BIM Apps

Is this the year of Leveraging the BIM? Now that many of us are darn good at designing and building in Revit, new tools and companies seem to popping up everywhere offering new ways of making use of the mass of information in the BIMs. This is a major focus of mine this year and a focus for which the time has come. There is much efficiency and productivity to be gained from leveraging or making use of the information in Revit models. Many aspects of our industry are effected by the switch to BIM. Contractors are becoming true partners in the building paradigm we know as IPD, providing new avenues and methods of information flow and new opportunities for tools that enhance what we do.

A new blog has started and it addresses the topic of add-on tools, now referred to as “Apps” and which generally are making use of the Revit API to perform their magic. The blog is “BIM Apps” and it’s located here.

I first came across the author,  Emile Kfouri more than several years ago while I was working on a 2.1 million square-foot resort in Revit Architecture. I believe at the time he was the Revit Platform Product Manager. He’s moved on to bigger and better things at Autodesk and I wish him luck with his new blog. Join me in subscribing.

Cheers,

Craig Barbieri

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Unusual things

Often I come across some unusual things here at KlingStubbins. Today it was a generic floor that was modified to represent a topo surface. This file was given to use from outside the firm and our site group is tasked with reporting on site drainage. Naturally I was asked if it was possible to show contours on a floor slab, or to convert a floor into a toposurface.

Well of course you can….and this is how…

1. Isolate the floor and export it as a dwg.

The default settings are fine, just click through OK.

2. Then Import it back in (with default settings again) and it should land in the same location.

3. Now click the Massing & Site tab and click Toposurface. Select ‘Create from import’ button and select the import, then finish. In this case, because it was a generic floor, it was totally enclosed, having a bottom as well as a top, so I deleted the points on the bottom half.

 

4. To show the contours on the newly created toposurface or adjust the contour settings, click the Site Settings button. In this case I had to adjust my contours to be 1”.

And that’s all there is to it.

Happy New year!

Craig Barbieri

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MARA kicking it at KlingStubbins

Eddy, Phil and James have got a genius public awareness campaign going for the latest edition of Mastering Revit Architecture, and I am not one to be left out of the fun!

Buy your copy here:

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Photo Scene Editor on Autodesk Labs

In my opinion this has been a long time coming(the tool not the blog post) but here's what might be a very useful tool for Architects. Point cloud data from photographs. Photo Scene Editor - read about it on Kean Walmsley's blog

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Revit As-Built Models?

I was reading a friend's blog post (bim)x: not doing so bad, looking for information on BIM As-built models. We are seeing requests for as-Built models on our projects. For non-IPD projects, the unresolved question is ‘what is the best arrangement for the creation of an as-built model?’ Should the Architect(the original MEA) do it? The Contractor? In the article Andy sees the as-built model as a possibility in the distant future. The article is from 2006 and we are in the not-to-distant future. This reality is forming now but questions remain. The important considerations with as-built BIMs as I see it are as follows:

1. Indemnification
   
2. What’s it going to be used for?
   
3. The Level of Detail required of the as-builts(does it include every stud,hanger, fixture, etc.)
   
4. Accuracy(Are elements required to be modeled within some measured tolerance?)
   
5. How does the party responsible for producing the as-built model acquire the information of the constructed elements?
   
6. Is the as-built simply a modeled record of the field-sketches and change-orders done by the Architect?
   
7. Is it a joint effort between Architect and Contractor and how do they work together?
   
8. Is the as-built an in-the-field monitored & modified BIM?
   
9. What does this cost the responsible party - a full-time Reviteer?
   
10. Does the as-built require product-specific data(light-bulb type & wattage, and motor model#'s url's and specs)?
    
11. If it's a Contractor-produced/modified model, does the construction phasing remain in the model or does it get scrubbed out(and what does this cost us)?
     
12. Response time(how quickly is the model updated)?
    
13. What else?

These questions are a matter of project-specific requirements and client-contractor-architect relationships. These aren’t all the questions just one’s that come to mind. If you have more, or experience in as-builts, your comments are appreciated.

Cheers,

Craig Barbieri

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You, an iRevit contributor

Clearly, being an international Revit-man of mystery doesn't leave much time for providing you with Revit recipes for greatness or otherwise. It makes sense to this humble institution to search for additional blog contributors. If you are interested in contributing and helping other Reviteers with tips, tricks, fun facts, and the like, then contact me. Compensation is an astounding amount of personal growth and maybe even a sense of accomplishment, which is priceless.

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ACADIA 09 and Grasshopper to Revit

Chicago, October 21st, 2009

The ACADIA conference begins tomorrow. The advanced digital design tool workshops preceding the conference end today. Several of the workshops were cancelled including the ones I had registered for but a colleague of mine participated in the Rhino Grasshopper workshop which I am now regretting not signing up for as the results were impressive. Rhino plays nice with Revit. Grasshopper is a plugin if you weren’t aware and it has matured a bit since last year’s ACADIA. It is similar to Generative Components in many ways but the interface is far more useable and the community that is forming behind it is can’t be compared. 

KlingStubbins will be using Rhino as a result of this workshop and incorporating it into the Revit workflow in our offices where possible. The link between Rhino and Revit remains critical in Architectural design firms as Revit is the BIM platform of choice by up to 98% of firms in various adoption statistics. As always and with any application, there are certain limitations and/or best practices when interfacing another application with Revit and it is never as simple as one would hope. That being said, the flexibility of Rhino allows for a pretty tight fit in my opinion. I haven’t mentioned the Concept design environment in Revit yet. It is a good tool and I look forward to the release and update of Revit 2011 (or the subscription pack this year) where it may be enhanced. Much of what you can do in Grasshopper can be achieved in Revit CDE but the interface of the former allows for a much more efficient workflow for design. Will we see slide controls for parameters in Revit? Time will tell.

Cheers,

Craig Barbieri

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