Some time ago Steve Stafford wrote about Workset Visibility in Linked Files.  This involves creating a workset in your project, with the exact same name that’s in the linked project and you will have visibility control over it.

I am sure someone discovered, well before me,  that you can do a similar thing with sub categories.  Link in a project, add the exact same sub category that is in the linked file and you’ll have control over it in your project.

Today, I found out you can do something similar with project parameters.  We asked our consultants to add a project parameter called “Sheet Issuance” to their sheets.  We add the same named project parameter to ours.  With the consultants projects linked in, we create a sheet list with the ”Include elements in linked files” checked off.  We can then add our newly created parameter as a field that can be scheduled.  This gives us the ability to filter down to a specific consultant issuance and show it on our cover sheets.  For greater flexibility each discipline has it’s own sheet list schedule so they can note their “Sheet Issuance” however they want.  They just have to let us know so we can filter it properly.

Makes me wonder what else we can do with linked files that have similar names.

The Spring BIM Forum wrapped up in Miami, Florida just the other day.  I didn’t go but I caught some of the tweets that were flying around, at what seemed like a different look into the world of BIM.  They didn’t focus on the technology but the “Human Side of BIM”.

Some tweets that stood out for me:

@johnmyers_VDC: BIM is no longer a marketing or corporate initiative. It has become a survival mechanism. #humanBIM #BIMForum”

@jtocci2: DISC profiles are an awesome tool for understanding team dynamics. @GilbaneBuilding uses it when kicking off colocation projects. #HumanBIM

John Tocci Jr.‏@jtocci2: “The weak don’t get BIM… And I don’t lose sleep over the weak” @theBIMForum panel isn’t mincing words. #humanBIM

John Tocci Jr.‏@jtocci2: More life lessons at @theBIMForum manipulation doesn’t work, peer pressure does. #humanBIM

Brian Skripac‏@BrianSkripac: Focus on creating a dialogue rather than a discussion…dialogues promote learning #humanBIM

Brian Skripac‏@BrianSkripac: In the Information Age leaders create channels for collaboration and sharing knowledge #humanBIM

Brian Skripac‏@BrianSkripac: Well said – Overlap is necessary but duplication is wasteful #humanBIM

Did you follow the event?  Do you have a favourite tweet?  I want to hear about it in the comments.

I started to cry I was laughing so hard.

“Thought you would appreciate my search I did…” – one of my colleagues.

I can never remember what border controls what for curtain walls.  Just so I don’t forget.

Vertically

Border 1 = Start Point

Border 2 = End Point

Horizontally

Border 1 = Base

Border 2 = Top

Which side is Exterior?

Start Left, End Right = Exterior on the top.

Start Right, End Left = Exterior on the bottom.

Start Top, End Bottom = Exterior on the right.

Start Bottom, End Top = Exterior on the left.

Once a wall gets flipped it becomes trial and error to figure out which is start and end.  Come on Devs, give us some bread crumbs and make it a little easier to figure out.

I was sitting at home when a tweet from The B1M caught my attention – “Cutting the crap” on BIM.

Nice.  I want to hear all about it.

Can you really summarize BIM with 5 bullet points to focus on… or 7 bullets not to focus on?  Not really, but blog posts are not novels and there were a couple of points I really liked.

Focus on desired outcomes.

I sat in a start up team meeting for a 9 digit dollar value project.  Almost the first words out of the Principal in Charge was “This project will be successful”. WOW!  That got my attention, so I looked up from my doodling and listened a little more attentively.  A smirk slowly started to form.  For the next few minutes there was no mention of any quantitative goals.  This was a chest bumping, morale boosting exercise – back to my doodling I went.

The few BIM start up meetings I’ve sat in, usually involve “these are the BIM uses we are going to do”.  Really?  Did you ask the project what it wants.  There is a reason why you sit down and figure out what are the goals of the project BEFORE selecting the BIM uses.  More specifically what are the quantitative goals for the project.  Reduced RFI’s is a nice goal but it’s very ambiguous.  Reduce the number of RFI’s by 10%… now we’re getting somewhere.  Determining quantitative goals also means you know what your baseline is.

Focus on process and protocols you have in place.

I nearly fell off my couch when I read this.  “Create a BIM execution plan and embed it within your wider PEP or Design Management plan.”  Did the author just crawl into my mind?  I’m sure I’m not the only who has thought of this but Project Management and BIM Management are… you ready for this… the same thing.  The BIM side is just a little more “techie”, but it shouldn’t be separate from Project Management.  The day when project management and BIM management merge, you will stop saying this is how we do BIM on our projects, to this is how we do our projects.

Skin those knees.

“Don’t worry about: making mistakes… otherwise you’ll never make anything.”  I love this.  This doesn’t mean go all out without a plan.  That’s just being stupid.  For me it means taking calculated risks and pushing the envelope further than you’ve ever done before.  Just don’t do things recklessly.

