Watch "AU 2012 Keynote crowd" on YouTube

Like some of you, I am at AU. For those of you who have never experienced it, here is a quick video of the attendees at the Keynote speech at Mandalay Bay hotel. The full video may be posted online at au.Autodesk.com soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRZci9sJhyM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Craig

Passionate about BIM

Dash over to Stephen Hamil's blog and see what it takes to be passionate about BIM...

Passionate about BIM: When writing summary information for conferences or introducing other speakers the words "passionate about BIM" often spring to mind. But ...

Are you passionate about BIM?

Revit viewport arranger

This looks darn handy. It's a Revit 2013 add-on utility that arranges your viewports in Revit. You may already now some of the keyboard shortcuts like WT for window tile, ZA for zoom all, and Ctrl-Tab for switching between open windows, but this utility gives you even more handy flexibility in arranging windows. It's called Palladio X and it's free, thanks to the folks at Mensch und Maschine Software SE. I like the classic architectural reference in the name.
Check it out here on the Autodesk App Exchange.

Left: Revit managed viewports     -     Right: Palladio X managed viewports

Nicely stacked viewports...

Now if you are working on a large project, keeping this many windows open may decrease your performance and may not be a good idea. It would be a good idea to close the ones not in use. That being said, there are lots of working scenarios where this utility would be very handy. If you try it out, leave a comment. Thanks to Markb for posting this to Revitforum.org
Cheers

Increase efficiency and accuracy of surveys

Earlier this month Tobias Ebbinge from Picard Innovations reached out to me to introduce his company and software called Yuzu. You may have seen Steve Stafford’s post on this at Revit OpEd. Like Steve, I saw a similar technology at AU last year called PKNail. They are similar tools according to Tobias but Yuzu is available for Revit and Autocad as well, and there's a price difference on top of that.Yuzu facilitates Architectural surveys with the help of a Leica Disto (sold separately) and a Windows laptop with Revit.
Here’s the video walk-through:
http://vimeo.com/42406629
There are some great benefits to this method of surveying. First, as you survey, the model is built with only a little help from you.  The Leica Disto device communicates via Bluetooth so there’s no messing with cables. Yuzu and Revit create the walls and etc. using the wireless measurements as you survey.

Second, from experience I can tell you that people (of which I include myself) make mistakes, especially on surveys. Sometimes this means going back to the project site to verify, and sometimes more than once. Since you are building the Revit model as you measure, you’ll leave with a finished and laser-accurate survey model.
There are some good tutorial videos to get in-depth understanding of how it works here:
http://www.picardinnovations.com/support/product/yuzu_for_revit/
Yuzu is currently $750 and will work with the less-expensive Leica D3 BT checking out at $379. Making it a bit over a grand investment but now consider this: The number of hours saved by reducing your survey trips, reducing the number of people required to survey(1), eliminating the time it takes to translate your chicken-scratch into a model back at the farm, and leaving the project site with a complete and accurate survey model… It likely pays for itself after the first project. If you use Yuzu or PKNail, I would be interested in hearing your opinion on it. And if you have a spare Leica Disto, send it my way!
Cheers

The casualties of the Revit revolution start their recovery

This speaks volumes and may bring a tear to your eye…

If you are interested in helping this chap out, here is the link.
Cheers

Revit Hardware?

Over the years I have seen this question pop up pretty consistently, and that is the "Hardware" question. "What's the best workstation for Revit". I'm not sure if you are aware of it but there's a relatively new page on Autodesk's website that helps you find suitable hardware for Revit, and other Autodesk software as well.

There's a good description of it here: Without A Net

With the advent of Cloud computing there are many more options that include virtual workstations, "Private Clouds" and so forth that should be considered an option because they can be easily expanded for little cost and is considered a "Capital Expenditure" which can be billed to a job, versus the firms overhead, or your pocket book.

