Revit Families - New Guide at Club Revit

Michael Anonuevo let me know that he recently posted an in-depth article about creating complex shapes with the Revit Family Editor. Michael runs the site Little Details Count and is a contributor at Club Revit, a site started by Lonnie Cumpton. He discusses how he created the following family as well as useful interface and rendering subtleties between Revit 2010 and 2011.

Michael also has an interesting post about the little teapot that Revit uses as its icon for Rendering button. It is a common question that I get during training. He did some digging to provide more background. Scroll to the March 8, 2010 post titled, "Autodesk Revit Teapot Render Button".

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

Dept. of Off Topic - Introducing Revit "the frog"

Dave Edwards shared this with me the other day after I posted the picture of the Jeep with Rev*IT.

He writes:
Don't know if you ever saw this. There was a Harley Davidson licensed Beenie Baby frog called "Revit." When I first started with the software, every Google search on "Revit" came up with all these Beenie Baby sites. Well, because I had dreams of working for them at the time, I bought three of them and sent two to the Execs of Revit Tech. One is still on my desk.

The tag says: "Revit's no toad, and he's not just a frog. He's King of the Road, when he's up on his Hog!" On the back of his jacket it says: "Harley Davidson, Kiss Normal Good. "Fitting for a frog". For years we called Revit, FrogCAD.

Thanks Dave!

Dept. of Off Topic - Revit Ride

Saw this in Orlando on a recent trip to a client's office. Clearly a Revit user? Of course...what else??

Dept. of Cool Stairs - Australia Style

Took these while in Sydney...nice stair!

Video Training Option - Paul Aubin on Lynda.Com

I'm a bit late mentioning this, sorry! Paul wrote to let me know that he recently finished a Revit Essentials training class in a video format that is offered at Lynda.com.

They specialize in video training for all sorts of things. Paul wants to get the word out so here's my little contribution.

Hope it sells well!

Level Annotation - Elevation Units

Here's a quick video showing how to change the units of a Level annotation for elevation.

No time for a video, want to dash in and try to do it? Take these steps (added per Rusty's comment):

1. Select the Level
2. Examine it's Type Properties
3. Find the Symbol Family it is assigned to
4. Close the Type Dialog(s)
5. Scroll to the Families category in the Project Browser
6. Select the family the Level is using under the Annotation Symbols category
7. Right Click > Edit
8. Select the Elevation label, click Edit Label
9. Select the Elevation parameter in the list
10. Click the Format button, Un-Check Project Units
11. Choose another setting
12. Save the family and load it into your project

You should save this family as a new type in your office standards folder.

Dept. of Off Topic - Calatrava's Dallas Bridge

Drove by Santiago Calatrava's bridge design in Dallas tonight.

The "hoop" is up.

I didn't try to get closer to see more though. I used Auto Stitch (iPhone app) to build this panorama.

Dept. of Quirky - Duct Duct Weird

Observed this odd behavior when attempting to add a riser to an existing lateral duct run. If you create the riser during the initial sketch of the lateral run it works fine. It just gets weird if you try to introduce a riser later. It works fine if you just create a riser separately. Also curious is that sketching a duct will cease the duct run when you click on a reference plane. If you expect to continue sketching duct you need to be careful not to click on a reference plane because the current duct sketching mode with stop and you'll have to select the first point again to continue. Both conditions are quirky in my book. Video embedded below and posted at OpEd Videos and YouTube.

Stair with Landings at Both Ends

I made the Video posted below after receiving an email asking about an earlier post.

AUGI | AEC EDGE Spring 2010 issue is posted

The next issue of AUGI | AEC EDGE is finally out. Each issue is intended to arrive at the end of the season. Unfortunately my workload made it harder than usual to meet our intended deadlines. All that is behind me now...it's posted!

