Plugs

No, this is not about Revit MEP. I just have a bunch of announcements/news items that are probably of interest to the Revit community and want to condense them into one post. I’ve been a bit busy and frankly don’t want to fill your inbox with a ton of infomercials. I receive a lot of “press releases” but don’t want to turn this blog into more spam so, since this is my blog, I get to decide what to post and when! And probably most of you have already heard those from other sources, so here we go…

Apps/Plug-ins/API

Kiwicode’s Family Browser has received some really great upgrades recently (thanks Phillip!). The browser window can now be re-sized without having to enable borders and we can now link families from various folders. I cannot wait to set aside time at work to assemble some custom palettes (favorites of sorts). There is also a Favorites tab where you can add/link families so they are literally at your fingertips. Say you are detailing for the rest of the day: you would use this tab to place the most needed components so you can be fast and productive. It’s a brilliant idea! The search function is also quite snappy now. The first time you click into the box, it indexes the families (takes a few seconds) and then, subsequent searches are almost instant.

As you can tell I’m really excited about these improvements, but in my opinion the best one yet is the revamped insert behavior. Now when you click on a family in the palette, it automatically previews with no need to click in the canvas. A single click places an instance, just like native Revit behavior. And if you click on another family while actively placing other instances, it automatically switches to the new clicked family and you can continue placing the new instances. This is also native Revit behavior and makes this plugin feel like it’s part of the software. These were real sticking points for users in the previous version (from personal experience) and now it feels completely seamless.

Kiwicodes really listens to user feedback. Check out my previous post on this topic and note the list of wishes; they’re almost all implemented and then some!

Steve Faust of Revolution Design has some really great apps too. I just want to mention Keynote Manager and the recent Selection Master. Steve has graciously given me a license for the latter and I plan on writing in more depth about his tools, but wanted to plug them now so you can check them out.

Have you ever had to delete unwanted levels in your project and couldn’t because it would have taken a lifetime to find all the families hosted on them? Thanks to the re-host feature, now you can with Selection Master. This tool is a must-have in every BIM Manager’s arsenal. More on these tools in future posts.

Digipara’s Elevator Architect is another tool I’ve been aware of for a while. Unfortunately I tried using it in a recent project but it has failed me. Due to time constraints I have not had time to troubleshoot in depth, although the authors have been very responsive in trying to collect data. Hopefully in the future we can get to the bottom of the problem and use it successfully. As always I might write more in depth in the future.

Learning Revit (and Vasari)

Renowned author Paul Aubin has a new Revit family building course on Lynda.com. You can read all about it here. If you want to sharpen your family building skills (and you know how important this is), you cannot go wrong using this great resource!

What!?! You don’t know what Vasari is? They are up to version 2.1 on Labs and I really wish I had an extra 10 hours a day to play with the cool features that are not in Revit. If like me you’re finding it hard to keep up with everything and don’t have time to test yet another application, you can go to the newly launched Vasari Talk (yep, another link for your bookmarks!). You can participate in live webinars after signing up, or you can watch past recorded sessions.

Navigating Revit

By now you all know that 3Dconnexion’s devices work with Revit. I have not had a chance to try one yet but it looks like it would be a great tool. In the meantime, they are having a drawing for a trip to Autodesk University in Las Vegas on Nov. 29 – Dec. 1, as well as airfare, accommodations and a SpacePilot PRO 3D mouse. You can click here to enter. And speaking of AU, I was lucky enough to make plans for attending this year (thanks AUGI and PhiloWilke!) and am looking forward to meeting up with some old buddies. See you at the AUGI booth!

Evangelizing Revit (and digital simulation)

Abstract submissions for SimAUD 2012 (the Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design) are fast approaching. The upcoming symposium will be in Orlando, Florida and you can find more about it here. You can also go to this link for the proceedings from the past two years.

Plugs

More API goodies

This is yet another subject I’ve been meaning to write about for some time now. Advanced Solutions’ BIMAssist is another set of tools made possible through the ever-expanding Revit API. I got very excited watching the video of the new feature “Room Surface Parameter Extractor”, which is not part of the tools available in IMAGINiT’s Utilities for Revit. It’s nice to actually see different tools packaged by each of these companies. Their main target audience however is their subscribers, and from what I’ve seen over the last years, pricing for non-subscribers could easily make Anderson Cooper’s The RiDicULiST.

The BIMAssist page contains video clips of each feature, which is probably what convinced me to try it. It was a period when I was struggling with finding an acceptable compromise (recently, the word of the day in politics) to documenting finish materials in Revit. Which reminds me that I really need to post my wrap-up thoughts on the subject from almost a year ago, but back to the subject…you can go and see each one for yourself.

