My Wishlist – Parameter Concatenation

“Concatenation”… That is a really long word, and full disclosure, I had to Google how to spell it.

The opening of the Revit API has done a great job of filling in gaps in Revit with some fantastic solutions. I am all for letting some features be done by third party developers; often they are closer to the problem and have a very unique approach to a solution that is clean and effective. Unfortunately, there are some fundamental things that Revit cannot do properly that an add-in only halfway solves.

Combining of different parameter values into a single parameter is one of those things that there have been some great solutions for with macros or Dynamo or add-ins, but they are all just stop gaps; they need to be run periodically to properly fill in that final parameter. They are not “automagic” and won’t keep an active eye on the parameters that they are combining.

It is past time for Revit to be able to do this natively and actively and consistently. I would imagine the easiest would be to have a calculated value, but that of course would not be ideal with the limitations around lack of tagging, etc. Some syntax for a shared or project parameter that allowed combining other parameters and they would stay up to date all the time, that would be the ideal solution.

This is a huge addition that I would love to see in a future release, and I am confident I am not alone. Until that time, unfortunately, we will have to keep rolling with band-aid solutions.

That Time of Year

Just a quick non-technical note as we hit the time of year when everyone rushes to use all that extra annual leave up before they lose it…

I think it’s inevitable to get nostalgic this time of year, and as I get older I seem to fall into that pleasant trap as well.

As a kid, seeing what was under the tree was always exciting. For a string of years, it was inevitably a new cartridge or two for the good old Atari 2600 (did I date myself there? I know some of you old nerds are reminiscing with me.)

My favorite present of 1979!

It’s been a long time since what was under the tree was the biggest memory of the year for me.

My 2015 was really good. I truly hope yours was as well. See you all in 2016!

Autodesk University 2015 Grab Bag Wrap-Up Epilogue

Not anything major here. Just wanted to round things up with a final highlight.

Yeah, that’s not the best photo of me, but it’s about the closest I got to a Stormtrooper… this year. Let’s not forget the Star Wars miniland opening at Legoland back in 2011..

It might actually be the same trooper. I never asked for his operating number.

If you get a chance to make it to Autodesk University, do it. It’s a fantastic (and exhausting) week that gives you great access to new tech, great users of that tech, and plenty of space to be a big nerd.

Autodesk University 2015 Grab Bag Wrap-Up Part 4: What I Can Use Right Now

You’re still with me? Nice, thanks. Fist bump. It’s time to get our feet back on the ground and find out…

What I Can Use Right Now

I feel like I might be late to this party, but there was one word that was on every Revit user’s lips out in Vegas:

Dynamo is billed as a visual programming platform. Here’s the deal. Programming in the Revit API needs a pretty high level nerd. It’s programming. It’s code. It’s not pretty.

Dynamo is there to be the go between the API and the user. The nerd level is still a little high, but nowhere near as high as it is in the API.

Dynamo programming – kind of cute

To top it off, one of the classes I took was taught by Marcello Sgambelluri who was hands down the best instructor I have had at AU. He had a genuine enthusiasm and knowledge of the material that was contagious. Well, the knowledge wasn’t contagious.  That would have been amazing. But you know what I mean.

Originally Dynamo was being sold as a generative design application, so I think it got overlooked. Luckily, some smart people realized it could be used to grab and manipulate many levels of data inside the model, and create more practical geometries within Revit. The most basic example I saw was a method that capitalized all the text in your model. A more advanced, but just as useful Dynamo script showed how to lay out actual linework on a topo element. Basically, things that Revit users have been looking for for years, now easy and magical thanks to Dynamo.

I know I called this “What I Can Use Right Now” and I don’t like false advertising. The Sunday after AU (after the Saturday that I spent sleeping) I cracked open Revit and Dynamo and spent some time throwing together my own scripts to see how simple it could be.

The first script I worked on was prompted from a Revit class I taught a few weeks ago. A student asked if you could see column grids in 3D. Well, sadly, of course you couldn’t. It would be lovely if Revit gave you some functionality for this, but not yet.

Dynamo to the rescue.

After about an hour of copy/paste, editing, and some online research, I ended up with a Dynamo script that got it done. It needs some clean-up, but now I have a function that I can migrate from one project to another with the same results.

Secondly, I tackled a task that you see many add-in solutions for, but I wanted to see how simple Dynamo could make it: check a door’s “To-Room” parameter, and overwrite the door’s Mark with the room number. Turned out, it was pretty easy. Again, needs some clean-up, but now I have this little piece of code that is easy to follow, easy to manipulate if needed, and easy to use in multiple projects.

Dynamo isn’t perfect (it crashed Revit four times when I was working on it) and it’s very early in its development life, but it has a TON of potential, and as long as you are deliberate and save your file before usinig it, you should get some great time savers.

Check out the official Dynamo site here, and Marcello’s blog here.

Tomorrow – final thoughts and final day of the week. Thanks for sticking with me.

