For more information, click the link below…

Aug 26 - Autodesk Acquires BOSS Int’l Water Analysis Apps

This is a very interesting development, as Boss Int’l produce some very good products for water analysis. Exactly how this will make it’s way into the Autodesk product range is not clear at the moment, but the potential is that we may eventually be able to carry out drainage and flood analysis directly in Civil 3D. Purely speculation on my part, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a two-tier Civil 3D product range – with a basic Civil package and then a high end package with all of the analysis functionality. A similar product line already exists in the States, with AutoCAD Civil and then AutoCAD Civil 3D as we know it in the UK. One of the Boss apps is a water distribution package. I would imagine this might well make it’s way into Topobase, or possibly even Map 3D. Take a look at the Boss web site for more info.

Using Civil 3D, you can create strata surfaces from your borehole elevations – but if you simply take the elevations of your borehole data and create a surface from it, you probably won’t like the results…

In the example above, the profile shows the strata surface touches the ground surface – but that’s because there are not enough strata levels to accurately portray the relationship to the ground.

Instead of using the borehole elevations directly, you can use the depths of the strata and build a surface from that. Use Excel or notepad and create a .csv file that contains the Easting, Northing and depth of the surface, and import it into a point group. I used Overrides in the point group properties to set the Point Level to the user defined field “Depth”.

Build a surface from this data, and you will have something that looks like this:-

The heights on the Strata surface are not heights at all, of course, but the values represent the depth of the surface below ground. But now we can create a Volume Surface from the two surfaces, which will create a new surface showing the depth of the strata below the existing ground.

The resulting surfaces now look like this in profile…

Notice how the strata surface follows the ground line using the interpolated depths.

The strata surface is a Volume Surface, and so cannot be used as a target for grading operations in it’s present form.

However, you can export the surface as a LandXML file, and then re-import it as a normal TIN surface…

..just make sure you uncheck the section that refers to SurfVolumes in the Import LandXML dialog box.

Inventor 2010 has the biggest set of new and improved features in the products history. I always get fairly excited near to the new product release and try and guess what features I would include within the new releases. There were so many in this release that it has taken a few weeks to fully evaluate and test each new tool. Recently I have been investigating the Finite Element Analysis module which is included within the Inventor for Simulation product.

Previous releases relied on the ANSYS technology for single part FEA. Inventor 2010 is now using some of the Plassotech technology, a company acquired by Autodesk in 2007 to support the vision of a digital prototype. One area that I have always found interesting is the ability to create a part or assembly model and allow Inventor to iterate through a set of parametric studies and generate a group of results that optimises certain design parameters. A model created within Inventor is always based on parameters, either automatic parameters such as dimensions or user defined parameters.

As an example, I have created a simple Gallows bracket. I have a loading of 1 tonne over the top surface of the bracket. I want to find the optimal position of the brace. I have added my set of dimensional values of the brace for the parameters d8 and d9 and added a set of material thicknesses for d0.

Using the slider bars I can now iterate through the various results to find the most appropriate solution for my bracket. Below the optimal solution has been found using an 8mm material thickness and 180mm dimension with a safety factor of 1.4.

I have found this a great way to quickly optimise designs and gain an understanding of the structural performance of my components.

For more information and training visit

http://www.excitech.co.uk/training/training_course.asp?C_id=223&prod=Autodesk_Inventor_2010__Transitioning_from_2009

Lawrence

As many of you may be aware I am now dipping my toes into the Revit MEP product. I have primarily been concentrating on the way that the family files differ from Revit Structure and Revit Architecture. I have had many sleepless nights thinking about Lookup tables and the various formulae required with Revit MEP families but have managed to gain a good understanding of the main concepts. As with all Revit families, the level of detail modelled in 3D has always been a fairly hot topic. Model too much and larger models will grind to a halt, too little and you will need plenty of 2D detail families and embellishments.

Revit MEP requires even more diligence as pipe fittings such as Elbows, Couplings and Tees will be used hundreds of times within a project. However, you may still want to distinguish between a Yorkshire fitting and a generic fitting.

On another note, to extract correct pipe lengths I have had to make sure that the engagement is at a maximum level from fitting to fitting.

I would be interested for any feedback that you have on this subject.

Ponder and Enjoy,

Lawrence

I recently installed this new link (along with the ADB software) and started to have a look at its functionality. There are a growing number of Revit Add-Ins now available and I felt this one worthy of mention.

First, the set-up and initial configuration is a breeze, requiring the Revit project to be ‘connected’ to the requisite ADB project and the creation of 2 project parameters, which ADB uses to coordinate the Revit room with the ADB room designation.

Having created and placed some standard Revit rooms the (ADB) parameters must be set. This is achieved by calling up the specific tool from the ADB Tab in the Add-Ins ribbon:

Select a room from the list, click on the button at the bottom of the dialogue box and select the room.

Repeat this, selecting another room as required.

As you can see from the image below, the tags are updated with the ADB room designation.

I did find however, that the Revit room tags don’t update until the dialogue box is finally closed. I contacted Peter Bishop (Integra) about this and he explained that this was due to a limitation in the Revit API. However, he did assure me that this is something he intends to look into for future releases. Thank you to Peter for his prompt attention.

Rooms are loaded automatically from the ADB specification, using Revit Families. Usefully, these are supplied as 3D elements so a cut-away section can be shown in addition to the standard C sheets and room data sheets.

Room schedules are handled by multi-category schedules, filtered by the “Room:Name” parameter. Any changes made to the model can be saved back to the ADB project, so maintaining the coordination.

