Autodesk University 2010 - Monday 01

Monday morning is starting slowly for me (and a bit groggy). Because my sessions don't begin until 11am I opted to stay up a bit too late and hang out with people and chat. This is my hotel room view of the Vegas strip. Just about the same as last year but a little closer to the ground.

I got to spend some quality time with the AUGI Board members for dinner, many thanks to Karen Popp of Extension Media for graciously picking up the tab! The food was excellent at RM Seafood. The key lime pie was still frozen when they brought it out but it was excellent, though tough to get a fork into. In software terms we'll call it a "feature"? I sat next to Peter Jamtgaard and we talked about a wide variety of things, he's a very very bright guy. If you ever get a chance to speak to him, take the plunge!

I ran into some old friends from WATG who have moved elsewhere and a couple who are still there. Scott Brown with HHCP in Orlando, Doug Williams with Perkins & Will, Dean Yama and Danny Polkinhorn (with WATG) and Robert Manna (not with WATG, with Burt Hill very likely soon to be Stantec). When I stumbled into them they were chatting about, what else, Revit! Not really a big surprise. It's funny to be around "old" Revit users, they can be a cranky bunch, ranting about this feature or that feature that hasn't been changed or tweaked to their likely yet, or in many years. I'm included in the characterization, to be fair.

I was asked, what I thought, was an interesting question late last night, "Why does a guy like you come to AU anymore, it's not like you really need to attend a class about walls, doors and windows?" In the early days it was all about the classes for me but after the first two years of AU (attending since 2001 except for 2002) it became much more about the chance to see, meet and talk to people face to face.

Sure the classes I choose to attend are different now and it would be idiotic to think I can't learn something new (I try not to be idiotic, though some friends could accuse me of that at times). It's about the nuggets, a comment made in a session that makes me reconsider some long held assumption or the fact that the presenter has a different perspective and tries something my "old timer" mind doesn't let me "go there" for.

I find it ironic too, that many of the people I know now were originally met via online interaction but now it is the face-to-face time with them that I cherish at each AU.

I'm heading to my first media event session shortly, more to come.

Autodesk University - Travel

Wesley Benn, Jim Balding and I hopped into Jim's SUV on Sunday around lunch time and began our journey to Autodesk University 2010. It's about a four hour drive from our part of Orange County here in California. About 3/4 of the way there we stopped for a quick bite to eat at Del Taco. Jim needed a little help finishing off his burrito so Wesley helped out by steering for a bit, yikes!

Wesley and Jim have a bit busier schedule for Sunday evening than I do. I don't have any AU Virtual session duties this year so today is a no stress day! We got in around 3 PM, parked and made our way to check in. We then wandered to the Speaker Ready room and went back down to Level 1 to get registered. The TSA full body screening machines were a new addition to registration! Hah! Not really!

We've run into many people already, name dropping; Phil Read (Mastering Revit author), Cyril Verley (CDV Systems), Robert Manna (Burt Hill and blogger Do Revit), Tom (with HP), Shaan Hurley, Donnia (CAD Mama), Joseph Wurcher (AU), Dean Yama (WATG), Damian Serrano (RLF), Matt Dillon and Matt Stachoni, and Bob Bell (Sterling)...well you get the idea. There are a lot of people here already and a little over 6,000 expected all told.

more...to come...

The ANT Group IS

My old boss Jim Balding, since leaving WATG, has formed a new company called The ANT Group.

His introduction says:

...snip
Born out of the conviction that "there must be a better way" to design and construct the built environment, The Architecture and New Technologies Group (The ANT Group) is driven to find and incorporate technological solutions that benefit the AEC industry. As a full-service architectural firm and design technologies R&D Lab, our focus is on minimizing wasted time and material and optimizing the design process for our clients. The end result of an optimized process is an optimized building.
...snip

The site is pretty striking. All the best Jim!

You can follow him/them on Twitter too!

Unresolved References

I'm experiencing an issue where files that have linked files (Revit files that is, haven't tested CAD links) that aren't found are causing Revit to get stuck at the Unresolved References dialog. A simple test will confirm, rename a linked file and try to open the project that references again. It happens to me whether I'm referencing a file on a network or on my own hard drive regardless. The computer also freezes any other graphics that appear over the Revit session. I can drag the application to a different monitor but an image of it is trapped on the Revit window. Very odd. This is what the dialog looks like unfortunately.