Thanks again to the authors who make each article possible and this issue's authors are:

Lee Ambrosius, Christian Barrett, Elizabeth Chodosh, Lonnie Cumpton, Doug Eberhard, Jon Allen Gardzelewski, David Harrington, Trey Klein, Glenn Jowett, David Light, Jay Polding, Philip (Chico) Membreno, Keith Rice, and Daniel Stine

Now on to prepare for the next issue.

[Amended 9:00 PM] The magazine cover image at the magazine web site is still pointing to the Winter issue. The link on the left frame that says Online Version works. That and you can download the pdf versions.

Dept. of Wishes - Revit MEP - Selection Priority

I made a brief video that describes a frustrating selection situation when linked models are involved. Revit places the link at a higher priority than local MEP elements. Wireframe visual style will change this but wireframe in some views (3D) isn't always a better option. It would be really nice if a linked model had a lower selection priority when compared with other native elements. I've embedded the video here but you can also watch it at YouTube.

Revit MEP - Hiding Elements in Linked Models

Revit MEP 2011 introduces a way to copy/monitor additional elements from linked architectural models. A client asked me how to hide the originals in their views once they've used this new feature. I was attending the BIM Analytics event at USC and couldn't respond effectively during the day so I did a short video tonight in an attempt to make up for it. I've embedded it here too.

Two techniques are mentioned in the video; using an override of the Model Categories for the linked file or an override of a specific Workset assuming one is created for such a use in the linked file.

New Revit Utilities - PKH Lineworks

Phil DeBrandt announced at AUGI that he has made several utilities for Revit available at his web site. The utilities are branded as ReVVed.

The utilities are comprised of the following functions:

• Merge Text - merge multiple text notes into a single note.
• Change Case - changes the case of selected text notes to a user specified case.(Upper, lower, mixed)
• Upper Case - changes the case of notes to all upper case with a single click or hotkey.
• Web Link - opens a web browser to the URL stored in Revit components.
• Polyline - adjust the total length of end-to-end lines. (Like travel distances)

You can download the utilities from his site.

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!

Dept. of Echo - Export to DWG Survey

In the interest of getting the word out to any reader of this blog that isn't a reader of Inside the Factory yet.

Here is the text from today's post:

The factory is conducting some research to better understand how Revit users use the Export to DWG functionality, and fully understand major pain points in that work-flow. We would greatly appreciate if you could take a few minutes to fill out this short survey that focuses on Revit’s export to DWG feature.

Click here to take the survey

By the way, if you haven't subscribed to their site yet, it's easy! Click to Subscribe Now!

Point Known - Build Your Model as you Measure

PKNail is software that is being developed by PointKnown Building Solutions. The purpose of the software is to improve the process of measuring existing buildings and then building a model using Revit.

It's based upon using the Leica Disto D8 surveying tool.

The software is not yet commercially available but I just received an email that shares a video (posted at YouTube) that demonstrates how it works. It is a little over 8 minutes long. If you've ever measured an existing building you might want to spend 8 minutes and watch. Jim Foster is the person doing the demo and he has a blog called BIM, the Built Environment and Stuff. I've embedded the YouTube video here if you want to listen to it now. I recommend watching it full screen though.

Revit and 64 bit Operating System

We waited very patiently for Revit to support 64 bit. I stalled buying a new laptop PC in order to make sure I had something that would support using a 64 operating system as well as having enough RAM to justify the switch. I settled on the Dell Precision M6300 a little over two years ago. Much to my annoyance Dell offered the same thing with 16GB of RAM just after I bought mine with a maximum of 8GB...a month later.

I find a wide range of conditions these days. People using 32 bit with 1 or 2 GB of RAM all the way up to people using PC's with 64 bit OS 24 GB of RAM, even a couple using servers for their workstation and even more impressive numbers.

Today The Revit Clinic shared a bit more (pun intended) insider information. I really enjoy this kind of post since it is both confirmation and confession. They provided this graph representing the evidence they obtained from the customer error reports and the customer involvement programs they have. You know those dialogs that appear after a crash that you don't always submit. You might consider a "cheeky" response like me.

