iRevit

I thought I lost this model!

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 20:17:00 +0000

It’s been almost a decade since I’ve posted anything here on iRevit.com and you have probably moved on from Revit and into Ai and didn't even know you were subscribed to this blog, but I had to share. I finally found the Revit model file of my Haueresque CW panel #5, which was inspired by Autodesk’s exhibition of Erwin Hauer’s sculptures which was organized by Tanja Dzambazova for Siigraph a while back… and had to 3D print it in case I lost it again! It looks awesome in physical form!

You might recognize the model from the cover of Introducing Revit Architecture 2010

Cheers!

Converting Wall-based casework to Face-based in Revit

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 13:28:00 +0000

Recently there was a need for a custom piece of Revit family casework which was inadvertently made using a wall-based family template. I came across this post about switching lighting families from wall hosted to face-based and with a little tweak, made it work for casework.

This is how you do it.

1. Open up the family you need to convert to face based. Note the "Host" is currently set to "Wall" below.

2. Click on the "Family Categories and Parameters" button

3. Change the Category type to "Lighting Fixtures"

[We do this because the Copy-monitor function, which is a step in the process, only works on certain family categories]

4. Now, create a new project and load the family into it. Save the project as "Wall-hosted family.rvt"

5. Create another new project and link in the "Wall-hosted family.rvt" file.

6. On the Collaborate tab click "Copy Monitor" and "Select Link", and select the file you linked in.

7. Click the "Copy" Tool and select the Casework family, then click "Finish"

Ok, now here's the last part.

8. Make sure the family isn't already open. Select the family now live in the project and click "Edit Family"

9. When the family opens up, click the "Family Categories and Parameters" button again to change the Category back to "Casework" and note that the Host is now set to "Face", woohoo!

10. Save your family file as an .RFA file in your library and you are done!

Trash the project files unless you've got more to convert. You can load multiple families into the project for this process if needed but you'll have to edit each one independently and save.

Cheers!

Revit 2016 Autodesk Raytracer: Rendered sections can include poche

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 18:43:00 +0000

Autodesk Raytracer render engine with Objects Styles "Cut" poche override

Mental Ray render engine with same Objects Styles override settings

Recently I was generating some marketing images of a specific project and thought I'd try the new render engine that Autodesk has added to Revit, the "Autodesk Raytracer". In the process I discovered something ...That the cut-poche overides in Object Styles are reflected in the rendering with this engine. Note the two renderings above. One is Mental Ray and the other is Autodesk Raytracer and both have essentially the same settings. This makes generating cool marketing and presentation images so much easier! Thank you, Autodesk. Strangely enough though is that the Autodesk-cloud-rendered images use still another render engine that does not reproduce this nice feature.

Close-up

Cheers!

Digital Tutors - Utilize Revit's tools to maximize your DESIGN WORKFLOWS

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 18:59:00 +0000

The latest lesson on Digital Tutors was just released. Digital Tutors is a great resource for professionals looking to learn a new tool or improve on their current skill-set.

In this series of Revit tutorials, I show you how to create several design options for an office lobby, explore the creation and use of Revit’s materials, and render a walk-through to understand the space.

I show you how to create and use specific design options to optimize your design workflow, as well as discuss the material assets library and create complex materials. I also show you how to set up advanced view types, talk about rendering options and create and edit walkthroughs.

By the end of this Revit training, you'll be more knowledgeable on how to maximize your potential with visualizations within Revit.

Check out the preview here.

Scan-to-BIM

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:15:00 +0000

A portion of the laser scan point cloud loaded into Revit

A number of people have asked "What is Scan-to-BIM?" and so I take the opportunity here to showcase an exciting project as an example.

In short, Scan-to-BIM is where we take a highly-accurate laser-scan of a space or building and build an existing conditions Revit model for use, reference, or archive. Why do this? Anyone who has had the experience of using a laser scan will likely tell you that they would never do it any other way going forward for several reasons.

