Hively

This is Revit-support related for within a firm, and thought I'd share. Check out Hively, it's a cool & easy way of encouraging positive support and communication in your company. It's also pretty cheap!

Advice

When I'm looking for design advice, this is where I go:

http://www.goodfuckingdesignadvice.com/
Full of only the top quality advice you'd expect.
Cheers

Phasing and Revit Ceilings

Revit has some fantastic "Phasing" features that can simplify working in renovation projects and other projects that have multiple demolition and/or construction phases. Today I came across a request that surprisingly enough, I have never heard before. ACT Ceilings in Revit will demo but the fill pattern that they use is not overridden like model elements are. When a ceiling is demo'd in Revit, the ceiling pattern stays the same(non-dashed) and so the request that was made was for an ACT ceiling pattern that represented itself as demo'd (dashed).
Ceiling patterns in Revit are fairly straight forward and follow simple rules. You can make your own with a text file. I created two "Demo" ceiling patterns and have placed them in our Revit Standards Library. If you are interested in making your own patterns, take a look at this blog post on iRevit.com.
If you need the 2x4 or 2x2 demo ceiling pattern, there they are.

Revit on Android

We are looking at various ways of delivering Revit to our people at KlingStubbins and our partners. I'm geeking out over this one... running Revit on an Android phone. I should have had 4G turned on and I would have gotten better performance but maybe next time. Yes, I'm rendering the model. The multi-touch is a little difficult to work with in Revit so I don't recommend you running out and replacing your desktops with iPads but if you are in a pinch and need to check a model in the field, there's no stopping you now!
Details huh? Well there are actually several ways you can accomplish this and one of them I can't mention yet but suffice it to say it's my favorite. The other methods are by using remote detop of some sort, androidVNC works. the other is Citrix Xendesktop, which is essentially running a windows deskop virtually from a server. I'll post more when I can!
Cheers,
Craig Barbieri

BIM Apps

Is this the year of Leveraging the BIM? Now that many of us are darn good at designing and building in Revit, new tools and companies seem to popping up everywhere offering new ways of making use of the mass of information in the BIMs. This is a major focus of mine this year and a focus for which the time has come. There is much efficiency and productivity to be gained from leveraging or making use of the information in Revit models. Many aspects of our industry are effected by the switch to BIM. Contractors are becoming true partners in the building paradigm we know as IPD, providing new avenues and methods of information flow and new opportunities for tools that enhance what we do.

A new blog has started and it addresses the topic of add-on tools, now referred to as “Apps” and which generally are making use of the Revit API to perform their magic. The blog is “BIM Apps” and it’s located here.

I first came across the author,  Emile Kfouri more than several years ago while I was working on a 2.1 million square-foot resort in Revit Architecture. I believe at the time he was the Revit Platform Product Manager. He’s moved on to bigger and better things at Autodesk and I wish him luck with his new blog. Join me in subscribing.

Cheers,

Craig Barbieri