revit models, other manufacturer's will get on the bandwagon (OK - I know - I'm reaching, but work with me here).

Second, there's another new blog in town by Ian, an architect in the UK. Actually it's more of a web site than a blog. Well worth bookmarking!

Third, E-Specs has announced some improvements with their 3rd party application that links to both Revit and AutoCAD Architecture.

Fourth, there's a whole buncha other stuff that I've come across on other blogs and websites, but I just can't keep up with it all...

Attention WW1 History Buffs!

I was driving back to Dallas today after doing a presentation for the Tyler, TX AIA Chapter, and was listening to NPR on the radio. I heard about this guy, Bill Lamin, whose grandfather served with the British Army in WWI. He started a blog on which he's posting his grandfather's letters home from the front. Pretty interesting reading...

Bill Lamin's WWI Letters from the Front Blog

Rome Reborn

Check this out. The Institute for Advanced Technlogy in the Humanities at the University of Virginia has developed a digital 3D model of Rome as it existed ca. 211 AD.



A screen shot from the Rome Reborn Website showing the Roman Forum.

They had a full public release of images and flybys on June 11th, and are considering, at some point, to release the digital model itself.

If you're a history buff or architecture enthusiast, this is a must-see!

Rome Reborn Website

Once more into the breach - AU 2007

I just received word today that five of my classes got accepted for AU 2007:

All in the Family - Creating Parametric Parts in Autodesk Revit Architecture (1.5 Hour Class)

Schedule Anything in AutoCAD Architecture or AutoCAD MEP (3.5 Hour Tutorial)

Cross-Disclipline Coordination with the Revit Platform (1.5 Hour Class)

Revit Architecture for AutoCAD Architecture Geeks (1.5 Hour Class)

AutoCAD Architecture - Display Control for the Common Man (1.5 Hour Class)

Come on out and join the fun!

Keep your eye on AU 2007 developments (and register when they begin that process) here.

Beta Testers Wanted

John Janzen is looking for serious beta testers for his new CAD Standards Manager for AutoCAD Architecture 2008. If you're interested, visit his website at

www.cadmin.com

and sign up!

Ooops... Stop the Presses...

OK - I was a bit premature. The CAD Standards checker is still in testing. Stay tuned for further developments. I'm sure it will actually be released soon :0).

New ADT CAD Standards Manager

My friend, John Janzen of CadMin has released his updated version of the ADT CAD Standards Manager, for ACA 2008. Unlike the built-in version, this one does not require that you be using Project Navigator, and also manages regular AutoCAD Standards as well. In John's own words:

"I have added support for all AutoCAD based items (Dimensions, UCS, Views, Layouts, and others). The application will also manage custom dictionaries within a drawing."

You can get more info on this valuable add-on for AutoCAD Architecture at:

John Janzen's CadMin Website

Ahh.. yes... Buzz...

Doug's comment concerning Buzz and his architectural scale in reply to my last post begs for me to expand upon...

FYI - Doug is my current boss and was also my boss at the architectural firm where I was working at the time that I first started using AutoCAD back in 1986. Buzz was the other partner in that firm (his real name was "Gus", but everybody called him "Buzz"). He was an old school guy, and is now retired, I'm sure. Doug was the technology evangelist in the firm.

One day Buzz got a call from a client asking for the square footage of his office in the plans we were working on - he needed to get a price on some carpet. There apparently weren't any scale-able prints laying around when Buzz came back to the drafting room. I had been working on that particular client's plans at the time, and happened to have his office up on the screen, but had stepped away from my computer for a bit. Probably to go run some bluelines or something - anybody remember bluelines?

Ah... the ammonia buzz...

But I digress...

So, anyway, I came back from wherever I was only to find Buzz sitting in front of my computer with an architect's scale up against the screen!

"This room seems awful large." He said.

I reached over and ZOOMed out a significant amount, and asked "Is that better?"

"Yes, but it still looks out of scale somehow. Be sure and fix that, OK?"

Fortunately, we were able to get the client the ACTUAL area of his office despite the obvious limitations and shortcomings of our AutoCAD technology...