Unfortunately the snow has closed the university so we will NOT be having class tonight.
Please use the opportunity to get a good start on your term project. Feel free to email me with questions.
Jim Mitchell
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
A1 Comments
Overall
As a class you did an excellent job on this assignment and generally found it rewarding despite some degree of frustration when things went wrong.
Several people did interesting work going beyond the basic tutorial. I warned them that I might ask them to demo. You now have the following experts in the class who may help you when you get started on more advanced work
- James Drogals – MEP
- Lynn Vu – Topography and complex shapes
- Charlie Young – Structures
Revit Specifics
- When creating another floor you need to create another level. - You’ll always have one more level than floors because the top level is used to anchor the roof.
- Finding how to do things in Revit – Do take advantage of the Revit help and online tutorials. They’re generally very good.
- Viewports – As we discussed in class, they scale of a view is a “property” of that view. It can be changed in the properties box either of the main view or by selecting it on the sheet.
- Keystroke Shortcuts – While Revit doesn’t work in the same way as Autocad, I think you’ll find that there are quite a few keyboard shortcuts once you become more proficient.
- Changing Floor Dimensions - To change the floor dimensions you need to go to that level and then be in the "Modify | Floors" tab of the ribbon. You can "Edit Boundary" or use other tools.
Bentley Links
Mr. Huw Roberts provided me the following links after his talk last night (1/19/2011).
I have copied my presentation here for you:
ftp://ftp.bentley.com/pub/outgoing/Huw/Drexel.pdf
The main URLs you and your students may be interested in are in the presentation, but also include
and the cool free software is at
Week-2 Discussions–Comments
Overall Comment
- This was a very successful week of discussions in which you interacted with your peers much more effectively and made a number of very worthwhile points. Congratulations.
- Some posts were shorter than the desired 300 words. If they were greater than 200 words I didn’t penalize this week, but will be more rigid in future.
2D-3D Transition
There are some good thoughts here on the practical reasons to stick with 2D. For the sake of being sure that BIM capabilities are fully appreciated, I’d note that:
- 2D views in BIM can be fully active so that changes made there are reflected in the 3D view.
- One can reference views just as easily in BIM as in regular CAD files, with all references being automatically updated if something changes.
I’d also note that we didn’t have much explicit discussion of the issue of file-size and the impact that has on this kind of division. This is an area where the approaches of different vendors (e.g. Autodesk vs. Bentley) can make a large difference.
Criteria for BIM Selection
This is an excellent set of thoughts about the relationship of BIM to the organization of a new firm.
My addition to the discussion would be that an additional criteria might be the suitability of the software to provide fabrication drawings, not just the bidding documents that most of the participants identified.
Implementation of Unified Parametric Model
There was general agreement on the difficulty of a unified model in the near term, and also on the desirability in future.
I’d comment that there are great opportunities for building construction and operation with such a unified model –not just during design.
3D CAD vs. BIM
Again an excellent thread that elaborates and incorporates prior posts.
A theme, one with which I agree, was well put by several members:
“…the main advantages of BIM software over 3D modeling programs are their ability to work with the operator to create a non-redundant model that actually will make sense to build” sums up why design firms will most likely continue to adopt BIM software.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
BIM Handbook Now Available at Library
Folks. I just heard from Jay Bhatt that the book is now available again.
Here’s the link he provided.
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