Funny Coversation while at AU

While I have been in Vegas my 4 year old son has been asking my wife when I will be home. This is a conversation that he had while on his way home from school today:

K: I don’t want to take a nap.
Mama: I know, but you have to.
K: But, I need Papa to be there so that you can sing and he can (motions waving with his hands).

I sometimes make hand/arm motions while my wife sings
Mama: I know, but Papa had to go on a business trip.
K: But, I don’t know. Where is he?
Mama: He went to Las Vegas.
K: Space! (Very Excited)
Mama: No, Las Vegas… it’s a city.
K: Yeah, but I don’t know what Las Vegas is…

Maybe AU 2030 will find that the largest venue available for the attendees is the moon and then my son won't be so confused.

AU 2008

I'm off to Autodesk University. If you want to get together to network please send me an email. Hope to see you there!

Always Test before Mass Update

Sometimes I forget with simple "Service Packs" of any program, that they all should get adequately tested before installing on a mass of computers. So, we have a user that was having serious issues that the rest of their team was not having on a 180mb Revit file. Even though none of this user's issues were on the fix list I had hoped that it would resolve some of the issues until we could get the user a new computer. After installing the Service Pack 2, the user would have Revit close (without warning or error report) when they would attemp a save to central command. I had to do a system restore because there was nothing I could alter on the machine that would allow the program to save to central. Luckily, since we are switching out hardware so that the users will have Vista 64bit with Revit 64, I only installed the Service Pack (Web Update) 2 on one computer.

Just a reminder that you should always test before installing on too many computers. I almost forgot and if we were not changing out hardware I would probably have suggested installing it on 50 computers. That would have been a headache!

This could have been a system issue so I am in no way suggesting that you not use the new Revit update.

Revit 64-Bit Benchmark Results

Before the 64-Bit was even released I was just finishing up a benchmark program that was very difficult and taxing on RAM and processor. We were trying to figure out what laptop would be best for our Revit users. Since the 64-Bit has been released I have now run it and was shocked at the improvement. On another note, I was let down that the SP2 for 2009 was actually slower then the WU1 but that quickly disappeared when I heard about the 64-Bit version. Below are the results:Below is an image from the benchmark. It is way overmodeled with bolts, complex chairs, glass beakers in the shelves in the lab and so forth.

Revit 64-Bit Released

Autodesk has released the 64-Bit Revit and can be downloaded on the subscription website. A longtime dream of many has become a reality. We have a difficult benchmark within the office that takes about 2 1/2 hours on the 32-Bit Revit so I will let you know the results on the new version.

Thank you Autodesk!!!

New Revit Blog

I was wondering how long it would take for Autodesk to finally have solid Revit Blog. The wait is gone and I look forward to seeing what insight can come from constant, more relaxed, topics of discussion from the source. Written by Harlan Brumm, he lists this on his bio:

"As the Global Technical Lead for Revit Architecture within Product Support, I train our support staff on the technical side of the software and I help solve pesky Revit problems. I also help to author white papers and technical solutions on our Knowledge base."

The site called The Revit Clinic describes itself as Preventative and Rehabilitative BIM Care. With a start of about one post every three days he is off to a great start with some interesting topics.

ABC3D Book

This is just too interesting not to share. Some gifted minds are just specially made to see objects and in this case typography in creative 3D.

Hidden Gem

A blogger that I enjoy reading has changed the name of his blog in the hopes of getting better stats. The name was changed to Zooming with Revit. It used to be “Life’s too short to drink cheap wine.” Great name that's really memorable but even more memorable is the great posts that are created on this blog. If you get a chance, bookmark his site... The more hits the more likely he will keep blogging. Ohh... and the site has more than just Revit on its posts.

Interesting Revit Site

I was browsing the web and found this site. While it mostly has Green Building articles it has the potential to be a very interesting Revit News site.

Check it out! http://www.revitcommunity.com

New Versions of NavisWorks

Just announced today by Autodesk "New Versions of Autodesk NavisWorks Product Line Now Available"

Some key quotes from the announcement include:

UPDATES
Updates were made to the full Autodesk NavisWorks product line, whichenables seamless visualization of all types of models, precise replicationof designs, and accurate simulation of 4D construction schedules. TheNavisWorks products help keep all project stakeholders on the same digitalpage, whether they are creating, viewing or reviewing 3D models.

