Computer Security & 2009 Rendering "Too Much Perfect"

Yeah, Yeah I know this isn't BIM, or even Revit related but I did find this interesting & important; since computer security is paramount if we are to use them in business.

See this ASTALAVISTA.com Article. (or the Times Online Source Article) for a glimpse of Microsoft's ongoing lax security. Sorry Bill, I love you but something needs to be done. ' Glad I don't use HotMail!!!

BTW: Rendering in Revit 2009 is "too much perfect"... Thanks ADSK for Pimping My Revit!!! Images soon...

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Revit Architecture 2009 New Features Workshop

So, above is a peek at the Revit Architecture 2009 New Features Workshop... If you want to see a FULL RESOLUTION+ slide show of the workshop (or you don't see the Flikr library above) then CLICK ME!!!

I will get into more of the items in depth, but I thought you'd like to see the images above ASAP!!!

Soon the Revit Architecture web site will be updated with Revit Architecture 2009 info...HERE, I think.

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Do you want to save Thousands of dollars this year? Well just follow me...

OK so you don't have to follow me, I'm just listening to John Lennon... But if you want to save those thousands of dollars follow the directions below...

First of all I did not come up with this but I'll take credit (no pun initially intended) if you want to send me a check!!! OK here we go:

Create a new drafting view and place some text in it. Maybe the text says:
IF YOU WANT TO SAVE THE PROJECT THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS (NO SHIT) PER YEAR THEN DO EACH DAY'S LAST SAVE TO CENTRAL FROM THIS VIEW.

-Perhaps you'll write your own blurb!!!

Now this next step is the most important and it’s getting 'buy-in' from the whole team: HAVE THEM ACTUALLY FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTION OF SAVING TO CENTRAL FROM THAT VIEW!!! Remember to close all hidden windows as well!!!

You don't know how to get buy-in? Here's a trick I like; just understand that you may get laughed at when you say that saving 15 seconds at opening can save $1,000 but let them laugh, you'll have the last and best laugh in about 1 minute!!!

1) Have a meeting with the Revit team and make sure your bosses are present. The more bosses the better!

2) Tell them that you have a way to save thousands of dollars (and use my name, if you like!!!)

3) Do this math on a large white-board or paper if you can, if not it's ok:
Revit projects average between 15 seconds and 1 1/2 minutes to generate the on-screen geometry during opening a file ...So let's use an average of 1 minute and let's say there are 5 people on the team:
(1x5=5 minutes per open) x 2 times a day [morning & after lunch] = 10 minutes a day. Hmmm I see where this is going...but wait it gets better!!!

10x5 = 50 minutes a week ...it's getting more clear and approaching impressive...

50 x 50 weeks = 2,500 minutes or 41.667 Hours a year (yes I said HOURS!!!) Now are you impressed? Wait!!! There’s one more thing... The big bosses always like this and they usually get the team members to buy in after hearing this:

41.667 x Billable Rate (maybe $100, or more an hour) at 100 per hr. = $4,167.00 per large project saved a year by this dumb, yet brilliant workflow enhancement... Oh and the small projects usually average 15 seconds saved = $1,000.00 a year +/-... Not bad for low profit margin projects too!!! Saving all this money for doing what we have to do anyways!!! That's strangely amazing!!!

No one's laughing at this anymore, huh?

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Shared Coordinates And... 1

I am preparing a course on leveraging Surveyor's cad files to orient projects to true North, etc. and I just wanted to begin by placing a few assets that are already out there and their original links; so here we go:

From the AUGI posting: Click Me!!!

The "Factory says: This is one place where you have to follow the rules.
Revit's internal calculations do not like very large coordinate numbers. There are many number systems used in an app like Revit, some for calculating values, some for driving the display, etc. In some cases these systems differ in the precision of the numbers they can use.

When numeric values are small, these differences in precision are insignificant. When numbers get large, the differences while still small on a percentage basis become large enough to effect the results of display and operations. Thus, it is important to keep your Revit project near Revit's origin. (near means within 1 mile/1.6km) Revit's origin is near the center of the space made by the elevation symbols in the default template.

