Schedule sorting hack

SCRUG 9/21/2017 Making Money with Revit, Delivering the Promise of BIM

Sam Keville of Architects Orange was our master of ceremonies. A. Jay Holland had other matters to attend to.

Thank you to our sponsors... Kelar Pacific, Microdesk, & U.S. CAD. They provided pizza from Sgt Pepperonis Pizza, Cookies and drinks. 

Thank you to Little Diversified Architectural Consulting for providing the venue, hot drinks, wine and chilled water.

After introductions of new people, Ed Tallmage showed off the latest in tech from Leica Geosystems. His was one of  40 delivered thus far. This model connects wirelessly to the Apple Ipad Pro. It is lightweight and fast. Each scan taking two to three minutes based on whether you want hi res or low res. 

Sam jumped into the meat of his presentation. It was a throwback to the early days of #SCRUG when we had everyone exploring new features and sharing how to get things done.

With so many new comers he had to review some of the basics.

BIMX - Building Information Modeling Execution Plan. We covered this a bit in the 2/2017 SCRUG meeting. 

LOD - Sam shared his version of the Level of Detail breakdown of modeling. 

• 100 Walls & openings = 10% Construction Documents (CDs)

• 200 Content that approximates geometry = 25% CDs

• 300 Accurate geometry, cartoon set = 50% CDs

• 350 Plan Check Set, fully describe everything = 100% CDs

• 400 Issue to client for maintaining and managing the building = record set

ORG Chart - Who are the members of the team, what do they do, what are their capabilities, how are they related.

These three pieces work together. Susan  chimed in that these parts need to be codified in the contractual relationships. Sam emphasized that the documents are not enough, the responsibilities should be presented and divided up in a meeting. Who does what by when is the key to Making $$$. Agreements need to be in place. The contract should support the process.

Sam described the benefits of upgrading projects as new features are released since Revit is on an annual upgrade schedule with two interim upgrades. He reads the release notes. There is no better way to see, "what is in it for me". One of the biggest improvements in Revit 2017 has been Global Parameters. He uses it to make the parameters render well on AO's title blocks. It was a major frustration that text/parameters wouldn't line up properly in Revit 2016.Sam explained the Revit Project division of labor looks like at AO. 

·       Revit Lead - Project Architect

·       3D Drafter - Advanced User builds families, does modeling, uses plugins, know how to fix the model 

·       2D Drafter - Junior User uses mainly the site and annotation menus. Could use the Area plan tools to have live updated area schedules during schematic design.

With a proper division of responsibilities, a set can get to the 10% CDs in about a week. BIM Managers have a specialized set of skills that do not necessarily coincide with typical architect or CADD training. Skills like software license management, network analysis, plugin evaluation, and hardware troubleshooting are vital to keeping the Revit Team efficient.

Meetings, they are often not a good use of time. Sam shared some tips to help Production Meetings improve: Have an agenda with things on it like: lessons learned, new Revit Features, project successes, skill refreshing, training,...

Sam's motto: Get better every day. Make mistakes only once. 

Tidbits:

Using the roof by footprint, draw the rectangle, add points for spot elevations, then use cutouts to trim the edges rather than adjusting the boundaries. The 3D rendering patterns will look better - I am going to try this tip out.

Keynote Manager + is a software to manage the text files with keynote information. One need not use Revit to have access to it. A perfect tool for a project manager. Link keynotes to materials and schedules. If you make your tags right the keynote tag and the material tag can snap together. Workflow wise, one can use the text version of keynotes during schematic design and presentations and flip them to numbers once you have your schedules on the sheets!

Dynamo: Sam shared a Dynamo graph that grabs all the data form revision clouds and spits out an Excel file. If you follow protocol it generates a useful narrative for your revisions! Thanks Andrew King at WATG. The key points are to have 1) Where the revision came from and 2) What the revision changed. The excel file will have: 

• Sheet number

• Sheet Name

• Revision Number

• Revision Date

• Revit Element ID number

• Revit View

• and both 1) & 2) 

This .dyn was worth the wait. It essentially writes the revision narrative automatically.

