Breaking Down the Walls

End of the line (sort of)

2010-07-19T14:09:00.001-07:00

In case you haven't noticed... I haven't done much with this blog lately. That's been due to a lot of reasons. A) I was kinda busy for awhile. B) By the time I got around to posting something lately, someone else had beat me to it. Why just parrot what others have already pointed out or talked about? Finally C) We've been planning to start a blog at my place of business for awhile, and now we have.

So... I'm putting this one to rest. I may still post here from time to time, but it will be on completely off-topic stuff. So if you want to read about the high adventures of Boy Scout Troop 285 and other esoteric things (we're going on a 6 day sailing trip in a few days...BTW), then stay tuned.

But for more Revit, ACA and BIM stuff, follow me to our new D|C CADD Building Solutions Blog. You can also follow the RSS Feed HERE.

Sayonara!

The Mysterious Missing Tutorials

2010-03-02T17:16:00.000-08:00

I get this call all the time. Read on and see if it's happened to you...

You click the "Tutorials" item on the Help menu. The Revit Help window comes up with a link to go download the tutorials for free from the Autodesk web site. (See, Autodesk figured out that 99 percent of us don't do the tutorials - even though they're actually quite good for getting a newbie started - so they don't install them by default anymore). You click the link and download the appropriate tutorial and diligently follow the instructions as to where to install them.

Then you launch Revit and go to the tutorials again, only to find "Navigation cancelled". Huh???

Relax. It's just Microsoft looking out for your safety. Isn't that nice of them? (Sort of like the guy that decided that turning OFF file extensions by default is a good idea - is that doofus still employed???).

Here's how you fix it. Bring up Windows File Explorer and go to the folder that you put the CHM file that you downloaded in - most likely C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010\Program. Find the file "TutorialsArchitectureImpENU.chm" (or "TutorialsArchitectureMetENU.chm" if you downloaded the metric tutorials). Right click on the file, click "Properties", then click "Unblock" on the dialog shown in the figure below.

(Note: if you've downloaded tutorials in another language, the "ENU" part of the file name will be something else...).

That's it. Relaunch Revit afterwards and try the tutorials again...

Revit MEP - WTF Department...

2010-01-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I've never noticed this before, but I recently dealt with this for a Revit MEP customer.

He had a Revit Architecture model linked into his Revit MEP model, and any time he placed an air device or light fixture in his model, after moving it to the ceiling elevation, in the ceiling view he couldn't select it except with a window selection and he couldn't align it to the ceiling grid unless the flow arrows were turned on.

I verified the same behavior on a test file of my own. WTF??? As long as you're not in a view that shows the ceiling grid, you can do whatever you want with the device - but you need the grid visible to align it!!!

Here's the workaround - simple really - in the ceiling plan, simply set the Model Graphics Style to Wireframe and all will work normally.

But one has to wonder - WHY?

WTF???

Recent Interview with Phil Bernstein at AIA Convention

2009-08-31T14:41:00.000-07:00

ArchDaily's David Basulto cornered Autodesk's Phil Bernstein at the recent AIA Convention and interviewed him for about 15 minutes on a variety of topics centered around BIM and Revit, including implementation, adoption, future directions, etc. In it he also addresses a lot of attitudes and struggles I see in people who are sitting on the fence when it comes to implementing a BIM solution. Catch the interview below or you can visit the ArchDaily page to see this and other interviews with industry professionals.

AD Interviews: Phil Bernstein from ArchDaily on Vimeo.

It's official - Texas mandates BIM on all state projects

2009-08-14T10:10:00.001-07:00

But don't take it from me. Here's the official announcement and an accompanying video.

Take the BIM ROI Survey

2009-05-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

A "friend of a friend" is a student at USC involved in a research project on Building Information Modeling. She is conducting a survey on BIM's ROI. Info and the link is below - the survey ends on Friday, so don't delay - it should take about 10 minutes, and in return you will be sent a copy of the survey results:

--------------------------------------------------

As part of a research project at the University of Southern California on the quantifiable Return on Investment (ROI) for the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in AEC projects, the survey below has been prepared. The research team believes that an increase in the availability of fiscal information on BIM's ROI will be significant because it can guide the entire industry to more efficient and practical solutions. The results will be published in an academic report, which will also be distributed to the survey participants. Please note that any specific respondent information will be kept anonymous.

The survey takes about 10 minutes and can be completed by clicking on the link below. The last day you will be able to take the survey is May 8, 2009. Please feel free to forward the survey if someone else in your firm is responsible for this topic.

Thank you for your time and willingness to help with this research project.

Link to Survey

My College Buddy is Hitting the Big Time

2009-04-03T18:24:00.000-07:00

I got an email from a college buddy today - he's been living in Boston for the last 20 or so years, doing well with his own residential renovation business, playing music on the side. His band, Santa Mamba is going to be opening for Los Lobos in June. Gary plays percussion. Check out this video from You Tube:

From a critic:

"For over 10 years, Santa Mamba has been igniting venues all along the East Coast with their spicy blend of Latin Jazz, hip-shaking salsa, driving rock n' roll guitar, swaggering bass funk and smooth merengue beats. Their energy and musicianship guarantee an entranced audience and a packed dance floor, as the band's sizzling world rhythms and fiery passion continue to attract new fans and surprise old ones."

If you like the music, you can download their latest album on iTunes.

Before you freak out...

2009-04-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

Don't get all worked up over the ribbons in Revit when you see it. First, you can't turn them off, so you might as well deal with them. Second, I think if you'll give them a chance you'll see that a lot of thought was put into them. They "flow" very well. My first reaction to the ribbon when I saw it was predictable: "Oh, great. How do you turn them off?" And then after about an hour of working with them, I decided that I liked them better than the current Design Bar, Pull-down menu, toolbar combination.

Try it, you'll like it.

Ve haff vays of makink you cooperate. Und if you do not cooperate, punishment vill be svift und severe!

A New Blog in Town

2009-03-30T18:10:00.001-07:00

My good friend, Paul Aubin, has started a new blog - in which he promises to relate the process and experiences of writing a book. Having collaborated with him on a book a couple of years ago myself, I can tell you that it's nothing like what you might think. It's complex, time consuming, and ... fun...

Space Naming Utility for Revit MEP

2009-01-29T06:30:00.001-08:00

Some time back I posted an article with a tip for making the space tag reflect the actual room name from the underlying architectural model. Several people have commented (correctly) that this does not actually change the space name, which must still be done manually.

For subscription users (and if you're on the Revit platform, you REALLY should be on subscription) there is a new space naming utility available for download from your Autodesk Subscription website, as reported by Scott Brisk in his Revit MEP blog. This will automatically name the spaces according to the architectural room name.

There, better now? :-)

AU Kickoff

2008-12-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

The gang is pretty much all here and ready for day one of Autodesk University.

At the Speaker Social Monday night, from left to right:
Dave Butts of Advanced Solutions, Yours Truly, Lynn Allen and Paul Aubin

Paul Aubin and I enjoying a couple of ceegars and brandy later in the evening.

Autodesk White Paper on Revit Performance

2008-09-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

Download this critical white paper on Revit Platform Performance with tips on how to improve model performance and stability:

Download Revit_Platform_2009_Model_Performance_Technical_Note.pdf

Send in those error reports!!

2008-07-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

When you crash in AutoCAD / AutoCAD Architecture / AutoCAD MEP / Revit / (insert any other Autodesk product here), do you choose to send the report to Autodesk?

You should.

First and foremost - you might actually be surprised some day to receive a notification after submitting the report that there is actually a fix or solution for what caused your problem.

At the very least, submitting the report means that someone at Autodesk has to deal with it - sort of like "payback" for being at least indirectly responsible for you possibly losing some of your work :-).

Revit MEP 2009 - Coordinating Space Tags

2008-07-16T18:06:00.000-07:00

Revit MEP 2009 now allows you to create your own Space objects in the MEP model for use in heat and cooling load analysis, rather than having to rely on Rooms that are derived from the architectural model.

If you link an architectural model into your MEP model, you can use the Space tool to place MEP Spaces wherever the architect has placed rooms, giving you full and independent control over the upper limit offset and other analytical properties.

The problem is, the Space Tag that is added to the Space has no obvious relationship to the original architectural room name or number. The Space has it's own name and number! Rather than manually editing the Space properties to match the room name and number (and running the risk that either the room name or number could change in a subsequent reload of the architectural model), you can make a simple edit to the Space Tag family to keep the Space and Room in sync.

Select one of the space tags in your model and select the "Edit Family" button from the Options tool bar. (Don't worry if you've never edited families before and the thought of entering the Family Editor sends shivers of fright up and down your spine - this is EASY).

Once in the Family Editor, you might want to do a "Save As" to keep your new tag separate from the original. Then simply select the "Space Name" label and click on the "Edit Label" button on the Options bar. In the Edit Label dialog box, remove the "Name" label from the pane on the right and replace it with the "Room Name" value in the pane on the left. (Your dialog box should look like the figure below).

Repeat the steps above to replace the "Number" label with the "Room Number" property. Save the family and load it into your project. Select the space tags in your model and use the Type Selector to replace them with your new family.

Viola. Done. And... even better - since they're actually reflecting the room names and numbers of the linked architectural rooms, if the values change on a subsequent reload of the architectural model, the space tags in the MEP model will automatically update to reflect those changes.

Shaan Hurley Brings the Infamous Matt Murphy Clay Head!

2008-06-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

Last night was the San Antonio AutoCAD Users' Group meeting - the guest speaker was Shaan Hurley, Autodesk Technical Evangelist and Beta Programs Manager. Of course, he brought with him the infamous Matt Murphy Clay Head and I was honored to be able to include myself (finally) in that esteemed group of fellow geeks to have been photographed with it:

My picture with the Clay Head

You can view all of the locations and former "holders of the head" (including Jay Leno) at Shaan Hurley's Flickr site, and if you want to visit his blog on all things geeky and Autodesk, it's worth the time!

Shaan at last night's user group meeting

Autodesk University - Classes Announced

2008-06-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

Once more, I'll be teaching at Autodesk University in November. This year all of my classes are "repeats":

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

All in the Family: Creating Parametric Parts in Revit Architecture (90 Minute Class)

Revit Architecture for AutoCAD Architecture Geeks (90 Minute Class)

I may also be helping Paul Aubin out as a lab assistant for his 3.5 hour lab on Revit Families. Or maybe I'll just be a bouncer...

At any rate - I was trying for a bit lighter load this year and I was rewarded with exactly the number of classes that I was hoping for, which means that I might actually be able to attend a few myself for a change!

Rendering Examples from Revit Architecture 2009

2008-04-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

Just a little model I started playing with in Revit Architecture 2008 and imported into Revit Architecture 2009.

Here is the rendering output from Revit 2008:

Here is the same scene rendered in Revit 2009 (after updating some of the materials - note especially the difference in the water!).

I should have postprocessed this with the exposure controls in Revit 2009 to brighten it up a bit but I was lazy. Which was stupid, because it only takes a few seconds. Here's an example of an interior scene rendered with 2009 before adjusting the exposure contols (no radiosity solution needed, by the way - this is done with the new Mental Ray engine, which is a breeze to use).

And here is the same image after adjusting the exposure just a bit:

What's most impressive about all this is that I really don't have much of a clue as to what I'm doing in this new rendering engine yet. I played around with the new materials library and editor a bit, and pushed a couple of buttons in the new Render dialog and viola! It's a breeze!

Rendering Changes in Revit 2009

2008-03-06T14:13:00.000-08:00

The Revit 2009 products have a lot of nice enhancements in them - some of them seemingly minor, but with a huge impact, such as being able to dimension to a point or override dimension text. However one that will be noticed in a big way (and hopefully a positive one) is the new rendering engine and interface. When you move to the "Rendering" tab of the Design Bar you will now have two tools - "Modify" of course, and "Render View". Selecting this button will bring up the new Render dialog box, which has all of the settings for rendering in one place. Revit now uses the Mental Ray rendering engine, bringing it more fully into standardization with other Autodesk products, and in my opinion, providing for much more realistic and compelling images while at the same time simplifying the rendering process.

In addition to the revamped interface and rendering engine, the render properties editing and interface of material dialog has been revamped with an asset browser built in. There is a huge library of pre-configured material templates and types added.

New Features of AutoCAD Architecture 2009

2008-02-18T07:27:00.000-08:00

David Koch has listed some of the major new features of AutoCAD Architecure 2009. Go take a read at:

David Koch's AutoCAD Architecture New Features Overview in "The Arhitect's Desktop"

Automated Keynoting in Autodesk Revit

2008-02-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

I am frequently asked about the keynoting feature in Autodesk Revit; how to use it and how to set it up. It’s actually quite simple, and with a little bit of effort can reward you with a much-simplified annotation system, whether you actually use keynotes (reference or sheet) or simply want standardized “typical” text notes.

The following tutorial will attempt to walk through the process of using keynotes. Then we’ll take a look at how to customize them. This tutorial will use the standard keynotes file that ships with Revit Architecture (as well as Revit Structure and Revit MEP).

Associating the Keynotes File

Before you can use the keynoting feature in Revit, you must first associate your project with a keynotes file. You can do this in your template project if you want to use an office standard keynotes file, or you can use a separate file for each project.

To associate a keynotes file, go to Settings->Keynoting. The first item in the dialog is the path to your keynotes file. Note in the figure below that it is currently reflecting the default keynotes file, which should be located in your Imperial or Metric Library. This is a simple text file which can be edited or created from scratch, as we will see later.

Figure 1 – the Keynotes Settings dialog

Note the other settings in the keynotes file. Most importantly we will discuss the difference between the numbering methods “By sheet” and “By keynote” later.

Assigning Keynotes to Materials and Types
Once you’ve associated the keynotes file to your project or template you can begin to assign keynotes to material definitions and element types. Note in figure 2 and 3 that both the Material Definitions dialog (on the “Identity” tab) and the Type properties of any element have a field for a Keynote to be assigned.

Figure 2 – the Material Definitions dialog, with the “Identity” tab selected.

Figure 3 – the Type Properties dialog of a wall type.

Additionally, the Family Types dialog of a component family definition will allow the assignment of a keynote to any component or detail component family. Selecting the browse button in the Keynote field in any of these dialogs will take you to the associated keynote file, allowing you to select from any of your standard notes. Figure 4 shows the default Imperial keynote file, which is structured around the 16 division CSI format.

Figure 4 – The default Imperial keynotes file.

So, now you’ve associated a keynotes file to your project and you’ve assigned keynotes to your materials and type definitions. The hard part is done.

Using Keynotes

To use keynotes, go to the drafting panel and select the “Keynote” tool. You have three options:
Element: Pick an element and the keynote assigned to the type definition will be used.
Material: Pick an element that has materials assigned to its components and the keynote assigned to the material definition will be used.
User: Pick any element. Whether or not it already has a keynote assigned to it you will be taken to the keynotes file to select any other keynote that you prefer to use.

