ipad app: Magic Plan

This app was actually suggested by a colleague who was familiar with it.  This simple but free app will use the onboard tilt sensors and camera to produce an accurate floor plan of a room or series of rooms.  I have only tested the app a little, but so far in my testing it is proving to be quite accurate.

ipad app: Sunseeker

Sunseeker is a fun little program to play with, and is worth the small price tag.  It also has some real world applications.  This program falls in the augmented reality category.  It uses the onboard camera from the ipad and overlays data on the screen.  In this case, it is a sun path diagram for your current location.

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.

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!

Favorite Customized Shortcuts

Everyone likes their software set up a certain way.  In Autocad everyone had their favorite tool bars, settings, colors, shortcuts that were tranferred from release to release and Revit is no exception.  While the introduction of the ribbon a couple years ago initially frustrated many people, in the end it turned out to save time because similar tasks were consolidated.  I have come up with a couple features that I always implement in my seat of Revit that increase my efficiency and workflow and thought I would share them.  Today is part one.

AUGI World December is out

AUGI World December is now out.  Check it out here:
http://www.augi.com/augiworld/current-issue/

Elevator Doors

I'm sure we have covered this before, but another example of it and its importance has been uncovered. Using a correct family for model elements.

AUGI October Issue Published

The AUGI October issue has been published. There are two articles this month that may be of interest to some people.


pp. 23-25 Has an article pertaining to how to stack electrical symbols in plan with Revit MEP (when several outlets or services are close together on the wall)
pp. 34-39 Talks about how to 'customize' Revit for your use. Mainly it deals with office standards and making sure you aren't re-inventing the wheel every time you do a project with the use of templates and customizing families, but some are interesting tips for your own use. It is good information however.

What is LOD?

LOD refers to 'Level of Detail' and is used to define the level of detail of a revit model. There is a common definition which was defined by the AIA in E202 which is used around the profession. It consists of five levels, labeled 100 to 500. Here it is in a nutshell.


     LOD 100 - Massing model
     LOD 200 - Model with generic model elements, may not have properties associated with them
     LOD 300 - A model built with specific assemblies to the model elements and confirmed 3D object geometry
     LOD 400 - Acceptable for shop drawing and fabrication
     LOD 500 - As built, actual field condition model.

As Architects, we will mostly be building Level 300 and Level 400 models depending on the clients/contractor's needs. There is significantly more work involved in creating a Level 400 model as you must ensure all systems are coordinated against each other and the modeled geometries are accurate in all three dimensions and assemblies (wall) are accurate in dimensions and composition, however the power of Revit makes this task not as daunting as it may seem. Many argue this is the way to do it by default from the beginning of your project, as it is much easier to do it right away then have to go back and change everything later. Some also say if you are doing Revit this is the right way to do it and any other way is just lazy.

If the contractor wishes to use the model in any capacity (whether as a contract document or not) then a Level 400 model is required. To build a level 400 model you must also have knowledge of custom parametric family creation as you will undoubtedly run into the need to create a custom family for what you wish to model as one may not exist yet. This is leveraging the power of the "I" in BIM, one of the strongest capabilities of the software.

To see more detail on LOD and what is involved for each level here is a helpful links:
http://www.ipd-ca.net/Model%20Progression%20Spec%20V%2008-08-20.xls

Revit Rendering... Now in the Cloud!

If any of you were familiar with the Autodesk Project Neon, then you are aware that Autodesk was experimenting with Cloud Rendering Services. First it was only for ACAD users, but due to a large amount of feedback from trial users, it was expanded to include Revit 2012 via a plugin. The capabilities and speed of rendering in the cloud far exceed what is possible using local machines.

Just some stats about cloud rendering to render one image:
64-core render service: 10 sec.
16-core render farm: 40 sec.
2-core Desktop Workstation: 26.7 min

You can watch a video about cloud rendering here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=17570228 and watching the first movie.
Oh yea, it also does 360 degree panoramas... something achievable only in MAX.


Here are some basic samples of a Revit project turned cloud render: (note: these are an Autodesk provided model, not one of our own).  These were done as a High quality, 2000px image.

Just like Revit, it appears that interior renders are a higher quality than exteriors, but that is probably due to the materials than the actual render engine.  Just like in revit, you are able to place a background image (look through the windows to the field beyond) and the native sky is much more... realistic than the native sky in Revit.

New AUGI Newsletter Published

AUGI has published their September issue of "AUGI World"
There are some interesting articles....

Read it here: http://www.augi.com/publications/augiworld/issues/

Do you use igoogle?

Do you have a Google account? Do you use igoogle to create homepages with links and fun stuff that you like? Add a 'Revit' tab and follow some of the top Revit blogs on the web!


  Here is the link: See "Revit" on your Google homepage

Lose Something?

Here are some great tips from HOK's blog with steps to take for finding 'lost' objects in Revit.
http://hokbimsolutions.blogspot.com/2011/07/looking-for-something.html

Search the blog archives

Remember seeing an article on the blog but can't find it again? Search the archives!
Along the right hand side of each blog page is the blog's archive. It is organized by Year then month. The arrows make it easy to expand or collapse each month so you can search the titles of the posts and find what you want.
Wasn't that easy?!

Add Revit Blog to Favorites in Outlook

Added the blog's RSS feed to your Outlook? (if not, go here: http://zasrevitusers.blogspot.com/2011/08/add-this-blogs-rss-feed-to-outlook.html)

Want an easier way to see if there are new posts? You can add the folder to your favorites so that it shows up at the top of your outlook so you don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom to see anything new.


The process is relatively simple. Right click on the folder 'ZASRevitUsers' under your RSS Feeds. Select 'Add to Favorites' and the folder will now appear at the top of your folder list.

Looking for a good Revit Reference?

If you aren't already aware of it, the AUGI Forums are some of the best resources for people with questions on 'how to' with Revit (or any Autodesk platform for that matter). The AUGI Forums are user controlled, meaning other users will answer your questions. You have probably stumbled across it in the past as it usually shows up in any search results from Google or Bing. If you want to post you must make a free user account, but it's completely free to browse!