Off Topic - Twitter Data Comparisons

I've been reading a thread at Linked In (in the BIM Experts group) lately that started out with the premise that people who use/chose Revit only did so because of the influence of Autodesk and that they most likely already used one of their products, namely AutoCAD. The assumption is that if they hadn't been stuck or biased for this selection and had given other applications a fair chance...they'd have chosen something other than Revit. The thread was started by an ArchiCAD proponent and it is the software most represented by other responses, other than Revit. One person supports Bentley's products in the discussion. Technically there are only a handful of respondents and naturally everyone believes they are correct.

I stayed out of the discussion except when the subject of using Remote Desktop Server technology like discussed in the "BIM and the Cloud" article was brought up. It was published at AECBytes and mentioned in an earlier post. It's my opinion that the way it was mentioned, as it relates to Revit, in the thread wasn't accurate. It's my opinion that every aspect of a firm's technology infrastructure stands to benefit from the technology and that it also supports scattered Revit project teams and staff is a win/win.

This evening I was reading the post at the Harvard Business Blog post regarding Twitter and data visualization. I thought I'd use these four Twitter data mining tools to see how Revit and Archicad compare in the Twitterverse. I don't think they are particularly meaningful or even useful, but they make nice images? All four of these examples are hosted at Neoformix. The site title reads, "Discovering and Illustrating Patterns in Data".

This is from Twitter Venn. Use three words to see how they stack up in tweets. ArchiCAD includes the acronym CAD so I'm not sure how much is the complete word or just factoring CAD. I'm not trying to discount the product but the other two words are harder to find used in other common usage. BIM clearly is hotter! The image remind me of a microscope's view of bacteria on a slide and if so clearly BIM is a more active virus.

This one is from Twitter Spectrum. Enter two values and see the related terms found for each keyword. Interesting that NEW is part of the Revit collection and PASSIVE is part of ArchiCAD, though I suspect it isn't passive, as in the opposite of aggressive, rather passive solar energy. I suppose that ArchiCAD proponents might agree that the marketing of the product has been passive considering how quickly Revit has grown in less than half its lifespan.

This one is from TwitArcs. Enter two keywords and see the arcs created by the tweets for each. Clearly Revit wins this comparison though from the few arcs on the other side it appears that they are referring to CAD.

The last two are from Twitter Stream Graphs. These use one keyword and provides the results from the last 1,000 posts. Not sure what to garner from these two though, pretty pictures!

I suppose the title of the blog indicates which side of the fence I fell on? Added this a couple days later. After reading Seth Godin's post, Moving the Line which product has been more successful in the role of "zealot"?

Dept. of Errors - Assert Yourself?

Have you seen this message? I've been seeing it lately in conjunction with middle mouse use and having my computer connected to a projector. I don't recall seeing it in other circumstances.

If you have I'd be curious what the circumstances have been (post a comment). I find that if I click Retry that I can at least save the file. Ultimately I have to click Abort and accept that RAC, RST or RME will have to close. At least I can save!!

Dept. of Subtle - Template Notes

This is very subtle and on the verge of picking on them. I said I'd post it when someone in class pointed it out today, so here it is. Some Revit family templates have notes to guide your first few steps. One of these is the generic tag template. When you open this one you'll see this instruction.

The instructions however are referring to the language and locations used in previous releases. The current location is the Family Properties panel and the button is called Category and Parameters. This panel shows up on all of the Family Editor Ribbons.

Bluebeam PDF Revu has Revit Plug-in

Bluebeam's blog PDF Insider has announced that they have a new release and it has a plug-in for Revit 2010 users. Be sure to watch for the upcoming issue of AUGI | AEC EDGE and a product review by David Kataoka with gkkworks.

Check it out!

Walls and Footings

Darryl over at CADCLIPs posted a video overview of creating stepped footings using an in-place family. I recently had this conversation with a client and showed him the same process but also showed him another technique that is worth doing.

So Darryl did one, this is the other brother Darryl. This method uses a floor as the "footing", a floor slab edge and profile. Wrapping it up is attaching the base of the wall to the "floors". I posted the VIDEO here.

Off Topic - The Guinness Storehouse and Other Musing

While in Dublin, do what a Dubliner would do? While a Dubliner might not go to the Guinness Storehouse routinely a tourist is pretty likely to make the trip. I'd say it's worth it and not just for the free pint at the top of the journey. More on this in a minute.

On the weekend between my assignments there I rode the extent of the light rail system Dublin has, called LUAS. They've got a Red Line that runs roughly West/East and a Green Line that runs North/South. I was staying in the Smithfield area and they have a convenient stop there. The Gaeilege (Irish) name for the stop is Margadh na feirme. I heard it announced by the female computer voice enough that I felt pretty confident saying it (but didn't really have a reason to) by the end of my trip. I also got pretty used to hearing "Stad Eile" (stop, next), except I thought she was staying "stab Ella", painful for Ella!

I enjoyed seeing the countryside from the trains. I suppose someone could reasonably dispute my claim of seeing the countryside since I never really got to the real countryside, beyond Dublin. Next time! If I had more time I would have stopped at a few places along the way. In particular Ranelagh looked interesting from the Green Line train. I spent some time in Tallaght at the far West end of the Red Line. I grabbed some coffee and a croissant and took the opportunity to rest my feet watching a English Premier League game on a REALLY big screen in the central atrium of the shopping center there.

