There have been various attempts over the years to create a true BIM portal, with links to all relevant documentation.  Have you checked out CODEBIM?  The reports page is pretty impressive list of BIM documents …

Heads-up:

Quote:
“The Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA), in a tripartite project with the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning National Association (SMACNA) and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), has published Achieving Spatial Coordination Through BIM – A Guide for Specialty Contractors.  Dubbed “the Guide”, the publication was conceived, developed, and published to help MEP contractors negotiate one of the most challenging issues in the modern construction industry: how to best reconcile and incorporate leading edge technologies and processes into their projects’ spatial coordination efforts.  Click here to get more information and download the Guide.

Lessons learned by early BIM adopters like MCAA BIM Committee Chairman Steve Shirley (University Mechanical & Engineering Contractors) and fellow members of MCAA’s BIM Committee members were combined to develop a set of best practices and proven, how-to information. The result is a guide that will help contractors better navigate this complex issue and make more informed business decisions about spatial coordination and BIM.  It will also serve as an educational resource for their employees who must act on those decisions.”
http://www.mcerf.org/news/2013/mcerf-funds-landmark-bim-publication

The purpose of this Guide is to:

  • Provide MEP contractors with a roadmap for implementing spatial coordination in their businesses;
  • Identify factors MEP contractors should consider when adopting BIM technologies;
  • Help MEP contractors align their spatial coordination processes with industry best practices;
  • Enable MEP contractors to critically evaluate emerging BIM and spatial coordination software solutions and select the solutions most suitable for their own work;
  • Promote collaborative and fair contract language; and
  • Increase MEP contractors’ profitability and reduce customers’ costs by implementing best practices that increase prefabrication, optimize systems installation, minimize or eliminate rework, shorten construction schedules, reduce waste, and produce a better result.

http://www.mcerf.org/initiatives/research/projects/mep-contractor-s-guide-spatial-coordination-process

Download at:
http://www.mcaa.org/mepguide/M29PDF.pdf

Authored by Dave Quigley:
www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-quigley/0/66a/856

Thanks to Cindy James for referring me to this document.

Navis uses XML as a data interchange format for almost “everything”. 

However, it sometimes doesn’t offer the greatest editing experience for that same data in the vanilla UI.  You will find that various users are direct-editing these XML files to streamline workflows in a number of different scenarios.

Here is a simple example – in the Quick Properties / Definitions options in Navisworks, it is not immediately obvious how you can re-sort this list.  However, you can export that settings node to XML, and then use a graphical XML Editor like EditiX to view the schema and drag the nodes into the order that you prefer (see image).  Then, save the XML and then import back into Navisworks…

Download at:
http://www.freexmleditorsite.com/download.html

Do you have a XML editing workflow that improves your Navisworks experience?  Feel free to comment!

I posted about Randomizer a while back.  I have since seen it used to randomize the colour of panels.  One way to do this is to use a integer or numeric Shared Parameter and View Filters (ie. randomize from 1 to 5, have your View Filter apply Red to 1, Yellow to 2 etc).  However, could this principle be applied to change the actual Material too?

Philip Chan provides one answer:
In the component family environment, Revit won’t allow you to formulate the material parameter. All you can do is to set the material as a parameter; in the formula field, you won’t be able to input formula like you can for other type of parameter (e.g. Length). I recall a trick from Alfredo Medina that you can parametrize a material with conditional statement using nested family. So, I ended up rigging up a curtain panel family with a setup that looks like this:



you can download it from the link below:Randomized Panel rfa

Read the whole post:
link here

Have you ever wanted to have a shortcut to a series of keyboard shortcuts?  For example, you can reload keynotes with a series of keyboard shortcuts, like thisOr, you could record them with reckey, save the script, create a link to it and trigger it from a single in-canvas mouse click…

I know this method may not be for everyone, but then again, you might find it useful 🙂

Use the URL linker script method here.  The steps are essentially to record the shortcuts, save the script and trigger it.  Here’s some extra info:

  1. somepathKeyreplayerReload_Keynotes.lnk”
  2. somepathreckeyRecKey.exe replay4 /p
  3. {Escape}{Escape}%NTGKS%(e){Enter}

