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.

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.

DWF

I've been away for the past week so a real lack of posting on Revitfix. I've just added a lot of new Revit and BIM (Building Information Modeling) Links to my subscription list. There are well over 40 there now, so it's even easier to see who is blogging. It's really amazing the amount of very high quality Revit and BIM blogs out there. I suspect that much of this is that BIM is such an exciting area in the Construction industry at the moment. I think globally it's got to be one of the biggest changes to the industry world wide in a long time.


I was doing some searching on Google and I now see that in the Google advanced search the Design Review DWF format is a per-determined file type you can search for. We all know the use of DWF has been some what limited in the industry. Most people have been very happy with PDF format. I do hope this changes as DWF and the new DWFi format do have real advantages.
I noticed on a network deployment of Revit now, Design Review automatically installs. I would hope that Autodesk have done the same for all their construction industry programmes.
The DWFi will certainly open up possibilities. This format can now be opened on any computer using Windows Vista. Design Review is such a handy tool it would be good if it does become industry standard.