Bottom line - 64 bit Operating Systems enjoy improved performance/stability over their 32 bit counterparts. If you haven't put some money and energy behind this move there is no time like the present.

While you are considering it...don't forget to replace the rear differential when you soup up the engine. I mean don't forget to put enough RAM in when you do make the switch to 64 bit. What's enough? In my opinion a 64 bit OS should have at least 8 GB of RAM. My next laptop will have as much as can be stuffed into it and I'll be hoping they don't double it again a month later.

Here's a link to a AUGI thread that might be worth your while too. Gordon has taken the time to put down (in a series of replies) what he's learned about how the operating system, RAM, virtual memory and paging files all play together.

New Book - Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011

Today I received a review copy courtesy of Eddy Krygiel. No I didn't read the entire book already. That would require taking a speed reading course first. It is a really FAT book, as a few other blog posts have demonstrated already. In addition to the foundation of twenty chapters (833 pages) it includes seven chapters (243 pages) above and beyond Revit feature focused subjects. Without these extra chapters the book would have been substantial, these additional chapters up the ante considerably.

This book is the update to the previous editions written by Eddy, Tatjana Dzambazova and Greg Demchak. For this edition Eddy teamed up with Phil Read and James Vandezande for a complete overhaul.

The additional featured chapters are:

Chapter 21: Revit in Construction
by Laura Handler from Tocci Building Corp.
Josh Lowe and Mike Whaley, Findorff & Sons.

Chapter 22: Revit in the Classroom
by Adam Thomas and Jereme Smith

Chapter 23: Revit and Virtualization
by Peter Streibig, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

Chapter 24: Under the Hood of Revit
by Don Rudder, HOK

Chapter 25: Direct to Fabrication
by Jeffrey McGrew, Because We Can, LLC

Chapter 26: Revit for Film and Stage
by Bryan Sutton, Camel Design

Chapter 27: Revit in the Cloud
by Chris France, Little

The authors have been blogging about the book for several months now, building expectations, and it certainly has delivered a pretty formidable source of information. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Troubleshooting Graphics and Visualization

Harlan with The Revit Clinic posted that there are two new pages dedicated to helping users resolve graphics card and visualization issues.

Autodesk Support Sites
Tested Graphics Hardware List
Revit Graphic Card Troubleshooting Center
Revit Visualization Troubleshooting Center

Avatech Utilities for Revit - Update for 2011

Avatech Solutions was the first company (that I can remember) to offer several utilities for Revit that provided missing functionality - for free too. They are busy getting the word out about their latest update for Revit 2011 products and this post is meant to help.

The Revit Kid (Jeff Pinheiro) started a contest to win a free version of their utilities. Avatech's marketing team wrote to me last week and offered to make one license of the full version of the utilities available for free to one of this blog's readers. Jeff's post went live on Saturday and when it did I thought that I'd make the license I can award available to the second place finisher in his contest. It seems a bit redundant to me to run another contest of my own.

The essence of his challenge: Explain, in a comment for the blog post, how the Avatech utilities have been a benefit to you or your firm, or perhaps how your firm will benefit from them if it doesn't use them yet. The best response/comment wins. The best is determined by readers voting for the comment they liked the most. The deadline for comments is the 30th, voting begins afterward. I'll award the license that Avatech has offered to me to the second place finisher in the contest.

If you aren't familiar with the utilities yet then you should take some time to review them. If you use Revit Architecture then the room and door numbering tools will probably be very useful. The element renumber allows you to renumber grids, levels, windows, doors and spaces.

If you use Revit MEP the new MEP Parameter tool might prove interesting. It helps you pass along parameter values for an entire duct or pipe system, like setting the insulation value. Easy to set the insulation for a pipe or a pipe fitting but you can't actually do them both at the same time when they are selected. This tool is meant to alleviate that pain.

