USC School of Architecture & their BIMposiums (my word)

LA Area folks (and others who wish to travel here this summer) check this out from Karen Kensek and the USC BIM team...










(yes hit the images)...

Keynotes Managed Yet? KM 10.1 Is Out ...To Make 'It' Easier

Go get Keynote Manager 10.1...NOW!!!

Free or Pay... Either way!!!

Image links to the features page... you can find the Downloads page there as well.

Revit & What you can & Can't do in it: a Preview

Image (left) showing the Nucleus' Physics being applied to native Revit/Vasari Objects: The cloth is in the midst of being draped over the head.

Marcello Sgambelluri said that it is often asked of him "why" does he create things like the head (above) or the Cow (below), etc. and he has some wonderful answers but something dawned on me...

When; at the May 2011 LARUG meeting someone who is looking to start down the Revit/BIM path was telling me what they heard about what Revit cannot do... BOOM, it hit me!!! THAT IS WHY Marcello!!!

These complex models speak to a lot of things but the main answer may simply be Inspiration!!!

When people say I can't do something I (also) like to show them I can... Kind of like every athlete that's told they are too small or slow or whatever therefore they 'won't make it'... I don't have to mention the countless people who have and continue to prove those pieces of advice to be totally crap; do I???

Perhaps there needs no better reason than for people to see that anything is possible in Revit, if we are only open to it!!!

Closed minds can still use AutoCAD & Microstation...

I often get asked about what one can & can't do in Revit; if it's from a new user or someone looking to get started there are probably hurdles to answering that question... I say that because a lot of people say a lot of things like: Revit can't do detailing or Revit can't do documentation, or Revit can only do detailing or Revit can only do documentation, on and on... I have heard so much bullshit about what Revit can or can't do it's laughable...

Here's a bottom line to remember:
ANYTHING THAT HAS BEEN ABLE TO BE DONE IN ANY PREVIOUS SOFTWARE, FOR BUILDING DESIGN & DOCUMENTATION, CAN BE DONE IN REVIT... PROBABLY BETTER, STRONGER & FASTER.

If anyone says that Revit can't do 'this' or 'that' then they may very well not be a Revit expert (or even casual user!!!) ...would you trust a horse and buggy manufacturer or driver to give you advice about what a Ferrari can or can't do???

Advice is very suspect... Don't even take what I say as truth until you verify it for yourself... Then I will take cash or checks for being correct :-) Don't waste time believing people who don't use Revit, yet find it necessary to comment on it's functionality.

I once posted a training video and found that the ArchiCAD folks saw it and created a section on their user forums saying how boring the video was and hated on the tone of my voice, etc... then after a few pages of other nasty comments one of their own ArchiCAD people finally asked them if they actually understood what I was showing and if they realized that ArchiCAD had no such functionality and they wish it did!!! If you like; the video is HERE... Hate on AutoCAD, Microstation, ArchiCAD, Sketchup...!!!

I was once even told that Revit can't create schedules!!! And if you don't know Scheduling is possibly the most powerful part of Revit!!! Though that's only my opinion :-)

Another thing that people have said (in the past; me included) was that Revit can't model complex or organic shapes. The key word there is: didn't... now it does... actually for a while; but I digress...

As a preview of a larger article I am starting that will profile some of our west coast/Los Angeles Revit Stars; below is an image of a 100% Revit object. Well a few objects since the horns are nested Revit families of their own :-).

The objects in these images were STARTED, MODELED & EVERYTHINGED in Revit & Vasari (Revit's free testing ground of tools to hit Revit).

Oh, you can host walls to the cow too!!! Thanks Marcello, I can hardly wait to finish the article on this and the other extraordinary things you, we & others ARE doing in Revit in Los Angeles and the World!!!

-JBZ

Keep the Revit Technology Conference USA on the West Coast... -selfishly!!!

Hey LA Reviteurs,

If you would like to keep the Revit Technology Conference USA on the west coast in the future then show your interest and vote for it!!! Simply hit the image lower left, or go to Steve Staffords Blog RevitOpEd and look at the right side bar... 

Los Angeles & Southern California is being represented nicely with classes by some of the best Revit People (See below)... There will most likely be a lot we'll share as the time nears and the classes are completed... we wouldn't want to spoil the RTC fun so you may have to wait until after the RTC completes!!!

Below is a list of LA Revit people presenting classes (If we left someone out we apologize, just let us know and we'll rectify) 

We hope to see you there!!! 

More Tools for Revit: Thanks C RUG!!!

Hey LARUGgers, 

We got a very generous offer from fellow Reviteur Joe Sferrazza, from Charlotte's Revit User Group (CRUG). He has shared his addin tools and offered their use to us...for free!!! (another benefit of LinkedIn!!!)

Thank you very much Joe!!! We will use these thoroughly.