I guess you could say I reconnoitered but didn't have time to look deeper. Both days were practically sunny and warm enough all day that I walked many kilometers in addition to riding the trains. I took this photo from the Guinness Storehouse bar one level below the Gravity Bar, nice blue sky with a puffy clouds. The Gravity Bar was too crowded, for my liking, so I went back downstairs to enjoy my Guinness in peace.

Saturday night I was wiped out and my shoes were screaming. My feet were really angry with me too but I was shocked that the next morning they agreed to do it again! I snapped some photos of various buildings and targeted others while looking at Dublin from atop the Guinness Storehouse. Unfortunately I didn't make it to many of them.

It was ironic that when I started work on Monday that most of the buildings I did visit, unwittingly, were projects that the firm did the engineering for. One particular project was quite expansive and still under construction. It's referred to as Heuston South Quarter. Here's a picture I took while standing on a fire standpipe precariously. The far building on the left is the home of Eircom.

Another photo while standing between buildings looking at the same "Burj al Arab esque" tower feature. Taking the picture I wondered why the ribs don't meet. Apparently they were supposed to.

Another interesting feature is the underside of the building over a elevated courtyard. What is difficult to see is the lighting that is part of the design.

Okay, back to the title of the post. I did visit the Guinness Storehouse. They decided to convert the building into this museum. The building is significant as it is of the architectural style referred to as the "Chicago School" that became prevalent after the Chicago Fire. The site says that it is the first such building in the British Isles, completed in 1904.

Central to the interior renovation is a giant pint glass enclosure comprised of large sheets of glazing carefully intertwined with the existing structure. I didn't know this before arriving and I didn't get it while I was there. It was only after arriving on the sixth floor and seeing the next image that I got it. I'm slow at times, a real duh moment. The image of this exhibit was on the level beneath the Gravity Bar. If you look closely you should see the pint glass metaphor in the center of the complex.

I took this photo looking up into the pint glass before catching an escalator, a couple of which feature an unusual combination of flat sections and sloped sections. It was a little strange to ride "out", then up only to ride "out and over" to the landing. You can just make out the escalator doing this in the right side of the next picture, encased in a veneer of drywall.

While standing to take the next picture I had this overwhelming feeling that I was looking at Wonka's Chocolate Factory entrance. I know it is nothing like it but the gate and buildings made me think of it nonetheless. The Guinness Storehouse is on the left side of the gate.

I enjoyed both the work in Dublin and getting a glimpse of the city. Slattery's (the one at 29 Capel Street, not the other one) made it easy for me to get a great pint or two of Smithwick's, a meal and catch a EPL game. It was a blessing that the weather cleared up for the rest of my stay after just a few days of mushy snow, ice and rain. The weekend was beautiful considering the time of year. Till next time!

Dept. of Unfair - Pipes and Ducts and the Workplane

It's been a buggy week! Bummer! Walls and lines recognize the presence of the work plane grid being visible. Ducts and pipes however don't. This means we can't use the work plane grid to sketch ducts or pipes according to the grid orientation.

Technically we CAN use the work plane gird IF we are willing to set duct and pipe elevations at zero. Revit sees the work plane grid when the ducts are getting sketched at the work plane elevation, which is zero, if assigned to the Level. Hmmm, I suppose I could sketch a reference plane in section, name it, and then assign it as the work plane for the plan view I want to use and then turn on the grid, ow my eye!!

It would be helpful and nice if it were possible without any shenanigans. Here's a little video to explain what I'm writing about.

Dept. of Bugs - Closing a Schedule Before Updating a Field

Ran into this one today. Here's the scenario:

View List - Using it to update View Names - Edit the View Name field but before advancing from the field when you are done close the view instead. Hoping that it would fill in the value and let me get back to the plan. The expected message about renaming levels and views appears.

Then the unexpected SaveAs or Exit Dialog of Death.

On further experimentation I see that changing the Type Comments value in a door schedule will cause the same result.

The "quick fix" is DON'T CLOSE a schedule until you have committed the edit to the schedule by moving the cursor to another field and responding to the error message that appears. This is in the same vein as "Doc, it hurts when I do this!". Doc says, "Well don't do THAT!".

I suspect that the issue is related to the User Response dialog's that appear. It seems that Revit doesn't like trying to commit the change to the element while the schedule view window is attempting to close. It also happens in each version of Revit.

Here's a quick video to see it in action.

Off Topic - Mr. Laphroaig

The last issue of AUGI | AEC EDGE was supposed to have an article by my friend Bruce Gow (aka BeeGee). Somewhere somehow someway...it didn't show up. He did his part. I submitted it but never caught that it didn't make it in the magazine. Some editor huh?

He suggested that I could fix it by providing him with Laphroaig. Here you go Bruce...square now are we??

The Irish pub across the street from my hotel, Paddy Murphy's, was kind enough to let me take a picture of the bottle. It's better this way Bruce, no hang-over! I stopped by just as the Super Bowl was decided and had a nice Smithwick's night cap before returning to my editing chores. Bruce, the article will appear in the upcoming issue, Scout's honor.

(hmmm, do I tell him I'm not a scout?)

Bad Math and Construction

I was recently in a client's office that was having some equipment related issues in their men's bathroom. This involved some ceiling and wall alteration. While I was in the bathroom at one point I noticed this where some wall tile had been removed.

The correction is mine (red rectangle), in pencil naturally, I don't want to be accused of vandalism!