They are still offering a free version (Lite includes: Room Renumber, Change Case, Space Update, and GridSelect.) and the utilities can be stand-alone or a named user version (shared license with a pool of named users). The full version will sell for $395 after July 31, 2010. If you'd like to get it for less you haven't got much time, you can get it for $99 until the 31st. Click HERE to download the product brochure.

[Disclosure: Avatech Solutions made one copy of the Utilities for Revit 2011 available to me for my personal use, for free, in return for posting this information.]

Dept. of Bugs - Sloping Pad Defect gets Ornery

I wrote about THIS back in August of 2009. The sliver left behind in the image below could be eliminated by taking the advice in that post. Unfortunately 2011 eliminates that technique from the ranks of viable alternatives, per Jean-Frederic Monod's comment on the earlier post.

Possible workaround? Use a pad to drop the site toposurface to the lowest elevation and then use a floor to create the sloped and flat "pads" instead??

Proper Properties Palette

I have to admit that I'm quite happy with the Properties Palette. During a period of time that I can't claim to have been part of or witness thereof I was a bit less happy with it. I no longer find myself closing it accidentally and like the ready access to information. I have settled on putting it over at the right side of the UI, like this.

What about you? Anyone like it stacked above the Project Browser? I just didn't like them both getting squashed. For Revit MEP it does compete with the default location of the System Browser, which I prefer at the bottom of the UI. Since most of my work involves people using the stock deployment I don't spend much time customizing my UI or setup because that puts me in a different environment than the students. I do prefer the "light" style over the "dark". I also prefer the QAT below the ribbon so I can see more of the title bar.

Speaking of students and different environments, one item that proves a bit confusing at times is the way the UI squashes panels and tools on the ribbon when the resolution is coarser than fine. This means that my projected screen often has a slightly different presentation than the student computers...leading to confusion when telling them to click here or there...etc. Fun fun!

Element Count - Revit versus Navisworks

I find the little number listed in the bottom right corner of Revit invaluable.

So much so that I find it hard to believe that we didn't have it for many years. When you select items using Navisworks I sure miss a similar display. I realize that the selection set can be quite varied but a count that is easy to check/read would be cool.

Revit Structure - Composite Floor Design Extension

BIM and BEAM announced yesterday that an update for the Composite Floor Design Extension is now available to subscription customers.

...snip
This newly updated Extension, which is now available on the Subscription Center, allows for the design of composite and non-composite floor layouts to current US codes. The integration of this code checking capability inside a native Revit Structure model removes the need to create a separate analysis model and allows the option of performing the analysis in Revit Structure or externally in 3rd party Revit Structure analysis partner solutions. The Composite Floor Design Extension also enables structural designers the ability to perform analysis and make code check centric decisions earlier in the design process.
...snip

Check it out!

DPR Model Slicer - Free Revit Add-on

Laura Handler, her blog is (bim)x,mentioned this in her post a little while ago. Jason Pratt, part of the author team at the blog "Connected" also mentions it. In fact Laura mentions his post in her post...bloggety bloggety blog blog. Expecting to see some tweets soon too.

What is it?
...snip
DPR Model Slicer is a free Revit plug-in which facilitates the creation of 3D Building sections from a Revit model. Inherently within Revit, the only way to separate a model by floor is to filter it by reference levels. Unfortunately, this often results in a product (shown below), where items modeled as multi-floor elements, such as walls or columns, become associated with only one floor despite occupying space on many floors.

How it works
DPR Model Slicer was designed, not only to make the creation of these sections easier, but also to allow you to quickly repeat the process on other projects or versions of the model.

There are two main parts of any 3D building section in DPR Model Slicer:

• 3D Section Box: Defines the top and bottom bounds of the section. Typically corresponds to a building level.
• Visibility Settings: Defines the visibility settings for the section (what objects are shown in that view)

By combining any combination of these two settings, all of the requested 3D sections can be created.

