Repost: All Things BIM: Seattle Revit Users Group: Feb 2014 Meeting

All Things BIM: Seattle Revit Users Group: Feb 2014 Meeting: Seattle Revit Users Group: Feb 2014 Meeting

The creative folks in the rainy city have established quite a nice following for their local Revit users group. The February 2014 meeting featured a panel of general contractors sharing their experiences with BIM implementation, including some intriguing ROI numbers.

The have graciously provided a recording of the event:
http://youtu.be/FdFx9iNBKx0

If you are working in Revit and ever run across this "Weight" warning, do not fear, Revit is not making any comments about your actual weight.

It's the first time I have run into this warning myself. After doing some research and reviewing the journal file, the problem appears to be a connectivity issue. The warning seems occurs when you have a file not saved issue. If this is the case, rather than trying to Save to Central, trying saving just to your local first and then Save to Central.

In the case that this actual warning occurred, the user has just loaded in a couple image files and was trying to STC from a remote connection.

Repost: All Things BIM: NYC Revit Users Group: Mar 2014 Meeting

All Things BIM: NYC Revit Users Group: Mar 2014 Meeting

Monday, April 07, 2014

NYC Revit Users Group: Mar 2014 Meeting

Continuing the tradition of extremely relevant content, the NYC Revit Users Group invited industry lawyer Rebecca McWilliams, AIA, Esq. (mcwilliams-law.com) to share some insight related to sharing our BIM data with others.

The recording is long, but here are some highlights along the way:

• 0:42:25 BIM Execution Planning
• 1:01:30 Risk management and standard of care
• 1:18:00 LOD
• 1:35:20 Managing owner expectations and ‘bad’ contract clauses
• 1:41:00 Litigation case studies

Revit OpEd: 2014 Revit Technology Conference Plug

Revit OpEd: 2014 Revit Technology Conference Plug: If you've been reading this blog for long you've probably heard of the Revit Technology Conference . It's blossomed from an even...

Three-Quarters of Contractors Using BIM Globally Report Positive ROI on Their BIM Investments

Three-Quarters of Contractors Using BIM Globally Report Positive ROI on Their BIM Investments

Repost: HOK BIM Solutions: Sync with Central Best Practices

Sync with Central Best Practices

Here’s a list of best practices David Ivey shared for synchronizing with central (SWC) in Revit:

Never leave for extended periods of time (i.e. Lunch, Meeting, Home) after hitting the Sync button.
Revit will often ask for something before the process is complete, and if this happens while you’re out, your team can be stuck with a central file that is ‘in use’, and be kept from saving/working.

Always use the Worksharing Monitor (WSM), and consult it before hitting the Sync button.
This will save you and your team time by not making Revit slowly wade through two or more concurrent SWC attempts. Wait for an opening in the WSM, and then sync. And yes, WSM will work in a Citrix Revit session.





Always use the Sync and Modify Settings command, so that you are presented with the dialogue to release borrowed and owned elements. 



Check all available boxes when syncing (with the exception of the Compact box), so that all objects and elements are returned to the central file.



Add comments in the field provided. These comments are helpful in tracking down problems that may occur from time-to-time in the model. Short, concise descriptions of work are all that is required. This is a problem solving tool, and not a means for assigning blame (as some believe).

Always save locally when prompted.  SWC when prompted when working alone, or after consulting the WSM on small team projects (2-5).  For larger projects, consult with your project’s BIM Coordinator.  On larger projects, there may be a SWC schedule to follow, usually set in 30-120 minute increments depending on project, team, and model size, or during deadlines.

Over-communication with your team is far better than poor communication. Utilize Jabber (or other instant messaging application), email, your phone, or your voice, and make sure you and your team are all on the same page.

Repost: HOK BIM Solutions - Phantom Keynotes

This is a really good post on keynote issues. If you are not already following, I recommend following the HOK BIM Solutions blog. They provide a lot of useful information.

Phantom Keynotes 2.0

I posted about this topic in the past (see Phantom Keynotes) and it seems that we keep finding issues with Keynote Legends reporting keynotes that don’t seem to exist in the view. I have also written a follow-up post (see More on Keynotes) to discuss other visibility issues and other problems related to this functionality and the current User Interaction shortfalls. Recently some Electrical users pointed me to additional instances of misreporting by Keynote Legends, so this post will summarize those findings. These can be reproduced in Revit 2015.