The Rules
* Always build your building near the starting point of the default template.
* Model it with Project North pointing directly up. (lay it out as you would have it appear on sheets)
* If you are using a dwg based site, Link your site file Center To Center.
* Move or rotate the SITE under your project until it is correctly positioned relative to the building. (do not move or rotate the project itself).
* Use the Acquire Coordinates tool and pick the site.

This will set your project's shared coordinated to those of the dwg's wcs. True North will be the dwg's Y axis. Now your building knows where the dwg 0,0 is, but it can still record its own information in well behaving small numbers. It knows and can orient to either True North, or Project North. Once the shared coordinates are set, subsequent imports can be made origin to origin using shared coordinates."

Another fine (merely excellent) asset is one of TG's posts Found Here!!!

This should be a good start...To be continued (with pictures most likely!!!)...

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Update: Why can't designers model in Revit (yet)?

Well, I am making progress in the translation of this class and expect to post it this month. I just got back the feedback responses from participants, as collected by ADSK and I am really pleased by the comments...the checks are in the mail!!!

Thanks to all who participated and to those who provided feedback. Perhaps ADSK will let me do more sessions in the future!!!

Even though there were preconceived notions as to the benefit of this session the reality was that it was (and is) a forum for positive change and inspired a lot of both thought and action...Without much further ado: Here's that feedback... (yes, it's a bit of an ego trip, but honestly it illustrates what not only I have to offer our world of BIM but what all of you bring to bare; as I see the results here as speaking as a microcosm of the entirety of the Revit community, illustrating the need and usefulness of pushing the envelope (sometimes in a confrontational manner, in order to get people's open listening)... BTW: I especially love the comment "Brilliant"!!! I think it was a brilliant session too...

1. Have you heard of AU Unplugged before arriving in Las Vegas?

Yes -14 (74%)

No- 5 (26%)

No Answer- 0

2. Did you vote for any session to be included in the AU Unplugged scheduled?

Yes –6 (32%)

No-13 (68%)

No Answer- 0

3. Please rate the following on a scale from 1 to 10. (a-e)

a. Overall satisfaction with this session. 8.68

b. Format of this session. 8.89

c. Session leader’s knowledge of topic. 9.05

d. Sessions leader’s effort to engage participants 9.31

e. The benefit or value (information, contacts, etc.) 8.73

You gained from this session.

4. Would you recommend this session or one similar format to others?

Yes –18 (95%)

No- 1 (5%)

No Answer- 0

5. What did you most like about this session?

Interactive, open, honest

Open, honest, healthy

Good discussion

Discussion and idea flow

Interactivity

Open exchange

Wide Spectrum of personalities/experience that attended

Good discussion

Free discussion and debate

Open discussion

The open discussion and knowledge of the attendees

Brilliant

Interactive rather than just listening

Open Discussion

Ideas

Open Dialog

6. What did you least like about this session?

Too short

Trivial topic

Off topic at times

The group was not a good match for the topic

Hw at times people pulled the conversation to the technical

Schedule conflict w/classes

Lighting

Not enough seats

Could talk express my thought without stepping as others

Comments:

Longer more session

I think the idea is great

More unplugged sessions

More of them

Schedule times to not conflict with added perhaps as breakfast and lunch sessions

Publicize and list schedule in augi daily sheet Just keep doing it

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Spiral Ramps: a Helix of a Solution

Before I begin to begin (added 06-11-2008), I seem to have found that Internet Explorer still sucks and will not show some of the graphics for this post... while this is unfortunate it doesn't ultimately affect the bottom line of the "how-to" portion of this post...BTW: Go get Mozilla Firefox!!! Yes that is a link to it!!!

Well before I begin (and if you were wondering where) that transcription for the AU Unplugged session that I did is, well, I am taking a bit longer than expected (as can be ascertained by it not being complete yet). I am working on it and have also asked ADSK again if they'd let me post the actual audio, so soon you can expect to have one or the other.

That said let's get to the helical Ramp. BTW one can extrapolate these procedures out to create Spiral Stairs as well...they both employ very similar processes!!!