Who is DPR?
DPR Construction is a unique technical builder with a passion for results.
Ranked in the top 50 general contractors in the country over the last 10 years, we are a national commercial contractor and construction manager that has grown with our customers by delivering measurably more value. Whether it is a multi-million-dollar technical facility or a conference room renovation, we execute every project with relentless accountability. We listen to your goals. We develop strategies based on your business. We track our performance. We do everything we can to earn your trust and build great lasting relationships.
...snip

Amendment: 07/09/10
Since this post has generated several comments I've added my response to those that wonder why we wouldn't just use the Orient to View option ourselves to get the "same" result.

My comment reply:
...snip
Sure you can use the Orient to View option. Where this application proves interesting is that you don't have to create all of the views manually. It deals with repetition nicely.

You set up criteria once in a dialog and save the settings. You also can harness filters and associate them with your saved scope box settings. Then as a batch you can create 3D views based on your prepared settings.

It also provides a way to export these views to DWG or DWF formats. Remember this tool was created with the notion that a contractor wants to break up a model into discreet chunks. Exporting carefully from Revit can make the Clash Detection process in Navisworks much easier than forcing the NW user to do all the filtering in NW. Though very capable it can be tedious, especially when a Revit project is already made up of categories and levels.

Try it...and remember you don't have to use it.
...snip

RTC USA 2011 - Revit Technology Conference coming to USA

Rodd Perey with Architectus recently had his review of RTC 2010 published at AECBytes, the site founded and edited by Lachmi Khemlani.

I've had every intention of writing something about it here but he's done a really nice job of summarizing what happened over the course of the three day event. Well he did leave out what happened in the evenings after the sessions wrapped but then maybe most of that ought to remain a mystery?

You can read his article at AECBytes HERE.

RTC has been an Australian event...but planning is underway to bring it to the USA! The tentative dates are June 23-25 at a venue (nearly determined) in Orange County (Southern California). There is a LinkedIn Group you can join and you can visit the RTC site to check in on progress.

Dept. of Echo - Easier to Determine the Installed Version

I've complained about this in the past so I'm glad to see that it is a little easier to figure out if a version of Revit has had an update applied. Thanks to The Revit Clinic for the alert!

BIM Analytics @ USC on August 4th, 2010

Karen Kensek with USC sent the following information to me to get the word out.

BIM ANALYTICS: - August 4th, 2010 - FREE

BIM isn’t BIM without Information. For decades, faculty, researchers, and software companies have been developing software tools that are intended predict the performance of a building, for example, energy consumption, day lighting, cost, code compliance, structural analysis, etc. These tools have typically been stand-alone tools that provide a specific analytical capability. The range and depth of these tools has been astonishing, and yet lamentably many of these tools have not been significantly integrated into the design processes of professionals. BIM is a promising technology to encourage improved integration of design analysis into the building model. For the Fourth Annual BIM + Symposium, we will explore the nature of analytical modeling in architecture, engineering, and construction. We will seek opportunities for a more responsive integration of the evidence/simulation based design decision-making. We will have speakers who have integrated simulation and BIM in their design process, a forward looking section on BIM parametrics, and informative presentations on interoperability and standards. More information including a list of speakers and registration information will be available on the web site.

Please reserve your spot soon; BIM CON!FAB filled up last year. Keep checking back on the website as additional information will be updated there.

http://arch-pubs.usc.edu/bim-analytics/

Current list of confirmed speakers:

Architecture and Engineering
Rachelle Villalon, Jenna Knudsen, and Alex Korter, CO Architects
Erin McConahey + team, ARUP
Mitch Dec, David Summers, Tianxin Xing, Glumac, “Rapid Energy Modeling”

Construction
Jim Bedrick, Webcor
Viktor Bullain, Turner Construction, "BIM Execution Plan for Successful Model-based Analysis"
Jonathan Widney, Solibri and Darren Roos, Suffolk Construction Company, "Mining the Model – Analysis of the Model Information, not just the Geometry"