Accuracy - laser scanners such as the Faro Focus3D X 330 which I prefer are accurate to the fraction of a millimeter and can scan as close as 0.6m to as far as 330m. From experience I can tell you that people (of which I include myself) make mistakes, especially on surveys.
Accessibility - sometimes it is difficult to measure high ceilings such as the Academy of Music. Laser scanning makes this a snap, including this information in the scan, as it not only scans great distances 360 degrees around, it also scans above.
Speed - Scan duration, with standard scan resolution in b/w is approximately 2 minutes, and in color approximately 5 minutes, per scan "drop". A "drop" means each time the scanner is set down to scan. There were 4 scan drops for the main room seen below in Carpenter's Hall. Each took about 5 minutes which means in a span of 20 minutes we had a detailed measurable account of the entire space. If this were surveyed by hand, it would most likely mean going back to the project site to verify, and sometimes more than once, racking up hours and hours. Instead, it was short work. With a laser scan, if any measurement needed verification or a moulding profile like below is required, the information is available on demand with no need to revisit the site.

Photo of the main hall in Carpenter's Hall

With the scans complete, the Revit model could start and the process is fairly straight-forward. The raw scans are "Registered" (tied together accurately based on markers within the scan) using the Faro Scene software or Autodesk's Recap Pro, then linked into the Revit file using the "point cloud" button on the Insert tab.

Detail of the point cloud in Revit showing dimensioning of the interior wall

Note that if you are working with a team in an office, you will want to place the scans in a network folder before inserting into Revit, otherwise, the other team members will not load the files correctly.

Note also that point clouds can be rather large files, often in the Gigabytes, so check with your IT group before clogging up your servers.

Detail of the door frame moulding and column fluting.

Building the Revit model is then fairly straight forward as well. You see the point cloud in the model space and then begin drawing walls, creating and placing elements until you have the level of detail required. One thing worth noting is that with exisitng buildings, you will find the walls and other building elements are not always plumb and often you'll find yourself questioning which point to select to begin drawing. My rule of thumb is to start with the middle-most or average point within the extremes, and to make your model plumb. This will result in some inconsistent overlap of the point cloud and your model but at the end of the day, if the project needs to be rebuilt, the plans will not want to have odd angles and measurements. On the other hand if the project is a renovation or retro-fit, then you might reconsider this. Regardless, you will have the point cloud which can be placed on the sheet as it is with any new construction modeled as a hybrid drawing.

Screen capture of the Revit working model

There are many other uses for laser scanning, Scan-to-BIM, and modeling, including construction monitoring, real estate transactions, building damage recording, monument protection, facilities management, accident re-creation, and much more.

Autodesk Account To Replace Autodesk Subscription Centre

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:16:00 +0000

I thought this information was worth reposting as I've been impressed by the growing number of cloud services through Revit and other tools and have been playing around with it for a bit:
From Redstack.Com.Au

Autodesk is in the process of replacing Autodesk Subscription Center with the new and improved Autodesk Account to provide a greater level or online service to their clients.

Subscription Center is an online portal where Autodesk users can manage their product licenses, subscriptions and services. From Subscription Center, users can manage their Autodesk license and subscription accounts and services, download files, access support and more. This service is scheduled to close on March 13, 2015. a web portal where users can go to manage their Autodesk product licenses, subscriptions and services. This site provides access to download files, tech support, and other services. Autodesk is closing that service on March 13th, 2015.

Autodesk will replace this service with the new Autodesk Account. From here you will be able to setup your personal profile, manage and access your licenses, subscriptions, software, services and a range of support services. This new service will be suitable for both maintenance subscription and desktop subscription clients. The interface is greatly improved for ease of use.

You will be able to login using the same subscription ID and Password you currently use at the screen show below:

From this screen you will be able to access your products and services including updates and trials. Also available is reporting on the licenses you have and the ability to add mobile devices.
If you are trying to download the products you have on Subscription like Product Design Suite, you will need to select the Products link and Download other Autodesk software product(s). This will open a new window so you can access your downloads.
Login to your new Autodesk Account and start using it now. See the video below which further explains the coming changes.

BIM Perspectives - NY May 29th

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Wed, 07 May 2014 19:08:00 +0000

Join me in NY at the BIM Perspectives event, where I and a number of Industry professionals will be speaking on BIM in the Practice of Architecture and Engineering:

Building Information Modeling (BIM) Perspectives is a series of events that we hold in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. In this event, you will hear from various members of multi-disciplinary project teams about their best practices for using BIM as a basis for a collaborative design and construction process. You will learn about the challenges and benefits of implementing BIM technology from the perspective of leading local and national AEC practitioners.