If you select an element or material that has no keynote assigned to it yet, you’ll also be sent to the keynotes file to select a note. Once selected, that keynote will then be assigned to the element or material that you selected for future picks. If you accidentally select the wrong keynote during this process, you need to edit the type (or material definition) properties and change the keynote assignment there.

Referring back to the keynotes settings dialog box shown in Figure 1 again, note that you can choose to use “By sheet ” or “By keynote” when you place keynotes. The difference between these is simple but significant. “By sheet” refers to a system where each keynote is assigned a number that is unique on a particular sheet, however the same keynote could be a different number on a different sheet. Typically the numbers will simply be “1”, “2”, etc. “By keynote” is a system where the actual keynote number specified in the keynotes file will be used, and will be consistent for a given keynote across all sheets. The terms “By sheet” and “By keynote” refer to the US National CAD Standard “Sheet Keynotes” and “Reference Keynotes”, respectively. Figure 5 shows a detail annotated with the “By keynote” (reference keynotes) option. Figure 6 shows the same detail annotated with the “By sheet” (sheet keynotes) option.

Figure 5 – A detail annotated with the “By keynote” option.

Figure 6 – A detail annotated with the “By sheet” option.

Note that with the sheet keynotes, the actual keynote number is not assigned; instead there is a simple “?” placeholder. The number will be assigned when the detail is actually placed on a sheet. You can actually switch an entire project’s details from the reference keynotes option to the sheet keynotes option by simply switching the choice in the Keynotes Settings dialog. All existing keynotes in your project will update immediately to the new system.

Keynotes are essentially nothing more than tags. You can choose to use a tag definition that displays the keynote number, or you can choose to use one that displays the keynote text itself. Therefore, even if you don’t use keynoting as an annotation method, you can still use this feature in Revit to standardize and automate your text annotation.

Creating Keynote Legends

Keynote legends are nothing more than a schedule view. To create them, however, you need to go to the View pull down menu and select New->Keynote Legend; you won’t find the option on the View design bar. Once the legend is created, you’ll see it listed in the Project Browser with the rest of your schedules.
Viewing the properties of the legend, you’ll see, in fact, that it has the same structure as any other Revit schedule with one critical exception. On the “Filter” tab there will be an option at the bottom to allow you to filter keynotes by sheet, as in figure 7.

Figure 7 – filtering keynotes by sheet.

Turning this option on will allow you to have all of your keynotes in one keynote legend. However you can use the legend on multiple sheets. For each sheet that you place it on, only those keynotes that appear on the sheet will be shown in the legend. If you are using sheet keynotes, the keynote number will be blank in the legend view, since each one can vary from sheet to sheet, but when the legend is placed on the various sheets the numbers for those sheets will be assigned.

That’s it. That’s all there is to working with keynotes. The critical thing to make it move fluidly and quickly is to take the time to assign keynotes to all of your component family types and system family types, as well as your material definitions. This means that you will probably also need to either edit the default keynotes text file or create a new one. Read on…

Customizing a Keynote File

Although keynote files are nothing more than simple text (.txt) files, the best tool to use to create or edit them is actually a spreadsheet editor such as Microsoft Excel. The formatting is a little ugly in the raw text form, but much more readable in spreadsheet form. When you open the file in Excel (we’ll use the default Imperial keynotes file as an example), make sure to set the file type in the File Open dialog to “all” so that you can see .txt files. After selecting the file, choose the “Delimited” option in the Text Import Wizard, and select “Next”. In the next screen, select “Tab” as the delimiter; you should see a preview of the file in the same dialog box.

Once the file is opened in Excel, you should notice that there are three columns. The first column is the actual keynote number for each note (or the section header for a group of keynotes). The second column is the keynote itself or the header text. The third column is a reference section – it is the section number that the keynote in that row falls under. This is how the keynote file can appear to “cascade” in the keynote dialog box. Looking at figure 8, let’s examine this a bit closer.

Figure 8 – a partial view of the default Imperial keynote text file

Notice the entry for “01530.A1”. The keynote text for that entry will be “Temporary Dustproof Partition”. It will fall under the section 1500 – “Temporary Facilities and Controls” – note the reference to section 1500 in the far right column for the keynote. Section 1500 will, in turn, fall underneath Section 1000, “Division 01 – General Requirements”, because it’s far right column includes a reference to that section. Rows that do not include a reference in the far right column will be considered top-level headers.

It’s that simple. After editing the file, make sure you save it back to .txt format, not .xls, and you’re ready to go!

That’s all there is to Revit keynoting – create/modify your keynote file, associate it to your project or template, assign keynotes to your type and material definitions, and start annotating!

Achtung! Presenters and Instructors

2008-02-08T07:25:00.000-08:00

Do you use your computer to do on-screen presentations? If so, you might want to check out a handy little free utility that a co-worker turned me on to earlier this week, called "ZoomIt". It runs resident in your system tray and allows you to ZOOM to a specific area of your Windows screen, and also to mark up and draw, using CTRL keys. Hitting ESCAPE when done restores your original screen and removes any markups. WAY more effective than a laser pointer, and if you're like me, safer for your students as well!

Check it out: ZoomIt Donwload Page

Revit Y2K8 Bug Fixed

2008-01-08T19:22:00.000-08:00

As reported elsewhere (multiple blogs and other locations), there has been a nasty little issue with Revit (all platforms) when exporting views, saving groups, etc., causing a fatal error and various error messages, due to a funky and bizarre "Y2K8" bug. The only workaround has been to reset your system clock to a date prior to 1/1/2008.

Autodesk has released new builds for all three Revit products to address this issue. This is one update you want to download and install:

Revit Architecture Y2K8 bug fix build
Revit MEP Y2K8 bug fix build
Revit Structure Y2K8 bug fix build

Review Warnings - Me Too!

2007-12-27T18:23:00.000-08:00

I've heard others and seen other blog posts referring to "Review Warnings" in Revit and how important it is.

I am officially jumping on the bandwagon.

REVIEW WARNINGS!!! This is a huge factor in file size and performance, especially if you're using worksets. If you're noticing performance degradations opening and closing the central file across the network, this may be the culprit.

Have you ever gotten one of those alerts in Revit that tell you that you just screwed up but give you the opportunity to just hit "OK" and keep going? Of course, in that case, that's probably what you did, right? After all, it's the easiest way out, and usually there's no obvious problem with the model after that. Just one of those Revit quirks,right?

WRONG, Grasshoppah. Go to the Tools pull-down menu. If the "Review Warnings" item near the bottom is not greyed out, then you've got problems. Possibly big problems. (In this case, having something greyed out on a menu is actually a good thing - it means that there are no unresolved issues in the model that Revit can see).

If Review Warnings is not greyed out, select it and note how many unresolved errors there are. I've seen as many as 400 or more in a single file. Each one of them is a potentially serious problem in your model somewhere that needs to be resolved. At the very least, it's increasing your file size. At worst, it's increasing the chance that your model is becoming corrupt.

Resolving the issues sometimes takes a little detective work, but it's usually not that difficult. First, select a warning and click "Show". Revit will attempt to take you to a view that shows the offending elements and highlight them for you. Sometimes this doesn't give you any clues, though. Next step, expand the warning and select one of the elements involved that will be listed. Again, click "Show". If this doesn't produce any answers, then you can use the "Select by ID" tool. First, note the element IDs of the elements involved in the warning. Then go to Tools and use the "Select by ID" tool to go to the object and actually select it. This usually pays off with some sort of clue. Worst case, delete the sucker and see what happens.

Whatever you wind up doing to resolve the error - be it deleting offending elements (for example, duplicate coincident walls) or moving something that may be out of position and causing problems with something else, as soon as the error condition has been dealt with, the warning will be removed from the Review Warnings dialog.

Once you get used to this, you'll find that a) you're hitting "OK" a lot less often, and dealing with the error right up front and b) you're reviewing warnings daily, if not several times a day. The effort will pay off in spades in file size, performance and stability.

But don't take my word for it - see what others are saying:

Steve Stafford in Revit OpEd
JB Zallan in Fear and Loathing in a CAD vs. BIM World
Aaron Maller in Malleristic Revitation

Modeling a Built-Up Roof in Revit Architecture 2008

2007-07-26T16:47:00.001-07:00

OK. I'm offishully an idiot. A bigger idiot, even, than George Castanza.

Some time back I listed my top three favorite features of Revit Architecture 2008 and they did not include the new slab modification tools. I figured what the heck good were they if you couldn't edit one side of the slab independently of the other?

So... if you're not as big an idiot as I am, read no further (and after that last statement, you'll know if you're as big an idiot as me). If you ARE an idiot like me, keep reading.

Turns out I was wrong - OH, so wrong. The worst part of it is, it's plainly stated in the New Features Workshop: "Slabs also have an additional parameter to create material layers with Variable thickness. When this is active, the non-variable will remain the same thickness throughout the slab while the variable layer will adjust accordingly based on the slope."

DOH! It's so blazingly simple! Try this (note: I'm assuming that you are using the default Revit template or a derivative thereof):

Create a roof by footprint. Using the line tool, draw a rectangular shape and make it a flat roof. Set the roof properties to use the type "Steel Truss - Insulation on Metal Deck - EPDM".

Edit the roof type properties and select the "Edit" button next to "Structure". For the 2nd row down (the "Insulation/Thermal Barriers - Rigid Insulation" material), place a check mark in the "Variable" column as in the image below.

Select "OK" to exit all dialogs.

That's the key.

Now select the roof and use the "Draw Points" tool in the options bar (shown below), to create a single point in the middle of the roof. Set the elevation to a value like -3".

That's it. You're done. Cut a section through the roof and take a look. Only the insulation material should be modified.

How easy is that? Do you feel as stoopid as I do? Good. Come join the rest of us. We meet every Wednesday at 7 PM. Bring a covered dish (with food, stoopid!).

I'm Off for New Mexico!

2007-07-12T22:17:00.000-07:00

I'm heading for Boy Scout Camp Wehinahpey (sp?), near Cloudcroft New Mexico, this week. My very good friend and fellow Scout Leader, Bo Jackson, and I are taking our boys and seven other stalwart young Scouts from our troop to summer camp in the southern Rocky Mountains.

Originally I was supposed to do a backpacking trip in the Bob Marshall Wilderness (Montana Bear Country) with the older boys this summer, but due to circumstances beyond my control (long story)... not gonna happen this year. I did, however, get my hair buzzed in empathy with my friends who are leaving for that trek tomorrow...

The Bob will still be there in a few years when I'll have the opportunity to do it again. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to a week in New Mexico :-). No phones, no TV, no internet.

I may not come back, actually...

(You know the really sad thing? These kids haven't even clued in to the fact that their leaders are named "Bo Jackson" and "Matt Dillon". *sigh* I hate getting old...)

Computer Ergonomics? BAH! Try Ceiling Fans!

2007-07-01T20:06:00.000-07:00

I recently complained about computer ergonometric design. Hah! I forgot about home improvement!

I had to install a ceiling fan in my kid's room today. This was a replacement fan - the supports were already there, wiring, etc. Should have been a piece of cake, right?

HAH!!! Why, oh WHY, can't there be any standards in home construction? Why does every frikkin' house have to be different in the way that fixtures are installed? I've done lots of ceiling fans, and I always run into something, but today was an exercise in Murphy's Law. Suffice to say, I will never, EVER, buy another "Harbor View" ceiling fan as long as I live.

I don't know who they have designing these things, but they're either sadists or idiots, or possibly... (it just ocurred to me...) Al Qaeda operatives. What should have been a simple one hour job turned into a six hour "creative engineering" exercise to get the stupid thing to actually mount so that it wouldn't fall down or look like ca-ca (which would have happened had I actually used their lame instructions and parts).

The only person stupider than the invertebrate that designed this POS is me, for thinking that I could actually get a quality product with reasonable installation instructions and parts without paying for something like a Hunter...

Images from a Revit Project

2007-06-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2007-06-27T16:27:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-06-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-12T15:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-07T17:34:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-06-06T20:20:00.001-07:00

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

2007-06-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-06-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

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...

A Caveman Reflects on Technology

2007-05-31T20:52:00.000-07:00

I was contemplating the recent purchase of Navisworks by Autodesk this evening and it got me to thinking.

I first saw Naviswork when I was in London with Paul Aubin working on a project for Autodesk back in April of 2002. Paul and I were sitting in a briefing by one of Autodesk's UK customers. They were showing us how they had been doing Building Information Modeling to help manage the Heathrow Airport International Terminal project - a huge undertaking that they had begun in AutoCAD R12. That's right - Building Information Modeling in AutoCAD R12. Paul and I were both suffering from some severe jet lag. I remember that during the presentation (a good portion of which involved having the lights out) I was having a hard time staying awake. Not out of disinterest, mind you. My mind was VERY interested in what was being presented. But my body thought it was 2 AM.

At any rate, I remember coming wide awake when they showed us how they used Navisworks to pull all of their disparate and widely disperse "BIM" applications together to form a cohesive view of their 3D model database. Keep in mind, the term "BIM" really hadn't been coined yet (I don't think), but they were already doing it. When they showed us a view of a 3D AutoCAD model of the terminal - to a level of detail that actually showed valve handles on piping infrastructure, combined with ACIS solid models from a non-Autodesk application of complex structural components and equipment, all linked to a non-graphical database with manufacturer's info, maintenance records, etc., it caught my attention, to say the least.

So... here we are, five years later, and Navisworks is now a part of the Autodesk stable. Who knows what this will lead to in the near and longer term future?

When I first started using AutoCAD, it was a 2D tool. This was during the time when dinosaurs ruled the earth. A 30 MB hard disk was considered cutting edge and my computer had *gasp* a whole megabyte of RAM. That's MEGA - as in 1024 bytes! We didn't have a fax at the time. Who needed that? Wasn't mail fast enough? (I'm talking real manly-man's mail - the kind you put in an envelope and stick in a mailbox). The internet? Al Gore hadn't invented it yet.

Four or five years later, I was using AutoCAD R10, the first "fully" 3D version of AutoCAD. No. Really - it was... I mean, we had viewports, 3D faces and a UCS! I got a phone call one day from Cadence Magazine asking me if I had done any building models in 3D. I actually had done one; It had taken me weeks to model a small project that we had done out of 3D faces. Not only that, I had actually rendered it in AutoShade! For you young pups, that was the state of the art for rendering back then. We could actually generate 16 color, 320x240 resolution images of our 3D models - what would they ever think of next? I remember the reaction on the other end of the line when I answered the caller with a "Yes, I've done a 3D model". Silence - for at least 10 seconds. Seems that after several calls to various architectural offices, I was the only person they had talked to who had actually modeled and rendered a building! I agreed to send them my rendered image and it was published in Cadence as an illustration for their article - this was in 1990, I think.

I was so proud.

Holy cow, what a primitive, kludgy looking image that was.