Parametrics / Performance Based or Algorithmic Design
Nathan Miller, NBBJ, "Feedback Cloud: Tactics for Toolset Integration and Design Optimization"
Kurt Komraus, Buro Happold

Integration, Standards, the Big Picture
Richard Nowicki, NTD Architecture and Lance Lareau, San Diego CCD, no title yet
Michael Rendler, LACCD, “BIM /GIS The WHOLE Picture. LACCD e7 System”
Chuck Good-Man, Irwin Partners Architects

For more information about BIM Analytics, please contact Eve Lin (Karen’s assistant) at shihhsil@usc.edu .

If you really want to get a hold of Karen, email her at kensek@usc.edu .

USC Architecture Event - August 2-3, 2010

This event was sent to me by Karen Kensek with USC to share with readers to get the word out.

EXECUTIVE EDUCATION:
August 2-3, 2010

This year, we have launched five course offerings centered on the theme of Los Angeles as a 21st century model of critical urbanism, creativity, and culture. These courses will explore a set of strategically themed topics, connecting over a dozen of the most forward thinking global practitioners, politicians, and urban theorists today with our own faculty.  One of the two-day sessions is themed around building information modeling (BIM).  This is a unique opportunity to interact in a small group (30 maximum attendees) with leaders in the profession, in a session focusing on dialogue and debate.  Please visit the website for further information about this unique event, its distinguished speakers, and registration information.  As only a very limited number of spaces are available, please enroll soon.

Keep checking back on the website as additional information will be updated there.

http://execed.uscarchitecture.com/kill-bim/
http://execed.uscarchitecture.com/

Current list of speakers:

Keynote speakers:
Phil Bernstein, confirmed
- Vice President, Industry Strategy and Relations, Autodesk AEC Solutions

Ken Sanders, confirmed
- CIO of Gensler

Session leaders:
Cristiano Ceccato, invited
- Associate,  Zaha Hadid Architects, London

Larry Eisenberg, confirmed
- Executive Director, Facilities Planning and Development
- Los Angeles Community College District

Carl Galioto FAIA, invited
- Senior Principal, Managing Principal HOK/New York

Stephen R. Hagan FAIA, confirmed
- U.S. General Services Administration

Atul Khanzode, confirmed
- Director of Virtual Building at DPR Construction, Inc.

David Todd, confirmed
- Executive Vice President National Technical Services
- Bovis Lend Lease, formerly Walt Disney Imagineering for 33 years


Invited instigators:
Jordan Brandt, Horizontall LLC
Marty Doscher, Morphosis
Calvin Kam, CIFE, Stanford University; Optima
Dennis Selden, Gehry Technologies

For more information about the Executive Education sessions, please contact Eric Moore at ericjmoo@usc.edu. If you really want to get a hold of Karen, email here via kensek@usc.edu

Web Update for Revit 2011 Posted Tonight

Firing up Revit tonight I received a communication center message that there is an update posted (at 12:01 AM on 6/21/01). I clicked the Update Now button and then fired up Google Reader to catch up with some blogs and Luke posted a note about it tonight as well.

Funny but I was just asking a friend earlier today if he'd heard anything about a new build and tonight there is one!

Revit Architecture 2011 Update (64bit)
Revit Architecture 2011 Update (32bit)

I imagine that there are equivalent updates for Revit Structure and Revit MEP Update but it's late and I'll have to check in the morning. The regular Update website pages for all three haven't been updated yet though. Looks like the communication center is "the way" to get them at the moment.

Edit: Definitely one for RME...tomorrow morning... must sleep!

Dept. of Subtle - Selection Ceiling

This is technically a Dept. of Echo post too. I love it when the factory shares insider information like this. Harlan wrote the other day on the The Revit Clinic blog that Revit won't let us select more than 16,383 elements in a single selection effort. We can select more but not with one wave of our mouse.

Dept. of Subtle - You Didn't Ask!

