Building and site files

I had always thought I had been a little pedantic when I insisted projects were set up with a building file and a separate site file. The reasons behind it are twofold.

1. If your building needs to move in the X, Y, Z coordinate during your documentation process, it is a five update minute job.

2. Due to the limitations of drawing site items in Revit, you can use detail lines and detail components in a site view. This view can then be displayed in whatever views you want in the building file.

Some would say why would you need to have two separate files when you are building on top of an existing building.

Well last week a project architect came to me. He had found an error in the surveyors drawing, where they had given the wrong level for the ground floor slab. So the entire building had been modelled 500mm higher than it actually was. So as it was set up as a building and site file, it literally was a five minute fix.

Basic Walls as Curtain Wall Panels

I have mentioned previously you can use Basic Walls as a Curtain Panel. This adds another depth to modular wall construction. What I didn’t know was that when you use a basic wall in a curtain wall on curved walls, it follows the curve and doesn’t facet as other curtain panels do. This could be very handy.
To add to this. a basic walls have the same capabilities as system panels (in curtain wall not curtain systems), i.e. they can follow any shape.
In the element properties of the basic wall panel you can also chose if it schedules as a panel or wall.
Finally there is a small bug in non-rectangular panels in regard to their location line placement. Typically you can select a basic wall panel and select if it is Exterior or Interior placed.
On non-rectangular basic wall panels sometimes it won’t allow you to place the basic wall panel Interior or Exterior. You will get the following message:

Ramp pattern file code

I’m not sure if many of you have designed buildings with car ramps in them, but there is a typical convention of how to show the extent of ramps we use. I’ve been meaning for ages to create a hatch pattern for it, for a while. I guess I’m fed up of drawing model lines on the ramps (by the way we use sloped floors).

Anyway here is the code for a ramp that can be up to 20 meters wide and the hatch will work. Copy the below code into note pad and save it as whatever is your relevant naming system. Note this hatch is only good for straight ramps. Don’t bother to try to get it to go around corners.

Copy the italic text below into notepad and save as a NAME.pat file:

;%UNITS=MM

*Ramp Hatch 1000mm Spacing Lines at 30 degrees

;%TYPE=MODEL

0, 0, 0, 0, 10000

120, 0, 0, 577.4, 1000, 11547, -11547

240, 0, 0, -577.4, 1000, 11547, -11547

3D DWF and Navisworks Freedom 2009

If you don’t think Design review 2009 is really up to the task of using the walk through tool you will have to try Autodesk Navisworks’ Freedom 2009.

It is free to use by downloading it from the Autodesk website.
It opens 3D DWF files.
Its graphics are considerably better then Design Review 2009.
It has a gravity tool that allows you go up and down ramps and stairs.
If you want to get an idea of scale you can use the Third Person Avatar.

Its navigation is a bit different, but it’s worth getting to know it. Considering it is the coordination tool for the next few years, it’s worth getting to know it.

Shift when dragging elements

You will notice when using the drag method of moving an element some elements will only move in a perpendicular direction (i.e.:- a wall joined a one end) and then there are some elements that can move in multiple directions (i.e.:- a standalone wall or a window in an elevation)

By holding the shift button down while dragging an element, it will drag using it’s non-standard dragging properties.

Example:

Holding shift while dragging a window in 3D will only allow it move in the horizontal plane.

Holding shift while dragging a wall joined at one end will allow it to stretch as well as move it.

Ideate Explorer

I came across a very useful plug-in after yesterdays post. It happens to de-funk yesterdays post, and some other shortfalls of Revit I had thought of bringing up in the future. Well; no need now.

Ideate Software have released a Revit plug in (here) called Ideate Explorer. The website demos will tell you more than I can ever, but basically it allows you to have a lot of control about finding and selecting elements. Not alone a great management tool, this also assists you to filter your selections.

Well done guys. Thanks David also for your post.

Select all Instances – short falls

I hope everyone knows that “Select all Instances” means every instance in the entire project file and not just the elements in the view. Anyway that is not what this post is about.

There are a few Revit elements that don’t have the “Select all Instances” function. Reference planes, Scope Boxes, Insulation, Revision Clouds and lines are some of the few deprived elements. The big down fall here are “Lines”, be that model or detail lines.