Did I mention that shade and shadow weren't part of the capabilities of AutoShade? And materials? Puleeeze... (Of course, you have to bear in mind that the state of the art in word processing was WordStar 2000 - and yes, I used to know what all the function keys did in WordStar.)

I think it was about 6 years or so later when I actually got connected to the internet at work and had an email address.

Now, here we are, 21 years after I turned on my first computer ("The red button? I'm not pushing the red button. YOU push the red button!"). Email is taken for granted. If it's not on the internet, it doesn't exist. I can get email, browse the internet or talk to my wife and kids on my cell phone while I'm sitting in an airport. In fact, I once booked an alternative flight after my original flight got cancelled using my cell phone's internet connection, while my fellow travelers were fighting for a place in the standby line. Now we're routinely modeling buildings in AutoCAD Architecture and Revit Architecture, and we take the geometry for granted. I mean, doesn't EVERYBODY model in 3D now? Now we're more interested in the data that's embedded in the model - you know - that non-graphic stuff that we never even considered 20 years ago when it was just electronic drafting. We post models to Buzzsaw and FTP sites to share our data, and we complain because it's really not that easy to collaborate live, in real time, yet, with someone on the other side of the planet.

I used to send a letter to someone and was pleasantly surprised if I got a reply within a week. Now I send an email, and I'm miffed if I don't hear back in a few hours. Email not fast enough? I'll use instant messaging, then! I can't remember the last time I actually put a stamp on an envelope and stuck a letter in a mailbox. How quaint.

So... here we are. Autodesk has purchased Navisworks - I wonder what things will look like for the building industry this time next year?

Now, where'd I put my Geritol...

Autodesk Purchases Navisworks!

2007-05-31T18:04:00.000-07:00

This is HUGE. If you aren't familiar with Navisworks - you can get more info on Shaan Hurley's web site:

Between the Lines

There are some major ramifications for not only the Building Industry in general, but also for collaboration and integration of non-building-related disciplines, such as manufacturing. Imagine downloading a manufacturer's Inventor model of a piece of equipment and being able to view it in context with the 3D model of your building, even though it's a completely different file format, for example (and that's just for starters).

Computer Ergonomics 101

2007-05-15T19:59:00.000-07:00

OK - this has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time, so now I'm gonna vent. WHY do they have to put every critical connection on the BACK of the computer - especially "desktops" (which are always UNDER the desk)? And if they're going to do that, why do they make every critical component cord (monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc.) too short to reach behind and underneath your desk?!!!

It's a conspiracy, I tell ya! (Between who and for what I don't know, but I'm on the case!)

Bastids...

I think I threw my shoulder out changing out my wife's mouse tonight.

I hate Compaq...

GO SPURS GO (Minus "Cheap Shot Bob" - what a stupid, no-class move...)

Building Performance Analysis White Paper

2007-05-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

A new white paper concerning some critical concepts and procedures for generating a valid building performance analysis (BPE) in Revit MEP 2008 has been posted to the Autodesk web site. You can download it here:

BPE Analysis White Paper

I strongly recommend that if you are an MEP engineer considering or using Revit MEP or if you are an architect who works with one who is, that you download and read it - it's a quick read, but full of good information!

Cool Stuff from China

2007-05-10T17:42:00.000-07:00

If you haven't checked out Nicolas Mangon's and Wai Chu's blog "BIM and BEAM" yet, you should do so.

For starters, take a look at their recent article from China and the awesome photos of the "Twisted Donut" under construction.

http://bimandbeam.typepad.com/bim_beam/2007/05/amazing_structu.html

How do they DO that? (Make it stand up, not take the pictures...)

AIA Convention 2007 - There Still Seems to be Some Confusion...

2007-05-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of helping out in the Autodesk booth at the AIA convention here in San Antonio this week. I was tasked with showing some of the productivity features of AutoCAD Architecture (formerly ADT), as well as serving as a teaching assistant in the booth's learning lab for a Revit Architecture session and an Autodesk Impression session.

I enjoyed seeing a lot of old friends, including people I went to Architectural School 'lo those many years ago, as well as some of my customers and others that I've met at AU's, on-line, etc.

I was a bit surprised, however, to find that many, if not most of those that visited the booth were still a bit confused as to what the position of ACA (AutoCAD Architecture) was with respect to Revit Architecture. Is ACA going away? Are ACA and Revit going to become the same product? The answer to both questions is an emphatic "NO".

The follow-up question to that (paraphrased here, as it took many literal forms from those that I talked to) was "So, which one should we be using?"

It's not a simple answer - and certainly not one I can answer in a blog post, however I can shed some light on the fundamental differences between the two products.

Revit and AutoCAD are two completely different platforms. Different code-bases and different workflows. The Revit platform (currently consisting of Revit Architecture, Revit MEP and Revit Structure) are geared for Building Information Modeling. They are not CAD programs. They're building modelers and analysis tools, where the data about the building components is equally important as the graphical representations. AutoCAD is a CAD platform, and currently offers AutoCAD Architecture (formerly ADT) and AutoCAD MEP (formerly ABS) as CAD productivity tools for the building industry.

If you are needing to move to Building Information Modeling, then you should be looking at Revit. However, don't just buy it and throw it on your computers, send your staff to a 3 day class and expect to be up and running. Revit will change the way your office works in a fundamental way. Because Building Information Modeling is such a different workflow it will impact everything from staffing to project resource allocation and billing. You need to plan your implementation and you will need help, either from your reseller if they have the resources and expertise, an outside consultant, or from Autodesk. The help is there - it's not free, but it's vital to be successful and profitable with your transition - plan for it, budget for it, and use it!

If you have no need in the near future to move to BIM and you simply need to stay with a CAD product (either for 2D or 3D production - ACA will handle both), then use AutoCAD Architecture. If you're currently using it like AutoCAD, then stop wasting your investment and target 3 to 5 features in the software to get near immediate productivity gains, then go from there. If you need a quick, easy feature to target, consider the Detail Component Manager. Talk about low-hanging fruit! We're talking blocks, polylines, lines, etc. - standard AutoCAD objects - however they're linked to a database that allows you to quickly and effortlessly compose a 2D detail, then annotate it automatically with the keynote database (even if you're not using keynotes, you can use the database for standardized, automated annotation - just turn off the keynote display). As an instructor, I will tell you that I can train someone to be comfortable and productive with the Detail Component Manager in 30 minutes or less. I can train someone to customize it in a half day. It's not rocket science and requires absolutely no programming ability at all.

So... hopefully this helps clear up the confusion a bit. Autodesk is giving you a choice. Figure out which way you need to go and make it work!

To those of you that were at the AIA convention this year and were in San Antonio for the first time, I hope you enjoyed our fair city, and even more, I hope you sunk some tourist dollars into our economy! :-)

GO SPURS GO!!!

My Top Three Features in Revit Architecture 2008

2007-04-27T17:05:00.000-07:00

Last week at the annual Autodesk "Tech Camp" for reseller Application Engineers, an Autodesker and I were talking about the new Revit 2008 release and he made a comment that while it wasn't a really "sexy" release, it was still huge in many ways. I disagree - I think it is a really "sexy" release! Lots of good new stuff - and some major pain points addressed - but here are my top three - look for some tutorials on these in the near future:

1) Groups - They finally WORK! It's hard to describe just how much better these things are, but once you start working with them, if you've ever dealt with the shortcomings of Revit groups in the past, you will be amazed at the leaps that they've made in this release. I doubt you'll be ungrouping much anymore...

You can now "exclude" items from an individual group instance without affecting other group instances - so when you have conflicting elements (overlapping walls between two groups, for example), you can exclude one of them to resolve the situation.

You can also "Move" objects from a group instance to your project - what actually happens is the object gets excluded from the instance and a copy is placed in your project that allows you to edit it seperately from the group.

When you edit a group, you have full access to all design palettes so you can create objects during the group-edit process and they are automatically part of the group.

No more RVG files - save a group to a file and it's an RVT project. Link it back in to your project and bind it (another improvement in Revit - file linking enhancements), and it will over-write the previous group definition. This means you can have repetitive elements stored in external files - edit the external file, link them and bind them to make massive updates to your model quickly and painlessly.

2) Dependent Views and Matchlines - You can now duplicate a view into multiple dependent views (view properties are linked). You can then crop those multiple dependent views separately and place them on separate sheets. If you rotate one of the views, annotation keeps it's proper horizontal justification. Matchlines can be placed that are "intelligent" across multiple dependent views. This addresses an issue that I've run across in virtually every firm I've worked with. No more sloppy workarounds with multiple duplicated views that have to be managed separately.

3) Graphic display improvements - you can now hide elements and categories permanently - a new "Show hidden elements" mode allows you to see the hidden elements and un-hide them if necessary. A simple, but very much needed improvement.

Stay tuned for more details on these, and more enhancements to the Revit platform...

My Top Three New Features of AutoCAD Architecture 2008

2007-04-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

I've not posted any new features of any of the latest Autodesk products, partly because others have pretty much covered all that ground and partly because I've just been too busy...witness the lack of posts to this blog up until a week or two ago...

Additionally, it may seem that I've been ignoring Autodesk Architecture (what used to be Architectural Desktop) in favor of Revit. Not so. While it is true that my customers have been demanding more services on the Revit side, I have not abandoned AA (what the heck acronym do we use for this thing, anyway - it's an Autodesk product - it HAS to have an acronym!!!).

While there are several improvements in the new AutoCAD Architecture, I'm going to list my three top features:

1) Display Control: Last year (or was the the year before?) at AU, Chris Yanchar, Director of Product Design for (then) ADT told me that his goal was for me to never ever teach my long-running "Complete Display Control in Autodesk Architectural Desktop" class again. They've been working on making the display control interface easier to navigate and manipulate, and with AA 2008 they have succeeded! You now have one-stop shopping for all display control needs. Using the new Display tab on the properties manager, you can quickly and easily manage all level's of an object's display properties. For complex objects, you can directly select nested components for editing as well. In the image below, for example, I have selected the hatch component of a brick wall with the tool indicated. The display properties are exposed to me for editing in the Display panel of the Properties editor. This allows for direct editing without complicated dialog boxes, and with immediate graphical feedback.

Additionally, if you're about to do something that could be potentially dangerous, you get an alert notifying you of what you're about to do. In the example shown, the hatch pattern is controlled by the material assigned to the component selected. If I select the hatch pattern color (or any other property), I'm presented with the following warning.

This, in my opinion, is a huge improvement in and of itself - notifying a user who may not be completely familiar with the intricacies of the display system that he or she may want to pause and consider their actions before proceeding.

Bad news, though, Chris... I think my class will still be necessary - albeit with major modifications. While the display system is now much, MUCH easier to edit and manipulate, the underlying concepts and functionality are unchanged. Ease of use and streamlined interface are a welcome enhancement to, but not a substitute for knowledge of the concepts involved.

The good news though, is that with this enhancement, my Display Control class can easily be accommodated by a 90 minute lecture, not the 3.5 hour tutorial I've been lobbying for the last few years.

2) Annotation Scale: While you might argue that this is an AutoCAD enhancement, it still applies to AA 2008 - all annotation objects, including schedule tags, support the annotation scale feature of AutoCAD 2008. This means that you no longer have to create multiple view blocks in a M/V block schedule tag, for example, to handle multiple scales - simply make the text that makes up the single view block "Annotative".

3) Match Sheet Layers to View: This has been a huge wish-list item for users of Project Navigator. Now with a single setting in the Project Properties dialog you can make the layers in your sheet drawing update automatically with the settings you modify in the associated view drawings. No more chasing your tail! This one is easy - if you use Project Navigator, just make the setting indicated below and try it out for yourself!

Again, there are a lot of other improvements (some nice one for spaces, for example), but these are the top three, off the top of my head. If you'd like more detailed posts about any of these or any other new features, post a comment to this article. If there's enough demand, I'll see what I can do to accommodate!

No Man is an Island

2007-04-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

If you are considering moving to BIM, then you need to consider the bigger picture - outside of your office and outside of your discipline. If you're reaping the benefits of model-based design by pulling your elevations and sections from the model, that's great, but it's really not BIM. If you're getting automatic schedules and even take-offs that might be considered BIM, in a lightweight kind of way, but there is so much more that is possible.

Don't get me wrong - all of those things are great, but if you're TRULY looking for the holy grail, you have to remember that the "B" in BIM stands for "Building", which implies that there are a whole lot of other people involved besides you, with different informational inputs and outputs, all contributing to and accessing the building model.

The Revit platform is beginning to allow us to more easily collaborate between disciplines with a fully functional and transferrable model, allowing for all data and geometry to move freely between the various teams working on the project, even though they may have completely different uses for and ways of dealing with the model.

Revit Structure and Revit Systems add the Structural and MEP disciplines to the already mature Architectural product. While this brings us new capabilities and ways of collaborating, it also brings with it new responsibilities.

Communication is key. At a very basic level, all players need to be using the same version of Revit. If the architect is using Revit Architecture 2008 and the MEP engineer is using Revit Systems 2 (based on Revit 9.1), then the model will not be usable by the engineer. Revit products introduce a file format change with each and every release. You MUST communicate with your consultants and collaborators before upgrading your project to the new version. Hopefully all players are on subscription so that there will be little if any lag between the time the Architect is ready to upgrade and when his consultants will be ready as well. The good news is that the releases of Revit Architecture, Revit Structure and Revit MEP are nearly simultaneous - within days of each other.

You also need to be in agreement on how you will share the data. Will you provide files to link via FTP site? How often will the model be updated? What will be the protocol for dealing with conflicts? The list goes on, but my point is that you have to communicate, constantly and openly with the other disciplines and players involved.

You also have to be more aware of how those other players will use the data that you put in the model. If you're working with an MEP engineer who is using Revit MEP, you need to know not only that they can use your room information in their analysis, but also how you can easily streamline the process and ensure greater accuracy by taking a few simple steps. Revit MEP 2008 includes hooks to IES Virtual Environment, which can be used by the engineer to run extensive heat load and lighting analyses on the Revit model by exporting the data. Additionally, some of the basic functionality from IES is included within Revit MEP 2008, allowing for preliminary heat load calculations to be done in minutes, right inside of Revit MEP, with no additional software required. You can quickly explore the effects of building orientation, building materials, glazing, etc. to arrive at an efficient and sustainable design very, VERY early in the process.

However if you, the architect, don't prepare your model properly beforehand, you put the burden to do that on the engineer, increasing the time it takes to get those analytical results and worse, introducing more opportunity for erroneous results.

