Reference Planes without Names

It is a common practice to add a name to the reference planes we create. If it isn't common where you work then it ought to be. The name helps give a hint to anyone that works in the model that this reference plane is more important than those without a name. It can also help understand what it is for, why it was made.

There are some who make the effort to clear out reference planes that are not named periodically, just another of any number of model/housekeeping chores. I've even seen Dynamo scripts intended for this task.

If you're using Ideate's Explorer you'll find it easy to see a summary of all the reference planes in the model. In the following image I've created two reference planes, one with a name and another without a name.

Notice that there are five (5) reference planes listed though. As it happens, when the Edit Profile concept is used on a wall four reference planes are created and internally applied against the sketch of the wall. They are only visible to us while editing the wall's profile sketch. We can't see these reference planes in the regular user interface, it only becomes very apparent with their Explorer tool.

It is also possible for us to create reference planes while creating any sketch based element, like a floor or stair for example. These reference planes are only visible to us while editing their related sketch.

The reference planes associated with a wall's edited profile can't be deleted via IDEATE Explorer. It can delete them when we've created our own within a wall's profile and other sketch based elements.

Attempting to clean up these unnamed reference planes might also be an issue if you're writing your own code or Dynamo script to delete them. We can/could add names to these internal reference planes (wall profile) but I don't think that's a task that worth the effort.

Something to keep in mind.

Linked Details - 3rd Party Tool Options

This is an update to a much earlier post after getting a couple comments on that thread. These are three companies I'm familiar with that are providing solutions that contend with sharing details between projects and multiple model projects.

Revolution Design - Revit Workflow

26 Degrees Software - ViewAQC

Parallax Team - Parallax Linked Details

Check them out!

Autodesk Seek is Dead - Long Live BIMobject

I've been busy, experiencing angst or lazy, you pick. Then again dear reader you may not have noticed that I haven't been posting as much lately. Apparently some readers are still hoping to be able to rely on me to try to stay current with things. At least that's what a few emails asking about this semi-recent change suggests to me. I do apologize if my reticence to post more often is disappointing. I have been busy as well as going through another spell of "What's it all about Alfie?". Oh I've given it away...or have I? (imagine Craig Ferguson was speaking).

Get on with it Mr. OpEd... At the moment the only place other than Autodesk sites that I recall reading information about this change is the Revit Add-Ons post on the day it happened, so well done Tim.

Specifically, you may have been, or will be, greeted by a message when attempting to search Autodesk Seek via Revit's Insert ribbon? The message begins with something like (I didn't capture the screen the first time) ..."As of January 18, 2017 Autodesk Seek has been transferred to BIMobject. At least I think the naming is BIMobject. It could be bimobjects because that's also on the site. I digress...yet again.

They've provided a transfer FAQ you can read but it's not really responding to any questions I have, as a user...UNLESS you are then careful to click the small link for User FAQ on the left side (link next paragraph).

I see they've set up a hotline for Autodesk Seek transition so look for that information there (via separate FAQ sections for User and BPM) too, it's the same telephone number for either category, user or BPM (Building Product Manufacturer).

I know nothing about BIM Object yet. I can say after arriving at their site via Revit once that the UI presented to us is a sight better than Seek. My first impression is that their customers are product manufacturers, selling the service of creating and hosting content for manufacturers, the same as for Autodesk Seek.

Assuming the somewhat jaundiced view of a Revit user, the user is the product they are selling to their customers, like Facebook for example. However attempting to be fair, users need good quality content to make quality building models so if these guys do well we BIM users ought to be winning.

Regarding my overall experience with Autodesk Seek, prompted by a post at RFO, I wrote this reply there a couple days ago, responding to Philip...(a bit more of the Opinion part of OpEd)

My own experience with Autodesk Seek began with hmm promising, let's see how this goes and ended with what's the point. If you consider RevitCity's content quality is ravaged pretty consistently by fellow Revit users, as such lately I have had the same dread reaction to resorting to searching Autodesk Seek. I even went there a couple times to pull down bad examples of content to show people I was mentoring on the subject...not a good recommendation eh? Inspiration for blog posts is one upside? Okay, getting snarkastic sorry.

My feelings changed sharply a short while after the Family Style Guide was published related to Seek. A great idea and initial effort but it was a bit plain to see the market/revenue generating bias of it toward Seek. ...and it too has died on the vine.

Overall, very disappointing. Especially considering I've heard it was no small investment of time and money by companies to get their content hosted by Seek. But then that's the secret about content it takes time and both involve money even if we don't look.