A rookery of folks on the LinkedIn Revit Users discussion board commented on the question of hardware and provided a slew of opinions for you if you are interested. This rookery included a few folks from BIM9 and Advance 2000, who offer cloud services.

Cheers

Revit Technology Conference–RTC 2012 Georgia

Browsing the speakers list for the upcoming Revit Technology Conference next week, I came across an intriguing individual. His description reads as follows:

Mortimer Vunderbight
Project Sauron Inc
At the prompting of his mother, Mortimer has been designing Evil Lairs since childhood and hoped to pursue a career in Architecture while attending Eton College. However, the University of Cambridge was busy turning out one architectural hack after another, so Mort turned to technology. Mort's PhD thesis on "The Monetization of Playful Kittens" drew scorn from all except one professor Dr. LaM, who convinced Mort to post his findings on the professor's new (yet struggling) web video venture. The You Tube phenomena was immediately born, making both men each more rich than the Queen. Mort is the Director of BIM/VDC for Dr. LaM and Project Sauron.

Though the picture’s file name is Phil_Read_RTC12.jpg, I know Phil and he does not wear turquois turtle necks. I consulted my personal clown and friend Googlestein for some insight into this speaker. He came across this post on Augi.  It provides a Twitter handle that has some fantastic Revit projects that “Mort” has worked on… 

Look a little further and you’ll find what is presumably his current and/or future lair project location in the Marquesas Islands. From the satellite imagery it appears like the project is under construction but a cloaking technology is active fooling the satellites as you might expect. Luckily enough, you can see some of the Revit work on Mort’s YouTube channel.
If you read to the end of the Augi post, it appears that I am a little behind the times with the following of Mort. Never the less, I hope to hear more from him, especially of his lair and ship designs. I would also love to see the structural analysis of that stair.
Dr. LAM a.k.a. Reginald Snoddgrass IV is still a mystery…
Cheers

Tags: Revit,Technology,Conference,Georgia,Mortimer,Sauron,Evil,Architecture,Eton,College,Cambridge,Mort,Monetization,Playful,Kittens,professor,Tube,Director,Though,Phil,friend,Googlestein,speaker,Augi,Twitter,Look,lair,location,Marquesas,satellite,imagery,construction,YouTube,analysis,stair,Reginald Snoddgrass,Cheers,speakers,Lairs,phenomena,Islands

What Revit Wants: Repurposing the Autodesk USB Media

What Revit Wants: Repurposing the Autodesk USB Media

If you happen to have a 16Gb or 32Gb 2012 Autodesk Design Suite USB thumb drive gathering dust in a drawer, I repurposed one (after backing up the data) by using the following tool … after reading Luke’s handy post and a handful of the comments:
Formatter.zip
It’s a simple tool with one button. I make no guarantees or warranties but it worked for me.

Cheers

Vasari 2.5 coming... great new features

Project Vasari's upcoming 2.5 release has some great new features.
Great new push-pull capabilities in modeling, getting closer to sketchup capability. Select a vertical face, and press the space bar to show the alternate gizmo that allow perpendicular extrusion where before you'd only be able to stretch the model out.

We also now have the capability of editing/modeling in perspective views with 99% of the functionality of the ISO 3D view. This has added a new type of 3D view called Vasari 3D. When you open the file in Revit 2012, the view will be there but Revit will not have this capability. On returning to Vasari the perspective editing capability returns.

Also you'll see some good improvement to the autozoning capabilities, providing better accuracy and better courtyard zoning.

Keep checking ProjectVasari.com for the release date.

David Light's got a great breakdown of the new additions here:

http://autodesk-revit.blogspot.com/2012/03/project-vasari-25.html

Revit DB

I am in the middle of reorganizing my home office and was in the need for some Swedish furnishings for my Revit model. I came across this site which has some decent Euro pieces, including Ikea. They are pretty well made and if you speak Portuguese, then you’ll understand the material parameters. Thanks to Rui for posting and hosting some cool content for the everyday man.

Revit DB