The only way I can get back to work is to use Task Manager to use End Task on Revit.exe. I can't open any file that can't find its references. Looks like I've got a Uninstall/Reinstall in my future, near future, very near future.

Anyone else running into this?

Project Galileo Coming Soon at Autodesk Labs

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

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

You can check out a preview video, looks interesting!

Dept. of Subtle - File Open Memory

While using Revit MEP I observed the following. As you know, when using the Recent Files window you have two options to open a file: Projects and Families.

If you use Projects > Open: Revit remembers which folder location you opened recently.
If you use Families > Open: Revit doesn't remember.

You can also use the Application Menu (Big R) > Open: Project, Family and Revit File.

If you use Project: Revit remembers.
If you use Family: Revit doesn't remember.
If you use Revit File: Revit remembers.

Seems a bit arbitrary and subtle to me. I'd prefer that it remembered the last folder I used regardless. When I tried the same thing in Revit Architecture I found that it remembered the folders correctly. There seems to be some inequity in how Revit keeps track of which folders we visit using the various Open File techniques available to us.

What do you see?

Autodesk Seek and Content

Since I wrote about managing content yesterday I might as well follow up with another content related tale. I was hunting for air terminal families yesterday. I visited Autodesk Seek and downloaded this:

Trox USA: DID300 Series Active Chilled Beams, One or Two-Way Discharge, Ideal for Use in Shallow Ceiling Cavities

It's a minor defect but it has a masking region that does not properly maintain its size when a different type is chosen. The 4x4 type works but the others; 6x6,8x8 & 10x10 result in a very large masking region that would hide more than intended. I believe it is intended to mask the pipe connections to clean up the plan view appearance. It isn't hard to fix but it is extra work.

Which brings me to my reason for posting. If the Seek site offered a way to rate or comment on a family page I could have put my observations where others would find it useful to help decide if they want to try to use it, instead of writing about it here.

I also visited the Price website to check out their Revit content, specifically for air terminals. I discovered that most, if not all, of their face-based content is built upside-down. Unfortunately when you place them on a face they end up pointing up into the plenum instead of down into the room. A simple comparison between working air terminals from Autodesk and theirs (Price) will reveal the inconsistency.

To Price's credit, I sent them an email about the face-based issue and I got a response within an hour asking about my issue. I've passed on my concerns and it appears that older content is suffering this malady while newer content isn't. I used their Download All option so I wasn't able to differentiate from old/new. Suffice it to say that for now they are working on it!

Managing Content

Here's a little suggestion related to the ongoing (maybe terminal) content situation we've been facing ever since computers started helping us do our work. Where and how do we organize our stuff? For Revit I recommend this approach as a starting point. People are creative and this may not cut it for you or your firm but it works pretty well on average. I recommend the following folders.

• Revit Stock Content (their stuff)
• Office Content (your stuff)
• Project Content (the project's stuff)
• 3rd Party Content (everybody else's stuff)

Why go to the trouble to keep them separate? Why not just dump them all in one folder? Well for me one reason is versions, versions of Revit. IF you have to support projects using more than one version (2009, 2010, 2011 not RAC versus RST) you'll realize it needs to be obvious which version families were created for. We can't use 2011 families with older projects. Another reason is that I don't want to mix it all together just to try to keep my sanity. We can use careful naming conventions to avoid confusion and overwriting files by accident but separate folders seems more obvious to me. Naming is a whole nuther can O'worms! Once a family is inside a project its name will spark another conversation so folders with good naming conventions is a balanced team.

The workflow is something like this:

• I need something
• I look in our Office Content - find it/use it
• If not, I look in Revit Stock Content - find it/use it
• or search 3rd Party Content
• I'm not satisfied with either - modify it/use it
• I save it in Project Content (our quarantine)
• We review Project Content for promotion to Office Content

As a diagram or flow chart consider this:

You can also consider organizing the content into specific folders (Office Content) so that it becomes more obvious to users what is available/appropriate. You can also consider a product like Kiwi Codes Family Browser.

This application lets you define collections of families into tabs within their user interface. This means the content can be any where you want but the users gain access to only the content you really want/need them to use. Pretty slick!

Cloud Computing - Advance 2000 Cloud 2.0

I heard about this company last May while attending the Revit Technology Conference in Sydney. I promptly forgot to mention them because I was told that their focus on Revit wasn't that public, or at least that what I remember.