SCRUG 8/17/2017 dRofus

The August 2017 SCRUG (South Coast Revit User Group) met at the Irvine California offices of Little Diversified Architectural Consulting.

Food was supplied by Super Mex. Cheese enchiladas and chicken enchiladas. Thank you to our sponsors... Kelar Pacific, Microdesk, & U.S. CAD.

Brok Howard of dRofus presented. He emphasized that his company was not trying to remake all the Revit Addins or tools inside Revit Architecture. Nor are they trying to have a huge feature set.  It can be used as a Revit content management solution and admittedly, it is clunky. 

dRofus leverages the existing tools in Revit to help designers focus on design. Their cloud based solution is a database that has bi-directional communication with Revit. dRofus can create and push shared parameters into Revit files. However, not all information needs to be in the model. The examples showed how an owner's requirements or an architectural program can reside outside Revit. With dRofus and Revit side by side one can have a list that depopulates as objects are placed in a Revit model. 

Many today use checklists to verify and confirm the correct number of items wind up in the Revit Model. For example: furniture, rooms, equipment, and so on. With dRofus a single click can place all the required revit families in a room for later adjustment. All the stuff lands at the room origin point, so use with caution.

One can compare square footage in dRofus and have a spreadsheet of what the owner asked for to what is actually in the model - with live updates. 

dRofus also can create an IFC file from the Revit model to allow visual navigation of the Revit Model inside a web browser. With the model objects in a list on half the web browser, one may easily click in the list to highlight in the 3D what is where and see it on the other half the web browser. 

Doors & Door hardware can be managed in dRofus. It can grab the relevant data from Revit and be manipulated and output to specifications or pushed back in. 

One opportunity that dRofus presents is designing the building requirements and specifications into a standard before any modeling actually takes place. In this manner is seems similar to the programming phase of a typical project. By placing the requirements into dRofus, it integrates with Revit and can facilitate increased quality and speed in design. 

SCRUG 5/2017

5/25/2017 SCRUG was held at the offices of LPA. Thanks for hosting.

We had a smaller group this month ~18 people. The dinner from Super Mex was provided by our sponsors. Dessert was donuts - sorry I missed the brand. Thank you Microdesk, US CAD, & Keller Pacific.

Introductions were short with only a couple of new people. Welcome to the group. Once again, A. Jay Holland, Chair of SCRUG led the discussion and introduced Brent Ramos from Assemble.

Here is the summary of what Assemble does:

• It makes your Revit model accessible by people without the full software.
• They can view the model, sort the items, examine the parameters, group objects, save views, change display colors of objects, make limited changes to parameters that will be saved in Assemble, changes can be exported and pushed into Revit 
• Versioning: Assemble assigns version numbers to each upload, can do comparisons, show and list what has changed.
• 100% Cloud based.

Brent had a user, Connor Burke, a senior estimator/project manager from McCarthy, explain how they are using the website/software in the design/build and IDP part of their business. 

1. McCarthy tested many software packages and web services before choosing Assemble.
2. They add data to the model, like pricing, RFIs, 
3. "If the model is built correctly, it cuts estimating time from two weeks to two days."
4. They use it for coordination, QTO, QC, daily trending of changes to the model, 
5. The saved views become a template for future projects. 
6. It is a different work flow from Navisworks.
7. Models can be assembled in Revit then exported as a single model to Assemble or Assemble can combine the exported models. McCarty prefers the first method. 

The market for Assemble is General Contractors, Building Managers, and Building Owners. For design teams it seems like another layer of work and yet it can be  a communication tool. Designers can see what the contractors see, they can use it for quality reviews and tracking of comments in an online solution. 

SCRUG 4/2017

The local Revit User Group met on a day that I could attend this month! Here is the summary...
A J Holland is the current chairman of SCRUG.
He arranges the food and the guests. Thanks Jay!

Thank you to our re-seller Sponsors: 

• https://uscad.com/
• https://kelarpacific.com/
• http://www.microdesk.com/

The dinner was street tacos. Your choice of Beef, Pork or Chicken.
Attendance was  ±50. There were about five first time attendees.