Here's a scenario: You create room definitions in Revit Architecture. As the architect, you may not really care about the 3D volume information of the room. You're just wanting them documented for area calculations, room finish schedules, color fills, etc. So you don't even pay attention to the Limit Offset property of the room (go ahead, pick a room and check out it's properties - did you ever notice that before, and if so, did you ever wonder what it was for)? The Limit Offset is the vertical limit to which room volumes are calculated if volume calculations are turned on in the Room and Area settings. Here's the key - the Limit Offset is NOT the height of the space - it is the limit of where the calculations can occur. In Revit Architecture 2008, floor slabs, ceilings and roofs can now be (and are by default) room-bounding objects. This means that when the engineer runs his analysis, the room volume will be calculated based on the walls, columns and curtainwall room bounding objects, as well as roofs, ceilings and slabs. If you have a model that you migrated from an earlier version of Revit Building, however, those slab, roof and ceiling objects are, by default NOT room bounding. And if you leave your Limit Offset set to a value that is below your ceiling, roof or slab, it doesn't matter anyway! It's a simple matter to select all rooms, set their Limit Offsets to a value that will accommodate all horizontal bounding objects and select any "legacy" slabs, roofs and ceilings and toggle the room bounding property on. But you need to remember to do this. Yes, the engineer can do it, but what if they don't? What if they just assume that you, the architect, did that, because after all - it's YOUR model that they're getting the information from? (Hmmm... who would bear the liability for any errors due to an oversight like that? I honestly don't know - but that's a topic for a whole 'nuther post...).

The above is just one example of how simple communication and just a bit of understanding about cross-discipline collaboration needs can go a long way to streamline and improve the Building INFORMATION Model. I haven't even touched on interference detection between architectural, structural and mechanical systems, or how you can collaborate with users of AutoCAD-based products (like your Civil Engineer, for example). My intent here was to merely provide some food for thought.

I am hoping to present a 90 minute session on cross-discipline collaboration and coordination in Revit at Autodesk University this year - stay tuned for developments!

Through the Looking Glass in Autodesk Revit - Mirroring a Project

2007-04-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever tried to do a normal AutoCAD thing like "Move" or "Rotate" or "Mirror" to an entire Revit project?

If you haven't, don't. Revit won't like it, and you will like the results even less.

Stop and think. This is not CAD - this is a Building Model - there are relationships here - this isn't just a bunch of lines and stuff. This is a bunch of objects that are "connected" to each other in all kinds of ways - just like they are in the real world. You don't just pick up a building and flip it around or rotate it or move it... (Yeah, I know - I've seen buildings moved from one place to another, but it costs a LOT of money and it doesn't always work so well - I stand by my observation).

If you want to move or rotate a building in Revit, you need to use the items on the Tools pull down menu for rotating a project or specifying coordinates at a point. Those aren't the topics of this post, but if you're not sure what they do, look them up in the Help utility and try them out.

What those tools don't address is mirroring a project. Until I ran across a post on the Autodesk Revit newsgroup, I didn't think it was really feasible to do such a thing. However I saw a trick described there recently that looked interesting, so I tried it myself on a simple project and it worked. Then today I had a customer with the need to mirror a building project and I had her try it out as well (after backing up her local and central files, of course), and by all reports it worked quite nicely.

Here's how to give yourself the Mirror Project Tool:

DISCLAIMERS:
1) To my knowledge this has not been fully tested by Autodesk, and is probably not supported. Back up all data before attempting this.
2) I have only gotten this to work in Revit Building 9.1. I have NOT been able to get it to have any effect in Revit Architecture 2008 (although I could be doing something wrong...)

CREDITS: This was posted originally by Leonid Raiz on the Autodesk Revit discussion forum - he deserves credit for it. I just took what he said to do and tried it out, and am passing it on.

1) Close Autodesk Revit Building.
2) Edit the Revit.ini file, which will be found in the \Program folder where you installed Revit. Add the following lines to the file:
[TRANSFORM]
AllowMirrorRotateProject=1
3) Save the Revit.ini file and launch Revit Building. Go to the Tools pull-down menu and select "Project Position/Orientation". You should see two new tools: "Mirror Project" and "Rotate Project North".

AIA Convention - May 3-5 - San Antonio, Texas

2007-04-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

If you're going to be at the AIA convention this year, stop by the Autodesk booth and say "Howdy". I'll be there most if not all of the conference, helping to man the booth, since I live right here in San Antonio. I may try to sneak out a bit early on Saturday - my kids' Scout Troop is going camping that weekend...

Unmoderated Comments Found!!!

2007-04-20T13:11:00.000-07:00

For some reason, after finally updating my Google account, there were a bunch of unmoderated comments to past posts sitting there unattended, some dating as far back as July of last year! It must have something to do with the fact that I have had text recognition and post monitoring turned on due to spammers. I'm still leaving post moderation on, because the rat-bastids are still trying to get through.

For what it's worth, I've published all valid comments to my posts (positive or negative) and rejected all spam.

I only have two additional comments on the matter:

1) My sincerest apologies to anyone who was inconvenienced (sorry, Melanie - don't beat me next time you see me), and hopefully it won't happen again.

2) All spammers must die a slow and painful death!

Troop 285's Big Bend Adventure 2007

2007-04-04T18:44:00.000-07:00

My kids' Boy Scout troop specializes in High Adventure trips. From hiking the Swiss Alps and the Chilkoot Trail to whitewater rafting in Northern Canada, there is always at least one gonzo trip for kids to partake in during the summer months, with the rest of the year taken up with more traditional "static" camps and weekend backpacking trips.

High Adventure is usually reserved for scouts 14 and over though, and they have to be at least 1st Class rank, which means they've learned their basic scouting skills - first aid, pioneering, orienteering, etc., and they're no strangers to strapping on a pack and walking to their campsite.

My own older son went to Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico (the "mecca" for any Boy Scout into backpacking trips) on an 11 day trek when he was 14. This summer he'll be 16 and he and I are planning to go with the Troop on a 10 day trek through the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Northwest Montana - the heart of "Grizzly Country".

To give the younger scouts a taste of what's coming later, every couple of years, Troop 285 has a Big Bend Adventure, geared specifically for kids 13 and younger, during Spring Break. This past March, my youngest (11 almost 12) and I went on the Big Bend trip. I've been to Big Bend a few times myself and was looking forward to being there as my youngest experienced it for the first time. Big Bend is arguably the most beautiful and interesting part of Texas and ironically the part of Texas that fewer than 10 percent of those who live here have ever even seen.

Day 1 (Saturday): We left San Antonio at 7:30 AM in a caravan of Suburbans loaded with dads, scouts and gear. We stopped for a brief photo-op on the Lake Amistad Dam in Del Rio, straddling the border between Texas and Mexico, then went on to Langtry, Texas in the heart of the Trans-Pecos region, where we had lunch and toured the Judge Roy Bean Museum, home of the "Jersey Lilly" and the place where the legendary Roy Bean administered his interesting brand of the "Law west of the Pecos".

Afterwards we continued to Big Bend National Park and the Chisos Mountains, arriving at the lodge in the Chisos Basin around 4:30 PM. Dinner at six, then we went to bed early, as we had a big hike to the South Rim of the Chisos scheduled for the next day.

Day 2 (Sunday): We began our hike to the South Rim at dawn, first scaling the Pinnacles Trail (a climb of approximately 1500 feet in about 3 miles). After a brief worship service with one of the dads who is a Chaplain in the U.S. Army, we continued on through Boot Canyon, until we reached the South Rim at lunchtime. Elevation 7400 feet (our hike started in the Basin at around 5300 feet). We had lunch on the rim, looking out over the desert 2000 feet below and on into Mexico to the South. We then returned to the Basin via the Laguna Meadows trail, completing the 13 mile round-trip hike at around 4:30 PM.

My youngest (on the left) and another scout, looking out over the desert from the South Rim Trail in Big Bend National Park.

Day 3 (Monday): We got an early start, leaving Big Bend National Park to the West, driving through the ghost town of Terlingua (the home of the annual Texas Chili Cookoffs in November) and proceeding to Fort Leaton just outside of Presidio for lunch. The boys toured the fort while "Mr. Mac" (the Scoutmaster) and I fixed sandwiches for them to eat afterwards. After lunch, we proceeded to Candelaria, a town about 45 miles West of Presidio on the border, where we met our guides for the next adventure. We drove about 12 miles on a dirt road, parked the cars in the middle of the desert and began our hike up Capote Canyon to Capote Falls, the highest falls in Texas (175 feet). There was no trail - we had to bushwhack our way up the Canyon some 3.5 to 4 miles, with full packs. By "bushwhack" I mean that we were frequently climbing boulders and rocks as much as 10-12 feet high to get through, along with countless stream crossings (usually one every 50-100 feet). The destination was worth it, however. We pitched camp and the boys got to go swimming in the frigid waters at the base of the falls while we cooked a backpacking dinner of Ramen noodles and sausage.

Beginning our hike up Capote Canyon - this was the easy part.

Capote Falls - at 175 feet, the highest waterfall in Texas. Where my backpack is in the foreground is where we pitched our tent for the night.

Day 4 (Tuesday): After an early breakfast of oatmeal, we hiked back out of Capote Canyon, arriving at the cars around noon, where we had lunch. We drove back to Candalaria, where we were treated to a verbal history lesson by Glenn Justice, a local historian and expert on the history of the region. I bought his recent book "Little Known History of the Texas Big Bend", which I've been enjoying immensely for the last few days. After leaving Candelaria, most of the troop proceeded to Chinati Springs, a natural hot springs between Candelaria and Fort Davis. My group took a detour back into Presidio where we bought steaks, potatoes and salad fixin's, then caught up with the group in Chinati. While we relaxed in the Hot Springs, the group that had been ahead of us began cooking dinner - a veritable feast! We spent the night at Chinati.

My youngest and I enjoying the hot springs at Chinati.

Day 5 (Wednesday): We left Chinati Springs and proceeded North to Fort Davis where we had lunch and spent some time touring the old calvalry fort. This was home to the Buffalo Soldiers, who were involved in suppressing the Apache Indians. The has been largely restored and was an interesting way to spend a couple of hours.

Trying out the accommodations in the calvary barracks at Fort Davis

From Fort Davis, we went just a few miles further to Prude Ranch where we stayed the night. Most of us took a side trip to McDonald Observatory at dusk where we participated in the "Star Party", getting a good view of several constellations and nebulae. If you haven't been out of the city in a while, you have forgotten just how many stars there really are, and in the remote, lightly populated areas of West Texas, there are even more visible. The night was clear and the sky was ablaze!

Day 6 (Thursday): We visited the Miller Ranch, which included a drive along a gravel road back into the Viejo Mountains to Camp Holland. This was an army outpost built during the Mexican Revolution to help counter raids by Mexican revolutionaries which included Pancho Villa, as well as Apache raiders that came through Viejo pass. The camp was only occupied for 3 years until the end of the revolution, and is the site of the last battle of the Apaches in that part of the state.

After lunch, we took a white-knuckle drive up the mountain to Viejo pass. The road was marked for jeeps only. One of the guys with us had a Toyota FJ Cruiser who he said could pull one of the Suburbans up the roughest part of the "road". So we piled everyone in the two vehicles and set out. The FJ did, in fact, pull that fully loaded Suburban up that road - it would have made a great commercial for Toyota! The whole time I was planning my escape should I have to bail from the Surburban when we went over the cliff!

The white knuckle ride up to Viejo Pass. Yes, that's a Toyota in front of our suburban pulling us up the jeep trail...

On the way down from Viejo pass we were buzzed by an airplane from Homeland Security. We had seen an Aerostat blimp earlier in the day - no doubt they had picked us up on radar and had vectored the plane in to check us out. I doubt too many legitimate people (read - non-smugglers or illegals) use that route. At any rate, after a couple of passes, when they saw that we were just a group of harmless (albeit slightly daft) Boy Scouts, they didn't bother checking us out further.

That night we spent in a hotel in the thriving metropolis of Van Horn.

Day 7 (Friday): This was to have been the day we were to have driven to Guadalupe National Park to climb Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas. Unfortunately, though, several of the boys (including my own) got sick that evening so a carload of us drove back to San Antonio instead, cutting our trip short by one day. As it turned out, however, when the rest of the group got to Guadalupe Peak, it was socked in with fog and rain, so they cancelled the climb anyway.

Maybe next year. In the meantime, we've got lots of really good memories of a very busy week!

ADT 2007 Implementation Guide - Relax, Y'all - It Still Applies

2007-04-04T16:24:00.000-07:00

Paul Aubin and I wrote the "Autodesk Architectural Desktop - An Advanced Implementation Guide, Second Edition" for ADT 2007 last year. Now 2008 is soon to hit the streets and we're getting questions as to when we'll write a 2008 edition.

Answer: We aren't going to write a 2008 edition.

Now before you go and have a stroke, relax...take a deep breath and maybe a blood pressure pill...

First, it's a lot of work, and I'm getting lazy in my old age (note that I hadn't posted anything to my poor neglected blog since December before this evening).

Second, and more important, nothing (or at least hardly anything) in ADT 2008 has any impact on what we wrote for implementing ADT 2007. Paul and I are going to publish a white paper on his website that will update anything that needs to be updated but it will be very, VERY short.

Example: there are some major improvements to Display Control in ADT 2008, but NONE of them affect implementing ADT. The concepts are the same and the setup and settings are the same. The only difference is that you now have an additional option for WHERE you do it.

Most of the changes in ADT 2008 affect the day - to - day use of the product but have little impact on the way you implement and set it up.

So.. chill out, buy the book, and wait for the white paper.

Oh, yeah... Paul... I told you I'd have my stuff to you by the middle of the week, but did I say WHICH week????

Structural Drafters and CAD Technicians - a Dying Breed?

2007-04-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

So... you're a structural drafter or a "CAD Technician", not a structural engineer. You've just seen Revit Structure and you're thinking that maybe you should be considering changing careers to ... say... WalMart Greeter?

Hold on, don't panic! While it is true that Revit Structure is going to automate a huge part of your current job, allowing the engineer to build the physical model of the structure as he/she designs it, from which the drawings are automatically generated, that doesn't mean you have no value.

What it means is that your role in the organization will have to change. Just as BIM is changing processes, those process changes are changing job descriptions.

Even though the plans, sections and elevations are being generated automatically from the model, someone will still be needed to annotate those drawings check them for visual accuracy and fidelity, and organize the sheets. Did the engineer specify the correct moment connection for that beam? Somebody needs to make sure those footings show with the correct linetype in the plan view. Those are not tasks that are good uses of the engineer's time, but are right up your alley.

There are other tasks that are equally if not more vital to the new process that are also not a good use of the engineer's time. Someone needs to make sure the model is cleaned up periodically, and that project templates are managed and kept up to date with office standards. Someone also needs to be building custom content. That, by itself, will be a never-ending job. The need for custom content will never end, no matter how far into an implementation you are.

So...stop thinking of yourself (and marketing yourself) as a "Cad Technician" or "Drafter" and consider yourself a "Model Manager". Learn how to use Revit Structure, and then learn how to build custom families - annotations, detail components and parametric model components. You'll improve your company's overall process efficiency and ensure yourself of ongoing employment and marketability.

ADT 2007 Implementation Guide - Ooops...