The last time I checked a calculator 40 + 56 = 96, not 106. When you add 29 to 96 you get 125, not 135. At least the harder multiplication of 14 x 4 = 56 is correct. I'm terrible at math...really bad...but even I caught this error. That's really bad when Mr. OpEd catches your math error!!

Well, maybe they were just building in a percentage for waste?

Flip Arrows and the Exterior

Read a post on another blog the other day stating that the flip arrows on elements are always on the exterior side of the element. It is definitely true for walls because they are system families, or Hosts as the current documentation calls them. If a door or window family is created using the stock templates and not altered then the statement remains true. However, the controls (flip arrows) can be moved in these families so we are depending on the family editor observing this habit. Don't think I can quite call it a standard, maybe a strong recommendation?

Ideally the flip arrows (controls) present in a family should be located so they also indicate the exterior side of a wall hosted element. Your mileage may vary!

Revit OpEd Tube

A comment in a recent post asked why the videos I've done aren't posted at YouTube. I replied, "Because I had a Screencast account already and it was easy." Not a very good answer really. Based on a comment after posting this initially a much smarter answer would have been, "Because some of this blog's readers have YouTube blocked at work".

Unfortunately it isn't easy to switch from .swf format to a compatible format at YouTube, at least not until I'm prepared to sink some cash into the problem that is. I recorded the most popular (of mine that is) curtain wall video (Louver) in .avi format (best I could do last night in the midst of everything else going on).

There is now a Revit OpEd YouTube channel. It will take some time to get the existing ones ported over so hang in there. I've got much to learn about being part of YouTube. It was easy before, I just watched videos. Well I hope that this avenue is useful to people too!

P.S. Based on Craig's comment I'll clarify that I don't have any plan to stop using the Screencast site in favor of YouTube.

Sketching in AutoCAD

Autodesk recently made a new sketching add-on available to AutoCAD, made possible via their Alias sketching technology. Lynn Allen, on her blog "Lynn Allen's Blog", provided a link to a YouTube video of an artist using the new features. It does create some serious feature envy. Watch and imagine using it in Revit elevations to dress them up for a presentation, or any other view for that matter?

Want to watch the video here instead?

Dept. of Workarounds - Smaller Grids in Large Scale Views

I responded to a post at AUGI with this text (I did tweak this version a little since the thread isn't here to get the context of the conversation):

I hear this complaint, "I need smaller grid bubbles in site plans, they are toooo BIG!", every now and then in the last couple years. In the early days there was usually a "hallelujah" when we realized we no longer had to deal with keeping them the correct size when printed. Irony!

The fundamental issue is that Revit's mandate is, "All annotation must maintain their intended printed size". If the grid text is assigned 1/8" scale and the circle is 3/8" diameter then no matter what scale is used they will maintain that size. This is why they are "so big" in 1:500 views. The reality is they are not bigger, they are exactly the same...the building has gotten much smaller in comparison.

Text, symbols and dimensions all behave in exactly the same manner...except that they only show up in one view, the one you place them in. Grids, levels and reference planes transcend the view specific nature of other annotation to eliminate the need to draft them repeatedly and therefore coordinate them endlessly.

A solution to show different size grid annotation in large scale views involves using Design Options.

• Create a Design Option called Grid Management and two options: Normal Size and Reduced Size.
• Create a Reduced Size Grid type that uses a grid bubble family with smaller text and circle.
• Rename the normal Grid type: Normal Size.
• Add all the Normal Size grids to the project and then add them to both Design Options.
• Edit the Reduced Size view's Design Option and change the grid types to the matching Reduced Size grid type.
• In the larger scale views set their Design Option (via Visibility/Graphics dialog) to display the Reduced Size Design Option.

Now you have smaller grid bubbles and they "look" better...just keep in mind that they are smaller and now harder to read when printed full size, or half size for that matter.

Caution Dimensioning to these grids in a design option and to the rest of the model can have unpleasant issues. Such as the dimension getting deleted or at least disappearing when the relationship between the Option"ed" grids are no longer relevant. This can happen if you toggle the assigned option to another and back.

Dept. of Subtle - Invert Background and Copy/Monitor

Users who prefer a black background have to suffer slightly poorer graphic quality when seeing various icons that Revit uses. A good example of this is the Copy/Monitor tool. When you use this tool a little icon appears of a sine wave, EKG or "heartbeat" symbol.

I personally liked the old "evil eye", eyeball that used to show up...but I digress.

The point is that this icon is invisible when you use the black background. A VIDEO is equal to all these words.

Cloud Computing at AECBytes

AECBytes released an article, called "BIM and the Cloud", by Chris France, CIO of Little Diversified, discussing their technology shift to Private Cloud computing. Essentially they have high end servers and Remote Desktop Server technology providing anywhere anytime access to their IT resources to any of their staff and/or partners. That's an over simplification of the effort taken certainly.

It is a compelling solution for firms faced with remote staff, various offices, workstation performance and maintenance and other reasons. The article claims that they are the first AEC implementation of this approach but it doesn't say when they started doing this. Just to quibble I've been in at least one other firm that has been doing this for quite awhile but just hasn't declared it publicly. A consulting firm that I do some work for also has this set up now but not on the scale of these others. Regardless it is cool stuff and challenges the status quo as well as opening the door to many possibilities.

Check out the ARTICLE, it is well written and provides enough depth to help even a lay person get a good sense of how it all works.