This year's theme for BIM Perspectives New York is "Collaboration," focusing on the entire project team. From the property owners and facilities professionals, to the architects, engineers, construction, and specialty contractors, we will investigate new ways to accelerate innovationon. We will examine how cloud based and mobile collaboration are empowering extended team members and enabling flexible and dynamic project workflow.

REGISTER NOW

When:	Thursday, May 29, 2014 8:00 am – 1:00 pm EST

Where:	McGraw Hill Auditorium 1221 Sixth Avenue New York, NY 10020

Credit:	Microsol Resources is an Approved Provider through the AIA/CES and will provide a Certificate of Completion for 3.5 AIA LUs and PDH for this seminar.

Cost:	There is no cost but you need to register to participate

FEATURED PRESENTERS

Safiy Abdur-Rahman, Director, Integrated Building Solutions | BIM, NYC DDC
Ian Atkins, Associate Principal, Firmwide BIM Application Manager, KPF
Craig Barbieri, Design Technology Manager, Pennoni
Luciana Burdi, Deputy Director for Capital Programs, Massachusetts Port Authority
John Cannistraro, President, Cannistraro
Erik Churchill, Project Manager, SHoP Construction
Jon David, Regional Manager | Virtual Design and Construction, Turner Construction
Laura Handler, Director of Service Design & Strategy, Tocci Building Companies
Stephen Jones, Senior Director, McGraw Hill Construction
Jan Leenknegt, BIM Manager, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)
Robert Mencarini, Principal, Array Architects
Ken Murphy, BIM Director, Thornton Tomasetti
Joe Romano, Principal, Vice President, Langan
Shawnita Sterett, Director of Infrastructure, Autodesk
James Vandezande, Principal, HOK

They will be discussing the following topics and more:

REGISTER NOW

Microsol Resources has been delivering integrated solutions to the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industries for 25 years. It is a recognized leader in building information modeling (BIM) technology solutions, as well as an Autodesk Platinum Partner with offices in New York, NY and Philadelphia, PA, with a professional staff of BIM/CAD Applications Experts focused on supporting the AEC community.

Design Technology Summit (DTS)

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 18:31:00 +0000

You may know that I'm involved in the RTC DTS Organizing committee and I'm excited to say that the 2nd DTS is almost here. If you don't know about the DTS, info can be found here.

Reposted from the Design Technology Summit blog:

It’s less than a week away now, here’s a little update. If you are already registered to attend you should have received an email recently too. If you haven’t please let the Secretary know as soon as you can.
If you are still interested in attending registration is full, with 27 companies being represented. We may have an open slot however. Keep in mind that the focus is biased toward firms with 100+ staff and/or multiple sites. If you’d like to make it even though it is last minute please contact the RTC Secretary.
We’ll kick off the event on Wednesday evening with some networking. We’re going to be doing a little Design Technology speed dating, yes it will be as geeky as that sounds, but it should be a good ice-breaker to help get conversations going.
Thursday we will focus on establishing our small groups, something new that we will start this time around. Each small working group will address these topics: Innovation, Collaboration and Management.

The small group leaders will be:

Collaboration – Lee Miller – HOK
Innovation – Josh Emig – Perkins & Will
Management – Robert Yori – SOM

On Friday our small groups will report back to the full group on their topics. Going forward they’ll be focused on them for the next 6-9 months and they’ll set the expectation for what kind of deliverable the full group should expect to see at future sessions. Each group will prepare draft reports for their Bucket and make them available 1 month prior to the Summer DTS (June) meeting which is co-located with RTC NA in Schaumburg, IL (near Chicago).

We will also strive to solicit and include input from people that were not able to join us this time.
We’re very excited to have the HP/Nvidia team as a sponsor, for DTS as well as a Platinum Global Sponsor for RTC overall. A special treat, they’re taking us up to Fort Collins on Friday afternoon for a behind the scenes tour (NDA required) of the HP R&D Facility located there. This should be very interesting and I’m sure we are all looking forward to it.
In June we’ll get back together just before RTC begins. It will be an opportunity for the full group to hear back from each of the small groups and then discuss each major topic in a large group format. Going forward we envision our Winter meetings as our Small Group meeting and then the Summer meetings being our Large Group meeting. We’re also hoping to find a way to present what DTS has been working on to RTC attendees during each RTC event.