2006-12-06T16:45:00.000-08:00

The "Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2007 - an Advanced Implementation Guide" second edition was available for purchase for a short while in late October/early November, until a *slight* error was found on the cover. Seems the front cover was correct, as is the manuscript itself, but someone boo-booed at the publisher or printing house, or somewhere, and the spine and back cover were actually from one of Paul Aubin's other books!

The book has been yanked and will be re-issued with the correct cover - hopefully the delay won't be too long. For those of you who purchased and received your copies before the error was caught, or for those of you who won copies at the end of my classes at AU, congratulations! You are now the proud owners of the special "collector's edition"! It should be worth brazillions of dollars in a few years.

Just after it makes the New York Times Best Seller list. ;-)

(Seriously - if you do have one of those copies - the only thing wrong is the back covver and the spine - the manuscript is correct).

Autodesk University 2006 is History

2006-12-06T16:09:00.000-08:00

Another November has gone by and with it another Autodesk University. Reflecting, I am struck by the growth that this event has seen over the years. I first started attending AU in the early 1990's. My first AU was in San Francisco when it was held at the Moscone Center. After that there were others - Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Dallas. Each of those entailed attendees staying in multiple hotels, having to ride a shuttle bus or walk to the convention facilities. The year it was in Dallas (for me, anyway), was the year that they tried to do "regional" events, with four AU's being held in four different cities. That didn't work out too well, so the next year, if I recall correctly, there was a plan to do an "on-line" "virtual" AU. Feedback was strong that if there wasn't any networking and if it wasn't held at a physical location, "attendance" would be weak. That led to an eleventh hour scramble to get a "real" AU set up. By that time, the only place/time available for such an event was Las Vegas, the MGM Grand Hotel, the week after Thanksgiving. I suspect the organizers were a bit skeptical about the potential success of such timing, but in reality it turned out to be the most successful AU to date (this was in 2000), and I would argue that holding it in Las Vegas at that time was what helped launch AU into the mega-event that it has become. Since that event, which was the first one that I spoke at, AU has consistently grown. The numbers I've seen for this last AU (held at the Venetian in Las Vegas) indicate that there were on the order of 7,500 attendees!

The logistics of organizing and holding an event of that magnitude are mind-boggling. My compliments to Lynn Allen and all of the others at Autodesk who put this stellar conference together. As a speaker, I've always found dealing with Joseph Wurcher and his staff a pleasure. They are professional, prompt, accommodating and downright nice! The audio/visual and technical support staff are always Johnny-on-the-spot if there are any glitches during a presentation and quick to come up with a resolution, although my experience has been that glitches are rare. Truly a professional bunch to deal with.

This year I taught SIX classes, which was a personal record, and served as a lab assistant for Dennis McNeal's ADT Details class. Consequently I couldn't spend the time actually attending class or networking that I would have liked to, but it was still a great AU!

The party Thursday night and the Blue Man Group performance was awesome - so much that when I got home I had to order their DVD online so my kids could see them also!

I hope if you attended AU and came to any of my classes you found them worthwhile. Next year I'll probably step things down a bit and not teach quite so many. I also plan on submitting titles on Revit as well as ADT for consideration.

Paul Aubin and I having dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe in The Venetian

My view from the podium Tuesday morning for the first class of the conference - 300+ people in the room!

The Blue Man Group performing for 7,000 of their closest friends Thursday night.

My youngest using my AU swag to do his imitation of "The Autodesk University Geek" :-)

Creating an "ADT as AutoCAD" Shortcut

2006-10-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

When you install ADT, you have the option of creating a second desktop shortcut that runs ADT as if it was "vanilla" AutoCAD. This is merely an option, however, and is not turned on by default, meaning that many people miss it. I've seen people spending a lot of time and effort trying to recreate it after the fact by monkeying around with profile settings, unloading CUI's, messing around with demand-loading, etc.

You don't have to do all that. It's really simple.

All you have to do is copy your existing ADT icon. Right-click on the new icon and select "Properties". Rename the icon to something else (like "ADT as AutoCAD") and change the item in quotes after the /p parameter in the "Target" edit box to some bogus value - indicating an AutoCAD profile that doesn't exist. I'd just call it "ADT as AutoCAD". So instead of reading something like:

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2007\acad.exe" /ld "C:\Program Files\Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2007\AecBase50.dbx" /p "Architectural Desktop - Imperial"

Your target will instead look like:

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2007\acad.exe" /ld "C:\Program Files\Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2007\AecBase50.dbx" /p "ADT as AutoCAD"

Believe it or not, that's it! Run your new shortcut and you'll get a big old scary error message that the profile can't be found, so it will be built with the default profile instead. Guess what the default profile is? (Hint - it ain't ADT).

Creating Brick Lugs in Revit Building

2006-09-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

This is an issue that seems to come up over and over again in class. I've shown lots of "workarounds", such as using 2D drafting components and section profile lines to show brick lugs in a detail view, or using wall sweeps either in the type properties or as a hosted sweep.

The other day, a co-worker of mine found a much better way. It's amazingly simple - I don't know why the courseware doesn't show this or it isn't more obviously explained in the help utility.

First, create a wall, using a multi-component wall types - for my purposes I'll use the Brick on Mtl Stud Basic Wall type.

Cut a section through the wall and go to the section view.

Before actually creating the brick lug, you need to make a minor modification to the wall type. Select the wall and click the Properties button, then click the Edit/New button in the Properties dialog. Click the Edit button next to Structure.

Click the Preview button in the structure editor and change your view to a Section view in the preview window. ZOOM in REAL close to the bottom of the wall and click on one of the layers. You should see a blue padlock icon (similar to what you see on constraints in a Revit model). Unlock the padlock and click OK until you return to the model.

Now, ZOOM in to the bottom of the Revit wall that you created and select it. You should see TWO shape handles on the bottom - one of them will move the brick down (you can also do the same procedure to unlock the air gap, sheathing and any other components that you need to move vertically separate from the main wall).

Is that EASY or what?

(Thanks, Frank)

ADT 2007 - Implementation Guide - DONE!

2006-09-21T17:31:00.000-07:00

I am really, REALLY, pleased to announce that Paul Aubin and I submitted the final manuscripts to the publisher a few weeks ago for "Autodesk Architectural Desktop - An Advanced Implementation Guide" (second edition). This is the long-awaited update from the previous work that Paul did for ADT 3.3, re-written for ADT 2007.

It should be available for purchase on Amazon.com sometime in mid to late October. Watch Paul Aubin's website for more details and availability.

I really enjoyed this first foray into writing. The process was completely alien to me, but I found it to be fun, as well as taxing. Thankfully, my wife and kids were patient with me through many late nights and weekends sitting at the dining room or kitchen table typing away, talking with Paul on the phone, etc.

As rewarding as the experience was, I don't recommend it for anyone else with a full-time job. I'm amazed I was able to balance work, family and writing enough to (hopefully) not piss off too many people.

Of course, this blog suffered big time - I pretty much have blown this thing off since last Spring. I hope to have some meaty articles to post within the next week or so to make up for the hiatus!

ADT Implementation Guide Update in the Works

2006-07-07T16:01:00.000-07:00

I am very pleased to be able to announce that an update to the popular Autodesk Architectural Desktop - an Advanced Implementation Guide is in the works and will hopefully be available by early Fall.

I am even more pleased to announce that Paul Aubin, the author of the first Implementation Guide, has asked me to co-author this update with him. I am honored to be able to collaborate with such a respected author and authority on ADT, as well as pleased to be working with a good friend.

The new update will take the implementation guide written for ADT 3.3 and update it for ADT 2007.

NCS v4 Due Out This Year

2006-06-02T05:44:00.000-07:00

NIBS is planning to release the National CAD Standard version 4 sometime in 2007, and is supposed to begin addressing specific BIM issues, with input from industry organizaions and software vendors. You can read the cadalyst AEC online article about it here.

Cadopolis Offers New Blog Feed Channels

2006-04-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

A great portal to other blogs and sources of information:

PRESS RELEASE

Cadopolis.com launches new AutoCAD Blog & Feed Channels for the Autodesk community

Cadopolis.com has developed a central meeting place within Cadopolis.com dedicated to learning about the AutoCAD community on the web. Cadopolis.com has introduced five new Feed Channels to lead visitors into five distinct areas of interest within the community. These new Feed Channels allows visitors to stay informed of the latest AutoCAD news both inside and outside of Cadopolis.com.

The most active Feed Channel is the Selected Web Feeds (also called the Cadopolis.com aggregator). All articles and blog entries from featured AutoCAD Blogs from around the world are feed into this area, LIVE! This allows visitors to read and visit all the Autodesk related Blogs from one central location. Also if visitors have a RSS reader they can subscribe to them and have all the Blogs feed directly to your desktop or online aggregator.

To visit Cadopolis.com or for more information visit www.Cadopolis.com

Google Offers Free SketchUP Download

2006-04-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

Get it here:

http://sketchup.google.com/product_suf.html

It has limited file formats, but I assume it's near fully - functional beyond that. I have not tested yet myself. In fact, I'm downloading as I write :-).

Autodesk Revit - Changing a Project Elevation

2006-04-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

This happens all the time. When you start your project you have no idea what the finish floor elevation is going to be for any given level. You typically don't even have any reliable survey data yet. Maybe just an old survey with *maybe* some spot elevations, but certainly nothing upon which to base a detailed topo model on.

So you go ahead and start working with what you have. At some point, you get a detailed civil engineer or surveryor's contour map with accurate elevations and you want to establish your project at the correct absolute elevations. Here's how you do it. It's pretty simple really.

1) Go to an elevation view.
2) From the Tools menu, select Project Position/Orientation -> Relocate this Project.
3) Pick a point. Any point. It doesn't matter.
4) Drag your cursor straight up (or down, if that's the direction you need to go) and enter the amount you need to move.

At this point the entire model will move up or down the distance you specify.

5) Zoom to Fit, then Zoom in on one of the level head bubbles. It will still show the original elevation. Select the bubble, then select the Properties button.
6) Select the Edit/New button in the Element Properties dialog.
7) In the Type Properties dialog change the "Elevation Base" parameter from "Project" to "Shared".

Bingo Bango Boingo. Done.

ADT 2007 New Feature Focus - Automating AEC Dimensions

2006-04-14T19:57:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post, I spotlighted the improvements to AEC Dimensions as one of the big new features of ADT 2007. The improvements can be grouped under two main areas: flexibility and control.

While the flexibility aspect of AEC Dimensions is huge, I'm going to focus on the control side of things in this post. If you want to learn about the flexibility part, play with the grips and check out some of the stuff on the right click menu - it's pretty self-explanatory.

On the control and automation side, however, things aren't quite so obvious unless you do a little digging. Good news. I've already done it for you.

The biggest limitation with AEC Dimensions up until now has been that you could not pre-configure exactly which components (and which part of said components) were to be dimensioned in a wall and worse, you couldn't change things much once the dimension was placed. The flexibility of the new AEC Dimensions takes care of the second part, and the new controls take care of the first part.

The first thing you need to do is get your wall styles configured for AEC Dimensioning. When you create a component now you should specify what it's use is - structural or non-structural. You should also specify for each component whether it should be dimensioned or not, and which part of the component should be dimensioned (left side, right side, center or all three).

In the figure below, I've configured the brick veneer to be a candidate for dimensioning on the exterior side of the component. I've also configured the stud as a structural component and made it a candidate for dimensioning on the exterior side of the stud. Also, note at the bottom left corner of the dialog, you now can specify which is the exterior or interior side of the wall. By the way, you can specify both the positive (left) side of the wall and the negative (right) side as exterior or both as interior without ADT complaining, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you LIKE working with bi-polar data...

Once you've configured the wall style, you need to likewise configure the AEC Dimension style. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to work with a single chain dimension to focus specifically on our wall condition, but if you've worked with AEC Dimensions at all, you know you can have as many chains as you like, each one configured for different parameters.

In the Contents tab of my AEC Dimension style, I've configured the "Wall" dimensions to dimension the wall length to the outer boundaries. Most importantly, however, note in the figure below that I've configured the wall width to "By Style", and this causes the indicated result.

Using these simple controls (you might also want to experiment with different combinations of "Wall Length" and "Wall Width - By Style" and "Wall Width - By Structural Style", you can automate a large part of your AEC Dimensions while still maintaining the dimension standards that you prefer. In those instances where a non-standard condition appears, use the grips and the right click menu to remove extension lines, add extension lines and most importantly move extension lines, all the while maintaining the associativity of the dimensions, even across XREFs.

Ever since ADT R3 when AEC Dimensions were introduced, I've told my students that I didn't think they were usable for construction documents but that there was huge potential, and to keep an eye on them. Now, I feel that potential has finally been realized!

A Word on Posting

2006-04-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

I recently invoked moderation controls on comments on this blog. I tried text recognition and that works great for the automated spamming systems, but believe it or not, there are bazootieheads who post spam comments in person.

While I do sometimes delight in sending them a flame mail in response, I don't like them polluting my blog with their swill, so...

Feel free to comment with positive or negative responses to my posts, as long as it's constructive. I get it via email and approve or disapprove. There may be a delay before you see your comment, because if I go on vacation or camping or something the last thing I take is my computer...

Spammers? Fawgetaboudit!

My Position on "Revit vs. ADT"

2006-04-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

I have avoided posting here on this subject because in the circles in which I am known all kinds of nonsense could be read into any statement that I make on "ADT vs. Revit". (See how I put one before the other in the title and the other one in front in the body? That's 'cause I don't want anybody reading anything into that either).

If you know me personally, you know that I pretty much say what I feel and think and if you read between the lines, you're not getting it, because there ISN'T ANYTHING BETWEEN THE LINES! Get it?

Good. So.. with that in mind...

I was one of the first beta testers of ADT and I've seen it evolve from an idea to maturity over the last eight years or so (has it been that long?). Sometime in 1999 or 2000 (ADT R2 timeframe), I remember sitting down at my computer one night after a couple of glasses of wine and composing an email to some of my aquaintances on the ADT development team, mainly to just put in words some thoughts that had been running through my head. The gist of it was that first, the upcoming ADT 3.0 needed to really add some major functionality to the product and second, that long term, Autodesk needed to consider getting away from the AutoCAD interface and DWG file format, ala Inventor.

ADT 3.0 accomplished the first thing. That's the release that introduced us to curtainwalls, door/window assemblies, slabs, the Display Manager, and a whole host of new features and capabilities. The interface was revamped in 2004, which was another leap forward.

But it was still based on AutoCAD and the DWG format.

I remember when I heard about the Revit aquisition, sort of like I remember where I was when JFK was shot. (No, seriously...). I had just wrapped up a 3 day ADT class in our Dallas office and was checking emails before packing up and heading for the airport. A friend of mine contacted me via instant messenger and posted the link to the Autodesk Press Release announcing the aquisition.

