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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Revit Tip - Export Rendered Images Without a Background

For some of you this might be common knowledge but it is a great tip to keep in mind when rendering.  If you are constantly rendering with a white background and Photo-shopping the building into a site image or an image of the sky by using that dreadful magic wand or the polygon selector... STOP NOW!

All you have to do it export the rendered image (if it is rendered with a white background) as a .PNG file.  Open it in Photoshop and you will see the image has already been cropped and cleaned up and ready for your background image.

**** Edit  ****

Luke, over at What Revit Wants, dives further into this and explains how exporting to a TIFF file allows for an easy separation between the background and the model elements. This is very useful if you rendered with a background image or a sky, etc...

Click here to check out Luke's post...

Sunday, November 27, 2011

So You are Graduating...What Now?

Phil Bernstein recently published a very nice post that all of my student readers so take a look at:

Winter Commencement

As December now rolls around it's the eve of my last lecture in my professional practice class at Yale.  Although I've been teaching for almost twenty-five years, I still can't believe how quickly the semester accelerates into Thanksgiving, and suddenly it's all over but the shouting (or, in our case, final projects and juries).  About the same time as the term slammed to a closed I received a note from a student at Prarie View A&M, asking many of the existential questions that must be facing architecture students nearing their degrees.  Seemed like a good time to speculate a bit about that future, and what this year's graduates might be facing as they confront the job market in the spring, with enough time between now and then to contemplate their options and plot their strategies, so here goes:
What does the market look like out there for a young architect? 
Phil brings up some excellent points in his post.  I think the underlying issue that is now haunting all of my peers and myself is the uncertainty of our future.  All of the facts and numbers point to such a gloomy future.  6,000 of us graduating while there are still 20,000 more experienced architects looking for jobs too?!   That means we are at a 3 to 1 disadvantage even before we walk across the stage and shake our dean's hands.  So what do we have that those 20,000 architects do not?  The Revit Mind.
The Revit Mind does not simply mean we know Revit and they don't.  It means we think differently.  We problem solve differently.  We naturally collaborate across disciplines without a hint of discrimination or hesitation.  We contain the ability to complete three or four different tasks at once (while texting, checking Facebook, and watching a football game).  We are the Generation X Reviteers and we should not be afraid of those 20,000 CAD generation baby boomers... 
Just as Phil points out in his post, we need to stay "in the grid".  If we can creep into every nook and cranny of the building industry and utilize our Revit Mind's to their fullest effect I honestly believe that we have the power to revive it.     

RevitCity Hacked Again?

What is it with RevitCity recently...?  This is getting to be way too common.

I wonder why people would want to hack a site like RevitCity...  The site contains FREE content.  What could they possibly get out of hacking it?  None of the users have any sensitive information other than their passwords. Could this be a sign of Revit becoming more mainstream?  Is someone going to try and hack this blog now!?  Or Greg's blog?  Or Dave's?!?!?! Or Steve's?!?

I might have to hire Kevin Mitnick to protect this blog... (that was a shameless plug because I am in the middle of the book and it is VERY good...)

Anyways, we will have to see how this RevitCity thing pans out..

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Arcbazar - Connecting Designers and Clients

I am very excited to share this website with you all.  One of my professor's, Dr. Imdat As, brought this to my attention along with a friend of mine who gave me the info to post here (thanks Maria!).  I already signed up and cannot wait to have some time to submit designs.  Basically, clients post competitions and set rewards.  Designers submit their designs and the client gets to chose and rank the designs.

What I like about this idea is the scale of it.  It appears most of the projects are small scale residential and commercial projects.  Essentially, the clients who always tend to hire the contractor before the architect...  These are also perfect size projects for Revit to really excel...  I think the video and description below explain it well. Also, it is totally free for designers to sign up!



Welcome to arcbazar.com!

We created the first-of-its-kind online competition webpage for small to medium scale design projects to allow an easy and fast connection interface between clients, young architectural designers and contractors. We developed the idea for arcbazar.com after realizing that all too often clients could not find an easy and affordable way to find competitive architectural design services. At the same time, designers have a hard time to connect to clients and use their design talent. Therefore, we set out to create a simple, easy-to-use platform that serves and connects the triumvirate of clients, designers and contractors. 

Founded in 2010, arcbazar.com is owned and operated by a dedicated executive team and web-developers. Our aim is to help our peers, young designers and architects finding exciting design opportunities from design conscious individuals. Our name arcbazar, is inspired by the idea of a bazaar for architecture – a vibrant space for exchange and negotiation of design services. We are based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and are working around the clock as we prepare the matching of designers with the exciting projects of our clients. 