 

Autodesk University 2015 Grab Bag Wrap-Up Part 3: Pie In The Sky

You’ve made it! Once you get through this, you’ll be 3/4 of the way through my epic write-up of what I took away form AU this year!

Pie In The Sky

AU is first and foremost a technology conference, so the nerd level is pretty high. And I love it.

Auto Generative Design

This skeleton of a wall is the internal structure for a wall in a new Airbus jet. And this thing was a rockstar. They wheeled it out on the floor during the opening session, it had a prominent spot on the showroom floor. The first thing you might think is “that looks like a poorly put together Erector set.” The second thing you might think is that no person designed this thing. And, the cool thing is, you’d be right.

It came from Auto Generative Design. The basic idea is, you give the computer a set of parameters and priorities, and thanks to the miracle of infinite computing, the computer has the power to run through dozens upon dozens of iterations of design, laying out and testing each one. You ask the computer for a handful of designs and it comes back with what it thinks are the best.

About to dial the nerd level up here. Hold onto your hats.

You give the design software parameters of size and weight and structural needs, and the computer runs through hundreds of iterations of designs, runs simulations on them, evaluates your criteria, and then comes back with however many options you ask for. Then you pick the one you want. This was what the computer came up with for an upcoming Airbus design, and since you know how this story ends, you won’t be surprised to hear that it is lighter and stronger than one designed traditionally.

While this is obviously not even aimed for the AEC industry, Autodesk knows the interest is there, and it’s just a matter of time. Can you imagine laying out your spaces for SD, then telling the computer to give you the five best options for structural design by the next morning, or having your volumes figured out and then asking your machine to give you the most optimal HVAC configuration? You can’t today, but it is very easy to see a future AU to be highlighting that level of design instead of a single airplane wall.

The week after AU, Autodesk officially launched a website dedicated to auto generative design in the AEC industry. It’s all very skunkworks stuff, but it’s up, and there is a lot of interest.

How’s your mind? A little blown? I hope so. Thinking about this is terribly cool. But tomorrow in my final wrap-up post, we bring it all back down to earth for something you can use immediately.

Autodesk University 2015 Grab Bag Wrap-Up Part 2: Not There Yet

It’s time for the umpteenth AU write-up that you’ve seen! And I am probably a whole week later than all the others that you read!

Not There Yet

In yesterday’s AU wrap up write up, I went over some long promised technology that feels like it’s time to take a serious look at it. Today I want to go over some items that I saw at AU that have been talked about for a while now, but they still just don’t seem ready.

When I look at these things, I am approaching them from a very practical point of view. I want to balance cost with amount of effort involved. I’ve said it before, there are firms out there that have the resources to push the limits of technology and throw time and money at these things, and that is awesome. But I am looking at these things for the rest of us.

3D Printing

It breaks my heart, but as far as desktop 3D printing used for day to day design work, it’s not there yet. You can either spend a little amount of money and have a piece of equipment that is closer to a science fair experiment than office equipment, or pay gobs of money and have something that works… but it costs gobs of money. There was only one small footprint, low cost, extrusion printer at AU this year. This tells me that they know it’s not just ready yet. The other printers are the types of models that cost more than my car. I have been in love with the concept with 3D printers for years, and the potential is there, but the hardware and/or cost is not.

Augmented Reality

The close cousin to Virtual Reality is something called Augmented Reality, and they actually talked about it a lot at AU. The keynote referred to the Augmented Age, and that is cool and exciting but it’s not ready for prime time in the AEC industry. I was fortunate enough to sit in on a live demo of the Microsoft Hololens, and it is impressive. It’s so well put together, you forget how impressive it is, it’s one of those things. But the tools they demonstrated, and the form factor lends it more to the industrial design folks than large scale design for the AEC folks. It will be there someday, and hopefully soon, but not quite yet.

Tomorrow, check out part three of my wrap-up, wherein I get a little excited over something really nerdy.

Autodesk University 2015 Grab Bag Wrap-up Part 1: It’s About Time

I recently had the privilege to present an AU wrap up at both Revit DC and Revit RVA user groups. I thought I would massage what I shared with them and slap it up here. Overall, I had a great time at AU this year. I hadn’t been in several years and I forgot what a great combination of design and technology it is. I also forgot how much sleep you need when it’s all over. I am not sure that I got out of bed on Saturday. Sorry, what was I talking about?

Oh yeah. AU.

These are the things that I picked up either through classes, on the exhibition hall floor, through conversations, or just through gut feelings. These were the things that I was thinking about after I left the conference, for one reason or another. I tended to ramble in this article, so I am breaking it up into 4 parts.

It’s About Time

These are the things that I feel we have been hearing about and promised for years, and it’s finally time.