"Shock" does not do justice to what I felt at the time. I had been following Revit as a competitive product for a couple of years and had played around with some trial versions that I was able to sneak away from their booths at trade shows (is that industrial espionage? I dunno... but I digress...). While the idea was exactly what I had been espousing in my earlier email to Autodesk, the execution seemed lacking to me - file size at the time was an issue. Workgroups were an issue. Stability was an issue. And most importantly, there was no API (Application Programming Interface in the product, by design. The feeling apparently at Revit was that architects aren't programmers and don't WANT an API. That was and still is, in my opinion, flawed thinking. The API isn't for the end user. It's for the third party developers who provide the potential for a rich suite of complimentary products that further flesh-out the whole BIM concept.

So, that was then, and this is now. What's changed? Both ADT and Revit Building have continued to be developed. ADT did not get phased out, nor did Revit get buried, even though there was rampant speculation that one or the other would happen. Neither did the two products merge into one. I doubt that would ever happen, although you can see some synergy between the two platforms, with each one borrowing ideas from the other. Case in point: the drawing coordination features introduced in ADT 2005 and the enhanced library of detail families found in Revit Building 9 that are modelled after the ADT detail component library.

Autodesk's messaging on the two products has finally solidified a bit. ADT is being positioned as a "Better AutoCAD for Architects" while Revit is being hailed as Autodesk's BIM solution (although my own personal opinion is that ADT is just as much a BIM solution as Revit - it just gets you there a different way).

As an application engineer and a consultant, it's my job to be familiar with both, so I've been working with both since the aquisition. When I'm helping an architectural firm decide which solution is best for them, I try to keep their interests in mind and not any loyalty to any specific product, or my own personal friendships with many of the ADT development staff.

So where do I see each product fitting in to the whole BIM evolution? It's really not that complicated. ADT is truly more of an evolutionary product. You can pick and choose the features that you want to use and grow into it. If you are coming from a predominantly 2D background or culture and don't feel ready to jump feet first (or head first) into the world of model-based design, you can use those features of ADT that get you immediate 2D productivity, perhaps growing into the 3D capabilities at some point in the future. On the other hand, if you're ready to fully embrace 3D model-based design and want a more revolutionary change, then Revit may be more appropriate. Certainly with Revit Building 9 and earlier releases since the aquisition, many of the issues that may have been barriers in the past have been addressed. Worksets are not problematic the way they were before and should not be an issue at all in a teamwork environment. The myth that you can't do CD's in Revit Building is just that - a myth. You can generate full-blown 2D details, as well as hybrid model-and 2D-based details just as easily in Revit Building now as you can in ADT or AutoCAD. Additionally, Autodesk has been able to somehow shoehorn a basic API into a product that was never intended to have one. How far they will be able to take this is still to be seen, but they've already done more than I thought they could.

In short, my position on Revit vs. ADT is no longer "ADT vs. Revit" (see I switched 'em again). It's a matter of Revit AND ADT - based on who you are and where you are on the BIM evolution, either one could be appropriate for you. Because of that, expect to see more information on both products on this blog, since it benefits us all to see the whole picture, not just one part of it.

Roopinder Tara's New Blog

2006-04-01T18:54:00.000-08:00

There's a new blog in town. Roopinder Tara, editor of Ten Links, has started his new Cad Insider blog, with lots of general gossip, info and Cad Stuff in general, and a rather humorous entry on all of the things that CAD stands for.

"cold agglutinin disease"?

That would explain a lot...

Join Me at the Dallas AUGI CAD Camp

2006-03-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

Once again, it's time for AUGI CAD Camp - the Dallas event will be on May 18th this year. Watch the AUGI Web Site for registration info and more details.

This year I'll be teaching "Managing Your Content and Standards in ADT 2007", which will focus on palette-based tools (styles and symbols, including callouts and schedule tags) and tool catalogs. I'll show you how to make it easy to manage, control and distribute custom content without having to customize menus or write a single line of LISP.

The Dilbert Blog

2006-03-14T05:56:00.000-08:00

OK. It's not really Dilbert's blog, but Scott Adams has a blog, anyway. Check it out here:

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/

The Flaming Arrows Join the Navy!

2006-03-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

(Hey, since I'm posting Boy Scout stuff instead of meaningful ADT stuff, what the heck)...

My youngest is about to cross over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts and hang with the big boys, so for his den's "last hurrah", we took them down to the USS Lexington (CVN-16 - the "Blue Ghost") of WWII fame. It's now a museum docked in Corpus Christi bay. They have a really cool "live aboard" program for youth groups such as Boy and Girl Scouts. You go down on a Saturday Morning, get mustered in, spend the day on board, then after the tourists leave, you have the run of the ship. Ghost stories in the engine room, movies on the hangar deck...

We slept in the old chiefs' quarters. I must say, 30 years after my own tour of duty on board the USCGC Rush (WHEC 723), the smells still brought back memories, some good, some bad ;-).

The boys all had a great time. If you ever have a chance to do something like this with your kids, I highly recommend it! Well organized and very well done. I know there's other ex-Navy carriers around, such as the USS Yorktown, that host similar types of activities!

The boys are being mustered in, in the image above. Toes on the line! Hands out of the pockets! Shirts tucked in! Anybody caught running does the chicken dance tomorrow! (And yeah, there were a buncha kids doing the chicken dance the next day ). "Hey, 'Cool Breeze' - you better tie your shoes!" The kids loved the verbal abuse! Actually - the guy really had a way with the boys. He gave 'em a hard time, but they really liked his style, and he made sure they knew it was all in fun.

In this image I'm looking kinda fat... what's up with that? I think I'd better lay off the chicken fried steak for awhile... anyway - me and my youngest on the flight deck.

Boy Scout Troop 285 Hikes Pike Davis - Again

2006-03-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

Back in January, we visited Pike Davis Ranch in the Texas Hill country again. This time my oldest (a veteran at this type of stuff) went with us again, but also my youngest and some of his Webelos buddies also went - their first backpacking trip.

This year it didn't get down to 18 degrees like it did last year, but it was rainy and cold when we woke up Sunday morning. All had a good time regardless!

Me and the boys just before we left the house. Yes, my eyes are almost closed. I hadn't had any coffee yet. Gimme a break.

My youngest and one of his buddies - about halfway through our 8 mile hike to the campsite.

Both my oldest and youngest, getting ready to rustle up some freeze-dried beef stroganoff. Yumm!

Architectural Desktop 2007 - New Feature Summary!

2006-03-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

It's official, the gag order is off.

What's new in ADT 2007? Here's a few things (in addition to the new AutoCAD features):

Customizable Project Drawing Locations:ADT 2007 allows you to store your drawing files in folders other than the default project location. This may be the answer for those people who have been having trouble running Project Navigator because of issues with Novell serviers. You should be able to keep your project's drawings on the Novell server and store the project data, including the APJ file on a Windows server. That data doesn't take up much room at all. (Warning - I haven't tested this myself, so I can't say for sure, but it should work).

AEC Dimensions are finally usable for CD's. You can specify on a wall style by wall style basis, explicitly where the AEC dimension should dimension to. You can also add dimension points that are associative to deal with non-standard situations, and you can delete and add dimension points for explicit dimension strings.

Stairs got a major facelift. You can create a custom stair from linework, and you can customize individual treads and risers. Their display settings have been improved as well.

Spaces can now be freeform and are associated with their wall/slab boundaries. If you move a wall, simply select the space that was bound by it and select "Update" from the right-click menu. Areas and area groups are gone. Spaces now contain all of the information that areas used to and can be grouped into Zones. These spaces and zones are immediately readable by ABS 2007 as E-Spaces - no conversion necessary, and openings are already assigned from their bounding walls.

Slabs can now have multiple components, similar to walls.

Classifications can now be nested in a tree structure. Classifications can now be assigned to individual objects as well as styles. How long have I been telling people to use classifications? Did I not say that? USE CLASSIFICATIONS!!!

List definitions allow the storing of object names for selection from lists (room names, for example) to eliminate entering repetitive data.

Anchor properties can be used in schedules - example - use an anchor property on a door to extract the fire rating of the wall it's anchored to and assign it to the door as well. Change the wall fire rating and the door's changes as well.

Title overrides for schedules in the properties screen.

In the image above, you can see AEC Dimensions being used - on the right side, I'm using the new "Anchored Palettes" feature of AutoCAD 2007 to anchor my XREF Palette, DesignCenter and QuicCalc pallette to the left side of the screen. Neatly tucked away, but ready to be used by simply moving my mouse over them.

In the image below you can see a closeup of the AEC Dimensions. Note that I was able to control, through the wall styles, where to place the extension lines explicitly (in this case, on the outer edge of structure on the exterior walls, and on the edge of the stud for the interior walls).

In the following image, I've selected the dimensions to show all of the new grip-editing features. Without right-clicking, you can now remove dimension lines, move extension lines to override a default location, remove extension lines, etc. All with the click of a mouse. All extension lines are fully associative and AEC Dimensions work through XREF's. Say bye-bye to standard AutoCAD dimensions - now you can work smarter, not harder, when you annotate.

Automating Project Startup

2005-12-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

Architectural Desktop 2006 provides some very robust tools for standardizing and automating project startup using Template Projects. If you're using ADT 2006 and would like to learn more about this powerful tool, download my class handout from Autodesk University 2005. It includes step-by-step instructions:

Standardizing and Automating Project Setup in ADT 2006

AU 2005 is History

2005-12-06T18:27:00.000-08:00

Another November is gone, and with it another Autodesk University.

Thanks to all who attended my classes this year. I hope that you found mine, as well as others' classes, to be worth your while! I'm certainly looking forward to next year at Las Vegas and the Venetian!

I've been attending Autodesk University as either an attendee or speaker now for at least ten years, and the experience has changed for me quite a bit. I no longer seem to have the time to attend classes. I'm either teaching a class, getting ready to teach a class (you have NO idea how much time goes into those things), or meeting with someone. AU has become more of a networking event for me than anything else.

Of course, there's also the playtime. The AUGI beer bust, the BSD receptions and mixers, and lets not forget the annual Autodesk AU Blowout party! This year it was at the MGM theme park. Imagine - Autodesk rented the park from about 8 PM to 11:30 PM. Nothing but AU attendees inside the gates. No lines (or minimal lines for all the rides), beer booths at every corner and free food!

Below are a couple of pictures from the event. The first one is of three of my co-workers and a bunch of other people crying like gurls on the Tower of Terror. The second is of myself and Paul Aubin, along with a couple of Disney Imagineers riding the Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster.

Stay tuned to my blog. I know I've been letting it languish, however I've got some tutorials brewing in the back of my head and hope to have this thing updated really soon!

Michael Dakan on Building Information Modeling

2005-10-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

Read Michael Dakan's latest on Building Information Modeling in AEC Tech News, along with some replies to criticisms of BIM technology:

Michael Dakan's Article: "In This Case, Change is Good."

I've Enabled Word Verification

2005-09-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

I've been getting some "Comment Spam" lately that has become, quite frankly, a major PITA to deal with. Why do these idiots think that this will actually bring business to them? At any rate, because of the increasing amount of spam, I've enabled word verification on my blog. If you post a comment, you'll be asked to verify a graphical representation of random characters in order to post.

My apologies for any inconvenience, but it beats having to wade through 10 junk comments to every single post.

Creating Custom Object Tags in ADT 2006

2005-09-12T16:28:00.001-07:00

In addition to creating your own schedules and property set definitions, you also have the tools at your disposal to create your own object tags to go with them. The process for doing this has been greatly simplified in AutodeskArchitectural Destkop 2006 and Autodesk Building Systems 2006:

1) Create your property set definition and schedule. Make sure they are saved in a central library drawing so that the schedule can be created easily from a palette-based catalog. Because of the nature of the functionality of the new schedule tags, I recommend that you store the property set and the schedules in the same drawing. I usually have a single file that I use to store all custom schedules and property sets.

2) In the schedule/property set library drawing, create the graphics that will define your tag. Do NOT define blocks or block attributes! Simply draw the tag graphics and use MTEXT (not DTEXT) for any labels or text that you want in the tag. Make sure that you keep in mind the annotation scale factor in the drawing setup dialog box when sizing your tag objects.

3) Use the “Define Schedule Tag” tool from the “Format” pull-down menu:
a. Select “Define Schedule Tag” from the “Format” pull-down menu.
b. Select all of the objects (graphics and text) that will make up your tag.
c. In the dialog box, provide a name for your new tag. Each text object that you selected will be shown in the column on the left. For each text object, indicate in the next column to the right whether it will be a text element (not linked to a property) or a Property label. In the next column to the right, indicate which property set each property label will link to, and finally in the far right column indicate which specific properties each label will reflect.
d. After selecting “OK” in the dialog box, you will need to specify the insertion point for the tag. At this point, the command will do several things that used to have to be done manually (in other words, you don’t have to do this):
*It will create a block, turning the text that you specified into block attributes with the correct formatting that is needed to ensure that they are linked properly to the properties that you specified.
*It will create an MV Block out of the block definition.
*It will attach some kind of voo-doo that will instruct the MV Block to act as a schedule tag when used from the tool palette.

4) Drag the tag to an editable tool palette (as you would any other AutoCAD object from which you would want to make a tool).

5) Modify the properties of the new tool by right-clicking on it and selecting “Properties”. Most likely the only thing you will need to do is specify the layer key to use when the tool is created.

6) Test the tag in a brand new drawing to ensure that it is finding property sets correctly.

7) Copy the tool from the palette to your custom tool catalog.

I will be demonstrating this technique during my tutorial this year at Autodesk University "Schedule Anything in Autodesk Architectural Desktop and Autodesk Building Systems". I'm sure there's still room in the class!

Finally got around to adding a feed

2005-09-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

I've added an RSS feed to my blog. You can find it by clicking on the "XML" link on the bottom of the sidebar to the right.

Thoughts on Katrina

2005-09-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

(Disclaimer - I don't usually post things like this here, however I feel this is justified and warranted. I will be posting a tutorial on schedule tags in ADT/ABS 2006 within the next week for those of you looking for content related to the subject of this blog).

San Antonio, where I live, has become "home" (or at least the only thing some people can call "home") for thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina. Houston and Dallas are hosting thousands more. As are countless other communities all around the United States. I was in New England recently and saw news reports of evacuees arriving in places like Boston and Manchester.

This is a disaster that has affected the entire country to some extent or another, and one whose full impact is still to be determined.

Many of us are actively helping however we can, by donating money, supplies or time to assist the victims. What we all need to remember, however, is that the victims of Katrina will need our help for some time into the future. Please plan on giving and doing what you can, not for the near term, but for the months ahead. Not only will it take months to even begin to get New Orleans on the road to recovery, many of the people currently living in shelters throughout the country will have nothing to go back to for years. This is longer than most people can take to put their lives on hold. These people will need to start new lives elsewhere and they will need the help of their new neighbors to do it.

Keep them in your thoughts and prayers, and remember them with your contributions of time, talent and goods.

There, but for the Grace of God...