Ever since it became possible to initiate editing a family from within the project Revit has stopped us to ask if we are really sure we want to open the file for editing.

No more!

Revit 2011 designers and developers united in an effort to cut one more warning dialog from their inventory! Sad thing is that I'm so used to getting asked that I'm still occasionally starting to tell students to "click Yes" to accept the second guessing dialog. Happened again today...

I propose a new dialog in its place, something like this?

Thanks for the little stuff!

Dept. of Off Topic - Kuwait Sights

I'm currently on my second of two weeks in Kuwait working with ARETAS and their client here. We ventured out a bit on Friday (first day of the weekend here) to see a bit more of the city than the routine of the inside of the car to the office, the office, the car and the hotel each day.

We started out with a stop at The Scientific Center, a museum that features a dinosaur exhibit and IMAX theater among other things. We saw The Fires of Kuwait, a IMAX documentary about putting out the oil field fires that raged after the war. They expected it to take four years or more to put them all out but they ended up getting the job done in just nine months. Pretty impressive!

For me, it's a tie for the coolest (pun intended) techniques they used to put out the fires. A tie between using explosives (C4) in a barrel and the pair of Soviet jet engines used to "blow" the fire out. They mixed water into the stream of air generated by the engines. They created the contraption on the chassis of a tank. Pretty amazing images, you could almost feel the heat from the fires. The velocity and force of the oil spewing from the pipes and the intensity of the fire was incredible. I can only imagine what the teams felt right there. The narrator, Rip Torn, said that they'd sweat out 12 liters of water per shift.

After the movie we walked around a bit and then caught a ride to the Kuwaiti Towers. They are one of the more recognizable landmarks of Kuwait City naturally.

Great views of the city from the observation level at 120 meters (at least that's what the elevation read out when we got to that floor). There is the new Al Hamra 74 story tower rising, nearly topped out, designed by SOM. This is it, but not the interesting twisty side of it though.

Dan and Haitham walking along the path around the Kuwaiti Towers, the SOM building under construction in the distance.

Another twisty tower (Al Tijaria Tower) on the way out of the city heading back to the hotel that was done by KEO. You can just see it in the previous image at the left side.

This is my view from the hotel room, made me a bit nervous about construction noise but there hasn't been much activity while I'm in the room.

I used AutoStitch to create the image above. It's an iPhone app that Phil Read sold me on while riding the ferry back to Manly (when we were in Sydney). He stitched together a nice panorama of the harbor as we left. (used Autostitch to do it)

Dropbox and Project Sharing

I was trading messages with Martin Taurer today regarding WAFS (wide area file services). His firm has been exploring the use of Globalscape's WAFS product that I mentioned in a post recently. While we were both in Sydney attending the Revit Technology Conference Phil Read frequently extolled the virtues of Dropbox.

He (Martin) mentioned that it seemed to him that Dropbox is doing much the same thing as Globalscape's product which prompted a test. The results working with three users were interesting.

• Paths to central file must be identical (may need to use dos command "subst" to map a location)
• Initial synchronization of files took quite awhile
• Subsequent synchronization was quite fast
• Worked quite well while adding new elements
• It was possible to select and borrow the same element at the same time (BAD) First person to Synchronize won, the other "lost".
• The user permission files (eperms) don't update quickly enough at times

Conclusion? For a few power users who are very diligent it is a very inexpensive solution (free 2gb account). For users that are following the sun and not working at the same time it would be an excellent way to permit sharing and working using the same central file. Globalscape's solution seems to have solved preventing users from editing the same element at the same time and for that they can demand their fee.

Try it out but just be careful and test thoroughly to make sure it works for your conditions.

