Clarity for Revit Server

It's been a while, but I have a really good excuse! I've traveled the world, told tales, explored, and ate well. From the shores of western Ireland, to the South of France and Monaco and onward to the beaches of Dubai, I have now returned. What a trip, indeed, but that is for another post perhaps.

Seriously, this is what aquariums look like in Monaco.

Upon my return, I find my new love, Clarity, has finally been made public. LINK

Built upon the Autodesk® Revit® Server platform, IMAGINiT Clarity enables better collaboration between Revit users (both inside and outside an organization). By using IMAGINiT Clarity you can control your Revit Server setup, automate repetitive tasks, and provide valuable data to non-Revit users – all with simple setup, easy administration and secure connectivity.

We've been toying around with this tool for the past couple months and I have to say, it is the bomb. Almost everything that needs fixing in Revit Server, Clarity addresses.  Permissions, task automation, web access, VPN are all there. Head on over to their press release and check'em out. Tell Beau I said hi!

My Non-BIM Hobby

We all do something else, hopefully, outside of work that makes us happy. Maybe it's kickball or something. The point is, technology, architecture, BIM, et al, are great, but we need to step away now and then.

Seriously, who doesn't love kickball?!

Some background; I've played music most of my life. Starting with the saxophone in 6th grade, my love for playing music has only grown. I picked up the guitar for the first time in 1995 and haven't put it down. More recently, however, I've been exploring new musical avenues. Last April, I decided I was going to learn the banjo.

Every Thursday night since then, I've been playing in a 'jam' group with guys from around DFW. I believe the best way to learn is to play with other people as often as you can. Last night a few of us got together to play an 'open mic night' where one of the guys work and the rest is history.

We'll probably be famous soon...

Conceptual Massing and You

How did I get Planet Express Ship to be so awesome? Matt Groening. Also, profiles. Conceptual massing in Revit/Vasari is very sweet and seeing that it's not destructive, I always have access to the underlying structure that created my form to tweak. I started, very simply, with an extrusion and went from there. I heard Zach Kron refer to these as the 'bones' of my form, so I'm stealing it.

Boneless

As you start your profiles, you will want to consider how flexible you want the resultant shape to be. You may consider adding Reference Lines with dimensional constraints to help you stretch or alter your shape later parametrically, but for me, this ship doesn't need to be designed, only modeled. With the form selected, head over to the form element are of your Modify tab and choose Add Profile. Now you have control (parametric or otherwise) over each 'sketch' to do with as you please.

Bone In

The surface will continue to contour and evolve as each profile is completed similar to a Bezier Curve in Illustrator (however, without the additional 'tightness' controller unfortunately). This can be a time consuming process, so be patient. A while back, I saw David Light post about creating the form from nested profiles and have some parametric control on the back end. Again, consult with yourself on how this form may or may not need to flex and go with the best option for you. I continued on using my method for each of the fins and other objects until the end.

mmmmm Fins

In conclusion, use the heck out of profiles, nest them, parametize them, host them. A great side effect of using the conceptual massing tool is that any edge can be used as a path for a sweep. Simply host a point on the edge and draw your profile on the perpendicular plane and sweep away! (see the banding around the base of the fins and the fuselage)

Lift Off!

Good luck out there.

Vasari Wind Analysis

Working with Vasari is pretty great. Most things I want to model come pretty easily as long as I forget everything I've learned from the Family Creator in Revit. The similarities are there, but mostly, it's a new world. For those keeping up, I've tried to create some fun while learning some of the finer points of Vasari, so I chose the Planet Express headquarters and ship from one of my all-time favorite TV shows, Futurama.

I've also been toying with rendering

Basically, the modelling in Vasari is the same conceptual massing tool found in Revit, I've just not had much time to dedicate to learning it, so as stated earlier, I spent some time over the break getting a usable model created to test on. I'll get into specific modelling techniques later, but what I want to focus on today is the Wind Analysis function. It's a great way to view your model regardless if it was created in Vasari or not. The same import types are available to you (dwg, dgn, dxf, sat, skp) so you can create anywhere and import the model in. Once imported head over to the 'Climate Analysis' menu under the 'Analyze' tab to get started.