A helix (I love that word) Is defined by Wolfram Math World (IMO the coolest math site) this way:

"...The helix is a space curve with parametric equations

			(1)
			(2)
			(3)

for , where is the radius of the helix and is a constant giving the vertical separation of the helix's loops.
The curvature of the helix is given by

(4)

and the locus of the centers of curvature of a helix is another helix. The arc length is given by

(5)

The torsion of a helix is given by

(6)

so

(7)

which is a constant. In fact, Lancret's theorem states that a necessary and sufficient condition for a curve to be a helix is that the ratio of curvature to torsion be constant.
The osculating plane of the helix is given by

(8)

(9)

The minimal surface of a helix is a helicoid. SEE ALSO: Generalized Helix, Helicoid, Seashell, Slinky, Spherical Helix, Spiral."

What we want to create is a Revit Ramp (AKA: a (circular Helicoid)

"The (circular) helicoid is the minimal surface having a (circular) helix as its boundary. It is the only ruled minimal surfaceplane (Catalan 1842, do Carmo 1986)." - Wolfram Math World

Go to the Modeling tools and choose Ramp (obviously). if you first create a couple of Ref Planes your going will be smoother.

Now that you're in Sketch Mode you will want to set the Ramp Properties -not shown- (from the Design Bar) and set the width, slope, etc. Notice the Slope is a Type Parameter? (If you change this or any other Type Parameter then your best course of action (and the recommended one) is to Duplicate the Type and have a new ramp to use)

Above is a 3D and plan view showing the "Run" sketch that says it's long enough (though it's not for me). If you look below you'll notice that I dragged the run line and snapped it to the horizontal Ref Plane (don't worry if the ramp's readout, in sketch mode says you have a negative amount left; the ramp will still go cleanly up to the top level (or offset thereof) as per your previous 'properties' setups)

The reason that I snapped to that Ref Plane so when I copy these up to other levels rotate them I will be able to use 180° to get the final helix. The length of your helical Ramp will probably require the most of your efforts to figure out; the rest of their creation is pretty quick.

Now Finish Sketch.

OK, so now I am going to trust that you can copy then 'paste aligned>select levels by name...to get the new ramp up to the next level... And I am trusting that you can rotate the new copy and even align and possibly move it into place, then repeat until you get the desired end result...


Good Times!!!
-J

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Well I was just pissing off (actually, I hope not) some Augies and have a couple more ideas about BIM-Clouds...

In this post thread: (Yes, click me!!!) W. M. wrote:
...In this thread, make your case for a true "Revit Building" which includes everything needed for documenting a building, and what you'd be willing to pay for it.
Why do you need a unified version of Revit? Discuss...

I replied...
W,
Great Idea, it's on a lot of peoples minds and has been for years now. I too used to think endlessly (a bit exaggerated) about the benefits that a unified Revit would be; It is a good idea, but more and more lately I am changing my mind!!! I now feel it would only be a stop gap measure (though a good one). IMO it is also (now) a matter of thinking small.

Don't anyone take that personally, I said I think it's a good idea too...

Do we want one Revit?
Or, better yet,
Would you find it in your businesses interest to be able to use any, and every tool? To be able to interact with a real "central" database, no matter the task, no matter the tool?...Revit, 3DS, Sketchup, Maya, Ecotect, Illustrator, etc. Whatever...and without any data loss. That would be worth 5 grand (or more) and still be a good value!!!

I read, was inspired by (and thus blogged about) a great article on "Google and the wisdom of clouds". I have been intrigued at the prospect of going beyond perceived limitations for years and after reading about the clouds and the brilliant folks who came up with that thinking I am in a state of trying to bring that clarity to AEC.

Everything is possible, right? Well, let's think big; and if you already think big then think bigger and if you already think bigger then tell me why aren't you already developing BIM-Clouds???

Frankly, dreaming of a unified Revit, no matter how much better it would be is still too short-sighted, unless we see it in Revit 2009. If ADSK hasn't done it yet we won't see it (probably) for 3 to 5 years? But if we bring about radical, new ways of thinking and practicing Architecture, etc. our processes can keep from being mired in softwares that never seem to deliver on their initial promise.

We can make huge, positive changes rather quickly: it's called evolution.

We can make small, incremental changes in reaction to things but I think that is called growing old and dying.

I want to evolve our industry, do you???

-J

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