Scott Davis presented. He joined Autodesk ten years ago. First off, he described the development strategy going forward. Autodesk will roll out new features on a quarterly basis. The file format will remain the same. If I understand correctly it will be a huge improvement. Users may have different releases like, 2018, 2018.1, 2018.2, or 2018.3 and still be able to open the other 2018 releases!

The presentation consisted of showing the official Autodesk Revit 2018 new features videos. You may find them here...

Scott showed a few additional videos that are not posted on youtube.com.

Here is the new features list.

Autodesk has been incrementally working on the font rendering. The goal was to get fonts to have consistent heights between Autocad & Revit. Revit 2017 received many font complaints on revitforums.org. With the 2018 release, there is only one gap - fonts in dimensions. Once they update dimensions, the font rendering will be consistent across all text entities (schedules, symbols, labels, text, dimensions).

Last but not least, Scott showed some "coming soon" features:

1. Schedules Browser - allows filters and sorting of schedules in the Project Browser.
2. Collaboration 4 Revit - allows linking of DWG files.
3. Formit - quick material creation and improt to Revit.
4. Multi Monitor Support - tabbed views, drag & drop to second monitor, better manual window arranging.

Want to influence future Revit releases? Try these websites...

http://blogs.autodesk.com/revit/revit-official-blog/
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/idb-p/302/tab/most-recent

FYI:There is contact information for some of the actual developers.

Revit Tip: use etransmit to upgrade a Revit file with all its links at the same time.

Chat afterwards... Now is a great time to join a firm. There are many looking for talent.

Schedule Hack in Revit

Sometimes, in #Revit you want to add something that is just a schedule. Here is a step by step way to do so...
http://www.mattbenimble.com/articles/reusable-schedules/

Only works for Version 2014 and more recent. Behind the scenes what is happening is that you are adding more "headers" to the schedule.

For those that don't need as much customization, here is another way to do it...
https://revitstructureblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/creating-and-controlling-general-notes-in-revit/

SCRUG 2/2/2017 BIMSmith

The review of the first part of the meeting seemed so long that I thought my notes on the second part would get lost...

First off, thanks to the sponsors for the pizza, drinks and cookies. Microdesk, US CAD, Keller Pacific.

Jim Balding introduced BIMSmith.com
The website is a new way for materials supplier to get their information to design professionals. Their site went live early 2016.
Everyone in the room has used Revit to build families. System families are a bit of a pain because they do not use the same family editor for creation. BIMSmith is a web based interface to simplify the process. They use drag and drop for placement of wall layers or ceiling layers. They have drop down menus for when choices are limited. Where products are offered by a manufacturer, they are listed by model options. For example if siding is offered in 4", 6" and 12" sizes, those are the only sizes in the drop down menu. Once you are done designing the wall or pick one of the prefab walls in the "drawer", the build button is ready for a click. It takes a while, but the website gathers all the information available for the components making up the new wall, packages it into a zip file and emails you, and places it in your account page. You may download the zip file and find all the goodies.

1. Revit system family in a .RVT (Revit template file)
2. Autocad .DWG
3. Word .DOC Three part spec
4. PDF cut sheets
5. Details if available

Cool Features

Actual Manufacturer products, prebuilt UL listed assemblies, in some cases even screws are a choice, can share creations, 3d view during making process, Earl looks like Don Sutherland

Not so cool

Site is slow, shared parameters not available in web interface, long workflow (create, compile, download, open, copy, paste into project, add shared parameters),

Future Features

Roofs available next, Revit plugin, Pipes, Ducts, 

My Opinion

I will try out the website. Since I am in a company that does not have a mature catalog of walls & ceilings we can use this to build our library & standards. 

Other ideas brought up

WATG and other firms will have shopping malls or department stores. 

1. Revit Template file - has the basics for every project the company focuses on
2. Department Store Revit Template file - one level with all wall types, one level with furniture, one level with plumbing, mechanical, electrical, structural, equipment, kitchens, bathrooms, ...