The updated version of the Autodesk NavisWorks line of products nowalso provides:

• Support for Revit assembly codes for "symbol" element types
• Properties support for new style DWF files (as exported from Revit)
• Asta Powerproject V10 support
• AutoCAD Mechanical 2008 64-bit support
• 64-bit exporters now included in the main installer
• Vico Constructor 2008 support
• Enhancements to application programming interface

AVAILABILITY
Autodesk NavisWorks 2009.1 products are now available worldwide inEnglish, French, German, Japanese, Russian and Simplified Chinese.Additionally, Autodesk NavisWorks Freedom is now available as a free add-onproduct with Autodesk NavisWorks Manage, Autodesk NavisWorks Simulate andAutodesk NavisWorks Review installs. More information can be found at http://www.autodesk.com/navisworks.

New Job, New Design

Three months ago I accepted a position as BIM Specialist at a Boston, MA based Architecture firm with about 200 employees. After 10+ years of working on Architectural projects I have now begun supporting those teams producing the work. I am very excited about this change and the ability to explore Revit, BIM and many other programs with more depth than ever before. Now that I have settled into my position I would like to share with everyone some of what I have learned recently.

Autodesk Expands Sustainable Design Product Portfolio

The following link from Autodesk descibes the acquisition of Green Building Studio by Autodesk.

Autodesk Press

and below is the email I just recieved from Green Building Studio

After nearly 10 years of market changing innovation, Green Building Studio is delighted to announce we have signed an agreement for Autodesk, Inc. to acquire our assets. In other words, our Green Building Studio (GBS) web service will soon join the Autodesk product family. Please be assured that our talented team will continue selling, training, and supporting architects as they use our web service to design carbon neutral buildings today and in the future.

“Autodesk is committed to providing technology that makes sustainable design easier and more efficient,” said Jay Bhatt, senior vice president, Autodesk AEC Solutions. “We look forward to adding the Green Building Studio technologies to the Autodesk portfolio and helping our customers more easily leverage the coordinated, reliable data created in the Revit® platform for building information modeling (BIM) to help predict performance and design buildings with reduced environmental impact.”

After closing this deal, Autodesk also plans to continue support for the Green Building Studio web service, carbon neutral building design training, and to strengthen the web service’s integration with its BIM software. The gbXML schema will remain an open industry standard, and the GBS web service will continue to be available to any other BIM software.
“We have partnered with Autodesk for many years, and commend their ongoing support for sustainability,” said John Kennedy, President & CTO, Green Building Studio. “We are eager to contribute our industry expertise in green buildings to drive mainstream adoption of sustainability and accelerate the AEC industry’s transition to carbon neutral buildings.”
We expect to finalize the acquisition in the next few months. In the meanwhile, if you have any questions please feel free to contact us.


Green Building Studio - web service facts
6600+ Users
6200+ Projects
646 LEED Projects
35,000+ Simulations
210+ million floor area (ft²)
20 second average simulation time
ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 140-2004

Revit Architecture and Max

Recently, I rendered my first Revit model in Autodesk 3ds Max. While I had extensive previous experience with Autodesk Viz, I had only used AutoCAD models in the Viz environment. I have rendered many Revit models in Accurender within Revit and have been able to tweak the settings enough to get very decent models. On this rendering though, we wanted to create a nightime rendering and that was something that you can not create well in Accurender.I was thrilled at the easy transfer from Revit into Max. While you have to export to AutoCAD first, when you bring that file into Max it allows you to select items by object. This project had three buildings, thus three linked files, and by being able to select the similar objects of each building allowed me to go from Revit to finished renderings in one day. Mix the easy use of the Revit/Max combo with ArchVision's RPC objects (People, Trees and Cars) and you can go from simple to amazing.

I am soon at the end of the 30 day trial that they allow from the download at the Autodesk website but I will be highly recommending the purchase of this product for our company. I will also try a copy of Viz to see if the operability is the same and will report back to everyone once I have reviewed it.

Project North / True North

This has always puzzled me and wanted to find out if anyone else out there felt the same. When setting up a project you do not always know what project north will be on new construction project. The default orientation though for Revit is set to Project North.

So, basically to get things setup correctly from the beginning I have to put in the property coordinates from the surveyor, test out options to figure out the building orientation, rotate the entire project so that it lays out correctly on the sheets, set the view properties to True North and then finally go to Tools > Project Position / Orientation > Rotate True North.

Is it me or is this set backwards? Does anyone out there have a good reason why it is acceptable as it is currently set-up? Is this something that the Revit development team can fix? Kinda like the Ceiling misspelling on a tab that took them a few releases to fix.