1. If the Annotation Crop Region is not enabled, keynotes attached to objects that lie outside the model crop region are still reported, which is completely unexpected. The result is the same whether you use Element Keynotes or User Keynotes. The expected behavior should be that if keynoted objects lie outside of the model crop region, those keynotes should not appear in the legend, regardless of whether the annotation crop region is enabled or disabled.
2. Another instance of Phantom Keynotes occurs with keynoted elements in close proximity to the view’s model crop region. This issue is exacerbated even more when the tags are far from the objects they are attached to. With the Annotation Crop Region enabled, the keynote still appears in the legend unless the boundary of the Annotation Crop region touches the edge of the keynote annotation. This is completely unexpected and the following series of images illustrate the problem:

 

If the Model and Annotation Crop Regions are adjusted such that both the model element and the keynote tag lie outside these boundaries, the legend will rightly not report that keynote:

However the Keynote Legend will still incorrectly report the keynote if only the model element is outside of the Model Crop Region, but the Keynote Tag is within the Annotation Crop Region (the legend is actually only concerned about the tag, not the model element):

 

Please be very careful when using this functionality and double check your work (don’t assume that the Keynote Legend will hide unrelated keynotes for you!). The only workaround at the moment is to pick the keynote tags that shouldn’t be listed in the legend and manually hide them in the view, which is a very ugly workaround. The following process needs to be followed for each view:

1. Select all instances of the keynote tag in the project;
2. Remove all keynote tags visible in the view from the selection;
3. Right-Click and Hide all instances in the view.

The desired and expected Keynote Legend filtering is as follows:

• If the keynoted model element is not visible in the view and as a consequence the tag is also not visible, do not report it;
• If the Keynote Tag is not visible because it is manually hidden in the view or because it touches or is outside the Annotation Crop Region, do not report it

Revit OpEd: No Print Text

Revit OpEd: No Print Text: A fairly common request is a special text that won't print. This would let us add comments to various places in the model for other peop...

Clarity for Revit Server 2015

We are excited to announce the latest release of the IMAGINiT Clarity product line (Clarity, Clarity Connect & Clarity Connect LT) which launches today. The 2015 version is targeted for firms looking to improve efficiency, provide easier model exchanges with partners, and improved usability with additional fit and finish features based on your input/feedback.

The latest enhancements to the IMAGINiT Clarity product line continue to help solve challenges facing your team. Some notable features in this release include:
Support for Revit and Revit Server 2013/2014 & 2015
Integration with Autodesk BIM 360 Glue
New User Interface With Improved Usability
Added Support for Model Exchange Workflows (Publish and Update Models)
New Tasks and Introducing Task Actions, Provide More Time Savings and Control Options
And 60+ Additional Product Enhancements Makes This Our Biggest and Most Solid Release Yet


IMPORTANT UPGRADE NOTICE:
To upgrade your current installation to the 2015 release, you will need to download and install the new software and enter your new license information. Over the next 24 hours you will receive this information via e-mail. You are welcome to upgrade on your own or we can coordinate time with our professional services team to perform the installation upgrades with your team at no additional cost. Many of the improvements we have to the product are a result of conversations with great customers just like you, which has shaped the 2015 version as another customer workflow focused release.  As always your feedback and input is greatly.


WHAT’S NEXT:
Public webcast on Wednesday, June 04, we will be hosting a free 60 minute webcast to highlight the latest features in the IMAGINiT Clarity products at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Eastern. Attendance is free, but advanced registration is required.

RTC North America Thursday June 19 – Saturday June 21, 2014 come visit us in Chicago to see this first hand and hear how others are using Clarity and Clarity Connect to enhance their workflows.
If you are not able to make the events above and wish for a custom presentation for your firm, please let me know and we are happy to work with you to make that happen.

Work is already beginning on the 2015.1 release and we look forward to your feedback!  Interested in test driving the new release for a few days before you install it? As an existing customer we are happy to provide you access to our cloud hosted server with your data to get familiar with the new release before you roll this out to your users, reply and let me know and we can get this started ASAP for you.   If I missed any detail that you would like to know more about please let me know.
 

Model Review Add-In for Autodesk Revit 2014

Model Review Overview

Model Review for Revit is an Add-in that allows you to automate the process of reviewing and auditing projects in Revit. It is somewhat like Solibri in that it allows you to create rules/checks to run against the model. For example, you can check the models against pre-determined standards to ensure that model naming conventions, file sizes, etc are being followed. The list of pre-defined checks that can be customized is lengthy so I won't list them all in this post, but some additional examples are:

• Duplicate Elements
• Find imported files (.dgn, .dwg. skp)
• Elements Have Omniclass Number
• Text Find & Replace (allows to to find and replace text)
• Find Unenclosed Rooms
• Views with Hidden Elements  

Figure 1 and 2 show partial examples of the report that is generated when Model Review runs. Figure 1 shows the header of the report, which lists a summary of the check results. Figure 2 shows the specific detail for a specific check.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Using Model Review, you can quickly and easily locate model issues.