We expect that the Summer meeting will be either 2 or perhaps just 1-1/2 days. We’re still working on scheduling it around some of the RTC related activities currently being planned for the Wednesday prior to the official conference start on Thursday. RTC is hoping to have something special sorted out and naturally we want DTS attendees to be able to take part too. More news on that when it becomes available.

RTC’s Design Technology Summit is proudly sponsored by our Platinum Global Sponsor - HP|NVIDIA

We are also very pleased that Global eTraining has joined RTCDTS as a Bronze Sponsor

Revit rendering vs. Autodesk cloud rendering - Fight!

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 17:38:00 +0000

Recently I had the pleasure of designing a few options for a potential remodel of our lobby here at HQ. During this time I also trialed Autodesk 360's rendering service and I must say, I am impressed. What I liked most about it was the speed with which it rendered. The quality of the images was fair/good and the way it handled material textures was good, in fact in some cases better than Revit. But then the cloud handled some things a little oddly.
Looming deadlines are the modus operendi for Architects. Unfortunately for us, renderings usually take time and unless you have workstations set aside for rendering, you've got to juggle your time in Revit and your time rendering such that you can accomplish what you need in the nick of time. Well at least you used to have to juggle your time. With Autodesk's 360 cloud rendering, juggling time has become less of an issue. The cloud is FAST. And it's easy. Take the two draft images below for example. Both were set to roughly equivalent quality and size settings, though the model was at a different level of completeness in each which should explain the subtle differences. Revit took 1 day, 9 hours and 24 minutes to render. The Autodesk cloud took roughly 10 minutes.

Draft image rendered in Cloud (Final, Large, Advanced setting)

Draft image rendered in Revit (Best setting)

There are some noticeable differences though. It seems as though the cloud uses a different rendering engine. In fact if you check the Help, you'll find this statement:

"The rendering service relies on a new, highly optimized rendering engine. Minor differences in the appearance of materials should be expected."

In general the Revit rendering has a softer look to it which I like.

Materials:

Note that some of the materials are not showing up in the cloud rendered version for the bar, and the chrome of the coffee table. These use stock, out-of-the box materials (Cherry and Chrome) so I sent off a note to the nice support folks about it. Apparently there's an issue using the "Tint" feature in the Revit material editor, though this was not used in these materials. They're looking at the file at the time of this writing and I'll try and update this post if I get a response/solution. I changed the materials for these elements to Wood - Cherry and Metal - Chrome and it rendered fine.
The wall paint is also very different in appearance in the two different renderings. Some of this has to do with the exposure settings but the mottling of the material is typical Revit rendering effect. If you adjust your rendering settings in the Custom options, you can eliminate the mottling but I find it comes with a time cost.
The textured wall behind the receptionist turned out to be incorrectly rendered in Revit but correctly rendered in the cloud. As far as I can tell the texture and the bump are not aligning correctly even though they were locked and use the same image:

Rendered in Cloud
Good

Rendered in Revit
Not so good

Lighting:

The lighting in the above draft has not been adjusted in terms of color. To make the fixtures glow, I created a new material called "light glow" and set the Self Illumination to create the fixture glow:

I later adjusted the color to match that of the fixtures photometrics.

The lighting in both looks fairly good but in both the Cloud and Revit I had to adjust the exposure and white point to get the right brightness and tone.

The odd thing about the lighting is that in the cloud rendered image, there's a black plane showing up in the fixture, perpendicular to the direction of the luminance, that is not in the family and isn't rendered by Revit. I ended up switching out the fixture for a different one as I couldn't find a way to eliminate it.

Rendered in Revit
Looks correct

Rendered in Cloud
Ummm, wtf?

At the end of the day, I ended up finalizing the design and rendering 6 or so images via the cloud, blowing through the 25 free "cloud credits" and generating some good images for the presentation. I recommend you use the free "standard" setting until you are completely satisfied with the output materials, textures, lighting and so forth, before you spend your credits on rendering a "final" Large image. The dialog will let you know how many credits are required and this website has a breakdown of cost and the different settings. All in all the convenience is well worth the cost. You get 100 Cloud credits allocated annually for each software license on Subscription. According to the Revit Kid, Autodesk Cloud credits cost a buck each.

