Over the next few weeks I will be sharing some exciting information and processes to exchange data from Revit Structure and Revit Architecture to Inventor for the purpose of Digital Fabrication. Autodesk Labs have released a new tool for Inventor called iCopy which allows a skeletal model to be patterned across a set of parametric and adaptive rails which will allow a basic design to ‘adapt’ to irregular geometry. In the example below, I have imported a model from Revit Structure to Inventor and applied a curtain panel to the concrete frame with full manufacturing details for each curtain panel.

Watch this space for updates!

Metal Wood Framer (MWF) is a Stud wall generator that can be added on to Revit Structure 2010 or Revit Architecture 2010 from StrucSoft solutions (see link at the end of this blog). It offers many powerful macros and editing tools to provide a stud layout model, construction drawings and CNC output for manufacture.

The first step is to create your walls and window and door openings. You do this by using any standard Revit wall, window and door style as show above. On the Add Ins panel you will find the MWF ribbon as shown below. To get a quick Stud Wall click the Create button and then select a wall in Revit.

For fast and efficient production you can create wall template files which allow you to set stud configurations based on wall styles and then use the Quick create tool which automatically applies the preconfigured styles to the walls.

Above you can see the MWF stud wall settings dialog box. You can select the basic construction configurations here. Once you have selected the create button then you will be able to set the structural members that will make up the Stud wall construction. You can set general tolerances for the timber and steel members and add in extra structural members as required. Once this is done you are then ready to create a drawing. The only setback with the drawings are that they are created as drafting views and are not associated to the model so you would need to recreate these if the stud wall changes.

The drawing and cutting lists below has been generated automatically with all the relevant tags and dimensions attached. Not bad for a few minutes work.

Obviously there is much more to the product than I have shown here but hopefully it has got you interested enough to download a trial copy.

For more information and a 30 day trial check out the link below;

http://www.strucsoftsolutions.com/mwf.asp

Have Fun,

Regards,

Lawrence

Customers have reported a problem installing Revit Architecture 2010 via the deployment method. Excitech’s technical support have now studied the problem and developed a work-around pending an Autodesk fix. Excitech subscription customers can see it here http://www.excitech.co.uk/subscription/revit_architecture_2010_deployment.asp

Non-customers are recommended to email info@excitech.co.uk for advice.

Following on from my previous post, I decided to get a bit more adventurous with conceptual form and create a family based on David Fano’s hex glass panelling.

As you can see, this appeared to work well on my conceptual roof form and allowed me to create a series of different options:

The next thing I thought to my self was, “wouldn’t this look good if I rendered it”; but this can only be done at the moment within the context of a project file so there was only one place to go.

Having loaded the family into a project file, as I’d done several times in the past, I was a bit shocked to see the mess that it made of my panels:

This one had me scratching my head for a while, and investigating my interpretation of the curtain panel family, until I asked the Autodesk expert on these matters, Zach Kron, who kindly blogged the following answer:

http://buildz.blogspot.com/2009/05/flip-flop-fly-apart-panels-workaround.html

Apparently this is just a bug, which I can forgive them for now amongst all of this new stuff; and it relates to the following surface parameters in that if both are not set to the same value, the aforementioned problem will occur and the panels will fly out of position:

It is sometimes necessary to use these parameters to get the panels positioned correctly within the divided surface, so you may just have to work the grid settings a little harder in order to ensure that both of these settings can remain the same.

Upon setting both of these to be ‘ON’, and reloading the form family, the panels fell right back into position and rendered up quite nicely:

It also gave me the perfect excuse to try out some soft shadow rendering:

Hopefully this will be corrected in the not-too-distant future but hopefully this will be enough for you to avoid the issue until then!

So far I’ve been really impressed with the new conceptual form modelling tools in Revit Architecture/Structure 2010 and managed to find some time to get my head around the various components of this new design process while preparing for our recent Revit User Group.

The new modelling tools are currently available exclusively in the conceptual mass editing environment, which can either be accessed by using the new ‘Conceptual Mass’ family template file or by defining an in-place mass within a standard project.

For the same reasons that I would recommend defining separate family files, rather than create an in-place family, for certain regular family types; I would also lean towards this approach when using the new conceptual design environment to develop and evaluate a proposed design.

As an example, the following image shows a conceptual family file containing some familiar family elements , such as reference planes, reference lines and various dimension parameters.  However, what we also have now are ‘Reference Points’, ‘3D Levels’ and ‘3D Reference Planes’ that allow us to make much more flexible and freeform models.

As a significant added improvement, we can also now adjust any custom parameters by directly manipulating the geometry that relates to each parameter; whereas previously this had to be dialogue-driven.  In the image below, the reference point that defines the top of the end arches is driven by a common angle and distance parameter that can be manipulated by dragging the point on screen.

The parameters are still available in the ‘Family Types’ dialogue, which is still useful for controlled manipulation and particularly for defining multiple ‘Types’ so that various form iterations can be assessed within the project environment.

This skeleton can then be ‘skinned’ easily by using the new ‘Create Form’ tool, with either a surface or solid created, depending on the lines selected.

This form remains fully parametric and can be adjusted using the same parameters previously mentioned.

So we can create much more complex forms than before with the added benefit of parametrically controlled dimensions but that’s not all; we can also divide any surface into any of a series of geometric shapes.

In this example, the top surface has been divided into a notional rectangular panel roof surface for the specified form.

As well as the visual representation, the idea with these surfaces is that they are produced as something that can actually be built in the real world.  For example, at any time the divided surface can be selected and an accurate surface area will be reported.

The configuration of the chosen geometric grid can be altered to suit the desired layout, and there are a number of parameters and on-screen editing tools for manipulation.