SCRUG 2/2/2017 LODPlanner

Through the miracles of changing schedules, I was able to attend this month's SCRUG meeting - the first in a long while. I estimate that about 60 people showed up.

It was announced on LinkedIn.
It was announced on Meetup.
It was detailed on the SCRUG blog.

After introductions & pizza, it went like this...
The main speaker Clive Jordan gave a bit of personal and BIM history.

In essence models progress over time. Like a painting that starts with one stroke & then becomes recognizable as more are added, a BIM begins with little geometry, accuracy, & information & becomes recognizable as a building information model.

Clive described how the terminology of BIM formed. Some familiar terms like... Level of *. Where the * could be any number of terms. Development, Definition, Information, Accuracy. While this LOD was meant to help in understanding, the splintering of terms has scattered meaning.

BIM=Data
The goal of BIM and LEAN construction is to get information where it is needed ASAP. To this end, the BIM Execution Plan & lists of contract obligations were created. Level of Development spreadsheets & lists of who does what by when are created.

The current process of creating the Level of Development (LOD) Plan is a long and brain wracking process. Clive is working on a web based solution to shorten the FIVE day process to create the LOD Plan with LODPlanner.com. Presently the site is a bit slow and it is in Beta testing till about 7/2017.

LOD planner is a question based tool to help one create the LOD document to add to design & construction contracts. Why should one adhere to a rigid set of deliverables or an arbitrary schedule. One may customize what is needed by when the next chunk of design information is needed to meet the next deadline. One can prioritize based on the goals of the owner, contractor and/or design team. Why have super detailed geometry when no renderings are required? Why load up the model with data that will never be accessed? Why have accuracy to 1/16" when accuracy to 1'-0" is all that is necessary? In short, do what is necessary & pay what is needed to get the desired results.

Now the document that the website spits out is not "set in stone". It may be altered over time and the website tracks changes. Who changed what and when. The LOD plan is a starting point in contract negotiations which may lead to changes in what is desired by when and at what price.

LODPLanner:
The requirements are divided into three chunks.

1. Geometry - what elements are modeled (visual)
2. Accuracy - what level is acceptable to move to the next designer's input (reliability)
3. Information - what date needs to be embedded in the objects (quantification)

The Process

1. Project definition and information - name, type, region default, classification, & team.
2. Create the desired milestones for deliverables. 
3. Add requirements for each milestone. 
1. Why create the model? What is necessary? What are the concerns that are addressed?
2. It is a drag & drop interface. Pull information into the timeline to create tasks. Bits of design are represented with a typical LOD illustration & industry standard definitions. 
4. The software processes your input into a milestone plan, Gantt chart.

The project plan can be constructed in reverse order. I want this result, what inputs will give me the result? One builds the project in reverse. The software can track tasks, so when one bit of design is done or information is gathered it can email the next person in the process to notify that their required source is ready. Like going into a factory & the conveyor belt delivering a part for installation. 

What is missing?

A human being, a professional needs to check the deliverables to verify that they meet standard. 

The security part is still being worked out. Presently there are two layer of access (Admin, & Team member). One can fine tune the Team member login to grant additional rights to edit. 

Import & Export to MS Project or similar management tools are not available. 

Straight LOD numbers can be misunderstood. You may need LOD 500 data but only LOD 200 geometry. 

API - the API is private.

Integration into management systems like Trello.

Revit Data Link.

What is coming?

Machine Learning - the website tracks the choices made in creating the LOD Plan across all users. The company may then add stuff is that is often added to LOD Plans. 

My Opinion

It will save large chunks of time creating these LOD documents. The LOD document is available on a project basis for team members to see graphically what is required and therefore it will raise the industry's collective knowledge base of LOD & reign in the confusion of terms like LOD 100, 

Revit 2016 interesting

When switching the Project Browser to "not on sheets"- it does not take into account legends. All legends are shown in the "not on sheets" view of the Project Browser even when the legends in question are on at least one sheet.

