DWF Creation and More NDA Fun!

One of my biggest beefs with the current 3d export of DWFs is that you can only export a single view.  The ideal DWF exporting from Revit would allow you to create “channels” of different 3d views to export into a single DWF file.  You send the DWF to the not-so-Revit-capable folks on your team and they switch from “channel” to “channel” to look over the latest design issues.  Currently, in 2009 (the version, not the year), that is not possible.

I have mentioned already that I am under a nice NDA embargo for the 2010 beta – maybe, I haven’t read the stupid thing entirely because I cannot find a copy of it.  Well, I didn’t mention it outright, but come on…  This isn’t CSI here.  Anyway, I am not at liberty to discuss, since yes, features change blah blah blah, but man wouldn’t it be awesome if in 2010 (the version, not the year) you could export multiple 3d views into one DWF to allow “channels”?

Yes.  That would be awesome.  I do wonder if that might happen.  Hmmm…

It would be unfortunate if while creating those “channels” (or bookmarks, maybe) it would not create some way to maintain a “home” for the view.  So if, hypothetically, you switched to a bookmark view, rotated, but could not then somehow get back to the default view.  Wouldn’t that be a shame?

Yes.  That would be a shame.  In theory, I suppose, one could simply close and re-open the DWF, but that’s no fun.  The HOME button should, hypothetically, be tied to the initial bookmarked view.

It’s nice to have these hypothetical conversations, isn’t it?

I have not fully embraced DWFs in our firm, but I do believe that 2010 (again, version, not the year) might be when I make the switch.  I have always liked the file format, especially when compared to PDFs (which seem to HATE large format docs) but the software for DWF has not been up to snuff.  I think it might be there now.

Need For Better Documentation

So, there is a drop down under View Properties for DISCIPLINE.

Here it is!

I have NEVER been able to find proper and complete documentation about what gets turned on and off in your view when you change this.  We are learning by trial and error, but why oh why is there no list simply indicating what each of these shows.

Do a Google search on it and you’ll find people getting confused why their walls aren’t showing up, or why the hidden lines in ductwork suddenly goes away.

If aynone has a list, please point me to it.  Otherwise I’ll continue mentally documenting things that disappear when we notice them.

Wall Jogs and Tough Clean Ups

UPDATE – Please check out Bjorn’s quick and easy technique in the comments.  It’s one of those things that makes you say “no way!”  You still might need to do some “dancing” with some elaborate stacked walls, but the below tip is an excellent first step that should resolve a lot of the issues.

There comes a point in any Revit wall’s life that it just cannot clean up.  It’s not when the wall is too big, Revit LOVES big.

It’s when it gets too small.

Look at the below two wall strings.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

All set?  Great.  Now, they look fine, right?  Clean up nice and pretty.  But look what happens when I scoot that lower wall in both strings up just 1/8″.

What in the world happened to the wall string on the left?!  That jog got all messed up!  But the one on the right is fine!  What’s happened here?

Well, the overall width on the wall on the left is 1′-1 7/8″.  That’s the key.  Once a jog, or clean up length gets less than the overall width of the wall, the wall gets very confused and mad.  The top two “horizontal” walls are overlapping the lower “horizontal” wall, and making cleanup a nightmare.

Is there a solution?  Sort of.

First thing you need to do is think about how it would actually be built… you know… in the real world.  Would it really be jut the wall walking around this gap, or would it be a different wall type, etc?

From this point, there are a couple options, none of which are ideal.  We have tried them with mixed results.

You can make an architectural column and slap it on the wall.  We’ve done that.  Works… OK.

If you want to use walls, there is a very round about way to try and get these things to clean up.

First we need a frame of reference on our walls.

So, walls 1 and 5 are our major horizontals, 3 is the smallish horizontal, and 2 and 4 are our right and left verticals, respectively.  You’ll see from the above image that I have already started my work. 

The first step is to disallow the join between 2 and 3 and 3 and 4.  On the appropriate end for each wall, you need to right-click on the grip and select DISALLOW JOIN.  You’ll do this for the lower grips on 2 and 4, and both gripd on 3.

Then you need to do some aligning, and you will only figure this out with trial and error and a lot of undos.  For this case I ended up aligning and constraining the left face of wall 3 to the left (interior) face of wall 2 and the right face of wall 3 with the right (interior) face of wall 4.  Then I aligned and constrained the lower face of wall 2 to inside the finish material of wall 3.