The next step is to define and load a new type of family called, ‘Curtain Panel Pattern Based’ for which there is a specific family template file.  In the panel family file, you can add parameters as you would with any other family type to control the likes of dimensions and materials.

These can then be assigned to the divided surface to create a range of interesting and varied effects.

In the form family you can access the parameters of the panel family and make changes to see their effect on the divided surface configuration.

Once the desired panel family has been applied any changes to the form family type parameters will reconfigure the whole surface and the individual panels.  This may take some time depending on the complexity of the geometry and how fast your workstation is; it certainly makes a 64-bit machine a much more compelling proposition!

Once you’re happy with the form and any types that you wish to specify, you can load the conceptual family into a standard Revit project environment.

These can then be placed in the desired location and any defined ‘Types’ will be available in the new ‘Type’ selector on the Ribbon.

In addition to being able to utilise these forms to generate otherwise potentially difficult production information, it can also be used to derive quantitative information using the option to schedule curtain panels.

It also goes without saying that the rendering tools in the project environment are a great help in evaluating each design iteration.

There are obviously a number of additional steps required at each stage, depending on your requirements, but hopefully this gives a useful insight into the basic workflow and who knows, it may even inspire you to give these tools a try!

On the 29th of April we held our first dedicated Revit Architecture User Group of 2009 and as expected, this event was very well attended by a mixture of familiar faces from previous events and a significant number of new members.

The overall event seemed to be very well received and each session prompted a range of discussions on each topic presented. The audience contributed well in the discussions and there were many questions asked, and answered throughout the day.

The first presentation, by Dave Shepherd of Excitech, was an update and summary of the improvements to the 2010 version of Revit Architecture and this solicited a generally positive response. The anticipated resistance to the introduction of the Ribbon Interface did not materialise and there was more positivity towards this move by Autodesk than most had expected.

Alex Dewar, Excitech’s Head of IT Solutions, provided an overview of recommended hardware configurations for running Revit effectively along with some of the networking solutions available to improve performance. This actually proved to be very topical and prompted an awful lot of questions and discussions. Many had little appreciation of the additional hardware requirements for running large projects and those who had been through the process were able to share some experiences. The audience were also advised on the updated Excitech recommendations for workstations for the 2010 solutions and given a brief overview of some of the additional technologies for improving/enabling Revit data access over a WAN, such as Riverbed and the HP Remote Graphics solution.

Dave Shepherd of Excitech then presented an overview of the methods and techniques for sharing and coordinating Revit model files. This touched on the recommended use of coordinates as well as best practices for transferring and coordinating information between disciplines. This prompted a number of questions and discussions on the issues raised and it did highlight the fact that many had not really devised any formal operating standards. This also helped to highlight to those new to the Revit platform, the importance of developing an understanding of these features and defining procedures to support their effective use.

The first user presentation was from Dave Sibbitt, Civil Engineering Manager at ASDA, who outlined their vision and strategy for the application of Revit to all of their future projects. The message behind this presentation was very strong and it stipulated that they now demand that all of their supply chain consultants deliver on the Revit platform. This extended to each of the discipline-specific versions of Revit and they were also very keen to communicate how effectively they had adopted the use of the site design tools in Revit.

I then conducted the next session on conceptual design and this focussed on the application of the main new element of Revit Architecture 2010, which is the new freeform mass modelling environment. There was a good degree of interest in this session, especially as we found out that most of the audience were in fact designers. Most had acknowledged the limitations of the previous modelling tools in Revit and had been reliant on generating complex geometry in different software packages.

The new modelling environment was demonstrated along with some simple examples of how to produce some of the more conventional modelling elements using the new methods.

The next stage was to demonstrate how these forms could be integrated with the main project design environment and to take the opportunity to highlight the existence of the conceptual design development tools that have been in Revit for some time now. The final stage of this session was a demonstration of the ability to divide and apply patterns to any of these conceptual free form surfaces. This demonstrated how such models could be defined using the parametric controls in Revit along with an explanation of how the surfaces could be divided using a number of options to control the pattern and layout. The final stage was to show how the individual panel elements could be created using the new family template available for this purpose.

Several people commented on the fact that they should be generally making greater use of Revit during the design stages and admitted that they didn’t have sufficient awareness of these capabilities. Many admitted that they spent too much time in developing limited SketchUp or Rhino models that ultimately have limited use further downstream.

Following this, Simon Gillis of Autodesk conducted an overview and introduction to Autodesk Ecotect Analysis. He explained their plans in introducing the updated solution in the UK and set the positioning of the software. He also explained how the Green Building Studio service compared to the functionality in Ecotect and made people aware that this would be a key subscription component.

He then continued to demonstrate the key capabilities of the solution and the sort of analysis that it can perform. He also talked about the options from transferring building geometry and space information from Revit Architecture.

The second client presentation was from Angus Brown of Fraser Brown McKenna and this related to their adoption of Revit and their experiences across several projects. The project work on display was excellent and the quality of output looked absolutely stunning. In particular, their use of the ‘Design Options’ feature caught many people’s attention, as this is often something that many people are not aware of; and it was great to see it being applied so effectively.

The concluding session was the Revit Architecture: Tips & Tricks session and this was similarly well received and it prompted further discussion and questions relating to the topics covered. Again, the availability of Autodesk Impression 3, as part of the Revit subscription programme, was mentioned and its ability to apply stylised edges and colouring to DWG files exported from Revit models. Only one person in the audience was aware of it but they were extremely complimentary about how useful it was.

I’d like to extend our gratitude to each of our guest speakers and to all of those who turned up and contributed to making this such a productive meeting.  We hope that you will return later in the year and that you are already thinking of topics that you may want to see presented; or perhaps you would even like to showcase some of your own work!