[Added 6/7/10] A friend wrote to say that WAFS is a bad idea whether Dropbox or Globalscape. His comment was, "good luck getting support from Autodesk using that setup". Perhaps he's correct at the moment. But Riverbed devices weren't a proven concept at first, Revit on a MAC using Parallels wasn't supported, running Revit on Win7 beta wasn't... nothing that is a stretch initially is a good idea until it becomes the norm (assuming "they" develop into reliable workable processes). That said, please please do be careful before launching into production mode with either!!

Guide Grids

Robert Manna recently posted some observations about the new Guide Grid feature that arrived with Revit 2011. It is intended to provide a bit more control over the view alignment between sheets. I complained about this process in an earlier post. It was only a month or so later that I saw a sneak peak of the Guide Grid concept.

It's probably simplistic of me to say so but it seems to me that it is an expansion of the existing Show Work Plane feature present for model views. I came to that conclusion because it shares the exasperating limitation of only allowing one dimension value to control the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the grid.

If you are interested in a little deeper commentary just read Robert's post. For now, if you use this new feature, just remember:

Don't DELETE a grid in the sheet view if you don't want to see it anymore. Set the Guide Grid value to none for the sheet or use Visibility/Graphics in the sheet view to turn it off.

If you delete a guide grid you'll remove it for all the sheets. You should get this warning though in an attempt by Revit to save you from yourself.

Earlier posts:
Align Views on Sheets
Aligning Views Between Sheets
Dept. of Wishes - Aligning Views on Sheets

Dept. of Errors - Invalid Duct or Pipe K-Factor Database

I've received both errors over the last couple years using Revit MEP. This error can occur when the supporting files it uses are corrupted somehow. The Factory recommends reinstalling (or using Repair for example) Revit to resolve the issue because this ensures uncorrupted files are installed.

On the other hand if you have access to a working installation you can try the following to resolve the Duct K-Factor error:

On a working PC COPY all the files (to a thumb drive or shared folder) in the ASHRAE folder under Program where Revit is installed. Replace (overwrite) the files that are in the "broken" computer with the "good" files. Try again. This approach using files from a working PC should work. If it doesn't then you'll need to go the repair/reinstall route.

Fwiw, for the Pipe K-Factor error if that occurs you need to replace the PipeKFactors.xml file. It is found in the Program folder (under the installation location for Revit).

The Knowledge Base at Autodesk and the blog post at Revit Clinic attribute the issue to user permissions. While this may be true in some cases it certainly wasn't for me since my computer hasn't changed its permission structure or accounts. Or at least I don't remember doing it...and since I'm the only one using it...hopefully I'd know?

Stairs in the Wild

Revit stairs and railings are long overdue for some serious development time and effort. It's underway if you can read the stars. I was recently in Sydney to attend the Revit Technology Conference 2010. Phil Read attended as well and we both shared the same plane back to Los Angeles. On our way to the Air New Zealand lounge (as Phil's guest) we stopped to admire this stair. The glazing railing is not attainable with the current railing feature set. It's off to in-place modeling. I'll leave it to Phil to get around to discussing how he'd tackle this one on his own blog in his own time if he chooses.

This next one is at the current hotel in Kuwait City. The Crowne Plaza has been restored to its former glory after the damage it suffered during the Iraq invasion. This stair was present then but it is in much better shape. Again the railing features a bottom edge detail that the current features don't support (okay...without fussing a bit).

By the way, planning is under way to bring the Revit Technology Conference to the USA for late spring to early summer of 2011. If you're interested in attending it will be held in Southern California. Check out the Revit Technology Conference 2011 website for further details as they develop.

Dept. of Subtle - No Edit Family Option?

Received a query today about a project that wouldn't offer their users the Edit Family option when they selected a window or door tag family. Turns out that the project file in use was a pretty old file that had been upgraded for many releases of Revit. The option to initiate editing a family from within the project hasn't always been available to us.

When it did become available there was a requirement that any families created in earlier releases had to be upgraded to the current release before the Edit Family feature would become available. The issue was that the window and door tags had never been upgraded and reloaded. When newer versions were loaded to replace the existing ones the good old Edit Family button returned!