ipad app: Theodolite

I ran across this app as I was doing some initial research on the ipad in architecture and what it could do.  IT got great reviews and the description in the store left me wanting to get my hands on it to try it (but that is what it is supposed to do right?)  After getting my ipad, this was one of the first apps that I actually bought (besides monopoly :) )

This app does quite a bit.  I don't think that I can say yet that I understand all of its abilities, but I do know that its neat, functional and could come in handy out on a site.

ipad app: Autodesk Force Effect

This app may not help you in the traditional sense of practicing architecture, but I would be remiss if I said it was completely useless.  There are a lot of things that you have no idea what they are for or how they could possibly help you, that is until you run across that one situation where it is the perfect app for the job.  (I've inserted the tool analogy here before, but I'll spare you from it this time)

ipad app: My Measures & Dimensions

Many firms use Bluebeam, a piece of software that is a cross between Acrobat, Photoshop, Indesign and Design Review.  It allows you to markup drawings, color in areas and do a variety of other tasks and is used for everything from creating drawings for presentations to markups.

ipad App: 360

This is one of my newest discoveries for the ipad and I have been absolutely impressed ever since. Ever been the one drafting, just get assigned to a project and told that pictures reside in a photos folder somewhere on the server?  You then go to look at the pictures and find that you are starting to get an idea of the project or site, but don't really know what you are looking at because you only see one picture?  Ever stand in the middle of a big open lobby or other space and try to capture the whole room with a regular camera.  You probably take a series of flat images, and when you get back to the office, maybe you stitch them together, maybe you don't.  This app can help you out with that.

ipad app: Design Review Mobile

This program has been out for a little over 6 months, and has gotten a lot of attention.  You may recognize it because it shares a common name with a program that installs on your machine when you install Revit or ACAD, but there are some differences.

ipad app: Punchlist

This program does exactly what the title implies, it streamlines the process of doing punchlists.  Take your ipad to the site and do all the markups and notes on it instead of  fumbling around with large sheets of paper where you have to fold them, turn them twist them and have something firm to write on when you take notes, only to turn around and while back at the office try to make sense of all your chicken scratch and have to spend time to translate it into a report to distribute back to the contractor.

ipad apps for Architecture

This next series of posts won't cover Revit, but instead focus on some broader issues related to the profession of Architecture.

  Having acquired an ipad over the holidays I have been busy experimenting and seeing all that it can do.  I must say that I am very impressed.  What I have been more interested in however is its application to our profession.  I did a lot of research before getting one to know what I was getting myself into and some other people's opinions on it and worthwhile apps.  I wanted to make sure before I dropped some serious cash onto one that I could benefit from it and it had some worthwhile uses.  I must say that I have been impressed since getting it.  I take every opportunity I can to try to find a new app that can do something that will benefit Architecture.

New Twitter Account

Follow me on my new twitter account... @RevitKnowz.  See Retweets of my posts here and other observations on Revit.

Apply Default View Template to all Views

Everyone can probably agree, view templates are a wonderful thing to quickly get a view to look like another view.  One major downside however is their lack of ability to instantly update when you make a change to the template, you must re-apply the view template to the view.  If you have a large project, or a large number of particular view (say interior elevations), this can be a long and teadious process.

Propegate Extents

You probably only encounter this issue at the beginning of a project when you are setting up your views and your sheets.  Ever run into the situation where you are configuring a sheet, moving the grids so everything fits then realize that you now have to do this for every other floor plan in the project?  If you said no then you are a liar.

Re-align origin for rotate command

A great feature when I have used a lot in the past.  When you select an object that you want to rotate and click on the rotate button in the Modify ribbon, you get a line that rotates around the center point.  Depending on the object or the family, that origin point that shows up by default could  be anywhere.  Sometimes it is near the object sometimes it is not.  Sometimes you have to search for it to find it.

Hide at Scales Coarser Than

I love this feature for what it can do about all the annoying annotations which can appear.  Some people consider the fact that annotations are smart objects in revit as a blessing and a curse. 

The curse side being that after you place it, they appear everywhere after you place them and most the time you need to go to all your views and actually turn them off and hide them, which can be a little annoying and teadious. 

Features I love

I know 2013 software just came out, but unless you are the office CAD/BIM/IT guy, it will probably be a couple months before you get to use it.  Having recently started using 2012 (due to a change in jobs) I thought I would take the moment and point out some features that I really enjoy about the software that improves my productivity and workability.  Some are new, some aren't but are still convenient.

VA BIM Guidelines

If you aren't already aware, the VA publishes their own guidelines to be used on all BIM projects (which is mandatory for anything over a certain size.)  It is a very good set of guidelines, of which I have copied concepts for some of the documents that I have written.

Check it out when you get a chance: http://www.cfm.va.gov/til/bim/BIMGuide/downloads/VA-BIM-Guide.pdf

They have some great procedures (like the firewalls).  And even some things I can't figure out how they do!