Revit Tutorial - Sloping Pipe System (Revit Rocks)

It's about damn time....  Cool little video over at Revit Rocks about sloping pipes....

Click here to view the post and video tutorial....

Autodesk Revit 2013 Web Update Release 1 & 2

Autodesk has released Web Update 2 for their Revit products...

Click here to download Autodesk Revit 2013 Update 2

If you haven't done so already, click here to install Autodesk Revit 2013 Web Update Release 1...

The Future of Documentation...

After reading Phil's great post (that I encourage you all to read) I was inspired to give my two cents.  Why was I so inspired?  Well, I may be a bit older than Phil's son's friend but my story is very similar.  I, too, spent my most influential years playing video games online and socializing with friends doing so.  I can remember drafting on boards and using AutoCAD in high school and thinking, "why is it so easy to build 3D houses in The Sims and Sim City but I am doing this drafting crap in school?".  Even as I write this blog post I have friends who play Minecraft all the time (I never really got into it because I thought the 1 m^3 restriction was just not small enough!).

Phil's post was timely because I recently had a discussion with a professor of mine about Revit and school (him and I have constant "debates" about technology and design...).  My professor exclaimed how everyone in his first year class was already using Revit.  I said, "That's great!".  He shook his head and disagreed.  When I asked why he disagreed he said they whine and complain the second he asks them to draw things the old fashioned way (with a pencil and paper).

I am still not sure if he was making them "hand-draft" or "hand-sketch" but I think a distinction between the two must be made. Hand-sketching will always be around and is a key part of design.  Even myself, The Revit Kid, use lots of hand sketches during the design process (as you can see in some of the projects I have posted here on the blog).  By hand-sketching I am talking about freehand, no straight edge (maybe a scale to quickly mark sizes), and unrestricted drawing.

Hand-drafting, on the other hand, refers to using a straight edge, triangle, compass, french curve, etc... To create construction document level drawings (sure, you could create perspectives too).  The art of hand-drafting is dead.  The sooner educational institutions accept that the sooner we can all move forward.  Sure it is important to know how to read and use a scale, but that can be taught without a drafting board.  Teaching architecture student's hand-drafting (not hand-sketching) is equivalent to teaching publishers how to use this...

In summation, I believe we need to differentiate hand-sketching from hand-drafting and eliminate the latter.

/end  rant

P.S.  I will have a later post digging into Phil's concept of the social aspect of architecture in the future....

Revit Tip - Construction Schedules

I have been meaning to post this tip but kept forgetting.  If you are looking to create some quantity take-off schedules don't waste your time doing them from scratch!

Autodesk decided to have a whole bunch of really useful schedules hidden inside their "Construction Template".  When you start Revit and create a new project chose the "Construction" template and take a look at all the neat schedules!

Oh, and you can simply copy and paste them in the project browser to your new project!

Creating Custom Families in Revit 2012 / 2013 - Metric Edition

I posted about Michael's eBook on Revit families a little while ago... He recently released metric versions of the eBook for Revit 2012 and Revit 2013....   Oh, and be sure to check out the Forward in the Revit 2012 Metric version ... You may recognize the author.

Click here to PDF preview the metric version (with my forward)....

Click here to order the metric version (be sure to say you heard about the book from The Revit Kid.com)....

Holy Reference Lines! - Corinthian Column in Revit

I posted about Paul Aubin's adventures in classical architecture and now you all get to see a video!  Paul recorded a great 11 minute video about his Corinthian column and how he made the capitol.

Click here to see the video.... 

WARNING:  It may blow your mind... and all the green reference planes may make you sick...