The Model Is King

Ever since the emergence of Revit and BIM on the industry, there has been a push to get everyone to work in the model, make your model important, collect your data in the model. If you’re reading this, I am probably preaching to the choir about how important the model is, but I think it has been a tough sell for many of us. At the end of the day, we just need to print paper… that’s the usual excuse. And frankly, a lot of the promises of what the model could do for us or how easy it would just didn’t hold up. I think we have finally turned a corner. There were vendors on the hall floor that were so confident in how easy it was for their technology to be able to get the proper data out of a model, they invited visitors to simply walk up with their Revit file on a flash drive and they would make the magic happen. There were so many classes and vendors on working with the model and sharing data from the model, and you didn’t get the sense that people were rolling their eyes at it anymore. The idea of interoperability was huge, and that’s not interoperability with a DWG file, it’s foundation is the Revit model file.

The Cloud

Are you tired of hearing about the cloud? I am. But, if you looked at either running applications from the cloud or hosting documents a couple years ago, it’s definitely time to take another look. There are probably other solutions out there, but I spent some time running Revit through a virtual machine via Amazon Web Services. I was amazed at how the performance was. Last time I looked at running Revit through the web, there was a lag that made it completely unbearable. The setup I used had completely done away with this lag. This is totally a viable solution now.

I was also really impressed with how effective FormIt 360 is, even moreso that it is a cloud based app. First and foremost, it is Autodesk’s attempt to replace Sketchup. I sat in on a lab with the head of the FormIt team, and it is absolutely ready to replace Sketchup in the design workflow. It feels like it has some way to go for those of you who use Sketchup for presentation work, but it is already a superior tool for design. The modeling is just as easy as Sketchup, and it integrates into a Revit workflow with far greater ease.

Last in the cloud is hosting documents. BIM 360 Docs was officially launched at AU, and it looks sharp. There is a waiting list to get rolling on it, but the team took the time to fill a lot of needs for sharing and marking up docs online. It’s mainly in the construction end, but it is definitely a solution I am going to keep an eye on.

Virtual Reality

Everyone who saw The Lawnmower Man was excited over the potential of VR. So, maybe five of us. Luckily, Virtual Reality became more prominent over the years, and not only through amazingly horrible sci-fi movies. We saw promise after promise of it being integrated in the AEC world, and while we saw some neat applications, they were all at the experimental end, or just for the firms with the really big wallets. That’s not the case anymore. Oculus Rift had a strong presence at the conference, and they were really fun to play with. There were multiple visualization offerings that could work with VR for people to choose from. If you don’t want to pay whatever for a Rift, you can fork over just a couple bucks and get a Google Cardboard or something akin to it. Combine that with Stingray or Max and your Revit model, and you have a high quality and inexpensive VR solution. There isn’t much of an excuse anymore.

That’s it for the first part of my wrap-up. To recap: all of these have been talked about for years, and frankly, were either too expensive or really didn’t work effectively before. It’s definitely worth your time to reevaluate.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll be covering the tech that just isn’t quite there yet.

 

How Autodesk Network Licenses Flow

For the last many years, the network license server for Autodesk has had a “cascading” feature. This is a definite plus of using Network Licenses, but it is often overlooked or misunderstood. And I get it, setting up a network license server can be a pain in the butt, and the last thing most IT folks look for is an oddly named feature.

“Oddly named” is really too harsh now that I think about it. But “cascading” isn’t the first word that comes to mind here.

This is what I think of when I hear the word “cascading”

Put simply, when you run an Autodesk program, and you are using network licenses, your PC is going to try to check out the least expensive license.

Practical example: you own 2 dozen seats of Revit Arch and 4 seats of Building Design Suite Ultimate (you know… for Navisworks Manage because really, all you want is the clash detection.) When a user opens Revit Arch, it is going to check out that Arch licenses, and not touch the Suite license. The only time it’s going to grab a Suite license is when you open up software that is ONLY in that suite.

Essentially, this works EXACTLY like you hope it works and makes using Network Licenses MUCH more attractive.

But hurry up! You might be running out of time!!

New Revit Tools Website Launched

 

As one of my tasks here at my new job, I have had the pleasure of hopping onto the development of a group of great Revit utilities. Granted, I hopped on at the 11th hour, but it’s still some really cool stuff, and I am so stoked to be part of it.

The Model Checker, Model Checker Configurator, COBie Extension, and Classification Manager are all potentially critical tools for your Revit workflow, and I have some exciting news: they’re all free!

It used to be a little tricky to track them all down, so we’ve launched a new website to house all the downloads, the help files, samples, how to’s, etc. Hop on over to http://www.biminteroperabilitytools.com to check everything out.

We have some webinars coming up over the next few weeks to go over some info on the tools, and we are working hard on 2.0 of the COBie Extension and Classification Manager, with some much requested additions. I’ll drop some tips and pointers on the blog as we get closer to launch.

So, go grab the utilities and let us know what you think!

 

Quick Tip – Family Names

When you are naming a family whether in your model or elsewhere, you need to avoid any “wacky” characters, especially \ / ” ‘ ; etc. Your best bet is to just use letters, numbers, spaces, underscores “_” and dashes “-“.

Since your family can be saved as a completely separate file, the naming needs to follow Windows name rules. If it finds a wacky character when you go to edit it, you might end up with a totally different file opening up.