Month: November 2011

3D Floor Plan views in one easy step (Applied Software Blog)

Luke Johnson

In the right-click menu, select Orient to a View, Floor Plans, and then select the desired floor plan to orient to.

Image from Applied Software Blog

The view will automatically crop the view using the Section Box to match the View Range for the view that was selected. It will also rotate the view to view it from the Top direction. You can orbit the view any direction you want but the view is now cropped to match the floor plan’s View Range.

Image and content via this cool post:
Applied Software Blog: Setting Up 3D Views For Levels

Free Common Building Information Model Files for download (COBie examples)

Luke Johnson

scientific investigation demands repeatability of results that can only be achieved by sharing of experimental models. A common set of building models could reduce the time required for researcher data collection and facilitate associated research and education.

via
bSa Common Building Information Model Files | The National Institute of Building Sciences

Direct links copied from above page below:

Model 1. The Duplex Apartment Model (release 2.0)

The duplex apartment model was originally created by a student who developed this building as part of a design competition. This model was first used at the Dec 2009 COBie Challenge event. The model provided here is the second version of this model completed by designers at Kristine Fallon and Associates.

2011-09-14-Duplex-COBie-DesignStage
2011-09-14-Duplex-IFC
2011-09-14-Duplex-IFCAnalyzer
2011-09-14-Duplex-PDF
2011-09-14-Duplex-RVT
2011-10-04-Duplex-COBie-HandoverStage

Model 2. Office Building Model

The two story office building model was developed based on the published sample floor plans for a specific type of mid-size office building built in the United States.

2011-09-14-Office-COBie
2011-09-14-Office-IFC
2011-09-14-Office-IFCAnalyzer
2011-09-14-Office-PDF
2011-09-14-Office-RVT

Model 3. Clinic Building Model

The Clinic Model was developed based on an actual federal medical and dental clinic building at a location in the South-West United States. The model also comes with a set of redacted design drawings. A full set of operations and maintenance manuals are also available but have not yet been redacted, so cannot yet, be posted to this public repository.

2011-09-14-Clinic-RedactedDrawings
2011-09-14-Clinic-COBie
2011-09-14-Clinic-IFC
2011-09-14-Clinic-IFCAnalyzer
2011-09-14-Clinic-PDF
2011-09-14-Clinic-RVT



Heads up via:
CAD addict: Common Building Information Model Files from the BuildingSmart Alliance

New AMD Bulldozer chips may help with local Revit rendering?

Luke Johnson

AMD has released the first true 8 core processors. Current Intel i-series chips have up to 4 cores with Hyperthreading, which displays 8 cores to the OS. However, the new AMD architecture may ultimately provide some performance benefit in certain applications (such as rendering).

Initial benchmarks for the new ‘Bulldozer’ architecture show that they are roughly on-par with some of the midrange Intel offerings. However, the new processor architecture has the potential to offer significant gains as applications are optimized and as price points improve.

In Revit terms, more cores means faster rendering.  In day to day computer terms, more cores means you can do more things faster.

In terms of technology and competition, I guess we can be glad that there are at least two big CPU manufacturers.  If you want to read about their mutually assured destruction, check out this link.

More information about Bulldozer CPUs here:
Unlock Your Record Setting AMD FX Series Processor Today

and here
Bulldozer (microarchitecture) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Do you care about Revit family naming standards?

Luke Johnson

Jose doesn’t seem to think they are super-important:

Outside of Revit there are tools for managing and finding families that are more powerful and faster than any naming convention would ever allow anyone to do. And these tools have only started showing up. I’m certain that within a year there will be more options available than published naming standards.

Inside of Revit things could quickly change as well. I don’t have any specific knowledge of how or if Autodesk plans to sort out the challenges of finding families within the project browser (and if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you), but anyone can see that the current solution is sub-par. An improvement could come as soon as within a few months.

via
Andekan � Blog

And Jose, I certainly agree that ‘the current solution is sub-par…’

RMEP Parallel Pipe and Parallel Conduit Command Buttons disappear?

Luke Johnson

The easiest way I have found to get the buttons back is to learn the keyboard shortcuts for each command, where upon, once used the buttons themselves seem to magically reappear in the ribbon. The keyboard shortcuts are PE for Parallel Pipe and PO for Parallel Conduit.

via
Applied Software Blog: RMEP Parallel Pipe and Parallel Conduit Command Buttons

Save Selection Workaround for Revit Architecture users

Luke Johnson

A while back, I asked you guys to request that the ‘Save Selection’ feature be added to Revit Architecture. Even though we all apparently made quite a bit of noise with all of our requests, the Factory has not yet come to the party and given us a nice little Subscription Advantage Pack with the Save Selection feature.

It is a bit disappointing really.

In any case, if you want to use Save Selection now, there is a workaround. Just Save a Selection using Revit Structure, open the file in Revit Architecture and you should be able to apply that saved selection to applicable views. You can’t edit it in RAC though, you have to go back into RST to do that. It is an unwieldy and painful workflow – but it does work.

I guess you could also workshare the file, have an instance of RAC and an instance of RST open and working on the same file…but it probably won’t be much faster by the time you Synchronise / Reload.

Here is a little video:

Here is where I originally requested that we ask for the Save Selection feature in Revit Architecture:
What Revit Wants: RAC Users – lets get the Save Selection feature now!