Off Topic: Videos of Curtain Walls are Most Popular

Last fall I posted two videos about curtain wall techniques, one about louver panels and the other about butt glazing at corners. I posted the louver video on September 11th and it has been watched 1220 times as of tonight making it the most watched video of those that I've posted so far. The butt glazing video was posted on October 13th and it has been watched 909 times putting it in second place.

The third and fourth place videos are about stairs, both about Dutch winder stairs, 745 and 633 views respectively. The race between these four videos seems to have settled into a steady pace...1,2,3 & 4 as they haven't changed their pecking order since.

I wrote about this back in November just a bit before attending Autodesk University. A comment by Elisa suggested that they'd hit 1K before AU. In fact the louver panel video did crest 1k a day or so after AU. I didn't figure out how to award a prize sorry. I also mentioned that there were 734 subscribers and that's risen to 837 as of tonight. Slow and steady...that's me, Mr. Turtle in "this race", whatever race this is. 8-)

I know this sort of trivia is probably meaningless to anyone other than me but I find it interesting to see how these short little videos attract attention. I suppose if the videos were about someone falling exotically down a mountainside while skiing I'd have a million views by now but then I'm not going for a wide audience with a blog about Revit...am I? That's all the trivia I'll indulge in for now, thanks!

Dept. of Subtle - Offset Elevations at One End

This post has a Revit Structure bias. When you want to offset the end of one beam to slope framing it isn't obvious which end is which. There is a Start Level Offset and and End Level Offset.

When you examine the properties dialog you see them listed nicely but when you just look at a beam there isn't anything obvious to tell you which end is which. Even if you understand which end comes first you probably won't remember how you placed the beam later when you want to change it.

I recall someone telling me that they have everyone sketch left to right and top to bottom so that the Start Level offset is always at the left and top of a beams. Good luck with that! 8-).

If you select a beam however the offset parameters are displayed and if you place your cursor over the offset value you'll get a nice useful tool tip!

For you VIDEO minded folks here's one.

Dept. of Echo - Why Isn't Revit Multi-Threaded??

I'm not going to even to attempt to explain this one. Guy Robinson's blog Bolt Out of the Red has a new post yesterday that does. He's a programmer whose been specializing in Revit API projects for about as long as a person could be and not be a Autodesk employee.

I've responded to posts many times at AUGI asking this question or insinuating that Revit is slack for not doing this already. I think it is a much more important request to ask that performance overall be improved rather than state that the solution we want is "multi-threading" as if that alone solves the problem. I don't have the brains to even pretend to tell them how to solve it, I just want more, fasterer and betterer...soonererer. Thanks in advance for more, fasterer and bettererer.

Thanks Guy for your attempt to explain it!

Dept. of Subtle - Copy Monitor and Element Count

When you use the Copy Monitor feature and select multiple elements, to either Copy or Copy and Monitor, the element count listed on the Status Bar does not recognize multiple items. If you open the Filter dialog it will show you how many items are selected. The readily visible count value on the status bar doesn't unfortunately.

If a video would help...here's one!

Revit and the 2 Mile Limit

I’ve read a few posts on this subject in the last few months, a couple more recently offering a way to get around the issue. I echoed a post at the Revit Clinic blog a few months ago too. Paying homage to “The Princess Bride” movie I dubbed the files affected by this issue “Files of Unusual Size” or FOUS, like the “Rodents of Unusual Size”, ROUS.

Revit examines the cad file you want to import and determines how “big” the data is. If it finds that all the data in the file results in data greater than two miles across, either horizontally or vertically it will generate the error message. It is not just that survey data is a great distance from the origin in the file. The survey itself might be fine but there is some geometry lurking a great distance from the important stuff that creates the condition that Revit is hoping to avoid.

You can test this out yourself. Create a little survey of lines and then park a line more than two miles away from those lines. It could be as simple as two lines very far apart. Import the file and Revit complains.

There are a few ways to resolve this. You can fix the file or just fool Revit into accepting the large data despite its best effort to do otherwise. The correct way should be the solution that is the least work and hopefully doesn’t put you at risk for altering the civil file in a way that leaves room for error.

To fix the file you can refer to the earlier post here or to the one at The Revit Clinic. If you are interested in fooling Revit and doing “nothing” to the file then consider this post.

Another solution that I’ve used several times is to create a new empty cad file (container file) and then create a new external reference with the FOUS in this new container file. Use the same 0,0,0 world coordinate location and make sure the external reference is attached. Now import this container file with its attached external reference, no warning message, the size of the FOUS is “hidden” by the container. Happy Imports!

Apples iPad

When I first saw the iPhone I wanted to get one but didn't until a year after it was available. Just couldn't justify the premium to get in early. Once that settled down I was in! Before that I was pretty slow to get interested in the iPod and I really didn't get the interface despite it being so "obvious"...to some anyway.

With this new product I find myself interested again, like the iPhone but again not really prepared to plunk down $500 for it. I don't use the phone part of the iPhone much really so I could practically get away with just the iPad. I'm among those who want one...just a question of when. Hopefully the numerous references to the product's name relating to feminine hygiene products won't last too long.

Now getting to use Revit on it would be very interesting to this blogger too! Had to include that part otherwise this post would be completely off topic!