Rendered in Cloud

Classical Architecture with Revit

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:39:00 +0000

Checkout this post and book on classical architecture... Great stuff and some super tips for aspiring Revit Masters.
http://revitswat.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/renaissance-revit-by-paul-aubin/

What to Expect When Your Client Is Expecting BIM - Five BIM Trends You Need to Know

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 16:43:00 +0000

This is a cross-post with Digital-Tutors. To view the post on their blog, visit DT Labs.

In a recent interview with Digital-Tutors I was asked what market and software trends I saw involving BIM and Revit. They were only able to include one trend in the release but what follows are my insights in full.

Clients Want Revit

What we see at our firm, and what I know others are seeing as well, is that savvy clients are saying their project is a BIM project and you’re going to use Revit. I think it’s what’s forcing a lot of firms to make the transition. Those firms that have already or are in the midst of making the transition are in a good spot. Design firms don’t want to end up like Kodak, B.Dalton or the music industry, where they falter in adapting to a major disruptive change in the way things are done. Revit is enabling designers to deliver a better product, a coordinated set of design docs that reduces construction costs and improves overall project outcomes. Who wouldn't want that?

Analysis Isn’t Just for the Big Dogs

In terms of a multi-disciple firm, like we are, we're seeing the incorporation of the types of analysis we do become far more accessible. As such, it's perfectly reasonable that a small firm can now do very expensive computation fluid dynamics analysis with tools they have on their desktop, or even laptop, through the cloud without having a very heavy-duty computer at all. That's a huge change. Five to ten years ago, you had to have a fairly expensive piece of hardware and even more expensive software to run analyses.

Budgeting Woes

BIM is a major change in more than just process. Before BIM, a firm could plan out the number of sheets they were going to create and budget off of that. Now with BIM, the number of sheets does not matter, because you can do 1,000 sheets for a small house with little effort - hopefully you don’t have to do 1,000 sheets though! Budgeting is a difficult challenge because many firms don't have any sort of experience in budgeting for a BIM project. It’s the Level of Development (LOD) that needs to be used as a baseline now, in place of the number of sheets.

Isometric Cake Walk

Back in the day, we used to do isometric drawings, or hand draw 3D details/cutaways of a very complex part of a building, and we moved away from that in CAD because it was fairly difficult. Now, in Revit, it's a piece of cake and firms are bringing them back. Those kinds of drawings are so much more useful for a contractor, showing how things are joining up in three dimensions.

Contractors Don’t Want Your Model

What's also very fascinating is looking on the engineering side. You’ve got MEP engineers using Revit MEP to create these systems and drawings like they always have. On the other hand, contractors have gotten far savvier with BIM lately, so much so that they're requiring their trade contractors, like sheet metal fabricators, to produce fabrication models. It's come to the point where the trade contractors say to the design engineers, "We don't want your model. Draw a single line where you want these ducts to go, and we'll create the model." It leaves MEP engineers in an odd position. How do you adjust to that sort of change in the industry? I don't have an answer for that.

Learn more about me in my Digital-Tutors Featured Tutor interview. See more from watching my Revit tutorial on Designing and Documenting a Building in Revit.

Announcing new Revit training category at Digital-Tutors

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 13:45:00 +0000

This past summer I was honored to be invited to be a Guest Tutor at Digital-Tutors. Digital-tutors has a wide variety of professionally crafted tutorials on topics like modeling, lighting, texturing, dynamics and more with tools like 3DMax, Maya, Inventor, Sketchbook Pro, Mudbox, Photoshop, Rhino and most recently, Revit!

Digital-tutors is a seasoned provider of eLearning targeted towards Professional CG, VFX & Digital Arts for the Movie and Gaming industries. This month they released their new Architecture-focused Computer Aided Design tutorial category and a few of the best pros in the industry including Kelvin Tam, and Pierre Derenoncourt, have joined me on Digital-tutors to kick-off the first release!

Sign-up for a free trial at Digital-tutors and learn how I created the Philadelphia Rowhouse in the picture above!

