Well it’s looking very wintery here in the South East and the Christmas break is nearly upon us. I awoke to the following scene outside my window so thought I’d share it with you and also take the opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope for a prosperous 2010 all round.

See you all next year!

Paul

Autodesk have recently released a UK Content Extension for Revit MEP that contains a range of new families to help mechanical and electrical engineers, drafters, and contractors create mechanical and electrical layouts for projects in the United Kingdom. Contents include mechanical and electrical devices based on UK industry standard symbology; pipe fittings based on common British and European standards; and additional duct fittings based on DW144 and revised UK templates. This extension provides both UK users and those adhering to UK standards with new content based on these industry standards.

The 3 new UK template files supersede the previous ones and contain a more logical set of default system and component families.  We would recommend that you review your current templates in relation to the contents of these new files and update them where necessary and utilise these templates as the basis for any new RMEP templates, following the usual recommendations on configuring them for each version.

For example, the default Duct system family types includes flanged rectangular ductwork and a type variants that uses a ‘Shoe Branch’ fitting:

Duct Layout with Flanges and DW144-Compliant Fittings

There is also an extended range of pipe fittings and accessories that can be used to define more accurate pipe system families:

BS EN 10241 Pipework with Additional Valve Content

A lot of the 2D symbology has also been refined in order to adhere more closely with recognised UK standards, such as the updates to the standard Diffuser families:

Old Grille Family Symbols

Revised Grille Family Symbols

Ok, so it wouldn’t be a major effort to adapt the existing families but it is certainly nice to have the correct symbols by default for a change.

The same also applies to the largely US-centric graphics that we have had by default in the electrical content until now, which now display the more familiar UK equivalents:

Old Twin Socket (US Duplex) Family

New UK Twin Socket Family

Similarly, all of the default Electrical Switch family symbols now conform to recognised UK standards:

Old Lighting Switch Symbols

New UK Compliant Lighting Switch Symbols

There is a whole host of external content that can be added to your existing library and loaded in as required.  I have included a list of the new content folders below for reference:

This extension is undoubtedly an essential download for anyone seriously looking to implement Revit MEP within their organisation in the UK or to deploy the technology on a project that is likely to have any of the delivery requirements that would be met by these enhancements.

Autodesk have recently released a localised content extension for the UK market, which is available to download via the subscription centre.

This contains two additional catalogues for both MvParts and Piping.

The MvParts catalogue only contains a Cast Iron Manifold connector to support the new sloped piping functionality for drainage in the current version:

However, the extended Pipework catalogue contains a variety of useful additional fittings for each of the main material types:

Once the installation has been run, the only remaining step is to add these new catalogues to the relevant entry in the ‘MEP Catalogs’ tab within the ‘Options’:

Once you have configured AutoCAD MEP to use the new catalogues you will be able to create new Routing Preferences that uses the new parts or insert them manually using the Pipe Fitting / MvPart Add command. The parts from the extension catalogues will be available from separate sections in list views or separate branches in tree views in the user interface.

You can also use Catalog Editor to copy the parts from the Subscription 2010 catalogues to your preferred Pipe catalogue.

Here is a list of catalogues and part types added via this content extension for reference:

Subscription 2010 MvParts (UK)

• Cast Iron Manifold Connector

Subscription 2010 Pipework (UK)

• Cast Iron Fittings
  • Couplings
  • Traps
• Copper Fittings
  • Couplings
  • Elbows
  • End Caps
• Ductile Iron Fittings
  • Couplings
• HDPE Fittings
  • Connectors
  • Reducers
• Steel Tube and Fittings
  • Couplings
  • Crosses
  • Reducers
  • Tees
  • Tubes
  • Wyes and Laterals

I am very pleased to announce the launch of our Excitech Revit Toolkit, a series of modular applications and extensions for the Revit 2010 Platform. The first extension addresses the scheduling of coordinates, with particular focus on creating piling schedules and is FREE to all. This has been a major problem to anyone who needs to create a piling schedule, in the past having to rely on AutoCAD which takes the information out of the Revit environment and essentially creates an unconnected 2D drawing and schedule.

However, you may also use our coordinate scheduling tool for any other Revit element that has a common insertion point. In the example below I have created a DATUM family and attached this family to a structural slab and scheduled the coordinates.

You will find the download and associated documentation at:

http://www.excitech.co.uk/products/revit_toolkit/excitech_revit_toolkit.asp

and a video showing our Toolkit at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XqtYsQgXy4

Enjoy,

Lawrence

If you have installed Google SketchUp 7.1 and found some BUGSPLATS then I would say “you’re not alone!” With new features and added functionality often comes a minefield of errors waiting to surprise you as you make new breakthroughs in your daily designs.

Today there is new Hope! and it’s called “Maintenance 1″

Of course you should be aware that this has been made public a while ago so do not wait, get it installed immediately to relieve yourself from those annoying “bugs” The Maintenance 1 only fixes bugs and does not add any new features.

You can download the latest update when you follow this link: http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=43176

You can read the release notes that will tell you a whole lot more about the bugs that has been fixed as well as the known errors that still exist by following this link: http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=141303

Now that the Revit Structure Subs pack has been released and hopefully downloaded, I wanted to share a few great new features with you. I have spend a few hours looking at the new features and decided to break these into ‘bite sized’ chunks!

The best feature for me is the 3D framing tools. You can now import a 3D wireframe model and pick the lines and create 3D structures. This has been very high on the wish list. I have found this a really handy tool for complex areas and have tried this on the two projects below.

Here is the wire frame model in AutoCAD. I simply imported this into Revit Structure and then picked the 3D lines to create beams and columns.

I am currently looking at the new bridge modelling tools and the interaction with Civil3D and will post my findings shortly!

Lawrenceh