Month: December 2013

Another Realtime Visualisation Software Project

Luke Johnson

If you want to sign up to test it, email info@kalloc.com with subject Fuzor Evaluation.

From Steve’s blog:
The product is only about six months old at this point and about to become available for evaluation. It’s being developed by a team based in San Diego, CA. If you are interested they are asking us to send a request via EMAIL. There is a PDF Manual if you’d like to read it.

…

Key Feature Summary

  • Geometry Updates in Fuzor as soon as Revit data changes
  • Select elements in Fuzor first and then edit in Revit
  • Load specific levels (they call them layers) from linked files
  • Materials changes in Revit update Fuzor immediately
  • Camera Synchronization between Revit and Fuzor
  • Correct Time of Day Simulation
  • Weather Conditions: sunny, storm clouds, rain and rain with wind direction
  • Walk and Fly through controls
  • Uses Revit lighting data for interior lighting
via

COINS Auto-Section Box updated! (December 2013)

Luke Johnson

Arguably the most useful free add-in for Revit, there are some great new features – the one that particularly grabbed my eye was the automatic alignment and rotation of section boxes to certain elements:

  • Works with elements in linked files (Revit 2014 only).
  • Works with grid lines and level lines.
  • Picking a single wall, beam, duct, or pipe will produce a section box aligned with it.
  • Picking an elevation marker that has a single view associated with it will create a section box from that view.
  • Allow picking of assemblies.
  • Fixed issue where routine would not work if the model contained multiple assemblies with identical view names.
  • Thousands of users are now investigating their models at “the speed of conversation”. Thank you all for making this app one of the highest ranked, most downloaded, and most commented apps on the Autodesk Revit Exchange store!

Download it from here

As you may know, Harry made a free Section Box add-in with automatic rotation to walls a while back:
3D Section Box crop add-in WITH automatic rotation – Boost Your BIM

Why Viewing BIM After Dark will be Worth It for You

Luke Johnson

I’m honest enough to admit that Revit has the unfortunate reputation as a tool that is “bad” for presentation. Happily, BIM After Dark aims to correct that – by making all of us better at using Revit for a variety of presentation tasks.

BIM After Dark is essentially a training video series prepared by Jeffrey A Pinheiro, who many of you know as the author of the excellent, long-standing Revit blog The Revit Kid!

I had the opportunity to preview this video series prior to its release, and I must say I am impressed. Firstly, I’m sure you all realise that as good as Revit is, we still need to use other tools for certain presentation tasks, the foremost being Photoshop. It’s great that Jeff covers the effective use of Photoshop in considerable detail, and provides task-specific and industry-specific tips that will give you a real head start over the competition. Jeff covers some truly advanced, unique methods, and at the same time he includes some basic stuff that will help you if you are just starting out with Revit.

The plethora of included content and samples are also of very high quality, so if you can get access to them, I recommend that you do so.   It includes texture, background and entourage images, Revit library files and some Photoshop PSD files too.

Here are some examples of the tips and workflows covered in this series:

  • how to override the Shaded representation of RPC trees
  • 70 50 20 method for shadows (I guess the old 10 6 10 is superseded now) 
  • overlay method in Photoshop for images, such as section perspectives (“multiply”)
  • comparing 2am rendering quality for local vs cloud
  • “core” method for quick interior context
  • panel sized bump mapping for realistic glass
  • “screen” layer overlay for lighting rays (combine with various blurs to increase effect)
  • cgtextures and gobotree
  • using the burn tool for ambient occlusion of entourage

These are just a few reasons why you should check out this new series.  If you are serious about using Revit for presentation, BIM After Dark will definitely be worth it for you.

You can get it from here:
http://www.bimafterdark.com/

Here are some example videos:

A few thoughts I had while viewing the series

  • the autoclicker tool could be launched using the script launching method I describe here
  • Jeff mentions he doesn’t quite understand something that happened with site cut pattern – this was because the extra bit of the puzzle is the “poche” setting in Site Settings 
  • you can right click on the ViewCube to quickly align a 3D Persective view to a normal Section view

Auditing and Comparing Model Groups in Revit 2014

Luke Johnson

I have been searching for a quick and easy way to compare exclusions between Group instances – and nothing really exists at this point.  So, I have developed a method to do this by using Revit and some schedules.  It doesn’t require add-ins, macros or extensions – but it does require full Revit 2014.

Part A – create a Shared Parameter, applied to all Categories, that can vary by Group instance

Part B – To automatically create selection sets for each group instance

  1. Open a new 3D view
  2. Edit the most complete version of the Group (the one with the least exclusions, ideally none)
  3. Select everything
  4. Save Selection set
  5. Finish Group – Revit will automatically create a unique Selection Set for each Group instance

Part C – fill the parameter from Part A with appropriate values for each Group instance:

  1. Load one of the automatically created selection sets
  2. Determine what parameter value represents that Group instance (for example “Level 8”)
  3. Filter the Selection – you will need to untick Lines, Wall Openings and Curtain Wall Grids (these items do not accept parameters)
  4. Make Elements Editable
  5. Edit the Shared Parameter with the appropriate value and Apply (ie. “Level 8”)
  6. While the elements are still selected, save the filtered Selection Set
  7. Deselect everything
  8. Select the Group instance and Isolate it
  9. Load the Selection Set from step 6 and Temporary Hide
  10. Any elements left over will need to be selected and have the same parameter from step 2 applied to them
  11. Rinse and Repeat steps 1 to 10 for each Group instance you want to audit / compare.
Make a set of Schedules.  You will typically need at least these Schedule types (depending on what Categories exist in your Group):
  • Multicategory Schedule
  • Walls
  • Floors
  • Ceilings
  • Columns
Make sure the Schedules have at least these fields:
  • The Shared Parameter you created in Part A
  • Family and Type
  • Count field added and set to Calculate Totals
Filter the schedules – you can use the Shared Parameter you set up with an “is greater than” blank operator to show only elements that have something in that parameter.

Using Sorting to make things look right, you can end up with a schedule you can quickly scroll through to find differences in Model Groups:

Additionally, using Highlight in Model directly from the schedules will help you to figure out exactly what elements are missing or different.

EDIT Along similar lines, you can check out Dave Light’s post at:
Revit : Scheduling Apartments

Take the Guesswork out of Scaling an Image in Revit

Luke Johnson

After inserting an image in Revit, sometimes the X and Y (Raster Image Width and Height parameters) values of the image are somewhat “warped” and need to be adjusted to match your model background.

I created a Line Based Detail Item family that generates a scaling factor that can be used to properly warp the image aspect ratio.

Just untick Lock Proportions, type an = sign in front of the value that needs to be warped and then put an asterisk (meaning multiply) followed by the Scaling Factor that the family generates.  It will look something like:
=34542.8*1.056

The image below explains it further:

Download the Family here