Pushing Back on OUR Professors...

I had to repost this little article because of its relavence to this blog and Greg's shout out....

Seth makes some great little points that can be easily related to what my readers and myself are going through in college right now.  Architecture is a very tough major with an array of different classes from calculus, to mechanics, to engineering, to designing and so on...  If you are paying 35,000 dollars a year and your Architecture program does not even OFFER a Revit class then you need to PUSH for it... Seriously....

From Seth Godin's blog:
Pushing Back on Mediocre Professors
College costs a fortune. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of money.
When a professor assigns you to send a blogger a list of vague and inane interview questions ("1. How did you get started in this field? 2. What type of training (education) does this field require? 3. What do you like best about your job? 4. what do you like least about your job?") I think you have an obligation to say, "Sir, I'm going to be in debt for ten years because of this degree. Perhaps you could give us an assignment that actually pushes us to solve interesting problems, overcome our fear or learn something that I could learn in no other way..."  ... continue to the rest of the article....

Who the Hell is Computer12799 and why does he own my wall?

Great suite of applications from Project Bluestreak... Thanks to Steve for the little post about them...

Overview
Autodesk Project Bluestreak is a cloud-based collaboration solution that helps AEC project teams collaborate informally and coordinate their work efficiently. Project Bluestreak simplifies AEC project team communication by consolidating the information silos used alongside design, analysis, and data management applications. Project Bluestreak is the first collaboration solution to integrate informal project team communication and automated notifications from AEC applications, starting with Revit. By combining team communication tools with Revit worksharing notices and one-click file access in a compact desktop app, Project Bluestreak consolidates multiple tools for BIM processes, making team modeling more efficient.

The most recent update includes the following enhancements:

Bluestreak Desktop - a compact window that works alongside any Autodesk or other desktop application so you can stay connected to your distributed AEC project team with real-time communication and automated application notifications.

Autodesk Revit Activity Stream App – an app that connects Revit to Bluestreak cloud services. It combines automated notifications of Revit worksharing events with informal team comments so team members can communicate when models are saved to central to ensure efficient hand-offs.


... click here to see more...

Videos back up at Midnight!

Hey Guys!  I apologize to all of you who tried to watch my videos and could not in the past week or so...

Tonight, at midnight Eastern Standard Time....  THE VIDEOS WILL BE BACK UP!!

Please, for the sake of bandwidth try to download the videos if you plan on watching more than once...

CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO DOWNLOAD THE VIDEOS

Patterns and Zone Porosity - Buildz

Another cool post from Zach using panels, patterns, and such...  Very inspirational stuff.

Patterns and Zoned Porosity

I keep messing around with this shape, there’s some kind of special something to it that I haven't figured out yet.
It shows up in lots of places. I’ve been looking at this one for a while, the Jean Nouvel Louvre project. It uses several layers of this shape in a patterned screen, then varies the size of the frame and the overall shape to create different levels of porosity

Click here to see more great images and the rest of the post...

Revit Tutorial - Rotational Parameters (Revit Clinic)

Great video and post over at The Revit Clinic:

Rotational Parameters in a Conceptual Mass Family



Approaches for adding rotational parameters, in a family, are one of our more common inquiries.
I have created a video below for one of these scenarios, where you want to rotate an element to a specific angle in a family. The best recommendation, for any family rotation, is to host the element on a reference line and add an angular dimension. I used a conceptual mass form as an example to show this process.

Cick here to view the post and video...

Las Vegas Here I COME!! Autodesk University

I am beyond excited to announce to all my readers that I will be attending Autodesk Univerity this year in Las Vegas!   This is a new experience for me and I would like to personally thank Autodesk for the invite.

I cannot wait to intake so much information that my brain will be moosh by the end of the week... I also cannot wait to live blog from Vegas and inform you all of the great stuff I will be learning... and hopefully you can learn it from me as well.

If you are going to AU this year please feel free to email me and we can meet, converse, and talk Revit.  It would be great to meet my readers.

Formula Driven Surfaces in Revit

If you remember my Calculus Posts from way back you will remember how I used points and formulas to create a surface from a mathematical function... Well, William took it to a WHOLE new level.  Absolutely awesome stuff William.

Click here to view the post...

Revit Sheet Creator v2011.2

Great little piece of software.  Also a great blog to check out to.