Elevation marker help

Having problems with an elevation marker? Take a look at the revit forums

http://www.revitforum.org/architecture-general-revit-questions/9465-elevation-tag-style.html

Near the end of this thread, there is a post by DaveP that gives an eight step process to help you wade through the morass that is fixing the problem.

Revit Family for showing clearances

Here you may find a PDF of a step by step process for creating a family that can be used to nest into other Revit families for the purpose of showing clearance or open space required. The clearance family is also visibility controlable.

http://bimgineering.com/downloads/Create_Hatch.pdf

SCRUG November 2015

This meeting was the

Add In Extravaganza

The Autodesk App Store has programs that can be added into Revit to do a variety of things. Nick Kramer  led the discussion.

He organized the presentation into three parts:

1. Free Apps
2. Subscription Apps
3. Paid Apps

Free Apps

• COINS - A click on the icon creates a new view with a scope box. The box can be adjusted by a small dialog box. A similar functionality is built into Revit, but COINS offers the ability to toggle it on & off and one may name the view as one create it which saves it in the project browser.
• CAD to Earth - When Google spun off SketchUp the link to Google Earth went with it. This addin brings it back.
• Align for tags - Generally one must eyeball the alignment of the various types of tags. If one spends the time to place the origin of all the various tag types in the same spot, this addin will get them all to line up.
• XLSX - This addin allows a two way communication with MS Excel. One may use a spreadsheet to coordinate information from various tables, schedules or control geometry.
• Revizto - Originally created as a paid walk through visualization tool, now it is free.
• Dynamo - Not so much an app as a programming language. Its use of visual elements opens up programming to a broad audience. Dynamo can do anything that Revit can do. Dynamo can do lots of things that Revit otherwise "cannot" do.

Subscription Apps

• etransmit - This app packages Revit files for archiving or transmitting. It can upgrade older files, strip views, remove sheets, and do another variety of things to reduce file size.
• Site Designer - Autodesk bought this app form another company. It has a stiff learning curve and gives Revit powerful site modeling commands.
• Space Naming Utility - For our MEP friends, it makes connecting MEP spaces with architectural rooms and areas a breeze.
• Worksharing Monitor - Companies with multiple people working in the same model will find this very useful. It keeps track of who is working in the model, when they save, and so forth.
• Batch print - Yes, batch printing is built into Revit, but this app improves on it. You may reorder sheets. Often it is the case that the first few sheets start with a "T" or a"G" and sort behind the "A" sheets.  
• Shared Reference Point - If the Revit origin point is not working as a coordination place between files, this app will create a new reference point to help files get on the same page. 
• Extensions - This is another consultants focused app (SMEP).
• NAVIS Exporter - Not much use for this now that NAVIS can read and write .rvt files.

Paid Apps

• Keynote Manager+ - Managing the text file based keynotes lists are made easy with this app and its lower priced cousin. The cheaper version is an external app. The more expensive one works inside Revit. Internet connection required! 
• Bluebeam - This advanced PDF writer is not offered in the App Store. When you install the program, it installs the app in Revit. 
• Kiwicodes - Actually a series of apps. Check the website for the list.
• CASE Tools - Also a series of apps. Sadly, this company was purchased and no new installs are offered. One app that I miss is the one that quickly creates drafting views and places images in them. The app also can resize the images based on user input. The end result is every photo with the same x and y dimensions. I remember importing entire folders of images for projects. 
• Rush Forth Tools - These tools focus on MS Excel integration & parameter manipulation. 
• UNIFI - A content management solution.
• CTC BIM - BIM tools for managers.
• EXCEL 2R - This addin allows a two way communication with MS Excel. 
• Solibre - A code compliance and design review tool.

These were the apps that we had time to speak about in the limited time of teh meeting. There are obviously many other addins available for Revit.

After the overall review of the addins we had a demonstration of COINS. It is very easy to use and after a few tries, we figured out what the controls did without reading any "help" file. 

Revit Pizza

I created a pizza in Revit 7.0 using floors and tables. Enjoy...

Revit Macros

I got a second macro to work. Thanks Troy!