Additionally, a generic model tag is provided, which alongside the shared parameters file (also included) allows for tagging the individual ADB elements

The families provided can be modified and new families created (within guidelines) for reuse within future projects undertaken.

All in all this is a useful addition to Revit for those of you working in the healthcare sector.

I thought I would share this from Structural Integrators regarding their new offerings:

Structural Integrators is pleased to announce the release of SI Tools for Revit Structure 2010.  The new version is not only compatible with Revit Structure 2010, but includes several new features based on your feedback:

Beam Systems: When selecting All Beams on a level or for the entire model, the options dialog now lets you specify whether to include all beams, to exclude beams in beam systems, or to only select beams in beam systems.
Level Selection from 3D View: You can now select members at a level without switching to a level view.
Columns and Walls at a Level: You can now select columns and walls at a level based on whether the member’s top or base occurs at the level, or both. This can be useful for selecting columns or walls both above and below a level.
Multi-level select: When selecting members in the entire model, you can now limit the selection to members on any subset of levels.
Installation: The installation now works for Windows Vista without having to disable User Account Control.

For more information, visit us online at: http://structuralintegrators.com/products/si_tools_r.php

The new version is available free, however whole model selection is limited to the Pro version after an initial 30-day trial.  The Pro version is available for purchase from our online store.  Level selection remains free beyond the 30-day trial.

Now through the end of the year, receive a free copy of SI Tools Pro with the purchase of SI Xchange for Revit and STAAD.

As always, we welcome your feedback. 

Best Regards,

Elizabeth Shulok

President

Structural Integrators, LLC

www.structuralintegrators.com

Now you can follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/StructuralInt

The response to my rant about resisting unsupported changes to the 2010 UI has descended into name-calling. Yes, I’m as thick-skinned as anyone, but I draw the line at being labelled as a ‘borderline neurotic’ or a ‘conspiracy theorist’. Just because I’m paranoid, it doesn’t mean that everyone isn’t out to get me!

Any ‘real-world’ Revit user will tell you that there are certain features of the software that are guaranteed to evoke exasperation and a torrent of non-ASCII abuse (%&*£*, etc). ‘Surely, I tell my colleagues in Excitech Support, ‘it’s within the realm of possibility that these features were planted by a non-Autodesk espionage team.’ The reaction to my slightly unorthodox views? Contempt and scorn.

One such frustration is Revit lighting. Last year, it all began with the happy announcement of the inclusion of Mental Ray rendering and the ability to use manufacturer-based IES web distribution files for Revit Architecture 2009. The Revit consultants were all a little smug about the ease of achieving high-quality output that could rival our 3DS Max counterparts like Paul Grimston (although he’d never admit it) without knowing what every button does.

Anyway, I was more than happy to field a call from a Revit customer who was trying to achieve an accurate linear fluorescent uplighting effect. In the test file, instead of an even spread of light, there were hotspots everywhere.

As you’d imagine, it took less than 5 minutes and 400 mouse-clicks to wipe the smug ‘know-it-all’ grin off my face. This was a real problem.

My early efforts were futile. From downloading a manufacturer’s ‘strip light’ IES file to the desperate variation of random parameters within the lighting family: nothing worked.

Finally, I started to apply a more methodical approach and began to review the Type and Instance Parameters for the family.

In the Type Properties of the family, I saw the following parameters. Most were self-explanatory, but it was worth researching the Help system.

From the Help system, I ‘discovered’ that Emit from Light Length means the length of the line that represents the light source in a rendered image. So, this does affect the rendering and needs to be set to the length of the tube.

Light Source Symbol Size is apparently the radius of the representative symbol. According to the Help system, This parameter does not affect the light in a rendered image.

Changing these settings improved the output, but it was far from perfect.

Finally, I applied common sense. That elusive attribute told me that this was a linear light source and, in the absence of reflectors, there was a uniform spherical distribution around the fixture.

So I changed the Light Source Definition in the Family from Linear + Hemispherical to Linear + Spherical:

The result:

As you can see, this was a vast improvement on the original and a few hours after the initial enquiry (okay, maybe a bit more), the customer issue was resolved.

The moral to the story:

1. Read the user manual.

2. Consultants, much like the tools they use, are blessed with vast amounts of logic. The paradox is that common sense is often a last resort accompanied by the exclamation: ‘Surely it can’t be that obvious!’

Autodesk have now released Update 1 for Civil 3D 2010. There were some frustrating bugs in the release version of 2010, and amongst my favourites fixes are:

• Losing sample lines from a referenced alignment if you RECOVERed the drawing
• Disappearing or shifting cross-section band labels if you changed the band sets.
• Intersection objects not working as expected on files with large co-ordinate values (over 7 digits)
• Viewing multiple points in the Object Viewer no causes a fatal error
• Profile chainage band labels not displaying properly on a 2009 drawing opened in 2010
• Surfaces created from contours have strange(!) heights

There are a lot of issues addressed in this update, so don’t forget to view the read-me file first. There was perhaps one notable topic missing from the list of fixes though. In my opinion, Civil 3D 2010 has got some really good new features – but it seems the price we’ve had to pay is we now have a Civil 3D with a voracious appetite for memory. I’ve spent many a happy hour watching the Mem Usage counter click over in Windows Task Manager, with Civil 3D gobbling every last bit up as quickly as it can. I’m sure there must be some memory leaks somewhere for it to be consuming so much, but there is not mention of any memory issues being fixed in this update. Perhaps we’ll get some answers next time…

The update can be downloaded here.