I probably don't have to (but I will) remind you to hit the images for direct links...

Although some of us may have similar tools from other places there are many that you may not yet have and these have their own distinct options in many cases... The tools include:

CASE CHECK
will scan the project and check the case of grid labels, level names, room names, sheet names/number, view names/titles & text elements with options to fix any errors.

CHANGE CASE
will scan the case of all characters in a selected text element to either all uppercase or lowercase letters.

VIEW RENUMBER
allows the user to easily renumber views already placed on a sheet, avoiding the ‘Detail Number is already in use’ error within Revit.

WALL FILTER
filters a selection of walls based on a set of rules entered by the user. There are a total of 14 parameters to filter by including: Base Offset, Length, Room Bounding, Top Extension Distance, Area…

FIND ROOM
searches the current project for rooms matching the entered criteria. Searches can be filtered by room name, room number, level, case and whether or not to only include exact matches. Once the results are displayed options include showing the room location in the model, selecting the current room and exporting the list to an Excel format.

CREATE SHEET
allows a user to quickly create and name a new sheet. Options include setting thee drawn by parameter based on your username and selecting a title-block based on the most commonly used in the current project.

EMAIL DWF
creates a DWF of the current view and attaches it to an Outlook email.

SAVE DWF
creates a DWF of the current view and saves it to the default save location, set inn the configure DWF tool.

CONFIGURE DWF
sets the default DWF optioons used for the save DWF and email DWF tools.

FTP LOGIN
allows a user to quickly log into any standard ftp site by entering the required login information. Options include saving the login information and opening directly in a folder view.

SCREENSHOT
allows a user to quickly capture a screenshot and save it.

UNIT CONVERSION
opens an easy to usee unit converssion program that convertss the most popular units of distance, temperature, volumme, time, speeed, mass, poower, density,, pressure, ennergy and maany others, including the ability to create custom conversions. This version contains over 4,50 0 combinations and includes options too email or text a conversion as well as options to suggest units, report errors and automatically copy the output to the clipboard.

CALCULATOR
opens the system calculator

CHARACTER MAP
opens the system character map

CRUG LINKS
Links to CRUG virtual places
    EVENTS
    WEBSITE
    ABOUT
    FORUM
    CONTACTS
    TPM SITE

Next: Revit MEP & Structural tools offered up from another Reviteur (from LA)??? We should pay some of this back by sharing our (read as your) tools, etc!!! 

Either way Thanks again to Joe Sferrazza, CRUG for doing his part... 

Now it's our turn... Who will step up???

May 2011 Los Angeles Revit Users Group Meeting

May's LARUG meeting (Wednesday, May 18th 6pm) will prove a unique and powerful Revit learning experience at the Los Angeles offices of John A Martin (JAMA).


Past/Present/Future BIM projects at JAMA
Learn about how JAMA has been using BIM successfully for the last 12 years from the Walt Disney Concert Hall to the LAX International Terminal Expansion. Presented by Marcello Sgambelluri; JAMA’s BIM Director

Documenting large projects with complicated geometry

Learn about how JAMA documents even the most challenging of projects including projects with curved roofs and projects with complicated geometrically shaped mass families.Presented by Felix Olmos; JAMA’s CAD/Revit Technical Supervisor

Understanding and Implementing the Assembly and Part commands for Revit 2012
Create Parts and Create Assemblies are new commands in Revit 2012. They have been promoted and advertised as functionality to help contractors. These new features are also beneficial to engineers and architects. Learn how to apply these new features to everything from simple elements to complex system families. We may even have time to show how to apply these features to something organic…a Revit cow family perhaps?... Presented by Marcello Sgambelluri


Revit Physics is Here! (Image links to the new download for Vasari for use through August now!!!)
Learn how to use Project Vasari’s Nucleus add-on. Nucleus was originally intended to be used only to make free form organic shapes out of flat surfaces… Learn how to push the nucleus physics engine, inside of Vasari, to its limits!... from cloth simulation to rigid body collisions…
Presented by Marcello Sgambelluri

It's in a Federal Building so please include # of guests and be ready with Photo ID's just in case... Download the map for parking suggestions and do arrive a few minutes early, if you can.


JAMA
950 South Grand Avenue
4th Floor
LA, CA 90015

Download the map to JAMA from: https://www.box.net/shared/tncfeuivrj

Thanks again to Charles (Chuck) Keeley @ Autodesk and all the local resellers; Microdesk, UScad, Kelar Pacific & AEC Factory for their continued support!!!

The Ant Group is Coming, The Ant Group is Coming...

Los Angeleno's & Orange-eno's who want to get some Revit Basics covered you might be interested in this new Revit group meeting on Mondays... Hit the image left for more, then check out The ANT Group... Revit Friends of a Feather...