Revit Macro

Today, 9/25/15 I entered a macro from this blog. And it worked.

I gathered the following information to help convince my boss to get the upgrade to Revit or start a subscription.

System requirements:
Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 64-bit:Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise
Microsoft Windows 8 / 8.1 64-bit: Windows 8 / 8.1, Pro or Enterprise
CPU Multi-Core Intel Xeon, I-series processor or AMD equivalent with SSE2 technology. Memory 8 GB RAM
Display 1680 x 1050 (WSXGA+), true color
Graphics card DirectX® 11 capable graphics card with Shader Model 3 as recommended by Autodesk.Disk Space 5 GB free disk space
Media Download or installation from DVD or USB
Pointing Device Mouse or compliant device
Browser Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 (or later)
Connectivity Internet connection for license registration and prerequisite component download

Our projects are getting larger and more complex, the performance of Revit is improving with each new release. “The Revit Jedi”
2015 
Sketchy lines - yep, create sketchy alteration to views
Family parameter order adjustments - reorder/control parameter positionSchedules/material takeoffs - Access to Additional parameters and Grand Total customization
Revision improvements - Delete Revisions and more sketching options
View references - Reassign view reference to different view
Anti-aliasing improvements (related to Sketchy Lines)Images in schedules - Instance and Type Image parameters can be used in schedules
Building element analysis - Improved surface analysis and calculations (Subscription Only)Tag improvements - Leader behavior mimics text leaders
Ray trace usability improvements - faster, better quality and smoother
Views on sheets - Double click to Deactivate View (compliments 2014's Activate View)
Keynoting settings - Keynote settings access easier, more obvious
Trim - Use selection box to trim extend multiple elements

2014
Conceptual design environment:Non-rectangular crop regions and callouts
Schedules format improvements
File export improvements
Stair creation improvements

2013
Double-click to Edit Family
View & view templates improvements
General usability improvemeents
File export improvements, text & transparency

You can now tab to the dimension & hit the delete key & the dimension is removed from the string.

Diameter dimension tool

Surface Transparency slider

Stair creation improvements

Why do subscription?

Latest product enhancements (daily add-ons)

Autodesk 360 cloud services for rendering, optimization, and analysis

Previous Version Rights (three years worth), Home Use Rights

25 GB of Autodesk 360 cloud storage per named user

Basic Technical Support

Collaborate with project stakeholders securely in the cloud

Use building design suite software month to month? ~$340/month/seat

Autodesk only – no resellers (works out to $4080/year/seat), only current version offered.

I have three quotes:

• Microdesk $5,327 + $1,000/year
• Keller Pacific $4,295 + $1,025/year
• US CAD $4,560 + $995/year

Each quote expires in September 2014. Starting in February 2015, Autodesk will no longer allow discounted, “upgrade” pricing. All upgrades will be new purchases to the tune of $8,000.

Every reseller also offers quarterly pricing and financing of licenses

SCRUG 7-16-15

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my schedule opened up and I was able to attend this months South Coast Revit User Group meeting. There were two topics:

1. Schedules
2. Content Management (Libraries)

A special thanks to Carla Edwards for presenting.

One of the nice thing about attending SCRUG is you get a look at how others are using the features of Revit. Since I have an older version installed at both work and home, it gives me a chance to see the future. Autodesk added some features to schedules over the years. There are many features built into every software and Revit is no exception. The difficulty with any software company is finding a way for users to discover new functionality. SCRUG is one way for users to find the new or old features. 

Schedules

Carla covered some schedule basics, however, though basic, these features are very powerful.

group parameters vs ungrouped - nice for appearance 

Combining key schedules with schedules allows one to push content from a key schedule to another schedule. For example you have a set pallet of finishes based on the room function. Categories like office, breakroom, hall, storage and so on. You may only have 3-4 pallets, but dozens of rooms. To manually add the individual finishes to each line in the schedule could easily add hours of time. Using a key schedule you could pick your pallets and then select them from a drop down in the room finish schedule. One example was shown by adding code occupancy calculations to a room schedule. The number of persons can be calculated from the area by applying the occupant load factor.