Back to BIMobject, I'm going to keep an open mind, more open than my obviously skeptical comments above suggests is possible. Let's see how this goes. Oh, I'll answer the question that's probably on any user's mind for them (from their User FAQ):

Do I have to pay for the BIM objects I download?

bimobject.com is a free of charge web service for architects, engineers, specifiers and all other disciplines in the AEC and Infrastructure industries.

They offer a free Revit app to directly integrate their content search and access into Revit too.

Feel free to use comments to share your observations and experience with Autodesk Seek (in the past) or BIMobject if you've been a using their content already.

Revit Oped Podcast - Test One Two

Bill Debevc just celebrated his first anniversary of BIM Thoughts. We talked about doing a separate podcast together tied to what I do with this blog in some way. He made sure we actually started it by sending me a meeting invitation. He's doing the heavy lifting of preparing it for me. I get to show up, chat with him for a bit and wander off again.

Last night it was finally listed at iTunes, you can search for it there now using Apple's Podcast app or your other favorite Podcast software.

We've set up a blog site to store episode notes and allow for comments. It's still under development so don't be surprised if it changes over the next month or so. Our first episode is called Hello World!. It is possible to just listen to each episode on the blog site too.

Bill came up with our nice podcast logo.

I asked my daughter to create one and liked her initial design sketch a lot but she's got so much school work I took it off her plate. My son Jake did the intro/outro music for us, thanks!

Bill, thanks for making me do it! We hope people listen and enjoy it.

BIM Workshops Sessions and Data

I gave presentations at three of the four BIM Workshops this year. The first was in Omaha (August), the second in Anaheim (September), the third in Phoenix (October) and I wasn't part of the fourth event in Honolulu.

Indulging in a little historical review, the Omaha event is four years old now. However for its first two years it was called Central States Revit Workshop. It's founder, Carla Edwards, lived and worked in Omaha at the time. She attended the first Revit Technology Conference in North America hosted in Huntington Beach, CA in 2011. She told me that she was inspired and determined to bring that feeling home to where she worked and to provide that kind of experience to others but with a local focus, the region near Omaha. She found that there were many people eager to help her make it happen as well as sponsors willing to support it. I was happy to be able to speak at her first event too, and each of them since then.

A year later, after wrapping up the second event, she made a big life decision; moved to California and joined U.S. CAD, an Autodesk reseller based in California. She brought the event with her. Now in it's third year, with U.S. CAD's help they expanded the event to two cities; Omaha and Anaheim...and that brings us to this year, the event's fourth. Phoenix and Honolulu were both a single day of sessions while Omaha and Anaheim were two days of sessions.

This year the following people were designated with a national speaker role; Andy Jizba, Bill Debevc, Brandon Pike, Brian Mackey, Carla Edwards, Chris Faklaris, Chris Keck, David Magid, Eric Chappell, Kelli Lubeley, Lonnie Cumpton, Paul Aubin, Robert Bell, Me, Steven Shell and Tom Whitehead.

This meant each of us agreed to give presentations at two or more of the events. Each location also featured a selection of local/regional people who were chosen after being invited to send in their session ideas. That gave each BIM Workshop a broad reach while drawing on local talent too. It was a good mix this year as it has been for each of the previous years.

It has been my intention all along to post the files associated with both of my sessions here so people can check them out. I just waited until the last event was concluded (and I needed a little time to update the documents a bit)...and here they are.

Session: Who Moved my Cheese?
Description: There are over 30 ways to lose something you’re sure was just there. Revit offers so much control over the way things can be seen that we need a chart or list to figure out what happened to them. This session will explore those and provide an opportunity for some group therapy (troubleshooting).

I organized this as a game show to get people directly involved in the class. I selected two contestants for each visibility problem (25 problems in all). They competed for Smarties (yes the little discs of sugary goodness). I was inspired by a challenge that some of the Autodesk Revit technical support team created for a past Autodesk University. They had a booth outside of the classroom areas where people could stop by and meet them. They encouraged us to take part in this Find my Chair challenge which included some pretty diabolical, even despicable, ways that someone could hide a chair. For example, one chair was a family that had been completely stripped, just an empty file now, and reloaded. If someone did that in your office you might be inclined to encourage HR to get involved?

My session wasn't nearly so mean. It was fun to do it. I've heard from quite a few people since that they enjoyed it too. Thanks!

