Central States Revit Workshop 2013 - Call for Speakers

Last year (September 2012) was the first homespun Central States Revit Workshop. Building on the fun they had last year they've opened up their call for speakers to submit class proposals for the next one, which is August 15th & 16th, 2013 (Thursday and Friday).

Sessions will be 70 minutes in length and can be formatted as a technical presentation, hands-on lab session, or round table/panel discussion. The CSRW Board will review and select presentations based on the number of available presentation slots per category, number of applicants and their respective topic in conjunction with specific focus points predetermined by the Board.

For more details visit the Central States Revit Workshop 2013 SITE.

Revit Structure User Group Meeting - April 6th at LPA

Avan Amalsad with Microdesk is keen to get the word out to every Revit Structure user as well as anyone interested in learning about the new features in Revit Structure 2012.

Date: April 6th, 2011 (Wednesday)
Time: 6:30 PM
Where: LPA - 5161 California Avenue, Suite 100 - Irvine, CA 92617

She writes:
I am honored that Autodesk Revit Structure Product Manager Wai Chu, and Autodesk Revit Platform Product Manager Richard Taylor will be doing a live webcast presentation for Revit 2012 Structure and Platform features. I will do some additional demonstrations using Revit Structure after the webcast. Don't miss this one-of-a-kind meeting.

If you haven't been getting invitations from Avan, EMAIL HER to let her know you want to come. RSVP is important so they get the right amount of food and beverage ordered!

Revit User Group - Shout Out

I attended three Revit user group meetings this week, BUGIE (aka RUGIE), LARUG and SCRUG. Each was well attended in light of the new release information and Scott Davis, Autodesk Technical Specialist, doing the presentation. Each evening went longer than usual but Scott could run longer than usual talking about one feature! What can he do? He's passionate! So thanks to Scott for bring the "What's new in 2012" information to a local projection screen!

James Vandezande, part of the author team who brought you Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011, and 2012 next as well as another book called Revit Essentials, visited both BUGIE and LARUG too. Check the books out at the Wiley site for more details and the author team blog ARCH + TECH. Have a look at the pictures see if you can find "Waldo"??

Here's a shot of the group at BUGIE (BIM User Group Inland Empire)
Thanks to host office: HMC Architects

Here's a shot at LARUG (Los Angeles Revit User Group)
Thanks to host office: Lee, Burkhart, Liu, Inc.

Here's a shot at SCRUG (South Coast Revit User Group)
Thanks to host office: LPA, Inc.

Last item is a quick "Thank You" to 3D Connexion, AEC Factory and Microdesk for donating a cool navigation device to one lucky winner at each group.

At RUGIE Scott had one with him that 3D Connexion had authorized him to give away. In LA Roger with AEC Factory offered one for the give away. At SCRUG Roger with AEC Factory and Andrew with Microdesk both offered one each to give away. The winners at each group are about to create some serious "glorious gadget" envy at their workplace, as soon as they can get their hands on Revit 2012 that is!

Each user group would not have beverages and food if it were not for the ongoing support of Autodesk, USCAD, Kelar Pacific, Microdesk, and AEC Factory. So thanks to each of them for their continued support!!

Thanks again to the vendors and thanks to all who attended!!

Hint hint

Next week if you live near one of these Southern California user groups you should plan to attend.

BIM User Group Inland Empire (BUGIE) Tuesday (March 22)
  Hosted at HMC Architects
  3546 Concours Street, Ontario, CA 91764

Los Angeles Revit User Group (LARUG) Wednesday (March 23)
  Hosted this month by Lee, Burkhart, Liu, Inc.
  13335 Maxella Avenue, Marina del Rey, CA 90292

South Coast Revit User Group (SCRUG) Thursday (March 24)
  Hosted at LPA, Inc.
  5161 California Avenue Ste 100, Irvine, CA

I'm just sayin' (well actually I'm not, am I?)

Dept. of Events - New Books at SCRUG Next Week

I will be making two copies of the new book available for the South Coast Revit User Group (SCRUG) meeting next week, October 28, 2010.

Just as I did for LARUG, I'm suggesting that the two newest Revit users get them since it is an Introduction to Revit book. I'll leave it up to Jay and Miguel to sort out the details.

Dept. of Events - New Books at LARUG Tonight

As if an evening talking about Revit stuff isn't enough to get people to go to a Revit user group meeting I've got two copies of our new book waiting for a new owner. I'm heading off to drop them off with Jay Zallan (co-leader of LARUG with Tom Weir) so he can give them away.

I'm suggesting that the two newest Revit users get them since it is an Introduction to Revit book. I'll leave it up to Jay to sort out the details. Unfortunately I can't attend myself because of needing to be in several places at once.

SoCal Training Opportunity

The RUGIE (Revit User Group Inland Empire) recently re-branded themselves as BUGIE (BIM User Group Inland Empire). They are offering a training session for Revit's Family Editor.

Here are the details:
Presenter: Brian Andresen
Topic: Creating the Perfect Family (Component)

Location:
Santiago High School
1395 Foothill Pkwy
Corona, CA

Date: Saturday, 25th of September 2010
Time: 9:00am – 4:30pm
Cost: BUGIE/ RUGIE Members: Free General Public: $10

Click To RSVP

Mastering Revit - In the Wild

The authors of Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 recently invited people who have the book to participate in a humorous exchange of placing the book in a setting to capture it in-the-wild. I visited the South Coast Revit User Group last evening and posed the book next to a scale model and the beverage it chose for me.

The group's venue is the Irvine office of LPA. They provide the venue for three user groups, one for each version of Revit. Very generous of them and every group needs a benefactor like them.