Where is function would be very handy is in drawing clean up. There is to many times where non-standard line types end up in a project file. Without the “Select all Instances” it is near impossible to clean them out and switch them over to office standard line types.

The only reason I can think of why Revit doesn’t allow you to “Select all Instances” for lines is maybe the lines with-in filled or masking regions can’t handle changing them without being in edit mode. If you do know, please do fill me in. From a management point of view, I’m not going to go through all 500 views in a project to out the non-office standard line types.

I add this list to my own Wish List

Right click window on Curtain Walls

Sometimes it’s amazing what you find when you select an element and then use the right click function. Curtain walls or curtain systems is one such situation where you will really wish you knew this six months ago.

Select a curtain wall and right click on your mouse.

You will notice there are some very handy selection tools for the Curtain panels and Mullions.
Now select a curtain panel and use the right click function.

I’m also sure you saw the “Select Grid” function. For the life of me, I cannot see how this selection works. No matter what Revit release I use, or what kind of Curtain System or wall I select, it is grayed out. All I can guess is it was intended to be a function, and programmer X from Autodesk forgot to put the coding in.

Anyway what works from above will be very helpful.

Curtain System Panels. Part 2:

Following on with System panels, I never knew you can edit a curtain system panel family just like an in-place family. Select a system panel, and you will get the “Edit” button in the options bar.
Thus you can add, subtract or create any shape with-in the system panel. This obviously only affects this panel instance but it could be a fix for that one or two non-rectangular panels with in a bigger system.
This image is a simple shop front curtain wall, with the wall profiled. I have edited this instance panel to have circular holes in it.

Note: A limitation to this method is you will not be able to call it up in a legend view.

Curtain System Panels. Part 1:

Curtain Wall System Panels are an out of the box template panel for Revits Curtain walls or Curtain Systems. They should not be confused with Curtain Panel .rfa files, as thought they are ideally intended to act like regular curtain panels sometimes they do better and sometimes not so good.

Currently Revit does not allow you to insert a Curtain Panel .rfa file into a non-rectangular shape; so in that situation, you have to use a Curtain System Panel. This is one area they are better. On the are not so good side, and I can only put this down to a bug is the following:
From the out of the box Revit Template, create a shopfront curtain wall. Select one of the glass panels and change it to a door panel. Now flip the door from right to left (edited 13-11-08 after post for clarification), using one of the flip options.

Now change the door back to the System glazed panel.

Notice how the panel is on the wrong side (i.e. not the same side as the other system glazed panels). As it’s a system panel it does not have the flip option. Unless someone can tell me otherwise the only way to fix this is to change it back to the door, then flip it to the doors home position, and then change the door to the system glazed panel.

This problem appears to be in Revit 2008 and 2009 to curtent RAC 2009 - 20080915_2100 (WU2).

Some other information on System Panels in my next post.

Change in the air

So “Change” is the buzz word at the moment for all kinds of reasons. In the past few weeks in Australia the financial global down turn is hitting home. There are a lot of local large and medium size firms letting Architects go. There obviously are a lot of nervous people and they are right to be. This may only be the beginning.

But clouds have their silver linings. All of a sudden the AutoCAD users in our office that were not willing to put any effort into learning Revit, suddenly are starting to show interest. The word on the street is: “If you find yourself looking for work, having Revit on your résumé is a major advantage”.

From an Architect’s office point of view, changing how it works during boom times can be very difficult. Making changes during difficult times is a matter of survival. BIM is now advanced enough that firms don’t have an excuse not to change. Time will tell, but I recon the next two years will be the biggest take on time of BIM in Australia.

Exactal’s CostX

I was lucky enough to see a demonstration on the construction cost estimation software “CostX” by Exactal. This software really allows Quantity Surveyors (QS) to enter the BIM age with little to no effort. It is very good at handling dwg files but DWF files are it's forte. It grabs all the meta-data from the DWF file and organises it. Because it understands the ID data of elements is able to relate a plan element to the same element in elevation or section. It really is an amazing tool.

It has some little futures for calculating areas that Autodesk could learn some lessons from. What is so good about CostX is that a large amount of the QS firms in Australia use CostX.

For us (Revit Users) the only important thing to do is to give your QS 2d DWF files over PDF or DWG. Ensure you tick the options box for export object data for model elements. CostX does not recognise rooms yet. It is another great reason to start using DWF files.