In the next post, we will walk thru the process of running pre-defined checks against your model. Later, we will dicuss customizing the pre-defined checks and developing new checks.

Repost: David Light's Revit: Revit 2015 – Trim / Extend Multiple Elements

Revit : Revit 2015 – Trim / Extend Multiple Elements: This is a reasonably simply improvement. If you are laying out a lot of walls, quickly being able to trim & extend so they cleanup is an...

Autodesk University - Call for Papers

Call for paper proposals ends this Friday!!  Don’t miss out to showcase your project work and promote your advancements in.

 http://au.autodesk.com/speaker-resource-center/call-for-proposals
 

Repost: David Light's Revit: Faster….Faster…..Revit 2015

Revit : Faster….Faster…..Revit 2015: As I noted in my previous blog post about Revit 2015, it has got faster. It feels faster to use, which is very welcomed. These are the per...

Repost: David Light's Revit: Revit 2015 – sketchy lines

Revit : Revit 2015 – sketchy lines: Sometimes when using BIM for presentation purposes, especially during the design development stages, the digital outputs can look a little t...

Paul Aubin Blog Repost: Text lists in Revit

Text lists in Revit

Revit OpEd: Space Naming still a Utility

Revit OpEd: Space Naming still a Utility: Yes, sadly the Space Naming Utility for Revit MEP 2015 is STILL a utility, as in a separate download AND installation from the Subscription ...

Revit OpEd: Viewport Title Line

Revit OpEd: Viewport Title Line: The line that appears along with a Viewport, when you place a view on a sheet, is a property of each viewport type. You get to decide whethe...

Navisworks File Types

Navisworks has three native file types and it can be confusing as to what file type to utilize.

NWD: This file type contains all model geometry, review markups, viewpoints, etc are stored in the file. All NWD files are static, meaning they never change since there are no links to external files. .NWD files are typically the file type that is used to share models with other project participants..
NWF (Navisworks File Set): This file type contains references to all the linked project files, as well as review markups. This is typically your master model file and where you link in all other models that pertain to your project. No model geometry is saved in the NWF, resulting in a small file size.

NWC (Navisworks Cache File): When you open, merge or append a file create in another program like AutoCAD or Revit into Navisworks, a cache file created in the same directory as the original native file. The next time that you open that same model, it will load much faster since it is now reading the information from the Navisworks cache file rather than the model itself. If the original model file isn’t newer than the cache file, it will re-cache and replace the older one. This process occurs for each file Navisworks opens or merges natively.

Assemble May Webinar

Get More Out of BIM: Condition Your Model Accelerate construction projects with more accurate and complete building information. Join us for a webinar on Thursday, May 15 at 1:00 PM CDT. Reserve your webinar seat now.   Nancy Clark Brown, Assemble Systems' Client Relationship Manager, will demonstrate how conditioning with Assemble is a fast and effective way of customizing model information for a variety of downstream uses.  In this webinar find out how to get more out of the models you work with by conditioning them with your own information including work break down structures, bid package information, and naming conventions, all of which are critical to the BIM process. Using Assemble to condition models, project teams benefit from better insight earlier in the project life cycle, resulting in high quality models, with more accurate information, useful throughout the design and construction process.

Title: Get More Out of BIM: Condition Your Model Date: Thursday, May 15, 2014 Time: 1:00 PM - 1:45 PM CDT Register today! After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. System Requirements PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 8, 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server Mac®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.6 or newer Mobile attendees Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet

“100 Fabulous Freebies for CAD Users”

                                                      
Free Guide from the Editors of Cadalyst

“100 Fabulous Freebies for CAD Users”

100freebies

Dear Reader:

Q: When is “nothing” a good thing?

A: When it’s the price you pay for great software tools that help you get your job done!

The editors of Cadalyst, with help from our contributing editors who are in the CAD trenches day in and day out, have compiled a guide of 100 tools to help you get your job done better and faster without opening your wallet. “100 Fabulous Freebies for CAD Users” has something for everyone. Download our guide and you’ll soon be asking yourself, “How did I live without this?”

Originally published in Cadalyst magazine in Spring 2010, “100 Fabulous Freebies for CAD Users” has been updated for 2014. In it, you’ll find:

Unit converters
File and text utilities
PDF converters
Imaging tools
AutoCAD tools and AutoLISP code
Mobile apps
BIM tools
Tools for CAD managers
Sketching and visualization tools
and more!

The tools are free and so is our guide; download your copy today and see how valuable free can be!

Autodesk University 2014 Advance Pass

Autodesk University is offering a new advance pass purchase option! 

• Save $600 per attendee!
• Already have the budge approved? - Register Here 
• See world-class instructors, new technology trends and fresh ideas 

Already have the budge approved - Register Here before August 19, 2014