"Insert from file" when you load a schedule, it will bring in the associated key schedules automatically!

Schedules can be used to manage objects in the project - everything in the project. Sheets, views, levels, or anything. Since you may have schedules that will not appear in the printed set you can have multiple schedules for sorting or finding items. One anecdote was that a wall type was created and used that was not part of the company standard - and with a schedule it was easily found, located, and corrected. 

View template may be created and applied to schedules - you can easily get all the schedules in a project to use the same font, and lines. One best practice is to name your schedule fonts with the name "schedule" in it.

Content Management

Why should we manage content? For company consistency, which translates to quality and it saves time. 

Manage your parameters - using the same parameter across families and projects means less duplicated work, and more profitability.

Document the shared parameters! - write down what was created, why it was created, what it does and where it goes.

Have an office standard template for projects and for families.

When you want to "hard code" parameters into a template - start with a .rft, convert to a .rfa then convert to a .rft. Done. 

Idea for families - use an embedded mass family for clearances - use the same object subcategory across all families so you can globally turn them all on or off in views. 

Many manufactures provide BIM content. Colby Windows, Kawneer to name a few. Beware the content! Much of it is not created with the design professional in mind. Always test it in a sample project. The last thing you want is for a piece of content to break your project. 

FYI - Autodesk Seek has added a badging/rating system for content. 

Best practices for creating content:

• Use reference lines and reference planes. Choose carefully which references are strong, weak or not a reference. The implications affect where you can align or dimension and how easy it is to pick and click.
• Materials - use parameters in families and manage the materials in the project
• Test content in test projects

Organizing your content:

• Name/sort by CSI number - makes for easier keynoting and spec coordination
• Sort directories: 00-startup files, 01-support files, 02-model content, 03-annotate content, ...
• startup - templates
• support - share parameter files
• model - 3d families
• annotate - 2d families
• Keep track of what you decided and why
• Make compromises, don't change how you operate so often that you can't get/keep everyone on board

Several vendors offer content search, creation, duplication and organizing solutions, Robocopy, Autodesk Vault, Dropbox, Peersync, DFS Replicate, Buzzsaw, ...

Revit Tip

I saw the following blog post:
http://whatrevitwants.blogspot.com/2011/07/find-all-instances-of-detail-object-and.html
This is a great tip. I can't say how many times I wanted to clean up duplicate names of families imported from various projects. This tip would have saved hours!

Step 1: select all
Step 2: try to group
Step 3: export the list of instances

SCRUG 4/17/15

I've been away from SCRUG meetings for a few months. I was asked to serve as an adult adviser in the local chapter of the Order of the Arrow.

However, my OA meetings did not fall on the April 2015 SCRUG meeting which featured Scott Davis showing off the Autodesk 2016 suite of offerings.

Scott started by showing off the new features of 3DS MAX. Most notably, it now has the ability to place cameras and may use Cloud Rendering.

Presently the Revit 2016 site is up and the new software is available for download. Most of the programming efforts were spent on performance enhancement, not new features. Consequently there was not much to show. Scott's quote was, "100 times faster". From the demo videos and the live demo, it does look noticeably faster. One killer new feature - when you print to PDF, you may have Revit build-in the hyperlinks. Click on a bubble, go to that detail! Nice.

On the collaboration side, Autodesk has A360. This idea has some real potential. The way most of the industry works is that small firms get together to design a project, it goes out to build and the construction firms take over. There is also a large segment of the industry that are conglomerates that have all the various disciplines in house which design and build projects - usually very large projects. Autodesk has catered well to the needs of the large conglomerates. Now they bring the capability to the small firms. The project central file resides in the cloud and as each person logs in the software handles the "IT" in the background (creating local files, server settings, ...). Any files that the team share can be viewed in a simple browser without any plugins (up to 200 file formats). Autodesk is taking a page from facebook and other social networking by keeping a timeline on the project with a news feed. You can see who did what, when. There is an option to go back to previous saves of the project without the messy version keeping that happens on every user's desktop.As the projects are cloud based, there are potential benefits. Autodesk may add other automated services. Services like rendering selected views between logins, running clash detection reports on the fly, calculating energy models in near real time, or anything else they may come up with in the future.