Cheers,

Craig Barbieri

Finally - A tablet large enough to mark-up drawings in a somewhat practical manner

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 16:21:00 +0000

Reposted from http://technology4architects.blogspot.com/
Recently Dell introduced the largest tablet available to the consumer market, the XPS18. This tablet has a screen size of about 1'-6" diagonally [note that the iPad is a mere 9.7"]
It makes for a great markup tablet because it runs full-blown windows, which means you can install Bluebeam, or Design Review or any other Windows-based software for that matter. It's a "capacitive touch" display which means you can use your fingers or a capacitive pen (one of those squishy-ended numbers) and of course the on-screen keyboard. Not all applications support multi-touch yet but I know that the latest release of Bluebeam does.
Click here to see it at Dell

Here's a pic showing hands as scale reference

Tell them what you think

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 02:45:00 +0000

Craig Barbieri here with another opportunity for you to win cold hard cash by being opinionated. Autodesk wants to know what you think of the energy analysis output from Revit.
Does it give you valuable information you can use to make early design decisions? Click here:
http://autodesk.typepad.com/bpa/2013/08/tell-us-what-you-think-and-enter-to-win-a-100-amazon-gift-card.html?utm_campaign=PESQ3Survey&utm_source=ADSK%20Social%20Media&utm_medium=all

BIM contracts updated by AIA

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 18:45:00 +0000

Lots of good info here on Level of Development Specification for BIM Processes
http://www.aecbytes.com/viewpoint/2013/issue_68.html

CASE Interoperability: Structural Framing

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 13:47:00 +0000

The guys over at Case have not ceased to amaze me yet. Watch this...

http://youtu.be/mssTdaQcXM8
Nathan, from CASE is taking his Rhino/grasshopper formulaic/programmable structure and porting it to Revit using their plugin, that then builds the structure using Revit Structural components, including the Revit structural model.

A work-around: Revit Renders smooth curves with facets, and other revelations.

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 21:16:00 +0000

I've been consulting recently and in doing so I came across two things that I find bothersome with Revit, one which I have a work-around for and the other just sucks.
First let's talk about the one I have a work-around for, and that is the lack of smoothing of curves in renderings. Here is my example:

In the render, you can clearly see that what should be a smooth circle, is rendered as faceted.

Here you can see it in Realistic view in Revit to the left and being edited to the right and the circle appears as it should.

This isn't a new issue. It's been around for quite a while, per this AUGI post from 2008. So the work-around I came up with was to use the split tool:

and split the circle in their sketches in the family editor so there are more divisions to the curve. This forces Revit to render more accurately, although still faceted.

Here I have split the linework in the sketches for the circles and re-rendered with a better but not perfect result. The reflections on the default Brushed Stainless material suck. I mean, not even close.

The second bothersome issue has to do with a certain material used often in Interior projects. This is Brushed Stainless Steel. There is no work-around for this other than Photoshopping it. Autodesk provides a wide array of materials for use in typical construction and they have been working over the years to make them better and then they moved to conform them across platforms and I'm sure have spent a great deal of effort trying to provide a useable library for rendering and that's all well and good except when it comes to this material type... The issue with Brushed Stainless Steel has to do with the inability of Revit to handle Anisotropic reflection rotation -that is the brushed groove alignment's effect on light reflections based on a viewer's relative position. You see, according to my research Anisotropic reflections on typical materials are horizontal, which is how Revit renders every material. Brushed stainless on the other hand reflects anisotropic light vertically. Here's how it's done in Maya with great realism. So the message is, if you need to render your project's Kitchen with it's Stainless steel appliances, use Maya, or fudge it in Photoshop.
Here's my draft with Photoshop:

So, lesson is, Revit is not so much a product design application and I should use Maya or Max or Inventor :P
Cheers,
Craig

Product Design Suite Test Drive -- Revit - Inventor BIM Exchange

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 22:16:00 +0000

This is a short demonstration from Autodesk of the BIM exchange from Inventor to native Revit family file. Manufacturers take note! Architects and Engineers don't need intricately detailed virtual products as Revit families. We need simplified generalizations of the products extents and clearances. The Inventor BIM exchange looks like it's made your work much simpler.
Cheers,
Craig Barbieri

BIM infographic

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:47:00 +0000

I came across this infographic the other day on the Line/Shape/Space blog. I always find new metrics/statistics on BIM interesting and you may find this interesting too.
Enjoy!