The final step is to simply JOIN GEOMETRY on each combination of walls: 2 to 3 and 3 to 4.  And here’s the thing – THE ORDER THAT YOU SELECT WHAT WALL FIRST MATTERS.  In this case, I selected the “verticals” first, so I clicked 2 then 3, and then 4 then 3.  It “feels” like the first thing you select when you join geometry “wins”.  I have zero scientific data to back this claim up, but that’s what my gut tells me.

Poof!  Nice and clean.  And if I nudge or straight out move wall 3 up, the clean up stays with it.

This is definitely one of those cases where no one solution fits all problems but if you know the possible solutions, you can hopefully pick an appropriate response.

Getting Your Sheets in Order

Revit is always touted as a modeling application, not a documentation one.  I have even heard an Autodesk folk say that you should do your modeling in Revit and then print from AutoCrap… sorry, AutoCAD.  Well, that’s one horribly insane idea that we’ll file neatly in the “crazy person said it” category.

Still, Revit out of the box leaves a little to be desired on the documentation front.  We like to refer to it as the last 10%.  Revit almost gets you there, it gets you 90% of the way to amazing documents and gorgeous sheets that I would want to frame and hang on the wall, but that last 10% rears its head and bites you.

There are ways to work around the last 10%, thanks to customization and parameters that you can create.  One of the out of the box issues is ordering sheets.  The sheet index is an amazingly wonderful schedule that you can plunk on your index sheet or cover sheet and be done with it… as long as you want to list everything alphabetically.

If your firm is like ours, the A sheets don’t come first (they do in our hearts, but not in the set).  What is a Revit user to do?  Here’s where some parameters come in. 

Make a project parameter and call it Sort Order and apply that parameter to sheets.  Numerically determine what the order for each discipline is (general = 1, architectural = 6, etc) and then fill in the correct value for the sheet.  We also added a parameter called Sort Order Name which contains the discipline’s name.

Now, create a Drawing Index Schedule and add the Sort Order (and Sort Order Name) fields to it.  Hide Sort Order under the Appearance tab.  In the Sorting/Grouping tab, set the first sort by to Sort Order.  And for extra points, set the second one to Sort Order Name and mark it as Header.  The final sorting is done by Sheet Number.

This will organize and group your sheets by the numeric Sort Order and put a nice header of the Sort Order Name above them.

We may never fully make it past the last 10%, but we can get close.

Toilet Partitions

I know, it’s a fun topic.  But it is one that is debatable out there in Revit-land.

The best approach we have found is to simply have a wall type whose construction is 1″ formed plastic.  Then when it’s placed, our Revit modelers need to pay particular attention to the offsets to make sure it’s “hung” right.  We don’t model connectors or hangers, that’s just more junk to bog down our model.

The most complicated wall… EVER

Now, here comes the fun part.  If my cut plane is slicing through the partition, it’s going to show up with a nice fat line, just like any other wall.  We don’t want that.  We want our toilet partition to be a trim slim line.

So comes the beauty of view filters.  I love view filters.  Your view filter lives in the Visibility Graphics for your view (VG).  They can also be saved in view templates (which I am also in love with – don’t tell the view filters!)

On our plans, we add a view filter that looks for any wall type whose name includes the word “toilet” and we dial down the cut lines for it.  Voila.  Slim lines for our partitions.

Adding the filter…

… and applying it to the view

The only potential issue is that we have to make sure we name our wall types properly.  If any non toilet partition wall has the work “toilet” in its name, then it will show up thin.  But, this really really should never happen.  If it does, feel free to pull out your BIM Stick and beat the tar out of the person who did it.

A Contractor’s POV

On Thursday, my local Revit User Group is hosting a talk by Harry McKinney of Clancy & Theys.  Harry has graciously offered to come up and discuss how he and his company are using Revit, Navisworksand other BIM-goodness to do what they need to do.

The Rainbows & Unicorns of BIM that Autodesk sells has always been lacking connectivity between the major groups – designers, builders, owners.  I am really looking forward to this discussion to see how we can start to bridge the first gap.  In my opinion, until Autodesk comes out with a better piece of software than FMDesktop, it will be a long time until we bridge the final gap.  I cringe at some owner’s trying to open Revit.  It’s just not the right tool.  It’s like trying to mow my lawn with a circular saw.

My understanding now is that we, as designers, are putting data and information into the BIM model that we need to get our jobs done.  Makes sense, right?  Well, that information isn’t necessarily what the contractor needs to get his job done.  If they even get the model, sometimes they just scrap it and make their own.

Like I said, I am really looking forward to this meeting and will absolutely post my impressions after.