Sheet Creator for Revit 2011

I have updated the Sheet Creator Addin for Revit 2011 SheetCreator_2011-2.zip in thedownload section.  It now includes parameters for Sheet Discipline # and Sheet Grouping # as well as the ability to make placeholder sheets.  You can use the pre-populated list on Sheet Discipline # or you can enter your own text in the box.  To utilize these parameters, you should download theSheetCreatorSharedParameters.txt file.  I am always open to new ideas for development so leave a comment or send me an email.  If you have not used this tool yet, the video below will show you how easy it can be to create sheets.

Urban Sketchers - Very Cool Blog

This is not really Revit related but is definitely architecture related.  Please, go check out this blog and tell me what you think:

http://www.urbansketchers.com/

Tutorials are down...

It looks like I underestimated the amount of people that view my videos...  The Revit Kid.com is experiencing a huge increase in tutorial viewers and I am currently trying to contact Screencast.com to find ways of accommodating the heavy bandwidth.  I apologize if you are unable to view the videos right now. If you are able to view the videos, GREAT!  I will let you know when the bandwidth is added.  I can tell you for sure that it will not be any later than October 18th, but I will do everything in my power to make it sooner.  I will keep you posted.

Again, I do apologize.  This is certainly not a good thing but it is the type of problem that excites me due to its positive nature.  It is positive because I never thought the said would get to the point where the HIGHEST bandwidth subscription is not enough.

Tutorials Back Online!!

For anyone who tried to view my tutorials via ScreenCast.com and was not able to between late last night (Eastern Standard Time) and now will be able to view them shortly.  Late last night I recieved an email stating that my bandwith limit has been reached for my screencast account... 

This is a good and bad thing.  It is good because this means that within one month you, my readers, watched over 220 GB worth of streaming tutorials.  It is bad because now I have to monitor my bandwith and make sure there is always enough for you guys to watch tutorials without any issues. 

P.S.  These expenses are paid for by advertising in order to keep this a FREE site.  Please, if you have used my videos and find this site to be a good resource do not hesitate to donate any amount (even 1 dollar can go a long way from all of my readers).  There is also a link always avaliable on the column to the right....

I hope you all can see the videos now and thank you very much for continuing to read the blog, comment on posts, email me, and USE REVIT!!!!

Autodesk Education Community - Green Building Studio is now FREE for students!!

That is right... Green Building Studio is avaliable to students for FREE.  This is awesome news and I will most certainly be posting some videos in the future of how students, like myself, can use Green Building Studio in school.  Great stuff.

Autodesk Education Community News

Autodesk Green Building Studio Available Now
Autodesk® Green Building Studio® is now available on the Autodesk Education Community! Designed to help architects perform whole building analysis, the software keeps sustainability in mind earlier in the design process.

What's New on Autodesk Labs
Check out what's cooking in Autodesk Labs, home to innovative new technologies and collaborative development. Through an online forum, Labs provides the public with free, early access to prototypes, technology previews, and experimental web services.

Autodesk Yale University BIM Symposium Videos
View six great new videos of top university professors discussing implications of architecture pedagogy during a BIM Symposium co-hosted by Autodesk and Yale University.

Autodesk Revit Architecture German Tutorials
Created by Autodesk Student Experts from Graz University of Technology in Germany, these three new German Revit Architecture tutorials contain informative handouts, sample files and videos.

Autodesk Workshops at ACADIA Conference
Autodesk will host two workshops at the ACADIA conference October 18 – 20 at The Cooper Union in New York. Attendees of these workshops will learn Autodesk Revit Architecture and Autodesk Ecotect Analysis software. Register now!

Revit Subscription Advantage Pack 2011

The advantage pack has been released!  I know I am a little late on the news for those of my readers who read other blogs but some educational obligations got in the way of blogging...  There is a virtual mélange of information posted by many of my fellow bloggers that I will put together in this little post.  Also, don't forget to check out the blogs I havn't linked but I follow in my blog roll to the right...

• Direct link to the Subscription Center
• Revit3D.com - Greg has a ton of links and information... Check out is blog...
• Revit - I was fortunate enough to meet David on Monday and he is a great guy.  He also has a bunch of awesome information on the advantage pack... 
• David also made this post which was one of my favorite additions to Revit 2011...
• Link to Autodesk Videos of the Advantage Pak

If you are a student and want to find out how you can get the Subscription Advantage Pack then you must contact the head of your Architectural Department about it.  They will know who to talk to and if your school is on Subscription....