Vanessa with DPR talked about how the firm is using BIM and Jason Dodds presented Autodesk's Quantity Takeoff product. An interesting evening, everything a user group should be!

Revit Structure Meeting - Sept. 3, 2008 - SoCal

If you use Revit Structure, are reading this, live in or will be in Southern California AND have time on September 3, 2008 you ought to visit this relatively new Revit Structure user group.

Meeting Details:

Host: Avan Amalsad & KPFF Engineers
Location: KPFF Consulting Engineers
18500 Von Karman Avenue., Irvine, CA 92612 US
When: Wednesday, September 3, 6:00PM
Phone: 949-252-1022

Parking: Kindly do not park your vehicle in the building premises as you will be charged. You can park across the street at 2500 Michelson Plaza.

After hours the elevators will only allow access to the 10th floor.

Topic One - Exporting from Revit
Presented by: Matthew Gonzalez

Topic Two - Revit Phase Features
Presented by: Behzad Sanikhatam and Edward Tallmadge (Kelar)

Topic Three - Revit Design Options
Presented by: Behzad Sanikhatam and Edward Tallmadge (Kelar)

This is an Autodesk and Kelar sponsored event hosted by KPFF Consulting Engineers - Irvine.

Want to get on their mailing list? Contact Avan Amalsad

If these topics interest you perhaps we will see you there!?!

STRUG-OC Revit Structure User Group - Orange County

I attended the second meeting for this group last Wednesday night. I tried to attend their first meeting but I arrived one day late, on time but wrong day. I have no excuse except "knucklehead syndrome".

This meeting was a nearly full room of 20 and hosted by the Irvine office of KPFF and Avan Amalsad was the "hostess with the mostest". She ran a smooth show marred only by some "EyeTee" meeting jitters, a computer that wouldn't cooperate for a bit followed later by the third presenter's PC offering only the "blue screen of death". This second item struck Daniel Hebert with U.S.CAD but he was equal to the task quickly assembling an alternate model to do his discussion on the Copy/Monitor features.

Avan discussed some Revit basics and then spent some time covering using legacy details in a Revit project.

Margarito Garcia, CAD Modeler with Thornton Tomasetti gave a short and sweet run down on scheduling features. I think he whetted the attendees appetite for more so I bet he gets an encore at another meeting so he can go deeper into the subject.

Avan Amalsad found an ally in Ed Tallmadge of Kelar Pacific LLC to start this user group. He also started a group in San Diego called STRUG-SD.

Thanks to the KPFF staff who setup the room and stayed late to rebuild it as well as the firm's management for permitting the group to meet on site regularly. Be sure to show your support and attend the next meeting if you can. They meet on the first Wednesday of each month. If you'd like to contact Avan, just let me know and I'll pass your info along to her.

Portland Revit User Group - Summary

As I mentioned recently I attended this user group meeting while in Portland for the AUGI Board of Directors meeting.

This group was started several years ago (if I have my facts straight) by Darren Lewis with HDR. He later passed on the reigns to Gordon Price, a frequent contributor at AUGI, and with BOORA. This group enjoys the support of three resellers in their region, Imaginit, Ideate & PPI Group. They also provide the food and beverages for each meeting.

The meeting is held at the Multnomah Public Library and unlike a lot of user groups they meet during an extended lunch hour. This apparently is much more successful for them than evenings.

This meeting focused on the new features in Revit 2009. Gordon led the discussion and entertained comments all the while. The group was very gracious when I interupted occasionally with comments and talked about AUGI briefly. There were a little over 30 people in attendance which is off the usual mark of between 40-50. I attribute this to my presence, sorry!

Here's a shot of them in action or at least preparing to be in action. Note if you look closely you may be able to tell that Gordon is using an unsupported notebook, a Mac!


Well it may be a bit much to expect to see that...here's another shot of the crowd.


These were taken earlier, before the majority of the gang arrived or were still wandering a bit.

We wrapped the meeting by awarding the door prize, a Not for Resale (NFR) certificate that permits the winner to download the software of their choice from Autodesk (software that is available to choose from on their site, not all but many titles). I was also able to offer a special second NFR certificate in light of my visit.

One of the very tangible benefits of associating your local user group with AUGI is that Autodesk will offer up to four NFR certificates to your group during each year. Moses Drake with The Façade Group was the lucky draw for the one I brought with me, congrats Moses!

This is a list of their board members:

D. Crawford Smith
Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects
www.zgf..com

Hakan Cete
Mulvanny G2 Architecture
www.mulvannyg2.com

Devon Lumbard
Degenkolb Engineers
www.degenkolb.com

Kevin Janik
Otak Architects
www.otak.com

Celeste Warren
Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects
www.amaa.com

Eric miller
BOORA Architects
www.boora.com

Keep up the good work!!

Portland Revit User Group - Pub Crawl Update

We will meet at 7:00pm on Friday June 27th

Where:
Bridgeport Brewing
1313 N.W. Marshall
Portland, OR

Here's a link to a Google Map.

Portland Revit User Group - Pub Crawl

In addition to me visiting this group's meeting on Friday, June 27th. The AUGI board is planning to arrange a social "pub crawl" at a local restaurant or brew pub. The location of this get together is to be determined at this time but I wanted to at least mention that we intend to do it.

It will be Friday, the 27th as well but after work, in the early evening. We hope that anyone who is interested in meeting with the board to talk AUGI, Autodesk...AutoCAD...Revit...whatever...will come out and "hang with the board"!

We are all looking forward to it! I will post again when a location is settled.