Dept. of Errors - Action Caused Deletion of Non-Editable Workset

When you get this error message you can take the following action. Create a text file using Notepad. Enter the following text exactly:

[DebugModes]
AllowDeletionOfNonEmptyWorkset=1

Save the text file as debug.ini

Place this file in the installation folder for your Revit version, typically:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit "version" 2010\Program

When you run your software you'll get a message box confirm the debug mode "Allow deletion of Non Empty Worksets".

After making a backup of your project for safekeeping open the project and try to delete the item in question again. You should find that Revit will allow you to delete it. Hopefully this will help.

Revit Style Guide 2.1 Available

As I mentioned in October, The Revit Style Guide is intended to help those who create content develop consistent coordinated families. The previous version 2.0 and version 2.1 is now posted. Hope it is helpful!

AUGI CAD Camp - Revived and 2010 Schedule

The new AUGI CAD Camp events are back and sporting a new logo.

Here's a screen capture of the current schedule, hopefully coming to a city near you. If you've attended a CAD Camp in the past AUGI hopes you'll be able to come again. If you have not attended then AUGI hopes you'll be able to this year.

Just in case you were wondering what happened to CAD Camps. When AUGI's relationship with its executive director and services organization changed at the end of 2008 the AUGI CAD Camp events were sidelined. Initially because the team that ran it was no longer intact. The economic situation during the past year (2009) didn't make it any easier to get them up and running again. In the end the organization chose to focus on getting things back up and running in 2010.

Dept. of Subtle - Tale of the Dancing Ribbon Tabs

I see this issue quite a bit these days with students as we work though various tasks. It is easier to demonstrate with a VIDEO so I made one.

Here's a quick description. You start the Wall Tool, you decide to switch to another Ribbon for some reason, then decide to return to the Wall tool. You see the Wall tool right there on the Home tab and click to start the Wall tool again. You don't notice that the Wall Tool is already selected and you also don't notice that the Place Wall Ribbon tab is active. Nothing happens, or at least it sure looks like nothing happens. Happened to you? Just need to remember to scan the Ribbon for active tabs.

(The audio sounds a little "buzzier" than it sounded when I first listened to it. Maybe my ears were shot after a full day. I'll replace it when I have a different environment to record in.)

Off Topic - Mr. OpEd in Dublin

I get to travel to Dublin to do some work over the next couple weeks. Using Google Analytics I see that I get between 30-40 visits to the blog a month from Ireland with 20ish of them coming from Dublin. This past 30 days, as shown below, dropped by 10ish visits which I assume is because of the holidays and my lazy posting habits during that time.

It seems to me that it means I've got at least one reader in Dublin. It would be great to meet my one or two readers while there! I'm also open to any advice for my stay there. I'm really looking forward to a real pint of Murphy's, or two...and naturally Guinness. Seems I'm too early to catch a Rovers match though. Looking forward to it!

Dept. of Subtle - Copy Option Checked or Unchecked

A post at AUGI by Aaron Rumple reminded me of a very subtle feature using the CTRL key. I stumbled into this using the Offset tool in Revit 2009.

Here's the scenario, imagine you are using the Offset tool to create a copy of a wall offset by four feet. The Copy option that appears on the Options bar is checked by default. That's great, but what if you wanted to use the Offset tool to move the wall not create a copy. You have to un-check Copy to get the Move instead. If you press the CTRL key prior to selecting the wall to offset the check mark is cleared in the Copy Option.

The AUGI post discusses this technique in conjunction with the Mirror Tool. Like with Offset the default setting for Mirror has Copy checked, assuming you want to create a mirror/copy, not a mirror/move.

As you probably already know, you can create a copy of an element by selecting it, pressing and holding CTRL and then dragging the selected element to a new location. When you press CTRL with Offset, Mirror, Copy and Move the Copy option becomes un-checked or checked in the case of Move.

I've never found any mention of this in the help file in the past. I just scanned through the 2010 documentation for any mention of it (using CTRL as a criteria) to see if they've added it but didn't find anything now either. A far as I can tell it's undocumented. Thanks to Aaron for the reminder!

A video might help?

Revit History in a Timeline

Every now and then I read some mention of Revit History. Today was a tweet via Twitter which mentions the wiki at Triple D Design.

Beau Turner started a wiki (Fall of 2005) focused on Revit (ADT too) and I helped out by setting up the basic outline of topics that you'll see there. I also contributed much of the content under the heading "The History of Revit".

I haven't visited the wiki in a long time because, sadly, it became more work to remove the spam that it received than actually adding meaningful content. It was a daily ritual of visiting the site, remove spam...only to realize that I spent all the time I could afford just doing that. This is why it is necessary to login.

Unfortunately that didn't slow down the spamming. As a result the timeline is a bit stale now while the AUGI version I will mention in a moment is up to date, except for documenting when builds were released (a wish list item). Their is some potential for making the wiki quite useful but it has languished.

Backing up a bit, in September 2003 David Conant (with Revit Technology Corp. and now Autodesk) posted a timeline for Revit. David's original post was made when the AUGI Revit forums were still part of Zoogdesign's Revit forums. I've taken over editing the post since then and do so when each new release cycle comes around.

I have links to both the AUGI hosted timeline and the Wiki in the sidebar on the right side of this blog under Revit Links.

There is also a Revit User's Manual at WikiBooks. A variety of people have been contributing to it since as early as 2006.