In their own words...snip
Advance 2000, Inc. is a full-service information technology firm dedicated to providing you with endless technology solutions your company requires to continue to grow to its fullest potential. Our unique process of Technology Teaming joins together your company's existing qualified team with our skilled professionals to assist you with every aspect of your technologies. Our four step process of Strategic IT Audit, Architectural Design, Implementation, and Management lets you focus on your business goals while we take care of the rest!
...snip

For a project that needs to collaborate across geographical and business boundaries this concept of Cloud computing starts to really resonate. With Advance 2000 they serve up the software to you through thin client workstations, which according to a Video I just watched cost about $500. The purpose of the video is to demonstrate how much better their approach is compared with standard cloud (the video doesn't exactly explain what standard is though). Pretty impressive performance difference even if the video doesn't really explain the underlying differences.

Something to consider as your firm wrestles with big projects and managing the data across various consulting firms and locations.

BIM Family Toolkit at Autodesk Labs

Autodesk Labs just released something called BIM Family Toolkit. It's meant to provide a way to get from Inventor product data to a Revit Family. This bit is from the Labs site.

...snip
Overview
The BIM Family Toolkit Technology Preview allows building product manufactures the ability to easily export Inventor configuration data from iParts and iAssemblies (parameters, file properties & component visibility) directly to Revit families. Once the family data has been imported into Revit, users can create a simplified version and leverage the imported parameters and properties directly in Revit reducing the amount of time it takes to create BIM Ready Models.
...snip

I don't know how many firms using Revit also have Inventor so I'm not sure how well it will do at Labs. I suspect that manufacturers using Inventor will benefit and Revit users may benefit downstream as opposed to undertaking the workflow themselves. Labs has posted a video to CREATE and another to REFRESH at You Tube.

Revit Server Insight

Matt Dillon with D|C|Cadd in San Antonio, TX writes for their Building Solutions blog.

He just wrote about their initial experience getting Revit Server up and running on their own network for testing purposes. He promises a whitepaper regarding the process in the near future. If you are heading this direction with Revit Server soon yourself, be sure to watch for more information there.

Added 12/8/10: They've posted their Revit Server Whitepaper now. Yes the first page has some wild characters on it.

Don't forget that there is a Autodesk sponsored/started Revit Server Wiki to provide information and support too.

Dept. of Off Topic - Welcome Isabella!

Robert and Krista are the proud parents of Isabella as of this morning. Unlike her architect parents she arrived a little early but she did wait until the middle of the night to finish the design.

Mother and daughter are doing great and Robert is probably in shock by now. Just a brief note to welcome Isabella into this mad world and wish her parents all the best! By the way, you probably know them because of the blog they write: Don't Think: Do Revit.

I wonder if Revit will be the long-in-the-tooth software by the time Isabella gets interested in her parent's chosen profession? What sort of perspective will we have about it then? I suppose we will have to either be part of helping define what's next or wait and see.

Autodesk University Virtual - Four Free Premier Passes

Countdown: Four Three Two One None Left

This is not an echo. I've got four more passes to distribute courtesy of Initial.AEC.

These guys are an Autodesk Reseller based in Denver, Colorado. I suggested that they blog them away on their own blog but their site is getting remodeled right now so I'm the lucky guy who gets to pass them on.

Interested in a free pass. Okay, test time again. Send me an email!

Computer Specification Request

In response to an email I received today I'd like to ask for some feedback. If you are pleased with the current computer configuration you have please leave a comment that offers the highlights, maybe something like this?

Brand: MyFavoritePC
Type: Notebook/Desktop/Workstation
Operating System: Linux
CPU: really fast
RAM: wow that's a lot!
Video Card: swoosh
Hard Drive Configuration: Raid Array
Monitors: 12
Software: Revit, iTunes, Weatherbug
Comments: It's really really great!!

Feel free to add whatever you believe makes the computer really well suited for Revit. I don't want you to spend a lot of time but it would be cool to see if anything in particular stands out among those of you who have the time to respond. Thanks!!

Dept. of Off Topic - Customer Service

I was wandering around the internets and came across this tale of woe, "Dell Hell, 5,500 Hysterical Words Worth". It is a blog post at Consumer Underground.

Be prepared to laugh and cry as well as shake your head. You'll need about 15 minutes to make your way through it. In the end, he returned it and bought a Mac.

When I bought the Dell I am using now I was told I couldn't buy it with my Dell account because the computer was part of their small business group of computers. Apparently a regular "Joe" can't buy this computer or at least not with the regular "Joe" personal account. I needed a business account with Dell to purchase it. I ended up paying for it via other means because I needed it and couldn't get a Mac in time. That's another customer service tale so even Apple aren't immune.