The model will open in a new 'mode' and the interface will change pretty drastically, but not to worry, it's all good. On the left you'll find a slew of new commands and functions to play with (and I recommend doing just that). I wanted to use the wind analysis to create some compelling views of my model to communicate wind speed and direction and how that velocity interacts with my model, I so I used the 'Flow Lines' display under '3D Volumetric' (this WILL eat your CPU up on larger files, you've been warned). I played around with the 'Flow Line Settings' a bit to get what I want, but basically the break down is this:

The 'Boundaries to Flow From' are your wind sources, you can click as many as you want, I chose the front plane. The 'Min' and 'Max' control the height of the source so you can reduce it to just flow over certain parts of your model and the cell inset offsets the source of the wind from that boundary.

'Flow Characteristics' control the actual vectors as they flow over your model. 'Number of Lines' controls the density of samples you run while 'Segments per Line' control the length of each vector. 'Speed of Travel' is obvious and 'Maximum Age' refers to how long a trail hangs around before starting over. 'Arrow Shape' is pretty straight forward so I won't go into here.

After a few iterations, you can get a pretty clear picture of what the wind is doing to my model and the conversation turns in a client meeting to where you shouldn't put your picnic tables and where you should put your wind turbines. Or in my case, how awesome a spaceship looks travelling fast!

Take some time getting familiar with all the bells and whistles and have a great weekend!

PS, I know there is no wind in space, Planet Express Ship is entering our atmosphere :p

Apply Dependent Views

You spend so much time getting your dependent views set just like you like them. You get the cropping regions all set, with just the right amount of overlap, and then you remember this is a 30 foot tower.

 queue dramatic music

Well don't fret, little buddy. You can take all that hard work and apply it to every other floor in seconds! Just right-click on the parent view of the set you just finished and choose "Apply Dependent Views", choose the views you want to apply that set to, and you're all set. This is yet another great example of "do it once, do it right". You will have to take some time and rename the new dependent views, but the hard work is done. Apply your view template for that type of view, and get back to work!

The views you apply your set to must be the same scale as the original.

I tell my employees all the time that if you find yourself doing something menial repetitively, there is another way to do it.

More fun with Vasari

I spent a little time this break to investigate some creative modelling using the conceptual massing found inside Vasari (and Revit, for that matter). I admittedly haven't had a tremendous amount of time to perfect the conceptual massing, so I wanted to spend some quality time and see what I could do.

This is a work in progress, mind you and there will be more images to come later. I spent most of my energy on the Planet Express Ship and hope to have some decent renderings of that soon. All in all, I'd say the modelling capabilities with the conceptual massing tool are pretty great. I've even managed to add a parameter to the landing gear that allows it to go from open to close to any degree.

PROOF!

Back to Reality

What a great break! 12 days of Christmas, quite literally, and it absolutely flew by. Great time with the fam, but unfortunately, it's back to real life. While I was away, I played, I thought, I slept (a lot), and I contemplated where we go next as an industry. Many changes are coming our way to be sure, and if Ray Kurzweil is to be believed, the Singularity is truly near.

Your next project

Technology is changing so rapidly now that I feel like it's a full time job just playing catch-up. With tools like Revit Server coming into maturity, enterprise cloud solutions for email, documents, and storage, and teams growing ever more complex and dispersed, our life is about to change big time.

I though about the challenges we face this year and created a very short list. Some of these aren't new technologies, but on the spectrum of 'Impossible' to 'Required', these just moved into the 'Practical' realm.

1. Security: Central files based in the cloud (or at least, outside access given to consultants).
2. Preparedness: Owners finally realizing BIM's potential and turning the screws on those who aren't ready.
3. Communication: Central files that aren't central files at all, but a data-hub of sorts.
4. Process: Simulation (energy, logistics, personnel throughput) for high-performance design will become commonplace.
5. Cost: Subscription-based cloud tools and services (think rendering).

If we make it that far.

This list is by no means complete, but just a series of thoughts I had whilst sipping Egg Nog at my 11am breakfast. Here's to a great 2012!