Previous mentions of Beau's Wiki here at Revit OpEd:
To Wiki or not to Wiki?
Wiki See Wiki Do

The First Number or Value - Template Setup

When you place a component, like a door, Revit provides a unique Mark parameter value. Same thing happens when you place a grid. Have you started a new project, placed a door and found a nice number like 234? How about a grid value of 2 or 15 instead of just 1 or A? Not all elements get a unique number automatically, such as furniture or casework for example. Those two just get a blank value.

Fortunately this issue is pretty quick to resolve. Just open your template, place a new component or grid and renumber the Mark/Name parameter so that it has the number just before the one you want your user to get with the template when they get started. This works fine for numbers but I'm not sure what to do about letters. If you want the grid to start with A...what comes before A? I've tried to get it to start with A again...but no joy.

I made a short video that shows what I'm writing about.

Revit Inside - API

To answer a recent request, I've added a new category to Revit Inside to list firms that offer programming services using the Revit API. Happy programming!

Autodesk University Content - Prior to 2006

When you visit the Autodesk University site you can review the classes that are archived back as far as 2006. The classes from 2005 and as far back as 2000 are archived at AUGI (Autodesk User Group International). I received a comment on an older post of mine letting me know that the links I provided back then were no longer working. I fixed them this morning and also thought I might as well post about it too.

Autodesk University Content - 2006 to Present
Autodesk University Content - 2000 to 2005

If you are curious about what you find at AUGI these two images might help. You start by visiting AUGI and clicking on the Education menu item, then click on the AU Class Handouts link on the left side bar.

Now you need to select the year, the industry and finally click Go!

You'll receive a long list of classes to peruse. It would be nice if it could be searched by Author or product but this is what we have for now.

Happy New Year!!

Revit Family Editor Videos

Warning!! Sales pitchy...

In the category of "Things I've meant to get around to but haven't", Paul Aubin HAS taken the time to record and produce videos from the summer series of online classes he did on the Revit Family Editor.

It is comprised of five DVD's (sold as individuals) and yes they cost money, but not a lot of money. Any seasoned family editor will tell you that doing the work, using the tools is the key to success. Not doing the work over and over and over, wrong and wrong...and finally correct, has value too. If Paul's videos can help you get there then I can put my hurt ego aside long enough to mention them to you here.

So if you've got some serious family editing ahead of you...you might want to take a minute or two to check them out, they could save you some time in the long run? If you use this super secret code (don't tell anyone else) you'll be able to get 10% off the regular price (and I get a small share of the "riches" - full disclosure). Check out his site for details.

The DVD's are sold as individual purchases and Paul says he is working on a solution to provide a bundle order but as I wrote this it wasn't finished.

Hey Paul I'm looking forward to retiring early, thanks for putting them together!

[P.S. The code is displayed when you hover over the Secret Code hyperlink, in a tool tip. The secret code will be valid for purchases made from 12/28/09 to 1/28/10, one month]

Happy Holidays 2009

Another year has passed already! It is that time again!! Wishing you a happy holiday season and a nice start to the new year!



I enjoyed Alan's politically correct season greeting! You might too?

Christmas Gift from Jason Grant - Sheet Creator

As I mentioned in an earlier post Jason has posted an application he wrote for Revit 2010. It allows the user to create sheets sequentially avoiding the opening and closing of dialogs that the existing process in Revit requires. His post has a video the demonstrates the tool in action as well. He also provides a step-by-step process to get it installed.

A still faster way to make sheets if the actually naming isn't very important yet is this TIP.

Revit MEP and the Phase Feature

You have existing HVAC equipment. You've documented the existing system and connected everything. Once you demolish it in a later phase however it becomes disconnected in the earlier existing phase.

This comes up every now and then during discussions and a recent thread at AUGI brought it up there too. Jason Martin, with Autodesk, wrote a nice response worth echoing:

Jason wrote:

The basic problem is that things like ducts and pipes are only allowed to be connected to one other thing "per connector". If I have a duct that is connected to an elbow the connection between those two are "properties" of those two elements (i.e. the duct knows it is connected to the elbow and the elbow knows it is connected to the duct).

The secondary problem is that the "temporal" concept in Revit (phasing) is primarily a "display only" concept (there are some special cases where other things are done, but primarily it is limited to display). I'm not arguing that adding temporal intelligence to these elements isn't a good thing, as there are a number of other cases that it would solve (i.e. like the ability to move something that exists in "this" phase to a different location in a "future" phase phase), but it isn't there today.

From a practical standpoint this means the mantra of assign stuff to systems can't be met completely with existing demolished stuff. Something I'm sure the designers at Autodesk are wrestling with internally.

With regard to the AUGI thread and getting the appearance of the documents they wanted, Jason went on to suggest that they use Filters based on a different parameter than System Type since that parameter is lost when the elements are demolished.

Revit Xmas Eve

Jason Grant is teasing us with a post promising a free tool to create sheets more easily and quickerer. It won't be available until Christmas eve so you'll have to be patient till then! They say patience is a virtue!

Think Like Me

I spend most of my time teaching Revit actively in a class setting or one-on-one/one-on-few mentoring. I also end up doing it passively like with this blog or editing AUGI | AEC EDGE for example. One important thing (as instructor/teacher/writer/editor) I must do is connect with students/readers, in a manner that they relate to. Fortunately I manage to do this pretty well. I can't really expect 100% but it is a nice goal.

It is important to remember this bit of wisdom, Seth Godin wrote in his post today, "The problem, of course, is that people don't always think like you." His focus is on marketing your product but it applies pretty well to most anything you are trying to push uphill. I'll go so far as saying that anything Seth bothers to write is worth reading (if you think like I think).