We are eager to answer your questions about arcbazar.com, so feel free to contact us via  or check out our FAQ page for more information. We are excited to welcome you to arcbazar, and to begin connecting clients with talented designers and dedicated contractors! 





I immediately figured this could start a debate as well... so please, feel free to comment below on your thoughts about the site...

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Solar Decathlon and BIM


I just found this in my draft posts here on the blog... Jena, I am o sorry I waited this long to post it!

Winning Teams from the Solar Decathlon Use Autodesk BIM Software
It was a big week for the twenty teams participating in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011. The 2 year contest culminated at the National Mall's West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. at the end of September where the teams built their cost effective, energy efficient, and attractive solar powered houses. Judges viewed and scored their houses and selected the winners. All of the participants used Autodesk® Revit® Architecture to design their houses and many used Autodesk® Ecotect® Analysis and Autodesk® Project Vasari during the analysis phases. Check out this video featuring five of the teams, including two of the top winners.

Autodesk Cloud Rendering Hotfix

How convenient that a Hotfix for Cloud Rendering is released while all this discussion about the future of cloud rendering takes place... Cool. 



Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Autodesk Cloud - Pay Per Rendering - How much would you pay?

Autodesk appears to be working with us instead of against us as far as Cloud Rendering and availability is concerned.  I had a nice discussion last week with some insiders about my post a month or so ago and they appear to believe as strongly about cloud rendering as I do...

I also posted on the feedback forum for cloud rendering, which brings me to this post.

How much would you pay for the cloud rendering services?
Should it be a pay-per-rendering, a monthly fee, a yearly fee...?

Either respond on the Autodesk Feedback forum here....

The latest post requesting feedback:
When Neon was on Labs as a technology preview, we were running on a small farm and the number of users was significantly less.
Now it's a different story. The costs are higher and a pricing structure and various degrees of control are necessary. Please post all the pricing suggestions you think are valuable.We have been discussing ways to get cloud units to users of all kinds :) It's still a work in progress and be sure that we are reading all the discussions in this forum. We are also discussing what can be done for the educational market.     Rob

Or respond in the comment section below....

I, for one, would shoot for a monthly or yearly subscription to cloud rendering.  Since its release I have used all of my free cloud units and I know I would use it consistently throughout the year.  As far as a price is concerned... My first thought is to do some math:

  • Roughly $1,000.00 a year to keep a desktop up-to-date and rendering diligently. 
  • $1,000.00 / 12 Months = $84.00 Per Month.
Having used the service and watch all of my colleagues and classmates use the service I would feel comfortable at that rate (even as a graduate student working part time).

Thoughts?  Maybe there are different levels depending on how many renderings you think you would use a month?  Kind of like a cell phone bill with minutes??

The other option I have in mind is the Pay-Per-Rendering.... The hardest factor to describe is how many rendering I might do on any given day or month.  This is a difficult factor to determine because I am currently limited to the performance of my computer and the time it takes to render.... With cloud I could be doing 20x as many renderings with the time frame and process power removed from the equation.

Hmmmm.....  Comment below or Post Here!

Monday, November 14, 2011

The Revit Kid Project - House for an Architect

I know I have not been posting as much as I usually do within the last couple months and I analogize for that.  Graduate school and work are taking up a lot more of my time then I expected.  On the bright side, I am using Revit practically 24/7 between the two.

Here is my latest project in school.  I know how much I love seeing other peoples Revit projects so I figured you would like to see mine.  This is the third studio project of the semester and we had to present the project as if it were in a magazine. Oh, and before I get a million comments, I know the wall section makes no sense... (Click the images below...)

Software used: Revit Architecture 2012 and Adobe Photoshop CS5

 

 


Architectural Record and the Architectural Record logo are trademarked and copyright of McGraw Hill.  This is not a published magazine or magazine cover by McGraw Hill.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Revit Tutorial - Adding Headers in Schedules

This is a simple little tutorial that will help you make better looking schedules and schedules that won't sacrifice an office standard carried over from AutoCAD.

Topics Covered:  

  • Grouping Headers in a Revit schedule.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Revit Tip - One Click 3D Floor Plans

This is a fantastic tip that I cannot believe I forgot to post about!  In once click you can set up 3D views based on your other views... Revit will even use the section box and cut your floor plans automatically.

I found this nice tip on Luke's blog but it was originally posted here...

When starting a new project in Revit, I typically create 3D views for each level in the project. To do this I use the View Cube to assist me in creating the views. I typically do not care for the View Cube for orbiting or adjusting my views. I usually use my wheel on my mouse with the shift key to orbit, but I have found the View Cube to be very helpful for this particular task.


