We had our Autodesk Subscription Webinar last week. For those of you who have Autodesk Subscription, your can listen to this Webinar now and find out more about the two online resources you can access when you have an Autodesk Subscription with Excitech.

Please note that even if you don’t have an Autodesk Subscription with Excitech, you will get some valuable information on how to access the Autodesk Subscription Center and where to go to submit a support request, follow e-Learning tutorials, download product upgrades and extensions, add new users to the site, or edit your profile.

Don’t forget to leave your comments! I am eager to find out what you’d like to see featured in the next webinar dedicated to Autodesk Subscription.

Many architects and designers are making use of Rhinoceros (Rhino) for 3D conceptual modelling. One of Rhino’s biggest strengths is in its ability to easily model and define complex surfaces and forms for conceptual purposes. This is great for producing models for visualisation and form finding but very challenging to turn the NURBS surfaces into realistic shapes that are ready for detailing and fabrication.

One possibility is to take the Rhino model into Autodesk Inventor to allow an engineering model to be developed. Autodesk Labs have been hard at work creating a Plug-In for Inventor that allows for a Rhino model to be directly imported into Inventor. Here is a surface model that has been created in Rhino V4.

When importing a Rhino model, Inventor has several options that you can specify. You can import solids, surfaces, Wires or points. For the above model I have just imported the surfaces. Once this has been imported into Inventor the model will either be a solid body or a composite surface. The Autodesk Inventor construction tools can then be used to stitch the surfaces into solids and then rationalise the design.

In the model shown below I have simply stitched the surfaces to form a solid body.

For those of you with Inventor, you can download and test the Plug-In free from Autodesk Labs.

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/rhino_import/

For those of you that have not yet investigated the innovative applications available on Autodesk Labs, here is the link:

http://labs.autodesk.com/

There are some great additions for Revit, Inventor and many more Autodesk Applications. I am planning to blog the RDB link (Revit Database) tool that allows Revit users to have a two way conversation with a database and the new tools to import Rhino files to Inventor. Keep a close eye on these developments, some great stuff going on here!

One of the frustrating things I have come up against while using Revit Structure 2010 is the lack of certain commands on the ribbon. The Revit Structure 2009 interface had common editing and detailing tools across the top of the interface and the design bar on the left hand side. This meant that tools such as Align, match type and the dimension tools were available and visible whenever and wherever we needed them. With the 2010 interface these tools are restricted to preset ribbons, how annoying! One solution is to use the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) to add these missing tools.

Here is my QAT. You can see that I have added the aligned dimension tool, Align command and set work plane command. You can add these tools by right clicking over the command and then choosing Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

Looks like we are getting back to good old fashioned toolbars again. I can see my QAT getting fairly long! How are you getting along with Revit 2010 interface? I would be interested to have your comments, good or bad.

As Autodesk product upgrades are finally reaching the last subscription customers in UK, I have received a fair number of calls over the last few weeks from clients who had not received their upgrades because the shipping address on record was incorrect. For those of you who have tried, in vain, to get in touch with Autodesk in order to update your details, there is good news. You can log in to the Autodesk Subscription Centre and update your contact details yourself.

- Log in at www.autodesk.com/subscriptionlogin

- Click on ‘My Profile’ at the top right hand corner of your screen.

- Click on ‘Edit Location’ in ‘Shipping Location’.

- When you have made the necessary changes, click on ‘Submit’.

- Finally, you will need to click on ‘Update Profile’ for the changes to be saved.

This will be my first blog here (in fact, my first blog anywhere!), so here goes;

Last week I attended a series of online training sessions for Autodesk® Ecotect™ Analysis 2010. Customers taking out subscription will also receive access to Autodesk’s web service for whole-building energy, water and carbon analysis, Green Building Studio. In this, my first ever blog I’ll stick to a brief overview of a few of the available analysis tools offered. In future posts, as my experience and understanding of the product grows I’ll discuss some of the individual tools in more detail.

Building Envelope Calculation

I don’t pretend to have set this up, it comes from a demonstration dataset but it shows how Ecotect™ can calculate a maximum building envelope based upon proposed location and rights-to-light data entered for the surrounding buildings (each window to be exact).

This doesn’t purport to be “The solution”, but rather “a solution” upon which the design team can build.

Dynamic Daylight Analysis

Here, calculations are made based upon a percentage of glass in each facade, then linked to a slider control to allow direct interaction. The images below show a sample, ranging from 0% to 100% glazing in each facade.

