Yesterday marked the first full day of RTCNA 2013. The day began with a keynote address by Lee Crockett. Lee was a fantastic speaker and really hit home with some of the subjects he spoke about. Mainly, when it came to technology and the future. One of my favorite quotes from his keynote was "when the rate of change outside of an organization is greater than the inside, the end is near". He then gave some solid examples such as Kodak and Borders. Think about your office or firm... I know I thought about mine. Are we changing at a rate parallel to the technology around us?
My first official class was about construction service tools lectured by Brain Mackey.. Brian ran through the useful tools for construction services such as rebar, assemblies, parts, and displaced views. He then connected it all to Navisworks and showed some nice little gems on Navisworks workflow. For example, the underutilized compare model function (which I think is worth creating a video about for you guys when I get back).
Next, Jay Zallan, with the help of some Revit add-in developers, ran through a list of too many add-ins... There was a hand out of something like 100 add-ins? Either way, Jay ended with "the best add-in ever"! ... Which, as he stated, is you.
The last class was much more interesting than I expected it to be. The class had to do with Level of Development, more specifically, BIM Forums LOD Specification draft. James Vandezande, author of Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2014: Autodesk Official Press
and contributor to the LOD spec, spoke about what level of development really means. One of my favorite points James made was that it shoul be called "level of reliability". Think about your models, how reliable are the walls, the doors, the windows, the equipment? Are they just for your 2D documents? Are they graphically detailed or just contain the metadata? Oh, and "LOD 400" is the new fluffy kitten killer... The class ended with Jay Zallan and I folding the Internet within itself by tweeting a picture of tweeting a picture of tweeting a picture. (See Twitter #warmhole for a explanation).
The night ended with a welcoming function where I got to meet and mingle with lots of different people. I finally met Daryl from Revit Rocks and a few of his Canadian buddies. The night ended at a local bar with the Case guys who gave me the last small t-shirt they had. Thanks guys!
Tomorrow will be am awesome morning with Marcello unveiling some of his crazy face in palm methods of using Revit and Don Rudder teaching a lab about Revit add-ins.
Also, I received a few emails and comments about those of you who missed the live Revit Radio streaming yesterday. I'm sorry you missed it! If you mainly follow the blog via email the is only one email a day and it goes out at 11:00 am eastern time. If I post anything after that them you will not get it until the next day at 11:00am. So make sure you keep checking the blog and twitter for breaking events from RTCNA.
I'm super inspired already and the conference just began so definitely stay tuned!
