Tuesday 29 July 2014

Far Clipping - Dependent Views

I have to admit, this one stumped me for a little while today. When using dependent views you may find 'far clipping' is greyed out in the 'child' views. 

After scratching my head and checking all the usual suspects, I discovered when using dependent views the clip depth is actually controlled by the 'Parent view'. Move to the parent view and you will now notice 'Far Clipping' is no longer greyed out.

Makes sense and means less setup when preparing your dependent views. A side tip when preparing dependent views; use scope boxes. They will help to setup consistent crop regions and initial set out of datum objects like levels and grids.

Schedules - Managing Model Data

Schedules aren’t just there for documentation purposes. They can be a great tool in managing your model data and components.
Take a basic room schedule for example; even though a room schedule does not form part of our typical documentation set, they are the best way to quickly identify rooms ‘not enclosed’ or ‘not placed’. When you delete a room from the project, doing so from the model environment prompts the following warning…‘A room was deleted from all model views but still remains in this project. The room can be removed from any schedule or placed back in the model using the Room command’.
Use the delete row button in the schedule ribbon to completely remove the room from the project.
I typically prefix schedules created solely for data management with '_Manage'. This keeps them together and clearly identifies there purpose to other users.


Another recommended schedule you shouldn’t go without in your project is a ‘View List’ schedule. Larger projects can have hundreds of views to manage. Ensuring all the right data is in place through the properties panel of each view is a tedious way to manage so many views. 

A view list schedule will give you a global look at the parameters related to all your views in the project. I usually include the following parameters as part of my view schedule;
  • Type – identify multiple view types (Building sections, wall sections) 
  • View name – Key identifier. Also good way to adjust naming convention 
  • Title on sheet – recommend always filling in this one so you don’t end up with odd view title names coming from your view names. 
  • View template – A must for all your models. Get this right and everything else comes easy. Combine it within the settings of your view types and you’re on the right track. 
  • Sheet number 
  • Sheet name 
  • Phase – can be controlled by a view template 
  • Phase filter – can be controlled by a view template 
  • Detail level – can be controlled by a view template 
  • Custom project browser sorting parameter – great for sorting views into groups for larger projects.


Sunday 6 July 2014

TEDx:Tatjana Dzambazova; Reality Capture Technologies

The technology that is becoming available to us today is truly amazing.
Tatjana Dzambazova is the Senior Product Manager & Technology Whisperer at Autodesk Inc. 

She presents 'The Future of Our Past'. Checkout this clip from TEDx  




Here are the websites to a few of the projects mentioned in the video:
www.africanfossils.org
www.3d.si.edu

Friday 4 July 2014

A Few Favourite Revit Apps

If you haven’t visited the Autodesk Exchange yet, I would recommend you go and check it out now..... wait... read this first, then go look.  

The site is full of many useful apps / Add-Ins for Revit that will enhance your user experience and make day to day tasks that little easier. You will find a quick link to the site by clicking on this icon in the top right of your interface.... 

So what are a few of my favourites? Well first off, for those of you on subscription, I would recommend downloading Autodesk's Revit e-transmit. Just like AutoCAD's E-transmit, it will take your Revit model and prepare the files into one folder to send off to consultants. 

They have enhanced the 2015 version by a giving us some additional options to remove sheets & views, disabling worksets and including additional files. 

Now if your like me and not satisfied with the default window tiling in Revit, then checkout Palladio X BIM WindowsLayout by acadGraph. This 5 Star app lets you tile windows in a variety of different layouts and dedicate up to 80% of the screen real estate to the active window, spreading the remaining windows in the available space. You can also save and restore your configurations. We are now waiting for an update to 2015 and it couldn't come soon enough.






Next up Detail Filter by GSA, Inc. This is a powerful tool allowing you to filter in greater detail. You can filter by category, Family, Family Type & even Parts. A must have for the little bit extra from your filter tool. The interface won't win awards anytime soon but it gets the job done. 



Coins Auto Section Box is my most recent discovery. This one even comes with a YouTube short clip outlining this great apps very neat features. The YouTube video says it all but essentially you can make a selection of any object or combination of objects in your Revit model, hit the Auto section box button and it will automatically create a section box around that particular selection. You can even assign a shortcut to make this a very powerful tool. 


What I like most about this tool is there is no need to fumble about with a very long list of views when using the 'orient to view' tools on the view cube. Now, you just click and go, couldn't be simpler. 

Lastly (for this post anyway) but certainly not least is CASE Apps. You can visit their website at http://www.apps.case-inc.com/. Now these guys have too many apps to mention, some free and some paid apps, however I will mention two favourites (and free!). 
Check out 'Change & Replace Linestyles'. I like this one as it has made my job of managing the additional non-standard line styles that enter a project that much easier to manage. 
The other is 'Delete sheets, views & Revit links'. Very easy tool to use and a very fast way to clean up your model before sending it to consultants. If you have Revit e-transmit though, you may not feel the need for this one but I still think its worth a look at just for its simplicity (and its free).

Just a select few valuable add-ins that make life that little bit easier. 



Wednesday 2 July 2014

Creating a Helix form in Revit

In Revit we don’t yet have a helix tool. To create a helix in Revit requires a series of steps. They are though, easy steps. So let us go ahead and create a helix in Revit. To do so we will need…

•           1 Reference line
•           1 Arc
•           2 Circles
•           Solid form tool (blend technique)
•           Copy tool
•           Rotate tool.

The following video will put it all together for us…