Tag: report

Driving a Host Reporting Parameter by a Nested Formulaically Derived Parameter

Luke Johnson

Let’s say you have a nested family with a formula driven parameter, something like =Length/10. You want to expose this to a host family and make it a Reporting Parameter, but that option seems to be grayed out (firstly, because its formula driven, secondly because its a nested family):

Here’s what to do:

  1. Remove the formula from the nested family and reload it (so you can now apply a parameter to it in the host)
  2. Add an instance parameter as per the image above
  3. Close this dialog by clicking OK
  4. Go to the Family Types dialog
  5. Select and Modify that parameter
  6. Now you can tick the Reporting box
  7. Edit the nested family again – reinstate the formula
  8. Reload the family
  9. You now have a Reporting parameter in the host family that tells you the value of a nested, formula driven parameter

Another workaround that may assist with reporting parameter restrictions is to:

  1. Save the family and close it
  2. Rename with extension .rft
  3. Make a new family based on this “template”
  4. Maybe the problems you were having with Reporting parameter restrictions are gone, but you might have mixed results

BIM is at a crossroads

Luke Johnson

WSP Group is a global design engineering and management consultancy specialising in Property, Transport & Infrastructure, Industry and Environment projects.

They recently released a report entitled:
10 Truths about BIM
THE MOST SIGNIFICANT OPPORTUNITY TO TRANSFORM THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Personally, I find the following so-called ‘truths’ most challenging:

  • 4 – BIM will destabilise the construction industry.
  • 9 – The software platform is at a crossroads.

I’m unsure what is fully meant by ‘destabilise’ in point 4, but I guess if it means a shake-up, then that is probably true.

Point 9 is quite interesting – I think we are about to see a new battle in software – the battle for Data.  At the moment, we have plenty of model creation tools, and none that truly dominate (Revit, ArchiCAD, Bentley are probably the best known).  But the next phase of BIM software seems to be the client-server packages that store and present your data, such as VEO.  You can read more about some of these competing technologies here.

In the report, it quotes from another article entitled CAD standardisation in the construction industry — A process view, which can be downloaded from here.  This document makes an interesting observation with regard to ‘de facto’ file format standardisation:

And its quite true – DWG, PDF and MP3 have gained ubiquitous status because they won the war to be the defacto exchange format for their particular medium.  We don’t have that yet for BIM – but I guess it is coming…

You can download the full WSP report here.

What do you think?  Have you read the report?  Feel free to comment…

10 points via WSP blog post:
BIM: 10 truths about BIM

Heads up and PDF link via:
Village BIM

2009 and Beyond | Revisiting the Report on Integrated Practice (Repost)

Luke Johnson

Check out the following page to revisit the report. You can download interviews in mp3 format to listen to at your leisure.

In essence: “One of AIA’s 2009 Integrated Practice Discussion Group’s (IPDiG) projects involves revisiting the “Report on Integrated Practice” released during the 2006 AIA National Convention in Los Angeles…”

Thanks to Eddy Krygiel at ArchTech.