THIS is the HANDOUT
THIS is the DATASET

Fwiw, since I ran it as a game show with a winner and loser for each round, more than a few people suggested that I should have awarded each round's loser with a Dum Dums, I did think of it...but I didn't want to harsh anyone's mellow.

Session: Shared Coordinates: Stay Out of the Rabbit Hole
Description: It seems simple enough. Then something goes wrong. There are a few too many ways that we can manipulate this information. People often make assumptions about how it should work but don’t fully appreciate the consequences. Let’s explore the subtleties and avoid falling down the rabbit hole.

In this session I described and demonstrated using a master Revit site model to provide the basis for the real world location of a building or buildings. Then I linked separate Tiny House models (yes, inspired by Sean Burke's own Un-Boxed House project). If you've been reading this blog for long you'll probably recognize the information as being derived from a series of posts I've written here before. As much as I'd like to think every Revit user has read my blog, there are a lot of people out there who have no idea just how much information about Revit is lurking out here in the internets. Then again, maybe they just have a healthier balance in their lives?

THIS is the HANDOUT
THIS is the DATASET

I hope that these prove useful or interesting. Let me know if you have your own Who Moved my Cheese Game show sometime.

Oh, Carla recently let me know that she's decided to accept a position with an architecture firm in Denver so she can get closer to project work again AND importantly be much closer to her family. There is that notion of balance again... I wish her all the best and I'm sorry she'll have a lot more snow to deal with there than here in Southern California.

Keep an eye on the BIM Workshops site for next year's details as they become available.

PSA Save the Fluffy Kitten

James Vandezande speaks out against callous violence against fluffy kittens occurring at AEC conferences world wide. Please do your part to stop this madness!

By the way, the movement to abolish the saying of "ATM Machine", whose leader Freddy Latherdon, is jealous of the ground swell of support that opponents of saying "BIM Model" are getting. They hope to get sympathy by using this image, suggesting that saying "ATM Machine" will cause the incoming soda to soak this poor girl.

Getting soaked by that soda will be awful for her but compared to harm coming to a fluffy kitten? Please...

Remember, just don't say "BIM Model", save a kitten.

On Twitter: #fluffykitten
Picture from @MeredithFrost (click the image to see her tweets)

Dutch Revit Standards and Template

Luke mentioned this the other day but it bears repeating to help spread the word for the Dutch Revit community at large.

Dutch Revit standard (template) is now available for download:

Download - RevitGG.nl
A Translated Version
This is made available using Creative Commons licensing.

There is a link to download version 0.8 from Dropbox at this page.

The download includes:

• Project Template
• Families
• Family Templates
• Materials
• Resource Files (CAD import / export maps, Shared Parameters and more)

What is Revit and BIM Resource

Alex Gore and his firm F9 Productions have created, as part of their company website, a resource for people that are just getting started with Revit and BIM or those who are still trying to decide what to do.

The site offers these items of interest:

• A brief description of important modeling concepts
• A PDF example of a complete Construction Documentation set
• The Revit file of the above mentioned PDF
• A 2012 Revit Residential Template to start your own creations
• Links to tutorials for further help

A skeptic might read this and regard it as purely a marketing move. Alex's primary motive is to share the wealth with the community so to speak. For example a frequent question or concern people have is being able to see a completed set of documents. This is based on their fear, uncertainty or doubt that another software application, that is so intrinsically tied to how they make money, will truly be able to do what they need to do. So at the very least being able to examine their sample project and set may be useful, and if it is then the rest is "gravy". Have a look, see if you find something useful.

BIM Blog Plug - Practical BIM

Just a quick post to plug another blogger's effort. Antony McPhee has been using Practical BIM to document his thinking on the subject of BIM; design and construction project planning. Apart from researching the various documents available today he's been trying to express what he thinks the process could or should look like based on his experience. Some of his recent posts include:

Collaboration or Coercion: The Design Collaboration Plan
Utilising Your Office BIM Manual: Participants BIM Plans
BIM for Owners - The BIM Project Brief
Single project BIM Execution Plan: A Good Idea?

Back in September he did a series of posts to review the "BIM in Practice" document from the Australian Institute of Architects.

If you and your firm are wrestling with BIM you ought to read through his posts and add them to your considerations. Worth a read even you aren't...

Who is the Owner

Melanie wrote a nice post earlier today. She asked:

Question: What does an owner want from BIM?
Answer: The same thing they wanted from CAD.

Which she says begs another question: Who is the Owner?