Click for Full Size image

IDEA studio

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 12:58:00 +0000

There's a great opportunity here if you are a student. IDEA Studio is calling for proposals for Student in residence at Autodesk. Act fast ....you only have until the 15th to get it in.

http://labs.blogs.com/its_alive_in_the_lab/2013/02/call-for-proposals-for-the-idea-studio-by-february-15.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Revit Hatch patterns revisited

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

A long time ago I talked about the in's and out's of hatch patterns in Revit and how they are made from scratch. I'm not sure why the universally used functionality hasn't been addressed in any shape or form by the Factory but thanks to some talent out there in the world, there are easier ways to address patterns. I recently came across Hatch22, a fairly easy-to-use Revit Add-in that addresses the missing functionality. It's Pay as you Please and worth a look if you find yourself in need of non-standard patterns. I found the instructions fairly concise and thorough except for a few things: The View type (Dratfting/Detail/Model) in which you draw your pattern was vaguely referenced, and the wording describing how drawing Scale relates to the pattern and it's output was unclear. The plugin dialog looks like so:

You essentially draw your pattern and pattern boundary in a Revit drafting view, and use the four line styles Hatch22 loads into the file to help the lines do what you want them to do.

The Add-in and a new pattern for a Perforated Ceiling tile

I found that it did not recognize circles, spitting out a blank boundary file and that it had some issue with some of the hexagon linework, to where it had to be "corrected". All in all it's a good tool and Gregory Mertens deserves some patronage for his work.
Cheers

Watch "AU 2012 Keynote crowd" on YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 21:37:00 +0000

Like some of you, I am at AU. For those of you who have never experienced it, here is a quick video of the attendees at the Keynote speech at Mandalay Bay hotel. The full video may be posted online at au.Autodesk.com soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRZci9sJhyM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Craig

Passionate about BIM

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:41:00 +0000

Dash over to Stephen Hamil's blog and see what it takes to be passionate about BIM...

Passionate about BIM: When writing summary information for conferences or introducing other speakers the words "passionate about BIM" often spring to mind. But ...

Are you passionate about BIM?

Revit viewport arranger

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 04:30:00 +0000

This looks darn handy. It's a Revit 2013 add-on utility that arranges your viewports in Revit. You may already now some of the keyboard shortcuts like WT for window tile, ZA for zoom all, and Ctrl-Tab for switching between open windows, but this utility gives you even more handy flexibility in arranging windows. It's called Palladio X and it's free, thanks to the folks at Mensch und Maschine Software SE. I like the classic architectural reference in the name.
Check it out here on the Autodesk App Exchange.

Left: Revit managed viewports - Right: Palladio X managed viewports

Nicely stacked viewports...

Now if you are working on a large project, keeping this many windows open may decrease your performance and may not be a good idea. It would be a good idea to close the ones not in use. That being said, there are lots of working scenarios where this utility would be very handy. If you try it out, leave a comment. Thanks to Markb for posting this to Revitforum.org
Cheers

Increase efficiency and accuracy of surveys

noreply@blogger.com (craig barbieri) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:01:00 +0000

Earlier this month Tobias Ebbinge from Picard Innovations reached out to me to introduce his company and software called Yuzu. You may have seen Steve Stafford’s post on this at Revit OpEd. Like Steve, I saw a similar technology at AU last year called PKNail. They are similar tools according to Tobias but Yuzu is available for Revit and Autocad as well, and there's a price difference on top of that.Yuzu facilitates Architectural surveys with the help of a Leica Disto (sold separately) and a Windows laptop with Revit.
Here’s the video walk-through:
http://vimeo.com/42406629
There are some great benefits to this method of surveying. First, as you survey, the model is built with only a little help from you. The Leica Disto device communicates via Bluetooth so there’s no messing with cables. Yuzu and Revit create the walls and etc. using the wireless measurements as you survey.

Second, from experience I can tell you that people (of which I include myself) make mistakes, especially on surveys. Sometimes this means going back to the project site to verify, and sometimes more than once. Since you are building the Revit model as you measure, you’ll leave with a finished and laser-accurate survey model.
There are some good tutorial videos to get in-depth understanding of how it works here:
http://www.picardinnovations.com/support/product/yuzu_for_revit/
Yuzu is currently $750 and will work with the less-expensive Leica D3 BT checking out at $379. Making it a bit over a grand investment but now consider this: The number of hours saved by reducing your survey trips, reducing the number of people required to survey(1), eliminating the time it takes to translate your chicken-scratch into a model back at the farm, and leaving the project site with a complete and accurate survey model… It likely pays for itself after the first project. If you use Yuzu or PKNail, I would be interested in hearing your opinion on it. And if you have a spare Leica Disto, send it my way!
Cheers