Shading Design

Here we see some detailed external louvers and a light shelf being subjected to solar rays during Summer solstice and Winter solstice.

Running this sort analysis allows the design to fine-tuned to provide the enough shading from the sun whilst still providing natural light to the room.

Whilst this may not be as important in the UK as in, say some sunnier climates it is nonetheless useful information to be able to gather during the course of modelling our designs.

At the time of writing this I’m sitting in my home office with the view of a beautiful blue sky, and on the strength of that alone I felt it worthy of a mention.

Acoustic Analysis Options

In the first example acoustic rays are being displayed in the model. We can see graphically how the sound propagates through the room. Changing the sound source and any internal surfaces will update the model in real-time , as will changes to the materials on those surfaces.

This next example shows a model of a stadium with the acoustic particles of a specified sound source as they travel through the stadium. This can also be animated and each colour represents the relative acoustic effect as they bounce between surfaces and lose energy.

What struck me about this offering was it’s ability to provide upfront analysis of a designs overall performance before becoming too bogged down in the detail to be able to make changes that could have a significant impact. The story doesn’t end there, as the program’s ability to display solar and acoustic rays allows the design team to gauge the performance of a more detailed model, or indeed a specific part of it.

The mechanics of transferring the model from, say Revit Architecture and MEP will be the subject of further posts, but essentially the process takes the form of an export in either dxf of gbXML format and import of the resulting file into Ecotect™. The choice of format will depend upon the type of analysis required. More on this in a future post.

So as I was saying, during a presentation of Map 3D 2010 at our Map User Group, I was showing the new survey functionality in Map 3D. As this was a User Group event, I was showing the survey tool and at the same time comparing it with what was available in Civil 3D. This prompted someone in the audience to comment “Well, we might as well just use Civil 3D then.” And they were probably right – if they had a copy of Civil 3D. The survey functionality of Civil 3D is intended to be comprehensive and suitable for processing full Topographical survey data from a whole range of surveying instruments. If that’s what you need to do then do it in Civil 3D. However, the survey tool in Map 3D is there for a different reason. It is aimed at organisations who need to import survey point data – usually assets that have been positioned by GPS devices – and bring that information into their GIS system.

There is now a new Survey tab to the Task Pane, and from here you can set up a survey Database – if you survey with Civil 3D, then this sounds familiar. However, this is nothing like the Civil 3D survey database. The Map survey database is actually an SDF file.

Once you have created your database then you can create a project within the database – beware, when I do this (running on Windows Vista) Map 3D crashes – although when I go back to the survey database it has created the project.

You can then import points – either from a Land XML file or an ASCII file – into your project. The options for importing from an ASCII file are similar to Civil 3D – but there is not an option to create your own file format here.

Importing the points creates the points in the SDF file, and Map 3D will display them using a layer in Display Manager. you can then use Display Manager to style or theme the points. From the Survey tab, you can display a table of the points, which will also give you the options of adding more data to the points by joining them with other data sources.

You can also group points together – but don’t expect this to be easy like it is in Civil 3D – you have to copy them from one group to another using the table. To edit the points, you can use the Edit button on the toolbar and then select the point group you want to edit, followed by the Table button. This will load the table for that group with the objects checked out for editing. You won’t be able to edit the co-ordinates in here, but you can change all the other attributes.

Incidentally, the Projects and Point Groups are just additional Feature Classes within the Survey schema of the SDF file.

As the survey database is an SDF file, you can of course copy the data into any other connected data store  - in other words, move the information into your GIS system.

So, the conclusion on the Survey tool in Map 3D? Well, we now have a way of moving survey point data directly into a GIS system using Map 3D as an editing tool. It works, and performs a valuable function, but compared to Civil 3D the interface is a bit clumsy and there needs to be an easier way of editing and grouping the points. But yes, it’s going in the right direction.

The other comment that was made to me after the event was along the lines of  “Well, we saw the analysis tools in Map 3D but we really wanted to see more of what Map 3D can do for us in getting data into our GIS system. We can already analyse data better using our GIS.”

Well, a fair comment, and something I shall have to take on board next time we showcase Map 3D. But the new analysis tools for connected data in Map 3D are really useful, and I know a number of our clients who will want to analyse their data in Map 3D, simply because they don’t have a full GIS system or because they want to use the tool to format the data before putting it into GIS, I really like these tools, and again I think they are a really good addition to Map 3D. More on this in another post.