The Rumors are Just that - Rumors

2005-09-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

I've seen numerous posts on the Autodesk discussion forums lately from people who claim to "have heard" that the ADT development staff is being downsized, or that ADT is not going to be developed beyond the current release, or the next release.

Trust me - ADT is still being developed and in fact, the ADT development team is probably larger now than it ever was in the past. Autodesk is putting a lot of resources into both ADT and Revit Building. Neither product is going away now, or for the foreseeable future.

So if you're using ADT and are using it effectively, don't let idle gossip and false rumors keep you up at night.

OK, Who's the Turkish Guy/Gal?

2005-08-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

I was just reviewing the web page visit statistics for my blog and discovered that a whole 1.04% of my viewers are from Turkey.

My dad was in the U.S. Air Force for 28 years, and I lived in Turkey twice - once on Incirlik AFB near Adana (when I was REALLY little), and once when my dad was assigned to NATO in Izmir, Turkey (1968-1970). A real education for a 10-12 year old. We lived on Chumhuryet Blvd. (forgive the spelling - it's from memory), one block back from the seawall. We went swimming in the summers in Bayrakli and Shyrinyer (again, forgive the spelling), and vacationed in the winters at Pamukale. We also frequented the beach at Gumuldur. I could share some freaky snorkeling stories with you...

To my Turkish reader(s): "Merhaba!"

New Dirt Lover's Blog

2005-08-11T19:42:00.000-07:00

One of my co-workers, Scott McEachron from our Dallas office, has joined the ranks of the bloggers. If you're a dirt person (Land Desktop/Civil Design/Survey/Civil 3D) and came over here to the dark side by accident, you may want to visit his site and bookmark it:

Civil3D - Paving the Way

Robin Capper Merges Mind Manager with Project Browser

2005-07-08T06:22:00.000-07:00

Check out Robin Capper's blog article on his experimentations linking Mind Manager with ADT's Project Browser:

Robin Capper's Mind Manager / ADT Project Browser article

I'll See You at Autodesk University

2005-07-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

If you're going to Autodesk University (in Orlando, Florida) this year, look for me. I'll be teaching three classes this time around:

Complete Display Control in Autodesk Architectural Desktop (2 sessions - 90 minutes each)
Schedule Anything in Autodesk Architectural Desktop or Autodesk Building Systems (1 session - 3.5 hours)
Automating and Standardizing Project Setup in Architectural Desktop (1 session - 90 minutes)

The display control and scheduling sessions are reprises of previous sessions I've taught at AU, updated for ADT 2006, of course. The project setup session is all new.

And of course, there will be lots of other awesome speakers at AU this year! Register early! The website should open within the month for registrations - bookmark it now!

Autodesk University Website

Correction to "Divisions to Manage Design Options"

2005-06-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

An omission to my previous tutorial on using divisions to manage design options has been brought to my attention. In step 11, in addition to selecting the "Elevation A" division, you also need to select the "Base Model" division to get the entire model.

This actually illustrates another strength of using divisions to manage plan options. It's easy to select the wrong combination of divisions when combining a complex set into a complete model. If you make a mistake, all you have to do is select the view that you were trying to complete, right click, and select "Properties". Simply uncheck the unwanted divisions/levels and re-check the ones you really want. Finally, select the "Views" root category, right click and select "Regenerate". All views will be re-analyzed, and any that need to have XREF's detached and others attached will be taken care of automatically.

Thanks to Jodi Bonet of JML Architects for catching my little slip!

Using Divisions to Manage Design Options

2005-06-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

Note: Divisons are a part of the overall project management system included in ADT, which allows for a building model to be split up into a "distributed database" of multiple drawing files. This enables easier teamwork, automated management of external reference files, smaller file sizes, and as you will see in this tutorial, multiple plan options. While an understanding of divisions in particular is not necessary, this tutorial assumes the reader has a basic understanding of the workflow of Project Navigator, and understands the terms "constructs", "elements", "views" and "sheets". For more information on these terms and Project Navigator workflow scenarios, there are several resources available. In addition to the Autodesk Architectural Desktop tutorials on Project Management, there are a number of third party publications and web-based tutorials.

Divisions are intended to be used to divide a project up laterally. For example, you could divide a hospital project up so that each wing was a different division, or a campus could be divided up so that each building was a division. Divisions can span multiple floors, so they are indpendent of levels, which divide the project up vertically. Divisions are optional; you don't have to use them, but they do provide you another level of flexibility if you choose to do so.

Because divisions don't actually "live" anywhere as defined, users tend to get a bit confused at first as to how to use them. Levels are easy to figure out - Level two is assigned an elevation of 12', therefore anything that is assigned to level two must exist at 12' also. But it is the very fact that divisions are so "nebulous" that gives them additional power beyond what they were originally designed for. This tutorial will show you how to use divisions to manage various plan options, then easily combine the various options into multiple sets of plans, elevations, models, sections etc. for documentation purposes. As an example, we'll use a typical scenario - a residential project with multiple elevation options - a common need for many volume home-builders.

1) First, start a new project - give it any name and number you like.

2) In Project Navigator, select the "Edit Divisions" button in the upper right corner of the "Divisions" section of the "Project" tab.

3) In the Division editor, create four divisions:
Base Model (for all objects that are present in all options)
Elevation A
Elevation B
Elevation C

4) Close the Division Editor. From this point forward, when you see the word "Division", you can just translate that to "Option". That's about the most difficult thing about this.

5) Create a new Construct - call it "Base Model" and in the Divisions/Levels matrix, assign it to Level 1, Division "Base Model". Open it up. Draw a simple exterior of a house - any shape you like, and save it.

6) Create another new construct - call it "Elevation A", assign it to Level 1, Division "Elevation A". Do NOT bother to open it up.

7) From your base model, which should still be open, select the elements that make up the front part of the house (those elements that would change with the elevation options), and drag them on top of the "Elevation A" construct, then release. They should disappear from the current drawing and will now be in the "Elevation A" construct, in the same X,Y,Z coordinates that they were originally drawn in. (You could open the construct up and check if you like, but trust me, they're there).

8) Still in the base model, draw a different facade. Create an "Elevation B" construct, assigning it to the "Elevation B" division and drag and drop your new facade into that construct.

9) Repeat to create an "Elevation C" construct with it's own unique facade, then save and close the base model.

10) Go to the "Views" tab, and create three categories - "Elevation A", "Elevation B" and "Elevation C".

11) Create a new view in "Elevation A" and call it "Elevation A Model". For the "Context" simply select the "Elevation A" division, then confirm the contents and finish. Open the View and viola, you should see the base model combined with the elevation A option.

12) Repeat step 11 to create the Elevation B and Elevation C models.

You're done. Whew! Now, wasn't THAT difficult ;-).

Obviously, this is a simple example - but you can expand this out to any number of scenarios and option combinations. It works the same whether you have three options or thirty, one level or ten. Creating the views is just a matter of checking and unchecking the various option combinations, and you can add new options (divisions) any time you like. Using the drag/drop functionality you can move and copy geometry from one division to another with ease.

For more information on the workings of Project Navigator and Project Management in ADT, you might find the following link useful:

Drawing Management Braindump (Paul McArdle - ADT Development Team)

Autodesk Issues Update for CUI Issues

2005-06-23T16:07:00.000-07:00

Autodesk has issued an update for issues related to CUI files - it can be downloaded at the following link:

Download CUI Update

Specifically, it addresses the following issues:

1 Editing a CUI file could introduce duplicate entries (IDs) that may cause the file to become corrupt. Loading the corrupt CUI file results in an error message stating that the file is invalid and you can no longer customize the file.

2 Upon converting a menu file that contains a screen menu, erroneous blank lines are added at the top of the screen menu section. This can affect the display of commands that appear toward the bottom of the screen menu.

To Install the Patch:

1 Close AutoCAD and all other applications, and log in as Administrator.

2 Navigate to the folder where your AutoCAD® 2006-based products is installed. For example, c:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2006.

3 Search for the AcCustomize.dll file, and rename it to something like AcCustomize.dll.org.

4 Save the downloaded AcCustomize.dll file to the install folder for the AutoCAD® 2006-based product that you are going to repair.

5 Start your AutoCAD-based product and try loading the file that was giving you the error. You should no longer receive the error message or shifted menu entries.

A Site for Autodesk Old-Timers

2005-06-16T05:20:00.000-07:00

If you were using Autodesk products back in the mid 1980's, you no doubt will know the name "John Walker". For those of you that don't, he is the founder of Autodesk. You can visit his website for some interesting insights into the early history of the company as well as a host of other interesting geek and non-geek stuff.

John Walker's Web Site

Security patch from Autodesk Available

2005-06-10T14:07:00.000-07:00

There is apparently a defect in most Autodesk products that poses a security risk - fortunately there is a hotfix available - from the readme:

Description of Problem
A security issue has been identified that could allow a local user to gain inappropriate access to another local user's computer. This problem occurs in a number of Autodesk products. (See the complete list in "Affected Products," below.) You can help protect your computer by installing this update.

This affects users of AutoCAD-based products as well as users of products based on the Revit platform.

You can download and install the patch from the following location. It only takes a couple of seconds:

Download security patch from Autodesk

Revit Structure - Another Piece of the BIM Puzzle

2005-06-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

Autodesk began shipping a new product on Tuesday of this week - Revit Structure. Based on the Revit platform, this product offers a tool that has not existed for structural engineers prior to now. It allows for a geometrically accurate physical model of a building's structure to be built, while maintaining a relationship to the analytical "stick model" that engineers need for analysis. It includes bi-directional links to popular analysis packages such as ETABS and RISA-3D.

What does this mean? The engineer can work with the analytical model, as he/she is used to doing, and there is no disconnect with the physical model and typical details that the drafter is used to working with. If the analytical model changes, the physical model changes as well, along with any model-based details and views.

Additionally, Revit Structure will export and import from ADT - yes, ADT, and when Revit Structure's structural elements are exported to ADT, they come over as ADT structural objects where appropriate; in those cases where there is no comparable structural component (footings, etc.), they come across as mass elements. Naturally, Revit Structure can link Revit Building models as well, and since they are based on the same platform, can even provide "monitoring" tools to ensure that if the architect makes changes, they are reflected in the structural model - and the engineer has the ability to reject/approve/postpone those changes, depending upon the impact that they might have on the structural integrity of the design.

This is a MAJOR development. Up until now there have been very few real options for structural engineers who want to contribute to a BIM database. This new tool provides them with state-of-the-art modeling, analysis and documentation tools with direct links to the two major architectural modeling applications in use today.

Stay tuned for more information, or visit the Autodesk web site for more information - in particular, check out some of the customer success stories that are already being published from engineering firms that used the product on real projects while it was still in beta:

Autodesk Product Info Page for Revit Structure

Store Wars

2005-06-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

Check out the trailer for the new Store Wars episode.

May the Farm be with you.

Hehehehe.

http://www.storewars.org/flash/

Working with Display Themes

2005-04-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

I apologize for letting this blog languish so long. I've been on the road a lot lately and extremely busy. I'm still busy and traveling a lot, but I found a few minutes to throw together a quick, rough tutorial on one of the really nice new features of Architectural Desktop.

A powerful new tool in Architectural Desktop 2006 is Display Themes. These allow you to override the current display settings for objects by keying on properties that are attached to them. Display Themes will work with any Architectural Desktop object.

Some examples are provided on the "Document" palette group, on the "Scheduling" palette. As an experiment, try this in a blank drawing:

1) Create three space styles. The details of these styles are not important. Name them "CORRIDOR", "DINING ROOM" and "OFFICE LARGE". On the "General" tab of each space style, use the "Properties" button to attach the "SpaceStyles" property set definition to each style. Save the styles and exit Style Manager.

2) Add some spaces to your drawing using any means that you like. Assign each space to one of the three styles that you created in the previous step.

3) On the "Scheduling" palette, locate the "Theme by Space Type - Commercial" tool and select it. Place the display theme legend (which defines the space theme itself) anywhere in the drawing and note the changes to your display. The display configuration is still the same, but now the spaces are displaying according to the display theme that is currently enabled. (You can disable the display theme by selecting it and bringing up a right-click menu).

If you want, now would be a good time to take a look at the display theme definition to see what it's doing. Right click on the legend and select "Edit Display Theme Style". In the top box are the Indices. Each index describes a display setting. For each index there is one or more Theme Rule. Select the index for the "CORRIDOR". Note what the display rule below specifies. If the Space Style property is equal to "CORRIDOR", then it will follow the display assignments defined in the index above. Simple!

Now, try doing one on your own. This one will allow you to create a display theme based on phasing:

1) In the same drawing, go to Style Manager and create a new Property Set Definition. Call it "Status". Make sure that it applies to all object types. Create a single manual property called "Phase". Save the property set definition.

2) Next, in the "Documentation Objects" category, you'll find a new node called "Display Themes". Create a new display theme style called "Phasing". In the "Design Rules" tab, select the top button on the right to add an index component. Name the component "Demolition" and assign it a color value and a linetype of HIDDEN2. Select the second button from the bottom to add a new theme rule for your new component. Under the "Property Set Definition" column, select "Status". Under "Property" select "Phase". Set the "Condition" to "Equal to" and under "Value" enter "DEMO".

3) Create another index component. Call it Existing, assign it another color and a linetype of "Continuous". for it's index design rule, set the "Value" condition for the "Phase" property to "EXIST".

4) Select "OK" and exit the style manager.

5) Draw a wall, insert a door and a window into it. Copy the wall,door and window combination twice.

6) Select one wall, door, window combination and using the the "Extended Data" tab of the Properties palette, add the "Status" property set definition to the objects (use the little button in the lower left corner of the palette). Set the "Phase" property to "DEMO".

7) Select another wall, door, window combination and repeat the above to assign a Phase property of "Exist".

8) Select the "Theme by Space Style" tool from the Scheduling palette and in the properties palette change the style to "Phasing". Place the legend and note the change to the appearance of your walls. Change the property of one of the walls, doors or windows to something else (either EXIST or DEMO, since that's all you're allowing for in your display theme) and note what happens. Purty cool, huh?

You can use Display Themes for a variety of purposes. Imagine color-coding walls according to fire-rating, or spaces according to occupancy (you could even get really inventive and come up with a way of color coding them based on a combination of occupancy and areas for code-checking purposes).

David Koch Showcases ADT 2006 Formula Properties Editor

2005-04-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

I've not written much here lately - I apologize. I've been on the road a lot and pretty busy. Looks like the rest of the month will be the same, but I plan on posting a tutorial on an ADT 2006 feature soon regardless.

In the meantime, you might want to check out David Koch's Architect's Desktop blog for a nice article on the improvements to formula properties in ADT 2006.

Dallas AUGI CAD Camp a Success

2005-04-01T19:10:00.000-08:00

I just got home this evening, after presenting at the Dallas AUGI CAD Camp (sponsored at this venue by my employer, The D.C. CADD Company, Inc.) and it was a resounding success.