BIM Review…um…Mini Review

We had a demo of Avatech’s BIM Review the other day. I think it’s a really interesting approach to standards enforcement on Revit projects. Unfortunately, something is tickling in the back of my head that I can’t seem to put my finger on. It feels almost that it’s reach is way beyond it’s grasp.  Or maybe that most users will expect a magic box, when in fact, even with the wonders of Revit, a magic box is not within the realm of possibilities.

The one feature that was nice, but limited, was the ability to include and autofix button.  So, the software would find the problem and then fix it, if it could.  Some issues obviously could not be fixed immediately, but it’s still a nice tweak.

I am trying to get a demo to do a nice full review, so clearly I am still very intersted in it. I think at the very least it would be nice if Avatech provided a mechanism for users to share the standards sets that they create.  Also, if the software could scan a Revit template and create certain standards based on that – check view templates, check line styles and weights, etc.  And I am extremely excited to see some more third party apps get worked up. Now, I do NOT want to see customization and software creation go crazy (ala AutoCRAP) but some really well done add-ons would really help the workflow.

Ceilings Need a Facelift

I’ve had it up to here (about 8′ above finish floor – HA!) with ceilings.

There are a couple things in Revit that feel like they need an overhaul, and I would like to nominate ceilings and their related functions.

First off – The structure of the ceilings for ACT.  Why a hatch?  Why can the grid not be some kind of smart element.  “That’s too much modeling overhead,” I hear someone in the backrow say.  Well, here is my response to that: first, sometimes it’s just nice to see the grids in section.  Revit Structure allows floors to add metal decks (why not roofs – ahem), and that’s pretty cool.  Seems like some of that modeling love could stretch over to ceilings on the Revit Architecture side.

Second, and this is my big grief, we sometimes find ourselves needing to do a demo ceiling plan.  Don’t ask, but sometimes we need it.  So we have had to create a new ceiling type for demo ACT ceilings.  On top of that, we have had to make a new hatch style(s) with dashed lines indicating a demo’ed grid.  It has to be a model hatch, so it will be 2×2 or 2×4, so the demo lines show different at different scale.  I hate that.  My architects have to demo a ceiling AND THEN CHANGE THE CEILING TYPE, which is something we told them never to do.

My other beef with the ceilings has to do with their interactions with room objects.  So, there’s a toggle on a ceiling instance for room bounding, right?  And it controls the height of the room when you calculate volume.  But only when you calculate volume, which they tell you not to do too often.  Why can’t the room just look for the ceiling on placement?  Why does the room have no parameter showing me its height, even when I do turn on calculate volume?  It only shows UNBOUNDED HEIGHT, which is the height I originally gave it.  Our RCP tag has room number and ceiling height.  So, it’s two tags… a room tag with number and a ceiling tag with height.  That’s stupid.  My room should be able to see how tall it is based on the ceiling height and register that.

I was hoping that 2010 might address some of these concerns, but the NDA for the Revit Beta keeps me from telling you anything about it.  So, hypothetically, I couldn’t say “No, it doesn’t look like ceilings have gotten any attention at all,” or something like that.

Small beef?  Yeah.  Silly?  Maybe.  But every time I have to explain it to someone, it takes the “I” out of BIM.

The Need for Organization In Views

I love standards.  Standards let everyone in the firm hop from project to project with ease.  Hopefully this isn’t something I have to sell you on.

Something standards related that a good BIM user needs, is organization.  Back in the days of CADD, individual file management was important, but one could muddle through a directory filled with crap and find what they needed ultimately.

With Revit, we’re mainly talking view management as a replacement for file management.  Setting up an organizational structure and standards and strong guidelines for views is crucial for your team to get the job done efficiently and with fewer headaches.  Below are some tips that we have found beneficial:

• Name views that go on sheets IN ALL CAPS.  This is a quick visual cue that the view is for printing or working.
• For jobs with multiple disciplines, create a parameter in the view that you can sub-organize view by.  We called it ‘View Types’, and fill it with “Architectural Elevations” or “Structural Plans”.  Then we create a View Browser Type that filters and groups by that parameter.  The same can be easily done for projects with multiple wings or buildings, to keep those related views grouped together.
• We have also tweaked our default view type so once a view is on a sheet it no longer shows under the Views list.  We found that at some undetermined point in design development, most people on the team start referring to views by the sheet, and not the view name.

Whatever guidelines you set up, make sure that your people stick to them, so everyone can benefit.

Good Personnel BIM Article

My deployment team has been having a hard time explaining the need for change in hiring and internal personnel as we migrate from CADD to BIM.

I found this article and it does a phenomenal job at pointing out the needs on this issue.  Well worth a read for anyone in this process right now.