Many of you are using Civil 3D in partnership with Microdrainage WinDes. An excellent tool has been available for some time that enables a two way transfer of pipe data between the two applications, but getting it to work satisfactory is not always plain sailing, so here are some tips to that address some of the common pitfalls.

Renaming Pipes

To get your pipe network to export, you will need to rename the pipes to conform to the WinDes convention. This require the pipes to be named by run number, and incremental number within the run.Typically, the main pipe run will be 1, with the pipe numbered from .000 upwards – giving us pipes such as 1.000, 1.001, 1.002 etc.

Each run will have to be numbered separately, and there is a tool to help you do this – but it must be done methodically. I have received a number of calls for help when the export to Windes fails – often one or more pipe runs will fail to export.

The reason? You can’t have a lower number pipe run flowing into a higher numbered run – in this example, run 2 is flowing into run 3. Seems obvious really, but in a large network with multiple branches it is easy to get the order wrong.

Unconnected Parts

Another common fault is failing to connect branch pipes to the structures properly. When you connect a pipe to a structure, the structure itself records that the pipe has been connected to it. When you are editing networks you may accidentally disconnect a pipe from a structure, and not realise. There is no way to check the integrity of the network automatically, so the easiest way to do a visual check on the network is to create a structure label that displays the number of connections.

Now it is easy to spot that MH7 should have 3 connections, but the label shows that only 2 pipes are actually connected.

Parts List and Catalogue

Finally, both the import and export functions can fall down when the parts list used doesn’t match the Pipe Catalogue.(Yes, that’s how we spell it over here!) In Civil 3D, the pipe and structure types are pulled out of the parts list – but the parts list itself does not store all of the information about the parts used – it has to refer back to the catalogue. I have had a number of instances where a drawing or template has been shared within a design team, and the parts list has been defined for the team to use. Unfortunately, each user had his own local version of the parts catalogue, and not all the components in the parts list were in the local catalogue. It’s easy to remedy – when you set up your project, make sure you set up a network version of the catalogue for everyone to reference – and make sure that your users know to check they are referencing the correct catalogue before they start designing their networks.

I’m sure if you are using WinDes you have your own checks you carry out to make sure everything will work  - share your own tips by commenting on this post. If you don’t have the WinDes tool, it is part of the UK Country Kit, which can be downloaded from the Autodesk web site here, or if you have Civil 3D 2010 it will be installed with the UK content.

Revit Structure subscription customer? Yes? then you can benefit from Revit Extensions, an additional productivity toolset to enhance the features of Revit Structure.

Robot Structural Analysis subscription customer? Yes? then you get to benefit from even more Revit Extension tools as well as Robot Extensions, a productivity toolset to enhance the model generation and post processing capabilities of Robot based in MS Excel.

So here’s the deal.

With the 2010 release of Structural software, Autodesk have linked some of the Revit Extensions to the subscriprion of Robot Structural Analysis, or to give it its manageable, shortened title, RSA.  This is a great benefit to both Revit Structure and RSA users, which offers functionality that none of the 3rd party analysis partners can offer.

It is clear to see that, although Autodesk are keeping an agnostic approach with the analysis partners for Revit Structure, they are starting to offer more benefit for their own solution than for others, delivering a compelling argument for customers to start using both Revit Structure and RSA.

The additional extensions available to RSA customers are highlighted in the screen grab below, but are essentially the Analysis Integrator for RSA, Composite Design, Load Takedown and Reinforcement Design.

We will look at all of these in some additional posts, including Robot Extensions, but will start off with the one that takes my interest most of all and that’s Load Take Down.  For those die hard Robot fans of the past you will know a product that we developed at Robobat called CBS Pro, well this is CBS Pro within Revit Structure.  So now you can analyse your structure in Revit with a view to producing foundations loads sooner in the design process.

More on that to come shortly..

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Here at Excitech we are approaching the engineering solution from Autodesk in a different way to other resellers in the market. We have set up a dedicated business unit of experienced personnel to look after Robot Structural analysis and Revit Structure and badged it up Excitech Structural Solutions, or E.S.S. This is just the starting point for this business unit, in the future we will be expanding our product offering and levels of support. We are well positioned today to offer support and training for all products including Robot, Revit and Autocad Structural Detailing and we look forward to steering you through this solution and helping you get the best out of your investment.

I will keep you posted on the activities of E.S.S. over the coming months, should you have anything you would like to discuss then please let me know, send any correspondence through to nigel.rees@excitech.co.uk.