How could it not be, with nationally renowned speakers such as Lynn Allen, Matt Murphy and others, as well as a group of excellent local and regional talent participating as well?

The best way I can describe it is as a "Day of Autodesk University brought to you" - most of the presenters (including myself) are presenters from AU.

This was CAD Camp number 6 out of 20 planned for this year in various cities across the United States. If you haven't yet had the opportunity to attend, you may want to check out the CAD Camp home page at:

AUGI CAD Camp Home Page

If you couldn't attend Autodesk University, for whatever reason, you might be able to get at least a day's worth of AU-quality instruction and networking for a fraction of the cost.

Go! Learn! Share! Network!

(And I'll see y'all in Orlando for the next Autodesk University!)

Come Join Me at AUGI CAD Camp!

2005-03-26T10:34:00.000-08:00

If you're in or around the Dallas/Fort Worth area, come join me at the AUGI Cad Camp in Dallas, TX next week - Thursday, March 31. I'll be presenting on two topics:
"Wall Basics for the Common Man" and "Breaking Through the Walls in Autodesk Architectural Desktop". These are similar to the session that I taught at Autodesk University this year (but broken out as two shorter, 80 minute sessions).

For more information and for registration instructions, go the AUGI CAD Camp web site.

ADT 2006 New Feature Preview

2005-03-14T08:19:00.000-08:00

Check out Robin Capper's Blog for a good summary of some of the major new features in ADT 2006. Stay tuned to his, mine and other blogs for more!

Classifications - The Hidden Power Tool of ADT

2005-03-12T08:45:00.000-08:00

Classifications were added to Architectural Desktop with the 2004 release, primarily because of a need on the Building Systems side to allow MV Parts to be further categorized into specific types. But they have very relevant and powerful applications in Architectural Desktop as well.

Many times "stock" ADT objects are used to represent something else. For example, a wall style might be used to represent a countertop or base cabinet (in fact, this is the case with the "stock" content in the Design Tools catalog). A slab might also be used to represent a countertop. But for display and scheduling purposes, ADT still "sees" these objects for what they really are - walls and slabs.

When it comes to scheduling, you can tell a schedule to ignore things on certain layers, but how do you tell a display configuration that something isn't really a wall - but is something totally different. For that matter - find a display representation for "Cabinetry". (Don't bother - there aren't any). And, wouldn't it be nice if, in the case of the schedule, you didn't have to remember to filter out certain layers, but instead a property of the schedule style itself could tell it to ignore walls that really aren't walls? This is all possible with classifications.

All a classification style definition consists of is a list of, well, classifications that you can assign to object styles. Because they're nothing more than a list, they are extremely easy to create. Even better, there is already a perfectly functional, and in my opinion, adequately complete, classification style defined for you. In the "Styles" folder of your Content directory (follow the "Content" shortcut in your ADT file dialog), there is a drawing file that contains the Uniformat II Classification Definition (look at the file names - it will be obvious). I would recommend importing this classification directly into your standard ADT template. Or you can create your own, based on some other standard, such as MasterSpec. Try the Uniformat II version first, however - I suspect you'll find it more than sufficient for your needs. If you DO decide to "roll your own", make sure you check on ALL object types in the "Applies to" tab. That way you can attach it to any object style that you create.

Assuming you're using the Uniformat II definition however, here are a couple of examples of how you can apply it:

1) A wall that is not a wall: You may have customized your "Reflected" display configuration to show objects below the cut plane for walls, so that you can see the wall opening lines. However when you do this, you'll notice that suddenly toilet partitions and countertops created with the plumbing layouts in the "Design" catalogs are showing. You probably don't want those on your reflected ceiling plans, but since they're walls, the display system shows them. You have a couple of options, admittedly, in addition to using classifications. First you could just freeze their layer. Second, you could edit the "wall" styles that represent these objects and place a style-level display override on their "Reflected" display representation. Or, you can simply edit their style, and on the "Classifications" tab, assign them the "Plumbing Fixture" classification that will already be available from the "Uniformat II" listing (assuming you've already imported the classification definition into your drawing). Now, in your Reflected Display Set, go to the "Display Options" tab - you'll see all of the Uniformat II classifications listed. Simply select "Plumbing Fixtures" and change the setting from "Show" to "Hide". Now, even though you are instructing walls to display, any "wall" that is classified as a plumbing fixture will hide!
(Note: the goal, of course is to automate this. To do so, edit the wall styles in the original files that contain the plumbing layouts, and make the display setting in your ADT template).

2) Scheduling Door/Window Assemblies as mulled units in a door schedule: When you use a door style as an infill definition in your assembly style, do NOT classify it as anything. This means of course, that door styles used in assemblies should be unique and separate from doors that stand alone. Door styles that are by themselves (not part of an assembly definition), should be classified as either "Exterior Door" or "Interior Door". The assembly itself, that contains a door style as an infill definition is also classified as either an "Exterior Door" or "Interior Door". Next, redefine your door schedule. Under the "Applies to" tab, if you have the classification definition loaded in your drawing, you can instruct the schedule style to apply to not just "Doors" and "Door/Window Assemblies", but further only to apply to those that are classified as "Exterior Doors" or "Interior Doors". This, by the way, will also prevent those toilet partition doors from appearing in your schedule. You need to also make this change to the property set definitions that are driving the schedule, so that you don't accidentally tag doors that aren't really doors. Again, to automate this, these settings should be made in the original content files - the original door schedule and property set definitions.

The main thing to remember after you've modified your schedule, property set definitions and display sets, is to make it a part of your regular style definition process to classify EVERYTHING. You never know when you'll need to use that classification!

Architectural Desktop 2006 - Project Standards

2005-03-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

At last! An easy way to manage project standards - ARCHITECTURAL standards - in ADT! With the new Project Standards dialog in ADT 2006, you will be able to establish drawings to serve as your standards "master files" for styles, materials and display control settings (everything from display reps to display configurations). Then with the push of a button (or automatically at pre-configured times) have your entire project "synchronized" with those standards, updating all drawings to any modifications to any of the project-based content (and also making sure that all drawings are correctly compliant with your standards).

Click on the image below to get a larger preview of the standards configuration dialog:

The new project standards configuration dialog box of ADT 2006

Autodesk Faux-Paus Creates a BrewHaha

2005-03-10T15:13:00.000-08:00

Apparently some members of the press took issue with Autodesk allowing some of us who blog on Autodesk products to discuss in a limited fashion some of the features of the upcoming AutoCAD 2006 release before the official press embargo was lifted. While I can understand their angst, and hindsight might make it clear that Autodesk made an error in allowing us to talk before anyone else, I think things have been blown a bit out of proportion.

Autodesk has been accused of manipulating the blogging community to get favorable press. Some of us, myself in particular, have been accused of conflict of interest. In particular I have been accused by someone who I consider to be little more than a troll of "conflict of interest" because I wear a "title" on the Autodesk forums as a "Facilitator".

Let me make a few things clear.
1) Not once was I or any other blogger told what to say or what to write about. We were explicitly told to go ahead and post the good, the bad, the ugly. It so happens that most of us, if not all of us, are very impressed with the work the development team has done on AutoCAD 2006. Perhaps there is some truth that Autodesk chose us because we have typically been somewhat pro-Autodesk in the past. I don't see the scandal here. Most of us make our positions regarding Autodesk products fairly clear. My profile indicates that I have a relationship with Autodesk; I doubt they would continue to allow me to speak at Autodesk University if I was bashing the products that I speak about.

2) I happen to know at least one person involved in the "scandal" personally and I know that person is an honest, forthright individual who had no ulterior motives beyond perhaps a boundless enthusiasm for the product. I see that as a good thing in this case. I find it hard to believe that person, who I consider a personal friend, would try to manipulate me to gain good press.

3) I wear the Autodesk Facilitator badge on the newsgroups as a volunteer. I am not paid by Autodesk for those services; I perform them as a volunteer. As hard as it may be to believe in this cynical and jaded world, I do not get any compensation for those efforts, beyond my own personal satisfaction. It's interesting that the individual who accused me of conflict of interest focused on THAT particular aspect of my association with Autodesk, but failed to mention that I am an employee of a reseller, and it would be in that capacity, if any, where there might be a conflict of interest.

Be that as it may, employee of a reseller or not, facilitator or not, believe it or not, there is no subterfuge or other manipulation going on here. My limited comments on the product are based on my own personal observations of the software. And again, now that the press embargo is lifted, I will not be commenting on the AutoCAD features - I will leave that to the press, and stick to the features of ADT when they become available for public consumption, since that is the real focus of this blog.

If my associations with Autodesk are seen as "conflict of interest", then I would suggest reviewing my posts on this blog and judging for yourself. Are the product-related posts that I present cheerleading, or informational? If the former, be entertained. If the latter, I hope you find them valuable.

Regardless, I consider the matter closed on my end and plan to continue my efforts regarding ADT and Building Information Modeling.

AutoCAD 2006 - Embargo Lifted

2005-03-09T16:49:00.000-08:00

The press embargo on AutoCAD 2006 has been lifted since my last little preview of new features. Since this is a blog devoted primarily to ADT, I'll let the press and others describe the new features of vanilla AutoCAD, and I'm going to go back to strictly ADT stuff. But be sure and watch those new features - because that's the product that the next version of ADT will be based on!

I hope to have some info on classifications and how you can EASILY implement them to enhance your display control and scheduling tasks on this site shortly - stay tuned.

AutoCAD 2006 - (Yes, 2006) - A Couple of my Favorite Things

2005-03-05T15:16:00.000-08:00

Autodesk has granted me special permission to "leak" a few tidbits of information about the features of the upcoming new release of AutoCAD 2006. There are a myriad of new features packed into this new version, to be shipping soon, but I've picked just a couple for now just to whet your appetites:

1) Head's up Drafting. With the new "Dynamic" mode of input, you can literally do away with the command line! (Which is now an option - don't worry, though. By default the command line is still there). I typically work with one line of text on the command line, but most of my input and the prompts from AutoCAD are focused where my eyes are - on the location of the crosshairs. You can also input distances and direction dynamically - at the crosshairs - no more of the cryptic coordinate input that we've had to deal with in the past (unless you WANT to do things the hard way).

Distances and direction can be input at the cursor location

Command options are also available at the cursor location

2) Dynamic Blocks. With the new block editor you can take an existing block definition and supercharge it, or create new more flexible blocks. Blocks can now have multiple insertion points, can automatically align themselves to nearby objects, and can have multiple size options (not scaling, but actual size grips that can be incremented values or "free-style). One block, for example, can represent multiple size desks - just grab the grips to make it a different width or length. There's a myriad of other things you can do with these, but essentially a single block can now perform multiple functions and look different ways for different conditions. ADT users - this is NOT a multi-view block, so don't confuse the two, but it is still going to revolutionize symbol libraries and most likely make a lot of LISP routines moot!

Stay tuned for more details. I promise to tease you with more :-).

BIM Conference further Validates the Concept

2005-02-27T16:10:00.000-08:00

The upcoming conference that Jerry Laiserin recently brought to my attention will potentially add more momentum to the BIM movement, and at the very least will provide additional real-world insights from a variety of perspectives for those interested in learning more:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Industry Experts to Explore Building Information Modeling

Atlanta, GA, February 23, 2005 -- As building owners increasingly demand
smarter ways to design, document and deliver their building projects, an
approach called building information modeling (BIM) is poised to "cross the
chasm" from pioneering technology to mainstream adoption. On April 1920,
2005, leading experts, solution providers and users of this technology will
meet at the Global Learning and Conference Center on the campus of Georgia
Tech in Atlanta to explore the challenges and opportunities of BIM, as well
as the processes necessary for successful deployment. Organized and hosted
jointly by the Georgia Tech College of Architecture (COA) Ph.D. Program and
the LaiserinLetterT technology advisory service, this conference includes
real-world case studies and interactive panels, as well as industry
applications and analyses essential to everyone who owns, operates,
constructs or designs buildings.

Links to audience registration and the conference agenda are available on
the web at http://www.laiserin.com/laiserinlive/index.php or by contacting
Mrs. Mercedes Saghini at mercedes.saghini@coa.gatech.edu, phone +1 (404)
894-3476. Sponsorship information, for vendors of qualified technology
solutions, may be obtained by contacting Jerry Laiserin at
gatechbim@laiserin.com, phone +1 (917) 225-7058.

The conference will examine the ways that BIM "offers fundamentally new
opportunities for improving the quality of design, shortening the building
procurement life cycle, and reducing costs," according to Charles Eastman,
director of the COA Ph.D. program and author of the definitive book
Building Product Models. Both public and private building owners are
beginning to recognize these benefits. A key confirmation of this trend is
the US General Services Administration's (GSA) requirement for a BIM
approach at the concept design phase of all projects starting in fiscal
year 2006 (which begins October 2005). Notes Eastman, "the issue no longer
is why or when to adopt BIM, but how to effectively deploy it now."

LaiserinLetterT editor Jerry Laiserin, founding director of the aecXML
project for industry data exchange and widely credited with standardizing
and popularizing the terminology of BIM, observes that "the
multi-dimensional, data-rich models of the BIM approach enable contractors,
engineers, architects and building product manufacturers to work as a
tightly integrated team helping owner-operators build smarter." Case study
and application presentations at the conference illustrating such teamwork
include BIM for Steel Construction, BIM for Precast Concrete Construction,
BIM for Energy Analysis, BIM for Project Delivery and BIM for Industry
Integration, as well as BIM for Owners. Panel presentations include leading
providers of technology solutions in each of these areas.

With the BIM approach finally "ready for prime time," this Georgia
Tech/LaiserinLetterT conference offers important business and professional
knowledge critical to every executive and manager in the building enterprise.

=========================
Conference on Building Information Modeling:
Challenges, Opportunities, Processes, Deployment
April 1920, 2005Atlanta, Georgia, USA
http://www.pe.gatech.edu/conted/servlet/edu.gatech.conted.course.ViewCourseDetails?COURSE_ID=624

Registration contact:
Mrs. Mercedes Saghini
Georgia Tech College of Architecture
mercedes.saghini@coa.gatech.edu
+1 (404) 894-3476

Media and sponsorship contact:
Jerry Laiserin
The LaiserinLetterT
gatechbim@laiserin.com
+1 (917) 225-7058

=========================
About Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's top research
universities, distinguished by its commitment to improving the human
condition through advanced science and technology. Georgia Tech's College
of Architecture Ph.D. Program has been a leader in the development and
testing of BIM modeling applications and the integration software needed to
allow such applications to work together.
http://www.arch.gatech.edu/phd/

About the LaiserinLetterT
A technology advisory service providing analysis, strategy and opinion to
business leaders in the built environment, the LaiserinLetterT, under
editor/consultant Jerry Laiserin, has been in the forefront of tracking BIM
technology and advising clients on its capabilities.
http://www.laiserin.com