LOD.... In Detail (Practical BIM)

Wow... what a fantastic post.  I am sure many of you have heard the term "LOD" in some fashion if you are using Revit professionally.  Antony McPhee, over at practical BIM, published a brilliant article about the acronym that is LOD ("Level of Detail" or "Development").  Do yourselves a favor and READ IT.  

What is this thing called LOD

There still seems to be some confusion about what LOD levels mean, and how they should be used. I must say I have difficulty relating what I do and what I need whenever confronted with filling in an LOD table. If they are this difficult why are we using them? Are they really useful, or just a waste of our time?

HISTORY OF LOD

From what I can gather LOD was developed by Vicosoftware, a software company that produces construction costing software. They saw the advantages of costing straight from a BIM model, but had a problem. How do you tell how accurate, or how definitive, the model elements you are connecting to in the model are? Traditional methods of costing have a human between what was being measured and the way it was being measured. But automatic take off from the BIM model doesn't.... continue reading...

Revit Tip - Best Quality Panoramas

So you have a nice still rendering on the cloud that was rendered with all the highest settings... And you would like to turn the view and look at the wall behind you... Well, this awesome new feature within the cloud rendering UI will come in handy!!!

Via Luke and Village BIM

Autodesk BIM Conference 2012 Presentations

Because all of us BIM nerds can never get enough of hearing people talking about BIM at a BIM conference....

Source: www.autodesk.co.uk/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=452932&id=20455389

Presentations

---

Prabhat Shikotra
BAM

---

Jeremy Glover
Fenwick Elliot

---

John Messner
Penn State

---

Laura Handler
Tocci Building Companies

---

Mark Stodgell
Pozzoni

Revit 2012 and 2013 Hardware Acceleration and Graphic Display Changes??

I noticed something interesting today.  In the office we are working with virtual Citrix machines for production.  We have numerous project in Revit 2012 and some in Revit 2013.  In both versions of Revit I can not turn on Hardware Acceleration (we do not have hardware or software emulators on our Citrix machines yet...).

Well, for as long as I could remember when you did not have Hardware Acceleration on you could not use ambient shadows (or "occlusion" in other versions).  Today, I noticed that in Revit 2013... without hardware acceleration... I was able to turn on and off Ambient Shadows...  and they look correct...

Revit 2012 - Virtual Machine

Revit 2013 - Virtual Machine

Maybe someone in the labs can explain??

Revit Tutorial - 360 Cloud Rendering and Lighting

Great article about cloud rendering, using lighting, and other features.  It is in German so you may need to have the browser translate it.  Some awesome images and explanations that will help you with your renderings for sure.

 Click here to view the tutorial and write-up...

Autodesk FormIt - Sketchy Views

I cannot believe that FormIt is going to get a sketchy visual style before Revit!  Are you kidding me?!

Source : autodeskformit.com/2013/02/15/things-are-getting-sketchy

Maxwell Render Plugin for Revit

For me, this is huge!  I remember when Revit first integrated the Mental Ray rendering engine and how huge that was... but linking the power of Maxwell Render directly with Revit is a major step for Revit presentation graphics....  Now, I hope this will open the door for other rendering engines :: cough cough :: VRay  :: cough ::....

Revit users can now enjoy this new comfortable and timesaving workflow for editing and rendering scenes, using Maxwell Render directly from the Revit interface. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Compatibility with Revit 2012 and 2013 - any edition
• Support for Revit lights including IES
• Support for many built-in Revit materials
• Ability to override scene materials with MXM files
• Maxwell Grass
• Multilight read-back: changes made to lights in Multilight can be imported back into the Revit scene
• Easy access to the Maxwell material gallery directly from inside the Revit UI

 For full release notes and plugin user guide please refer to our support center here

 The Revit plugin is free to all of our customers and is available for download now from the customer gateway. If you cannot log-in or do not know your password please contact us here.

Thanks to Luke for the first post about it...

Demystifying BIM - Shoegnome

BIM is a collaborative process that relies heavily on communication and teamwork.  It also relies on leaving your ego at the door.  That being said, yes, I am about to link a couple articles from an ArchiCAD website.  Read the articles and remember BIM is a process not a software.  

Jared Banks over at ShoeGnome published a three part series that I found absolutely brilliant. The series focused on "demystifying" BIM.  My favorite part of the three series is the diagram in the third that looks like this:

How many of you think you are "doing BIM"?  What percentage of "BIM firms" are only implementing Lonely Little BIM?  Is social BIG BIM what we strive for?  

Jared's Three Posts...

• Why you failed at BIM (you were impatient) - looks at the struggles with BIM adoption. 
• There are Four BIM Flavors  - clarifies the term BIM by looking at two major factors: BIG/little and social/lonely.
• Primary Benefits of BIM - Dives deeper into the "flavors of BIM"...Or the quadrants of the diagram above.

Revit Tutorial - 2013 Beginners Series on YouTube

It amazes me to see the amount of Revit tutorial videos around the web...  When I started this blog, almost 4 years ago, there were very few Revit training videos of any sort on the internet.  Initially, that is what inspired me to start blogging and recording my own videos.  Anyways, yet another step-by-step Revit tutorial series was launched by Alex over on YouTube. 

Autodesk Revit Architecture: Basic course

Each item is a link to correspond YouTube-video, and also has start and end Revit file.
Please leave comments if something doesn't work.

Part 1: Intro

1. Start screen. Revit Settings
    Watch Autodesk Revit free on-line video tutorial on my YouTube channel
     Start file | End file (will be available in February)

2. Interface
    Watch Autodesk Revit free on-line video tutorial on my YouTube channel
     Start file | End file (will be available in February)

3. Grid: Creation
    Watch Autodesk Revit free on-line video tutorial on my YouTube channel
     Start file | End file (will be available in February)

... Continue to Alex's blog for links and more information about the sereis...

Thanks to Luke for the find...

Making Breakthroughs in Revit: An Interview with Marcello Sgambelluri (AUGI)

A great interview on AUGI with Marcello Sgambelluri.  I've had the pleasure of meeting Marcello and he is a great guy doing some AWESOME things in the Revit world.... Check out his blog to see what I mean...

Click here to view the interview....

Uncle Phil Predicts the Future

Predictions for the Building Industry, 2030 
02/06/2013 
By: Guest Contributor, Phillip G. Bernstein 

 Over the past two decades digital technology has only just begun to permeate the processes and infrastructure of the building industry. While you may see iPads on today’s construction sites and high-resolution digital renderings plastered on the job signs out front, construction itself remains one of the human activities least transformed by the waves of technology sweeping through society... continue reading....

VEO is Finally Released!

Go try it now!

A Dramatically Superior Platform for the Design, Construction, and Operation of Buildings and Infrastructure

Our challenge is to enhance the value of intelligent models. How can owners, designers, and builders make better decisions earlier and throughout the lifecycle? How can they refine decisions over time as unanticipated requirements emerge? Continue…

Click here to buy or try...

Where's VEO??

Today is supposed to be the day of the VEO release! Where is it guys?!

Explore ALL of Revit's Detail Components in Imperial! (Revit Rocks)

I re-posted Daryl's blog (Revit Rocks) a few days ago which had all of Revit's detail components layed out in a file and image.  Some of you commented and emailed asking if there was an imperial version (Daryl's first version was metric).   Well, Daryl must have heard your prayers!

Daryl, I'm sure I speak for my readers who asked for this when I say thanks!

Click here to download the Revit file and images....