It isn't usually a simple answer like: "Let me introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. We'll be designing their house." They are the owner and you've got to please them, unless they give their kids any say. If so you know which rooms will be the biggest!

She lists a bunch of people that the software and design industry may overlook too often, or at least focus on others too often, in their quest to satisfy this "owner" person.

Nice job Melanie!

Kitchen Equipment - RW Smith BIM Booklet

Here's a post doing a little bragging about Taylor. I've known him for many years now. We met first at the South Coast Revit User Group (SCRUG). He has been doing some pretty satisfying work after landing a gig with R.W. Smith. I mentioned him awhile back when he shared a video of some work with me.

The company recently finished up their BIM Services booklet hosted by Issuu. It helps them have a meaningful conversation with their clients. I can see why, polished presentation as well as high quality modeling work. I've embedded it here so you can take a peek. Check out the full size version. Something to strive toward or perhaps raise the bar from for your firm?

Level of Development

James wrote a nice post about this subject. It is seductively easy to simplify the concept to just be equivalent to the design process, you know...SD, DD, CD. While you get a quick acknowledgement, "Oh I see...", it doesn't really explain the intentions of the phrase (acronym LOD). In his post he offers these reference descriptions. He also wrote that he is searching for another description for LOD100.

LOD100 = Interpolated calculations (estimates)
LOD200 = Specify it
LOD300 = Buy it
LOD400 = Build or install it
LOD500 = Operate or maintain it

The first thing that came to mind (based on the list) for LOD100 is "Discuss it".

Check out his post and weigh in.

VEO Video Preview

Remember these dials?

VEO is...

VEO™ Lux - Navigate and Visualize
VEO™ Logic - Coordination and Validation
VEO™ Time - Scheduling and Sequencing
VEO™ Track - Asset tracking
VEO™ Archive - Model-linked document library
VEO™ Pulse - Real-time sensor data

Got three minutes? Watch the preview video to get a quick sense of what's in store.

Dept. of Events - Extreme BIM at USC - July 8, 2011

The Fifth Annual USC Symposium on Extreme BIM: Parametrics and Customization

EXTREME BIM: Friday, July 8: (very, very small fee) – we noticed that if we don’t charge a small fee, some people sign up and then forget to show up. If you really can’t afford the $25, email kensek@usc.edu, and I will have it waived. DO NOT use the online system if you want to get your fee waived.

Please reserve your spot soon; our BIM Analytics event filled up last year.

The speakers for EXTREME BIM 2011 were instructed to give presentations that advance the idea of building information modeling, show things that most of the audience may not be aware of, and demonstrate that BIM is cool and cutting edge! We have put together a slate of speakers that includes representatives from architecture, engineering, construction, education, and owners. Explore a side of BIM that you have not seen before!

Speaking/presenting are: Mario Guttman, Ian Keough, Nathan Miller, Joseph Burns, Chandler Ahrens, Michael Kilkelly, Bradley Hardin, Team Gensler, Brian K. Stewart, Robert Cull, and Team CCC.    

Is a Single Model Viable?

I have a couple clients that have done this with some varying opinions on how successful it was.

Pros:

• Great to have live interaction between trades
• Issues were much more obvious and forced resolution sooner.
• Less linked file updating issues Helped minimize copy/monitor and redundant content

Cons:

• Plot day conflicts between trades, arch printing for meetings and MEP trades printing offset and difficult to have teams "stop working" long enough in advance to freeze development of the model so trades could "catch up" with design.
• Performance...fairly obvious...file sizes became an issue so only really feasible on modest sized buildings
• More worksets required, more views etc... browser became difficult
• Warnings increased because everyone had to "see" other trade warnings

One outcome from attempts was the less obvious choice to merge A and E models, they shared one model for Arch/Elec because so many devices were "redundant" in separate models. This put A/E staff in the same model so they could share lighting and devices etc. Kind of obvious logical pairing but not as obvious to think of initially.

A truly single model can work but project size and the way teams interact can greatly affect how much "fun" it is.

BIMsight now 64bit

Tekla issued a press release today to say that their model viewer application is now supporting 64bit operating systems. Here's a snippet from their site.

...snip
Latest version of Tekla BIMsight application brings along the ability to handle even bigger, combined 3D building information models much faster. Software users who have a 64-bit computer will benefit greatly from this 64-bit version.
...snip

Dept. of Redundancy Department and other BIMmyness

During the BIMForum James Vandezande (Arch|Tech Blog contributor and Revit Author) tweeted about people saying, "BIM Model" and joked about needing to run by the ATM machine.