You may not teach Revit but if you are using Revit you are probably trying to help it along, help co-workers etc...it's a good thing to keep in mind as you go about your day and try to help others along.

Thinking Ahead - How Far Should That Be?

In September 2009 I wrote a post about the future already being here and now. I then read a post by Steve Johnson (from Perth, Australia) called, "Trusting Autodesk? Contemplating a New Product" on his blog Blog Nauseum.

I'll let you read his post there but the essence of his post was how can we be certain that the software we use today will be able to support our needs far into the future. His post was focused on the new Plant 3D product. It was this part that caught my attention (my emphasis in bold):

...snip
In a word, it comes down to trust. Each drawing used or issued by this utility is a legal document with a potentially very long life ahead of it. I showed the Autodesk person a drawing issued in 1901. The assets documented by that drawing are still in use today; indeed, many thousands of people daily depend heavily on them. Before we invest our money, time and training in Plant 3D, we need to know that the electronic drawings produced with it are going to be fully functional in the long term.
...snip

My reaction was, what software can boast that it will support a legacy file format that is as ancient as the document he pulled out of a drawer? I dare say none can. The first software I used to produce drawings was MAC Draw on a Macintosh Enhanced with an internal 800 kb hard drive AND an external 800 kb hard drive. Good luck opening that file today. The television studio equipment that my drawings documented was installed in 1988 and the drawings were probably never needed again, they were installation/shop drawings.

I've met firms that (a few) are actually upgrading every project they have done in CAD/BIM to the latest version of software they use each time they start using the newer version. Just think what committing to this means on a practical level as a task for each project. The thing is, unless you do this, you must continue to rely on the printed documents (or perhaps pdf versions) forever because you may not be able to open the project files in five, ten, twenty, thirty years from now if you don't upgrade them (current and old) routinely.

What if the software ceases to exist as Steve suggests in his post? What shall we upgrade to then? We can keep the software but we'd also have to keep a working computer available indefinitely that could run the software too! A trip to the DigiBarn perhaps?

Something to mull over...

Autodesk University 2009 - Missed It

Apparently I missed AU2009? I thought I was there but maybe it was just a dream compiled from previous trips? My wife and kids would like to know where I was for the week though... I received this in an email the other day and it made me chuckle. I imagine that many other attendees got the same message?

I know Autodesk is a big company and putting on AU isn't a simple task but I'd like to think that they'd at least know that I attended AU. I feel soooo like just a number right now. I DO understand that they are just trying to make sure that I understand I can access all that learning even though AU is over.

No worries...I got to talk to both Lynn and Shaan so I KNOW I was there!!

Autodesk University 2009 Day Four

A bit overdue but here it is...

I started out with another early morning meeting after getting far too little sleep the night before. A certain group of Australians (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) kept beverages appearing in front of me. It would be rude of me not to accept their offering(s) so I found it necessary to indulge their kindness. Thanks Shane, you aren't as mean as I've made you out to be before! It was good to see Bruce again too and I hope he had a blast motoring in Nevada after AU.

I made sure to prepare for the labs that I was assigned to as an assistant, three of them as I mentioned in my previous post. The first was a family editor focused lab presented by Joel Londenberg and Jarrod Baumann. Lots of good information for Revit MEP users as they went through the process of creating a nice air terminal family.

As many lab presenters experience there just wasn't enough time to really cover all the material (been there done that myself). I think my old boss Jim Balding once gave me the sage advice that you can cover about one-third the material you think you can. Mock-up your ideal class and then cut two-thirds...that's how much you'll actually cover. Their example of a built-in warning to indicate when the airflow is out of a specific range is a nice touch and would be a good topic for a future video post.

The second lab was Duct Duct Route Route by Michael Schinn with BIM Solutions. This lab ran out of time too but could have made it if the power point about "what we are going to do" was cut out in favor of a simpler summary. It might seem like I'm being critical, I'm not...labs are very hard to do. A typical training lab class at a firm or reseller is six to twelve, maybe a few more. When at AU it is 80-100 sharing 40-50 computers, a completely different animal. The thing that makes it really hard for students is that we tend to expect them to watch the presenter and do something at the same time.

This is why less is more in a lab. To Paul Aubin's credit his family editor lab last year was the first I've been a part of that not only covered everything but did so at a comfortable pace and seemed to keep everyone on track. Not an easy feat.

My last lab was for Jeffrey McGrew's repeat performance of his rendering class, "From Model to Marvelous". He's got a natural comfortable speaking style and his session has a nice balance of tasks and explanation. This class had fewer students than the first so it was a lot easier to assist and we had only one crash during the session (that I observed). It also ran out of time but deliberately so by choosing to leave the interior portion of the session for exploring on their own time after AU. The key to mastering this stuff is to keep using it later anyway.

After the last lab wrapped I had just enough time to hang out in the AU wrap up party for a little bit before heading off to a very nice CDV dinner at Aureole, thanks CDV!! The next morning I met with a few folks for breakfast before hopping into Jim's truck for the return trip to Southern California. The trip home was smooth sailing with none of the miserable traffic we saw heading west on our way to Vegas. Driving home from Vegas on Friday is a BIG difference from Sunday, everyone is heading TO Vegas on Friday.

As usual for me AU was gone in a flash, a blur of seeing old friends, meetings, trying to attend classes (only made half of one this year), participating in classes and late nights (too late nights). Only 11 months till AU2010...

