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