Since BIM stands for Building Information Model or Modeling and ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine (unless you are referring to Asynchronous Transfer Mode)...adding the extra model and machine are a bit redundant. Similar to saying or writing irregardless when regardless is sufficient. Since, the opportunities to have such "fun" at the expense of others is probably endless and I live in a "glass house", I'll stop there.

For what it is worth, I've never really liked the acronym "BIM", in particular having to say it. I just don't like the sound of it, a personal quirk. The idea of getting a title like BIM Manager, or BIM guy etc...shudder. I'm not saying I'm not of fan of the concept or philosophy of Building Information Modeling or Models, obviously I'm a believer...I just don't care for the acronym. Since criticism can be offset by providing a solution, a better choice, I'm not doing well there either because I don't have a better one to offer. I do prefer those that use the word Virtual, like VDC (Virtual Design/Construction) or VPD (Virtual Project Delivery). I like Digital Design Manager or Digital Design Coordinator better too.

I just can't get past the looks I get when I use the term BIM with anyone outside the "bidness".

More seriously, lately I've been hearing people referring to a building model as the aggregate files compiled into software like Navisworks. I've even seen a couple contracts where the final model deliverable is a "model" comprised of .nwc files (Navisworks cache files), not even a .nwd or .nwf (Navisworks published or working file formats).

In my mind I tend to think of the "authoring" side of the equation as defining a model as opposed to the "viewing/reviewing" side. That means a "real" model (according to me) is what we find in Revit or some other software used to create the entities that provide the virtual building. I think this is true because the viewing/reviewing software is not able to make or change anything.

Being removed from the modeling/authoring process makes the "viewing" model static. That's good for a variety of reasons but for the sake of future uses (intended or unintended/unanticipated) a viewer format does not make a good final deliverable (alone), in my mind. It's reasonable to require it as part of the final deliverable but it seems a bit short of the finish line to not also ask for the model(s).

BIM Quotable - BIMForum Winter 2011

Short and sweet tonight!

My favorite "quotable moment" from BIMForum, Thursday's sessions after lunch, Dace Campbell with BNBuilders said, "The only time you shouldn't do BIM is if you aren't interested in saving time or money" (I think that's close to what he said, the sentiment is accurate).

Tekla BIMsight - Free divided by Free is still Free!

Another item that came from attending BIMForum Winter 2011, Tekla BIMsight. I admit that my first reaction to hearing the name was, "Oh, a cloud sharing/viewing solution?" Then I saw the spelling of the name.

Using price alone, if we compare Autodesk's Navisworks Manage and Tekla BIMsight:

Navisworks Manage: $10k-ish (USD) $1.5k yearly subscription
Tekla BIMsight: $0.0k (USD) aka FREE (no subscription)

Okay, if BIMsight doesn't do everything that Navisworks does how fair is that?
Consider this comparison then:

I spoke to Andy Dickey (Business Manager - Construction North America) for a couple minutes and he said that it is Tekla's "bully pulpit" for IFC. The files that are supported by BIMsight are: .ifc, .ifcxml, .ifczip, .dwg, .dgn, .xml. That is a lot less than Navisworks but the price is a lot less too eh? Seems to me, between price and features, that Tekla is throwing down the IFC and price gauntlet? Here's a screen capture of their sample "model" which is comprised of 8 IFC files and 1 dwg file.

As for IFC, if people want to use the viewer and their IFC export data doesn't live up to expectations then it will put more pressure on each software developer to improve it. That's the assumption/expectation anyway. Revit will have some issues I'm sure as others will too. If they are successful applying pressure and it working then perhaps my concerns about IFC will be unfounded.

Triva department: The download is 46 MB. Revit's early releases were about the same size, been a long time since though. Interesting to me that a "viewer" tool is the same size download as early Revit. Though download file size is hardly a real measuring stick.

[Update 03/16/2011: 64bit Version now Available]

Project Galileo Coming Soon at Autodesk Labs

The Autodesk Labs BLOG mentioned today that something called Project Galileo will be available soon.

Here's the overview from their current page.
...snip
Project Galileo is an easy-to-use planning tool for creating 3D city models from civil, geospatial and building data, and 3D models. Galileo also enables users to sketch conceptual infrastructure ideas within the 3D city model. Using Galileo, planners, GIS analysts, project managers, and architects can help stakeholders better understand infrastructure projects and plans in the context of the built and natural environment.
...snip

You can check out a preview video, looks interesting!