Revit MEP - US and UK Content Extension - Subscription Only

Received word that there is new content available to subscription customers for Revit MEP 2010. David Pothier posted at Inside the System this morning.

US Content and UK Content

Hotfix Posted x 2

My prediction came true a day and then a few more days later. Two Hotfixes (what's the plural of hotfix??) have been posted now. The first deals with wall issues and the second with the missing Structural Settings access on the Ribbon panel for Structure. Click the links (Is there a Hotfix/Update?) on the sidebar at the right to visit the hotfix page for your version of Revit.

Revit Toolkit from Excitech - Coordinate Scheduling Tool

David Light's old firm Excitech has released a new tool that is free (for now) called Coordinate Scheduling Tool. It is intended to allow us to acquire X,Y,Z coordinates from certain Revit elements. It is currently limited to Revit 2010 versions and the 32Bit version of Windows XP/Vista (64 bit in development). This is an image of the Ribbon panel installed with the tool.

Here's a screen capture of User Options (snipped from their site).

Check it out!

Autodesk University 2009 - Day Three

Started out the day with a 7am meeting that wrapped up shortly after 8am. I ran into David Driver of 4D Design and we decided that we both needed some breakfast. I then wandered up to the speaker ready room to do some prep work for the labs I was scheduled to assist with (lab assistant). It was a bit hard to concentrate because Paul Aubin and I kept distracting each other with conversation...work kept getting in the way!!

The first was Jeffrey McGrew's (Because We Can) From Model to Marvelous rendering class. It went well but we did see some random crashes while working with the materials dialog and several computers lost their licenses toward the end of the session, odd.

The second lab was A Quick Spin on Curtain Walls with Reid Addis, an applications specialist with Microsol Resources. We didn't see any odd crashes during this one and it was in the same room.

Three more lab assisting assignments tomorrow, a repeat for Jeffrey's class and two MEP related sessions, one called Duct Duct Route... and another about MEP content.

At 5pm AUGI had its general meeting. The board discussed AUGI's current status and the planning for the future. Looks like CAD Camps are coming back strong in 2010, hope that the economy supports them! They also turned over the latest top ten wish lists to the product managers for AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Revit Architecture and Inventor. The financial report shows that AUGI came in about the same place they did at the end of the fiscal year for 2008 based on the tax returns for that year. Not bad considering how the year started, with just 0.88 in the bank!

I shared a beverage with Chris Needham of C3 Consulting (Melbourne, Australia) and we caught up with what each other has been doing since we last saw each other at the RTC Conference held in Melbourne last June. Thanks for the beverage!! I finally got to spend some time chatting with Simon Whitbread from New Zealand during the AUGI Beer Bash.

I spent the rest of the evening on the convention show floor visiting various vendors, running into friends and hanging out at the AUGI booth. I got to take a look at the new site tools from Eagle Point for Revit which I hope to be able to play with a bit during the next couple weeks. Naturally I spent some time hanging out at the CDV Systems booth since I do so much work with them.

I wrote this from the AEC Lounge wireless zone practically alone except for a couple others chatting on the other side of the area. Must remember to take pictures...

Hotfix Pending or Posted

Word is a Hotfix will be out soon or already to address the Subscription Advantage Pack issue where the Structural Settings dialog is inaccessible unless you enable the old UI to get to it. Check the Hotfix shortcut links to the right side bar of this blog to see if it is posted already or soonish anyway.

Autodesk University 2009 - Day Two

The second day at AU started out with a trip to a class presented by Danny Polkinhorn (with WATG) about the Revit API. I only made it halfway through before getting a text summons to join an impromptu meeting. Once that wrapped up we went to the General Session where Elvis sang the legal disclaimer and gave Laura Wood (The AU Video contest winner) a peck on the cheek. I also got to meet her after the session wrapped but since I lack the gene that takes pictures...no picture.

Amory Lovins discussion was inspiring and though provoking, people need to hear what he has to say more and more often. The notion of design the whole system makes sense in a "duh, no kidding" way...but why aren't we already doing these things if it is so obvious?

The first airing of my AU Virtual class went live at 1:00 PM (Pacific Standard Time) and was marred by over-modulated audio (distortion). They discovered that my class and a few others suffered from this issue too late to fix mine for the first round. Nearly all the comments were focused on the audio and the goal of appearing live was very successful since most assumed that I could fix the issue by moving my microphone or talking more quietly...except I taped the class on Sunday night! *-) Apart from audio most attendees seemed pleased with the work. There were 1750+ attendees signed up for the class when it started and 1850+ after it ended. Today there are just under 2000 signed up.

The second airing of the class went live at 9 PM (Pacific Standard Time) and no audio issues!! Four comments at the end of the class and a few questions since so it went much smoother the second time around. For those of you who attended, thanks for making it successful for Autodesk to deliver this kind of learning opportunity.

I attended the special event after dinner that previewed the upcoming Avatar movie, pretty amazing 3D technology behind the movie!! The Marriott Hotel chain design story was pretty interesting too since I spend a fair bit of time in hotels and worked for a hotel/resort design firm in the past too.

I ended the evening attending Phil Read's "Order of the Drunken Leprechaun" get together at the Mix Lounge. Enjoyed getting to catch up with many people I only see once maybe twice a year.

Off to assist Jeffrey McGrew's rendering lab now...more later!