Archive for the ‘Tips’ Category

A Product Review by Michael Anonuevo

Introduction

In preparing to writing an instructional eBook on how to produce Autodesk Revit renderings and walkthroughs, one of the things I did a few months back was conduct a research on computer systems optimized for these types of Revit tasks. It is a subject matter that I know will occupy a chapter on its own in the eBook. I’ve looked at brand names such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Asus. However, I could not find any computer system specifically targeted for Revit modeling. By chance, I ran into a colleague who suggested that I look into BOXX computer workstations (www.boxxtech.com). I had never heard of the company, although I found out later that they had been around for the last 15 years! As a  full time Revit modeler who is always busy creating complex families or writing about them, I never really got into the details of a good Revit computer workstation. And so with this new eBook project, I had a chance to look at a workstation made for Revit. After emailing my credentials and review proposal to a BOXX specialist, I was connected to the right channels and eventually was sent a unit for evaluation.

This article is about the 3DBOXX 4920 XTREME workstation. At the BOXX website, this model is referred to as The World’s Fastest Workstation for Autodesk Revit. On the internet, you’ll find great reviews about this workstation, including its technical details and specifications. To avoid being redundant, the main focus of this review is how effective this workstation is for Revit Architecture users. I will, however, highlight certain features worth taking a look at.

Is this really the fastest workstation for Revit? How can we users benefit from this system? What makes this workstation special from the rest of the pack? How does this computer compare to yours or other workstations? These questions (and many more) are tackled in this review. If you are in the process of upgrading your Revit workstations or want to add a dedicated power workstation for generating renderings and walkthroughs, this article will help you decide which system to purchase.
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In response to Revit users from Australia, UK, Europe and other countries, I’m happy to announce the release of the Metric Editions of my eBooks:

• Creating Custom Revit Architecture 2012 Families, Metric Edition
• Creating Custom Revit Architecture 2013 Families, Metric Edition

They are free with the purchase of the 2012/2013 US Editions. Please click this link to get a PDF sampler containing sample images and Forewords written by Jeff Pinheiro (theRevitKid.com) and Jay Zallan (Perkowitz+Ruth Architects).

by:

Michael Anonuevo
Revit Architecture Certified Professional
www.littledetailscount.com

I’m happy to announce the release of my eBook entitled:

Creating Custom Revit Architecture Families 2012
A Practical Guide for Beginners and Intermediate Users

for an introductory price of $19.95. The price includes a free update to the 2013 version of this eBook (slated for release on or before October 2012) and four free Revit families from my website.

Although the book was written with architects in mind ,it is also a useful guide and resource for interior designers, recent architecture graduates, Revit MEP and Structure users, and AutoCAD users transitioning to Revit. It is also a handy reference for BIM managers and advanced users.

Book description:

PDF format, 16 Chapters, 751 pages, over 2000 images. Tutorial files are also included.
Requirement: Basic knowledge of Revit.

Download the full Table of Contents, Foreword by Steve Stafford, and sample images here.

Michael Anonuevo
Certified Autodesk Revit Architecture Professional
www.littledetailscount.com

I was asked on Friday if the Revit Extensions had been released for 2012 and to be honest I did not know for sure. I did not have time to look on Friday, but today I logged onto he subscription site and sure enough we have Revit Extensions. All three product ext ions were release back on 06-20-2011. I do not have time to do a complete review, but a list of what is in them is below.

To download your copy of the extensions goto subscription.autodesk.com 

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Paul Aubin is the well known  Revit guru and author who has written several bestselling  books on Revit Architecture, AutoCAD MEP and AutoCAD Architecture. In 2006, his book (Mastering Autodesk Revit Building) is what got me started on Revit.  This is what he has to say regarding the Revit families on my website:

“There are many ways to approach the task of building Revit content. And sometimes, the little details count! I cannot think of a more aptly named website for the excellent content produced by its founder Mr. Anonuevo. Great care is taken in crafting the three-dimensional details and applying very realistic and believable materials. Furthermore, Mr. Anonuevo clearly understands that good Revit content is not just about 3D. He includes 2D symbolic line representations for the plan views to simplify and help with performance. I got a direct look at his drum set. Now I grant you, this is a big Family file weighing in at 12M. But doing a quick test with about 25 copies, the file only grew to 18M. This is because there are few parameters and formulas in the file. So in 2D views, it performs quite well. And really, when would you need 25 drum sets in a single file anyhow… Now your results might vary if using his casino furniture. There it would be more likely to have many copies, but again Mr. Anonuevo takes advantage of symbolic lines in 2D views and keeps parameters to a minimum. What I like most about his efforts is the amazingly high quality renderings he has been able to achieve. There is a degree of realism here that I have not seen in other Revit content and projects. Well done! Overall I would say that you are in the market for casino gaming content or musical instruments, begin your search with www.littledetailscount.com.”  Paul Aubin_January 21, 2011

When you get the chance, please visit his website at: http://paulaubin.com/

Michael Anonuevo
Autodesk^® Revit^® Architecture 2011 Certified Professional

When you are placing spot elevations sometimes you will get the no go simple on all your flat surfaces and it will only work on the edges of the object. This is a simple fix but is very frustrating when it happens. All you need to do is change “Visual Style” from “Wireframe” to any of the other options. Basically the spot elevation tool does not work unless the surface is visible. In Wireframe model the surface it not visible so the spot elevation only works on the edges.

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Have you ever wanted to place text-based parameters into a family, but then lock them down so that end users could not make any changes to the parameter values that you set? Try this:
1) If needed, create the parameter just as you normally would
2) Place the value in the ‘formula’ column, surrounded by quotation marks

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Change is hard, but we are in a state of constant change in our industry, and I expect that not to change. Whoa, that sounded pretty deep (or was it just confusing).  Any who, a big change a lot of firms are in the middle of is switching from an AutoCAD based process to a Revit based process.

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We received an email question, asking if light families should be created in Revit MEP or Revit Architecture, or if a manufacturer should go so far as to create one version of a light for Architecture and a separate version for MEP.

Here’s an answer.

UPDATE: While you can create geometry and connectors in Revit Architecture, there are some types of electrical parameters that can only be added in from Revit MEP, including wiring and power information. To see these, go to add a new parameter, and set the discipline to Electrical and then take a look at the available parameter types:

Additionally, if you go beyond Lighting Fixtures into other families, there are a number of other types of families (mechanical in particular, in the “Family Categories and Parameters dialog box) that don’t even show up in Revit Architecture. In the end, any family that has engineering related information ought to be created by that engineering version of Revit (structure included).

Architecture on the left, MEP on the right… similar differences in Structure.

And you should only create it once.

/Begin TMI/

If you create a new light family and look at the family’s “Family Category and Parameters”, RAC can only create “Lighting Fixtures”. RMEP can create “Lighting Fixtures” or “Lighting Devices”. A Lighting Fixture can have a light source in it, a Lighting Device cannot – but it does have the option to “Maintain Annotation Orientation”. If you want the light to have a generic annotation for plan graphics, and have that generic annotation remain in place as you rotate or orient the light (one possible example could be MEP representation of a wall sconce), you might need to have the family be a Lighting Device.

You would then need to nest in a Lighting Fixture with a light source only – no geometry – in the Lighting Device to have this fixture cast light.

It used to be that MEP’s lights were devices, and Architecture’s lights were fixtures, but this is not really the case any longer. If you look at the out-of-the-box content in both Revit MEP and Architecture, all of the lighting families are fixtures.

After everything I wrote here, I would recommend doing the same – make your lights as “fixtures”.

/End TMI/

As always, email any questions or comments to joe@clubrevit.com

I received an email from a reader (thanks, Anthony) asking for clarification on a previous blog post about Automatic Sketch Dimensions here:

http://clubrevit.com/?p=583

He was trying to recreate the situation I had described and was unable to get the automatic sketch dimensions to show up.

In order for automatic sketch dimensions to work, you need to have a labeled dimension in the family. The family I was working on already had multiple labeled dimensions and I neglected to mention this in my previous post.

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