All in all, I left after the Revit bit, but I was glad I could go and stay up on what is happening at Autodesk. Thanks to the Sponsors and members of SCRUG.

See you next year.

CRG

SCRUG 11/20/14

The maturity of SCRUG has become a recurring topic at recent meetings. The South Coast Revit User Group was founded and had its first meeting in December 2000. At that time the meetings were held quarterly and nearly every presentation was given by one guy, Jim Balding. Autodesk was the sole sponsor, thank you Chuck Healy. SCRUG was the second Revit User Group formed and it has lasted. The one group that was formed earlier has since disbanded.The meeting this month was a sort of celebration of usergroups and what this particular group has become.

Autodesk demonstrated the Point Layout system using a Total Station, Prism and Ipad. The main benefit being that one can now create points in the Revit software or in the field. One can use the real world to create layout points. Revit now has the ability to embed layout points inside families. One may authorize users to create or control points. Thus a group could divide the work and record site conditions or create a layout for walls, or grids. The information could be combined with project Glue. 

Part of the meeting included extolling the benefits of user groups and user conferences. 

Nicholas Kramer presented Tips and Tricks and Jokes from the Revit Technology Conference North America. The RTC events are like trying to present four years of user group meetings over three days. Some highlights included SCAN to BIM tip to keep your section box small to increase performance, adding required clearances in families to a sub category (and standardizing on the naming of the subcategory company wide, i.e. "clearance", "Clearance" and "CLEARANCE" are all considered different in the software), shared coordinates, combining model with drafting patterns, using components with tags to do detailing vs lines and notes, organizing your groups with prefixes, locking the profiles in your mass families, using sub parameters for formulas (like a mini spreadsheet), an override summary for Revit object visibility, adding notes to your Revit Template to help users remember how to use what, linking parameters to host families and too many other tips to mention.

Carla Edwards presented the benefits of the BIM Workshops. Some of the tips from their events include: Steve Stafford's library analogy, definitions of survey point vs project base point, supernudge (hold down shift while nudging), reference planes have a direction, and using Bluebeam to compare documents (PDF the old and the new and Bluebeam highlights the differences). 

Vendors presented their wares. Notably there were two "collaborate in the cloud" companies. They offered great solutions for those working live across multiple offices. 

Knowledge Trax presented their system for evaluating the Revit knowledge of users. They have pre assessment testing, recommendations of training to fill knowledge gaps, and post training assessment. It looks very effective. Nick brought up that it is very good at flagging people that do not follow written directions. Purchasers of their services can use pre-baked questions and training or create their own. It is much more cost effective and consistent than having someone in house create an evaluation/assessment/training system.

Also of note, Solibri  played a short video and shared their marketing strategy. Solibri software is a model review software. There are two steps, decide what rules to use and check the model against those rules. The software uses embedded information the model to conduct the review. One example is a door and its required clearance based on accessible requirements in the International Building Code.  However, one can write one's own rules. Does the client want rooms named "office" to have specific dimensions? Solibri can check the model and report violations. Solibri is marketing this functionality toward jurisdictions that need to check plans. Building departments worldwide could accelerate plan checks. The review the violations part of the software is well developed. One can make a series of "slides" into an HTML document with live links to views of the model. The views of the model are automatically marked with visual references to the clearance available and the required clearance. Powerful.

Perkowitz+Ruth Architects provided four laptops with Revit 1.0 installed for a design challenge. Revit 1.0 was FAST on those laptops. 

I would be remiss if I did not mention DOOR PRIZES. Thousands of dollars changed hands (when you count the drinks, gift cards, electronics and software). Thanks to Newport Rib Company, US CAD, Kelar Pacific, Microdesk and the other vendors. 

While I did not stay past 9pm, the portion of the meeting I attended was intense fast paced and amazing. I plan to stay a member of this group and attend future meetings.