My testing experience was somewhat conflicted. It took forever to get the 30 day trial license to function. And tanks to a busy schedule, it expired before I finished my testing, however they were extremely helpful in extending the license, so thanks a lot for that!

Unfortunately I was not as excited once I found out exactly how the room surface parameter extractor worked. Rather than bore you with a lot of writing, here is my list of notes I jotted down:

• Door Mark Manager: Numbers doors based on the To/From Room number;
• Project Cleaner is a very nice tool to have. Useful when sharing a 3d model and you want to make it lighter or remove sheets, views etc. without having to do it the manual way (such as grouping and saving out the group or linking the project into a new file and binding it);
• Sheet Number update: Also quite nice when you need to renumber sheets without having to do it the long way (we usually have to rename it twice if the final sheet number is already in use: append a suffix, renumber the other sheet and renumber again by removing the suffix);
• Fire Rating Coordinator: I was excited at first about this tool, but as I read the help, all excitement faded and turned to disappointment. This tool is making the wrong assumption that the door fire-rating will be the same as the partition fire-rating: Wrong! Take a look at (for example) IBC 2009 Table 715.4 and you'll notice only a handful of situations where that holds true. Also notice the importance of the partition/wall type: The fire-rating alone does not tell the whole story. So a 1 hour wall can mean a 1hr, 45min. or 20min. door depending on whether the wall is a Fire Barrier, a Shaft Enclosure/Exit Passageway, and Exterior wall or a Smoke Barrier. Clearly this tool does not address any of these issues;
• Room Surface Parameter Extractor: I had really high hopes for this tool and was very excited. Unfortunately
  I'm a bit disappointed after testing:
• Painted materials are not recognized. This is a big issue because creating unique wall types just to designate different colors is just not the way to go. This tool should be able to read the materials on the surfaces around the room and not just the ones in the definition of the element;
• Only the material name is reported; why not give the user the ability to report certain material parameters instead, such as Type Mark? I also tried doing a thin finish floor above the floor slab and it worked if there was only one floor (finish) in the room. However if you had 2 floor finishes, there's no way to list only the finish materials of just those floors. The option "Comma Delimited List" in "Surface To Use" ends up reporting all the floor layers, which is not what we would expect of a “surface extractor”. I also found it to be a bit slow when running, even if I selected just one room.

Anyway, if you want to see these tools for yourself, you can participate in a free webinar coming up this Wednesday 10th August.

While we’re talking of tools, make sure to visit the ADN Plugin of the Month page at the Autodesk Labs site, where various tools are made available for free in exchange for user feedback. For example there is a Door and Room renumber tool that I find very easy to use, and recently they released another handy one called eTransmit. Finally, Jochen of b.i.m.m released the updated tools for the Revit 2012 version, so be sure to check those out too. So many tools, so little time to keep up with them all!

More API goodies

Family Browser

Finally, a Revit add-on truly worth buying! Not only is the price unbeatable, but the improved user experience is something that puts Autodesk to shame (because similar functionality should have been standard in Revit for a loooong time).

I’ve toyed around with the previous version in the past and was on the fence about how it worked, but the new version is ready for prime-time. Their latest patch even includes a screen-capture utility called “Icon Maker” that enables you to customize the thumbnails in case the automatically generated ones are not adequate. Aaron Maller has written an extensive blog post about v2, and just a few days ago, he highlighted some of the new features in version 3.7.

Below are a couple of instructional videos on how to use it and about setting things up.

 

 

These are some of the features I absolutely love about this app:

• Instant Family search with each letter typed in the search box;
• Type Catalog functionality (Create/Edit/Recreate Catalogue);
• Add families by drag & drop from Windows Explorer;
• Add families from within the project environment;
• Create a tab with wall families (more functionality to be added in upcoming releases);

Now, it is highly unlikely for me to not have my own list of wants for a future release, so here they are:

• When adding single families to a palette through drag & drop from Windows Explorer, a link should be established to that family instead of creating a copy of the file. This is a biggie for me and I’m sure it is too for other BIM Managers out there. Linking would open up tremendous possibilities, such as creating custom palettes for each project team or project type and still retain content library centralization;
• When closing the Family Browser and re-opening, it should refresh the list in case something was added/deleted in the referenced family library;
• I’d rather not have to enable borders every time I need to resize the palette (I believe this is an API limitation);
• When using the Locate tools in the BIM Management fly-out, Windows Explorer should open directly to that folder instead of launching a message box. Alternatively, copy the path to the clipboard to make it easy to find said location;

You must be itching to get your hands on it by now, so click here to try it out for free for 7 days and click here for pricing. Your productivity and user experience is about to receive a promotion.

Family Browser