Download at:
reckey.exe

For good navigation performance when clashing large data sets, consider these tips:

  1. Set File Options – Frame Rate to 25
  2. Make sure Guarantee Frame Rate and Fill in Detail are on
  3. Group all Clashes straight after the clash test
  4. Use the “Hide Other” option in Clash View settings
  5. Use a 3dconnexion device in Walk mode to quickly review the ‘clashing elements’

Some other handy things to remember – tested on Navisworks Manage 2013:

  • To delete large Search Set folders without selecting them first (which can be time consuming or crashy), just right-click and Delete
  • If you have items grayed out in the right-click menu of your Search Sets pane, try right-clicking a folder, then right-clicking the item.  This successfully reveals them for me (things like Update and Duplicate).

Working with 2013 version Navisworks files in 2014:

The SP1 download includes the following important note:
After installing Autodesk Navisworks 2014 Service Pack 1, you must ensure that other users who share your Navisworks 2014 NWF files also install the same Service Pack. Failure to do so may mean that your Selection Set data becomes corrupted. This applies to Navisworks 2014 only. Navisworks 2014 NWF files shared with Navisworks 2013 and Navisworks 2012 users are not affected

via
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Navisworks-General/Navis-2014-Memory-Issue/m-p/4553037#M6381

    Making links relative (from dderoeck here):

    The links in Navisworks are absolute.

    To make those relative I have made a special procedure to clear that out.
    1. Put the linked document on a place on your PC or Network and make a shortcut of the docs in the same folder as your NW doc.
    2. put the the script (Rename ShortcutsDescriptions) here in attachment in the same folder of your Shortcuts and NW doc. (Change txt in vbs)
    3. Execute the script (This will change the property of all the LNK files (The Shortcuts) )
    4. Make the links in NW as follow: The URL name = The Link name (= The name of the shortcut and thus the name of the linked document.)

    Using this way you can put your linked documents anyware and still have the connection between NW and the docs.

    Make standard selection sets (not Search Sets) with Excel / Access, by dderoeck here:

    Analyze a XML and you will find a repetitive structure, so,

    I started an excel file with following cells:
    units SearchName mode disjoint test flags name2 internal SearchCriteria type locator Project

    Fill in this list with your Excel skills…
    SearchName, Name2, internal and Search Criteria are for me changeable, the rest is fix.

    Once this list is made, import it as a table in Access.

    Make a report in Access that creates the XML layout.

    Print the report as PDF file and copy the text to a text file, rename the txt to xml, import the xml in Navis Works. Done.

    Since you have the possibility to work with cells and formulas in Excel (Concatination, Replace,…)

    you can make very fast big listings of Search Sets.

    Thanks to Michael Priestman, over at this link:

    Hiya,

    The problem is actually a bit deeper than that. In 2014 release, we added an optimisation whereby we only stored GUIDs when required in order to perform some internal path-matching operations.

    However, this broke functionality in some models where GUIDs were re-generated each export. So, we attempted to fix this in the 2014 Service Pack. So whilst we fixed it, we also introduced serious performance problems and a memory leak. Some of those problems were addressed in the hotfix we released, but this didn’t address everything.
    The other complicating factor was that when we released 2014 Service Pack, we changed what data was stored in the NWD files, which meant that files saved with 2014 Service Pack would not load properly in vanilla 2014 release. This was mentioned in the release notes for the Service Pack.

    We hope to address all the issues around this area for our upcoming release.

    I hope this helps to explain the issue a little.

    Michael

    Stewart Millar has contributed to the parameter naming debate / dialogue by providing a set of files from CESABIM.

     The development of the CESABIM Database has been principally based on the FCSI North American standards for shared parameters. CESABIM currently exists in this format with slight adjustments of metrication.

    Files for Download here

    via
    http://lnkd.in/dGwHfJH

    To get a Free trial of Autodesk ReCap Pro click on the following link: ReCap Free Trial

    You can use Autodesk ReCap 360 now for free if you have a Autodesk 360 account. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up for free by clicking on the following link: Autodesk ReCap 360

    Read more:
    http://www.cadlinecommunity.co.uk/Blogs/Blog.aspx?ScoId=f542a2ef-8a1f-4223-af91-6d52aea299b0