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...

April 2011 Los Angeles Revit Users Group Meeting

Leo A Daly is joining the BIM party & developing a culture of Revit and we love that!!! So, to help this alongThe LARUG April will be meeting at their LA offices on Wednesday April 20th @ 6pm.

The presentation
Michael Cox & Randy Rush will be presenting a project "From Design to CD Model"... DSA comments and all!!!

If you know about the LACCD projects this is one of them: The Watson Center (Hey that sounds familiar :-) (mainly since I presented this project (image left courtesy of the Gensler Team) to the LARUG back when the initial designs were done)... I can't wait to see it now!!!)

AEC truly is a cycle.

+Who knows? there may be more...

The Logistics
• Everyone needs to be here by 7:00 pm at the latest (or no elevator "up" access after 7), if you leave there is no coming back up.
• No drinking or smoking on the balcony.

The Location
• 550 South Hope 27th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90071, Downtown, 6pm
    East side of the street, just North of 6th Street
• Parking is directly across the street and It’s $5 after 4:00pm
• As for Security: Sign In at the front desk.

Outside of that we're all good; hope to see you there!!!

-JBZ for the LARUG

April 2011 LARUG Scheduled

I will be sending out the invites and posting the info here tomorrow, for this month's LARUG meeting (well I am going to schedule it to post tomorrow).

Suffice to say that we will be meeting Wednesday, April 20th at 6PM PST at:

Somewhere in Los Angeles :-)

Yes we have the location, but in the words of many Artists, as well as David Byrne & Talking Heads: "You can't see it ... 'til it's finished"

Ohhh Foxy Lady: Downloading Revit web components made easy

If you're a long time reader here then you might have seen comments regarding Internet Explorer being less than optimum (crap even).

If you feel the same and want a solution that has proven trustworthy over the years then go get Mozilla Firefox (hit the image at left).

THEN...

You will want to hook yourself up with the addon "DownThemAll" (at least; (hit the image at left)). You'll get access to that by right-clicking on a web page

Why? Well, if you've ever wanted to get any and/or all of a multitude of files from a web page, in one fell swoop, then that's the tool for you!!!

You can have it send the files to any folder, add any file type and so much more...

Don't forget to set it up properly!!!









And have a great weekend!!!

Revit WIKI Help & Keynotes Managed

Hey LARUGgers: as always the images are links

1) Revit WIKI Help is live!!!

Check out what they are up to and go get you some... Also give some back!!!

2) Keynotes Managed?

They can be... there is a new release of the Keynote Manager (for Revit) by: Revolution Design.

This is a great tool and gets more useful with each update. Check out their FEATURES page for more of a taste, as well the image left.

Thanks to Steve Faust for keeping us in the loop.

March 2011 Los Angeles Revit Users Group Meeting Recap

Hit the image @ left to see what new bundles of ADSK software is being offered up this release cycle (low level YAAY).

Please don't ask yourself "Who in their right mind is going to learn 13 software? When there really should be one comprehensive application!!!" We know the answer, yet are at the mercy of ADSK's marketing 'geniuses'.

That answer may also give you a headache!!! Yes I am again lobbying for a REAL CENTRAL FILE and a REAL BIM SOLUTION that combines the right parts of all of these softwares into one software (yes one). DO NOT tell me it can't be done, I know it can, it just isn't (yet???).
 Anyhow...
Great LARUG meeting again. Scott D Davis from Autodesk showed us a bunch of the What's new in Revit 2012. Since we can't get Scott's PowerPoint you should read David Light's posting (linked above), it's an in depth look at the new features (HERE's David's main blog page as well)...

There were great conversations all around and we also had a Space Pilot from 3Dconnexion given away by Roger Charbonneau at AEC Factory, so a special thanks to them for going above & beyond!!!

Of course we'd be lost without Charles Keeley & Autodesk's support; Thanks guys!!!

Dear "The Factory", I bet your plan is to make one application, that does all AEC needs, but pleeeeeze hurry!!! The inefficiency of all these applications bundled up is ridiculous for 99% of users!!! Plus interoperability is still a joke, like the text editor, site tools & stairs still are.

More thanks' go out to Precious & UScad for her & their continued, support; we also wish to thank the great Paul Scacco from Kelar Pacific, the extraordinary Loni Colen from Microdesk and everyone who showed up!!!

In addition to Scott, we also heard from a surprise guest James (not John or Steve :-)) Vandezande who was on the West Coast for a few days.

James spoke a bit on the new books for Revit 2012, that are nearly out, so look for those soon; I'm guessing he'll post about them on his blog All Things BIM or the New York Revit Users Group pages...

Steve Stafford & Jim Balding spoke about the Revit Technology Conference USA, coming up in June, so do come to that also and get all the revit you can handle!!! I will be speaking there, along with a number of other Southern California LARUGgers, BUGIErs & SCRUGgers; not to mention all of the other great speakers from around the Revit World... BTW perhaps by June my hair will be as long as it is in the photo!!!

Well, that's all for now... Videos to follow???
Cheers,
-J

March 2011 Los Angeles Revit Users Group Meeting

NDA Agreements dictate that:

We can't tell you what (we will be presenting)

We can't tell you who (will be presenting)

But we can say that this is one LARUG you WILL want to see... So on Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 we hope to see you there or online... Virtual meeting info to follow... (hint: hit the image for more info on location, etc.