RTC USA 2012 Recap

I hadn't planned to do a Recap with all the great examples already out there (compiled here, Thanks Phil.) but I needed fill out an Official RTC 2012 comments form, so here are some excerpts from there:

Overall Comments:

 Personally I think this is the best conference related to BIM and Revit around.  RTC fits into my personal education/career path and I truly enjoy collaborating with the high level like minded folks who attend.

Evergreen Marriott was a lovely setting.  I wish they had done a better job of having rooms ready when scheduled.  I know that there were a couple instances of "quick turnaround" that were unavoidable, but a notable exception was the Kick-off/Keynote.  That's one session expected the venue to be available 15 mins before start (for those of us that can't fathom arriving at the start time...)

Comments about the after hours functions:

Welcome Function:  Always good to have a chance to reconnect with old acquaintances before the real meat of the event kicks off.

BBQ: A highlight for my wife (Partner's Package)  Nice laid back atmosphere, I think the venue and activities (Volleyball and Triumph rides (Thanks Phil)) encouraged folks to mingle outside of there groups.

Gala Dinner: Great food.  Awesome dinner conversations.  Cheesy 80s/90s Prom music appreciated by some (ok just my wife) and disdained by others (everyone...?)  Packway Handle Band was great.  They ARE coming to Vancouver, right?

 Comments about RTC Staff:

Only good things to say about the staff. I had no issues that needed to be solved at the event.  I know this is because of all the work put in by staff behind the scenes. Keep up the good work.

What three things will you take away from RTC and implement in your office?:

Data, Data, and more Data
My focus in the coming year is to leverage decisions made throughout the project and prevent rework and churn.  Quite a few of sessions addressed exactly that topic.

I will also be showing staff some of the fabulous eye-candy that was at RTCUSA.  No, not BIM-chicks or BIM-Studs, but David Light, And the Mana's Revit stairs and Rails. Everything that Marcello produces and Tim Waldock's Divide and Conquer.  Whew!!!

Can't wait till next year. Maybe I can wrangle attending all three events.  Vancouver, Auckland, and Delft... oh my.

Assemble Systems: big "I" BIM

Thanks to Assemble Systems for contributing and being a sponsor at ENR's FutureTech 2012 event. I wanted to single them out for a moment because I think they are offering something unique that will impact the way you interact with the "I" in BIM.

I spent some time (certainly not enough time) with Trent Miskelly (VP of Development) during a break and learned a little about what they do.

Basically, Assemble Systems is a Web Based program that allows you to slice, dice and filter your BIM data in ways that currently are in the realm of the BIM manager and other high level users.

Using their tool Team Members who don't have access to the model can now get just about any non-graphical information that exists in the project.  Quantities, locations, Manufacturer information, etc...

Publish your model to Assemble Systems and now you can create and save views that only include the data needed for the task at hand.  Sound familiar?  It should, that's exactly what you do in Revit.  You filter the view to make the overwhelming amount of information included in the project useful at that moment.

Set up views by adding and removing columns of infiltration.  Sort and filter that information by any parameter or value available.  Even use Comparators (=, <, >, etc) and Booleans (if, and, or, etc...) to create more complex filters.  Sure, you can do all of this by exporting the model to Access or a SQL database.  (Wait, that's not universally true.  Maybe you can do that, but I can't.  I'm not a SQL wiz and I don't have access to Access.)  Even if you can use the data in similar ways, Assemble Systems doesn't stop there.  You can bring those filters into Navisworks as selection sets and see this data in a very visual way.  Oh, and I almost forgot... you can export all of this to Excel for disbursement to the team.

Assemble Systems is truly a tool (as opposed to a packaged solution.)  Learn how it works and create your own uses for it.  Their website shows some suggested uses, such as Estimating, or variance reporting between versions of models, but don't stop there.  Get out of the box, only you know how this tool can help you be more efficient. And I think that's the most exciting thing about this company.  They encourage that attitude. Get in touch with them and get to now what they are all about. 

Assemble Systems: not afraid of the big bad "I" in the Big Bad BIM.

ENR FutureTech conference San Fran 2012

BIG Thanks to McGraw Hill for such a quality event.  Just about halfway through and the big players are in attendance in abundance.  Brian David Johnson's (futurist at Intel) Science Fiction and the Future of WORK was an awesome, inspiring piece that looks out to 2022.  Very quotable as seen in the Twitter stream (#ENRTECH)

Jim Balding (The Ant Group,) Wes Hardin (Burns McDonnell,) and Justin Schmidt (DPR Construction) gave a great panel presentation on Digital Visualization and Augmented Reality.

From The Ant Group's YouTube Channel




And some pics. 

Can't wait till lunch. :)

Happy Independance Day!

Freedom, Justice, and the American way. Take just a moment and pause to think about what that means, what it has meant, and what it can mean.

Now, go enjoy your holiday.

The Most BIM-teresting Man in the world

Stolen from a meme, referenced in a tweet by @jvandezande... well, you know how these things go.  Ahhh, the internets...