I just couldn't believe that after selecting everything and ready to press GO, sorry you can't use your Dell account to purchase this Dell computer. I even sent a email to Mr. Dell which generated a series of emails and phone calls. All ending with...sorry we can't sell you a business computer if you want to pay with your personal account. Nutty...I thought they like to sell computers? Well they got the sale anyway and 30 days later offered the same computer with more capacity for RAM. Bought mine with 8gb and now you can get it with 16gb...possibly more now.

I must say even with my last experience with Dell that it hasn't been as bad as Dell Hell. I've probably been party to the purchase of around 50 Dell pc's over the last 8 years and all prior interaction with them was very positive.

We recently had some difficulty with our bank and ATM fraud. Pretty scary to see a large chunk of your account get removed via an ATM that is 60 miles from you and you've never used. At least the bank resolved that part of it. Getting new cards and shutting down the olds ones was a nightmare. We talked to a half dozen people and everyone had a conflicting story. We thought we were talking to "Shirley" from the TV commercial.

Here's to good customer service, if you can get it!!

Autodesk University Virtual and Subscription

Now that I've run out of the free passes, remember that Autodesk Subscription may entitle your firm to access the Virtual side of AU too. How many will depend on your contract. If you want to attend check with whomever manages your Autodesk Subscription account!

Autodesk University Virtual - Four Free Premier Passes

Counting down: Four Three Two One No Passes available - Well it didn't take long but I'm out! Thanks and all the best to each virtual attendee!

Last year I received four free passes to share with others as a result of attending AU physically. They've (Autodesk) continued with this tradition so I now have four new codes for AUv ($139 value). When I offered them last year I wasn't sure how best to pass them along. I thought about some sort of odd contest but we're all busy and I don't need to distract you anymore than this already has.

To get one of the free Autodesk University Virtual Premier  passes you need to send me an email and ask. The tricky part is figuring out how to get my email. It's a test! Only the quick and smart will win *-).

Remember AU Virtual premier is a bargain if you can't get to Las Vegas and attend this year. You get access to much more content because there are more classes than last year. It's the same great presenters giving you your own "private" class, if you just disregard the other hundreds of people tuning in.

AUGI | AEC EDGE - Article Plugs

There are many articles to choose from in the latest issue of AUGI | AEC EDGE but I'm writing to plug a couple today.

The first is "Lessons of BIM" by Laura Handler (bim(X) blog)and Courtney Pagani. They are both part of Q5 an affliate of Tocci Building Corporation.

The second is "The Mass Family Editor". It is written by Marcello Sgambelluri and as the title implies, it is for family editors (and conceptual massing too). He works for John A. Martin in Los Angeles. He's been spending many hours poking away at it and he shares a bit of what he's discovered during that time.

These are links to the text version of each article but you can reader the online version or download the pdfs at your leisure.

Lessons of BIM (text only)
The Mass Family Editor (text only)
Online Version of entire eZine AUGI | AEC EDGE
High Resolution PDF (57.7 mb)
Low Resolution PDF (30.4 mb)

3D Interaction and Kinect

Ralph Grabowski shared a post regarding Microsoft's Kinect. Oliver Kreylos posted a couple videos demonstrating how he has used it to generate 3D imagery (almost hologram) and then measure something accurately in that environment. I've embedded the videos that are hosted at You Tube. Oliver's information is posted at UC Davis.

Project Vasari is now available at Autodesk Labs

If you missed it, it's posted at Autodesk Labs now!

...snip
Overview
Autodesk® Project Vasari is an easy-to-use, expressive design tool for creating building concepts. Vasari goes further, with integrated analysis for energy and carbon, providing design insight where the most important design decisions are made. And, when it’s time to move the design to production, simply bring your Vasari design data into the Autodesk® Revit® platform for BIM, ensuring clear execution of design intent.

Project Vasari is focused on conceptual building design using both geometric and parametric modeling. It supports performance-based design via integrated energy modeling and analysis features. This new technology preview is now available as a free download and trial on Autodesk Labs
...snip

At Autodesk Labs you'll need to click Download Now and sign in.

The Labs page for Vasari offers the reason for the choice of the name:
...snip
Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, writer, historian and architect who was born in 1511 and died in 1574. He is remembered for his biographies of other Italian artists and is considered the founder of art-historical writing. In his honor, Project Vasari is the name of the latest technology preview on Autodesk Labs.
...snip