In case you want to read the rest, here is the link to the full blog post.

He may have changed companies, but there is one thing certain around this time of year, David Light banging out a What’s New in Revit on the Architectural side of things. Thank you very much.

Looking for more?  The Autodesk website have the latest features across all disciplines.

In other news, it looks like Autodesk gave up 51% of it’s shares to a Japanese paper company.

It hit me one day as I was plowing through our template wondering what more I could tweak – as if there wasn’t enough – I never really tackled naming conventions for schedules and profiles.  Keeping to the concept of general to specific, I completely overhauled what the OotB file provides.

Schedules

There are 5 types of schedules you can produce:

1. Schedule/Quantities
2. Material Takeoff
3. Sheet List
4. Note Block
5. View List

All our schedules are starting with one of the above then getting more and more specific.

A Door Schedule is now Schedule-Doors.  Got some sheets?  Sheet List-Master and Sheet List-Plot.

Profiles

There are 11 types of profiles you can assign to a profile family:

1. Generic
2. Fascia
3. Gutter
4. Mullion
5. Railing
6. Reveal
7. Slab Edge
8. Slab Metal Deck
9. Stair Nosing
10. Wall Foundation
11. Wall Sweep

Similar to schedules, start with one of the above and get more specific.

Wall Sweep-Parapet Cap-Precast.

Slab Metal Deck-Form Deck-Non Composite.

Breaking it down like this allows you to group like minded elements.  Now I won’t have to see duplication of content because that handrail could be round, spherical, circular, barrel-shaped, ring etc.  Work with the alphabetic sorting but don’t become a slave to it.

The last few months I’ve been buried in content / templates / standards / non-standards / best practices / not so best practices.  A little Monday afternoon snippet to my cohorts.

“We should see 5 templates eventually?

Architectural

Structural

Mechanical

Electrical

Urban… I think it needs to be called Urbanal.  Not to be confused with its short tempered little brother Urinal – who’s always pissed.”

The joys of working in a multi-discipline firm.

In a previous post about Contract Administration Sketches I was asked in the comments if I could share the family.  Sure!  I had to make some tweaks to the titleblock and get it up to speed because I’ve never done the embedded masking method before.  What I found out, is that masking regions don’t work in a titleblock.  Instead, a nested filled region did what I wanted it to do.

All the parameters are stock except one shared parameter, drawing number.  That gives me control over how I want the drawing to be numbered and still give me the ability to reference the original sheet number.

A link to the family – Titleblock – Letter

Related Links

Contract Admin Sketches – Setting Up The Titleblock

Creating Contract Admin Sketches

Last and final day started off checking out and storing bags as I had an early flight out and I’d miss the last session of the day.  This also involved some GaG breakfast.  I also found the wifi, which was atrocious throughout the whole conference was actually quite decent up on the 3rd floor where I camped out until my first session got under way.

First session started with Reinventing an Interior Design Practice.  Kelvin started off by showing off 16 classic chairs he built in Revit.  All I can say is wow, they looked very well done.  His method of cataloging materials and furniture was well done, except it was SCREAMING for an external database to do all that work.  Once setup he could cut out a lot of time which could be spent back in design and not managing pictures an information.  The other part of the presentation was tracking washroom fixtures.  It has to be the most convoluted way to track accessories that had me lost at the beginning until he started tieing it all together at the end.  It might be worth going over it a second time just to catch what I missed.

Next session was Managing the Construction Administration Phase in Autodesk Revit.  I first met Jennifer back at the inaugural Revit Technology Conference at the speaker gathering.  She told me now that we met, I’m not allowed to go to her presentation.  You did mean just RTC right Jennifer?  This session got the most tweckles from me.  Not directed at Jennifer, she did a great job, but at the other Attendees.  This session help validate that what we are doing is the right thing.  I’ll save that for another post and Jay Zallan, I can’t disagree more with duplicating views for CA.  Not going to happen.

I got a chance to attend the Structural Futures presentation.  I know what your thinking, I’m not Structural but I drew the short stick and went on behalf of others.  For the sake of NDA that’s all I’m going to say.  Quite interesting where they are going with things.

My last session was BIM implementation in Australia.  I was hoping more from this session and left scratching my head.  I honestly thought they were further along than where they actually are.  Big picture, in the next few years UK will be leading the charge with BIM and implementation with the rest of the world following in the wake.  That wasn’t from the presentation, just my opinion.

I missed out on Coordinate and Dominate BIM Project Success for the sake of catching a 7pm flight.  I wasn’t in the mood for landing well past midnight only to get up for work with a few hours sleep.

AU is over and I felt like something was missing.  I can’t figure out what it is.  I had the usual hit and miss sessions, some decent eats and always good to see the usual suspects.

Related Links

Autodesk University – Day 1

Autodesk University – Day 2