To set up a 3D view for each level, you could manually achieve this by turning on the Section Box in the Properties of the view and use the grips to drag the Section Box to display just the desired level. This is very cumbersome and sometimes hard to get the grips to be where you want them to be.


An easier, quicker way to create a 3D view for each level is to use the Orient to View option in the View Cube right click menu. This can be done by opening a 3D view and hovering over the House icon on the View Cube, and right clicking to open the right-click menu. 

.... Click here to see the rest of the tutorial and images...

Monday, November 7, 2011

Revit Tip - Revit Foundation Walls Not Visible in View Error

I was having a discussion with a friend and he asked about why he always gets this error when he is creating foundation walls:
This error stems from the way a foundation wall's properties are defaulted:


Notice the base constraint is actually your current level and the offset is set to -12'-0".  Also, notice the top constraint is then set to your current level...  So, basically, unless you change this defaulted properties setting EVERY TIME you select a foundation wall you WILL get this error...

Kind of silly if you ask me..

Friday, November 4, 2011

Revit Technology Conference 2012 - Atlanta, Georgia!

I admit I was pretty excited when I read the email from RTC this morning and saw Washington D.C. through my groggy eyes...  D.C. was on the list of places to hold RTC 2012 but not chosen.  I can't complain about Atlanta though.  I am making it a point to go next year and you should too!  I would love to get as many of my  age up-and-coming Reviteers out there!  Also, I think I will be submitting and abstract for a Lab session....  I will keep you all posted on that.

EVERGREEN MARRIOTT CONFERENCE RESORT
STONE MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA, USA
THURSDAY 28 – SATURDAY 30 JUNE, 2012

The inaugural RTC in North America was a huge success, attracting more than 300 attendees from 34 states across the USA, and from a further 9 countries. The conference had an overwhelmingly positive response received from the attendee feedback, which included 91% of attendees indicating that they would attend an RTC event in the future. We are very pleased with the outcome of the inaugural conference in North America and look forward to another successful event in 2012.

RTC is a unique, independent conference, covering all things Revit / BIM and the whole ecosystem that supports it and that goes to ensuring your success in the marketplace. No other event brings so many opportunities and benefits together in a single location. As a 'by users, for users' event, RTC is the best place to get unvarnished advice from the people who use the technologies to drive their businesses, and the industry as a whole, forward. Business leaders, thought leaders, innovators and implementers; they are all here, and all ready to give away their secrets to aid in the quest for a better, smarter industry, and a stronger, more sustainable environment.
  • Learn from some of the world's top instructors and industry experts.
  • Share ideas and insights with an international community of your peers.
  • Explore the latest trends and technologies
  • Cultivate important business and professional contacts that can benefit your company and your career.
  • Come to learn from the experts and leave with a wealth of knowledge, practical methods, and new ideas.
  • See how Revit and related applications drive ESD analysis and simulation.
  • Unlock the potential of BIM to streamline the building procurement and construction process.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Exploded House Video - MyLowes

I keep seeing this commercial and I absolutely love it!  I figured I would share it for those of you who haven't seen it... very cool.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Junior Achievement Bowl-a-Thon

I typically don't ask for donations on this blog but I am participating in a Bowl-a-Thon this weekend and the cause is one that relates to this blog in many ways.

Given the strong connection with students that this blog has I thought that Junior Achievement would apply to us all in some way.
Junior Achievement Sparks Student Success
Junior Achievement (JA) empowers young people to own their economic success. Our volunteer-delivered, K-12 programs foster work-readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy skills, and use experiential learning to inspire kids to dream big and reach their potential.
Junior Achievement impacts 4 million U.S. students in more than 173,000 classrooms. With the help of 171,000 volunteers, JA students develop the skills they need to experience the realities and opportunities of work and entrepreneurship in the 21st-century global marketplace.

I am reaching out to any of my readers that would like to donate.  Every dollar counts.

Click here to learn about Junior Achievement.
Click here to donate now.

Revit Tip - 10 Reasons Why You Can't See and Element

Great little tip from earlier in the year.  I thought I had posted this but turns out it was in my drafts...

Top 10 Reasons You Can't See an Element in Revit

  1. Is the correct Workset being used?
  2. Is the view range set correctly to see the particular element?
  3. Is the object hosted on an incorrect surface like a floor instead of a ceiling?
  4. Is there a filter applied to the view that is causing the element to be hidden?
  5. Is the detail level of the view set correctly?  Some families are set not to show at Coarse.