Surveyor come Modeler

As Builts… Existing Conditions… Field Verify… All of these require at best a Professional Surveyor (at best, unless it comes out of your pocket) at worst a couple of schmucks with a Tape Measure. Hey, I’ve been on both the "smart" and “dumb” ends of that tape and the whole process can be a frustrating, error filled, slog to get as much information as possible.

Wouldn’t it be an awesome fairytale land if you would just use a device (like a laser or ultrasonic “tape” measure) to grab measurements from a space and have it start to populate a BIM with that information?

Well, it’s no fairytale. POINTKNOWN emailed me today with an update on the surveying-to-BIM software PKNail. While PKNAil isn’t quite ready for commercial consumption, this video on YouTube is quite promising. Amazing actually. I can hardly fathom the time savings of direct to model measurements. I hope there claims of 300% times savings pans out.

Drop by their website for more information.

Edit: Darn, I should check my Blog feed before I post. Steve at RevitOpED beat me to it. Curses, foiled again! ;)

Proper Properties Pallete (echo?)

In a slight echo (a fun house reflection maybe) of Steve’s post over at Revit Oped I want to offer up a behavior you should be aware of when using the new functionality of allowing the Properties Dialog to be available at all times.

First, I want to say that I LOVE this functionality. The ability to access a family’s properties with just a click of the object or the properties of a view at any other time is a true time saver.

However, be aware of how this can effect families that have different type-based default values for instance parameters. Ok, read that again. Sometimes a family will have an instance parameter that will have a default value that is used a majority of the time, and there are times when a different type of that family will have a different default value.

But what happens when you start to use these families with the modeless Properties Dialog?

Since the dialog is open when you switch from one type to another, AND… the types share a common parameter, AND… the parameter has a value (the default value of the previous type)… the OPEN DIALOG holds the value that is there. Huh? I think you will understand when you watch the video.

Note that you can override this behavior by placing an instance directly from the Family browser (see video.)

I don’t think that this behavior is a “Bug” or an issue. When you think about it, it behaves as expected. It’s just not what I want. Ah, well, that seems to be often the case with Revit.

Properties_and_Instances

Oh, and there is no sound, yet again. You can’t watch So you think you can Dance with your wife and narrate a video at the same time. ;)

BIM Breakfast-5th Tuesdays

Yesterday morning my alarm went off at 4:30 am. It took awhile for the haze of sleep to clear enough for me to not want to throw it out the window. Then I realized that I had to meet some colleagues at the Office to make the hour trek to Wauwatosa (just west of Milwaukee, WI) for the inaugural BIM Breakfast-5th Tuesdays.

Thanks to Ryan Lent from R. Lent Group for organizing the event and coordinating with Cafe Hollander Tosa to provide a meeting place and an awesome atmosphere for the meeting.

It's great when like minded people can get together and talk freely about common interests.

Oh, and 5th Tuesdays??? Well, the group only meets in months that have 5 Tuesdays. Seems about the right frequency, I'd have to say.

The BIG BAD BIM is Back!

The last few months have been fun filled and action packed… Well, filled and packed anyway.

At the office some scope creep in our implementation has kept our team SUPER busy, but some interesting things have come out of it.

Our original scope of work for this past calendar year was to be able to deliver “documents to support the project delivery process” (i.e. SD, DD, and CD quality documents) and “provide spatial coordination between trades” with a defined scope of modeling.

While this doesn’t sound that ambitious, our Office includes all disciplines imaginable in the built environment(Architecture, Structure, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Interiors, Civil and Site, Advanced Planning, Fabrication (steel and wall panels,) Procurement, Owner and Facility Management , etc etc.) And while not all aspects of our business have been “touched by the BIM” quite yet, our configuration has gone pretty well.

The “extras” that have come about have been pretty varied and interesting. I will talk about these in depth in the upcoming weeks, but they including leveraging our models in the field, sharing models with Subs, quantity take-offs, and delivering 3D intelligent models to code officials.

Bear with me while I get back into the groove of Blogging. I’ve got a lot to share.

iPad? Deliver it by Courier...

The iPad is pretty cool in a "I don't really know what its for." sort of way. But I think I like the "Secret" Microsoft Courier more....

Courier feature preview.

Thanks to Steve Stafford at Revit OpEd for posting the first I've seen about this neat little device.

3d head tracking from Apple... for BIM!

Houston Neal from Software Advice dropped me a quick email about a technology Apple has filed a patent for. Take a look at how it migfht be used for viewing a BIM.

This technology seems very similar to a commercially available 6 DOF (Degrees Of Freedom) head tracker call TrackIR from Natural Point, a shareware solution called FreeTrack, and Johnny Chung Lee's Wii remote head tracking solution (be sure to check out his whole site, what an amazing young man.) Given that, I wonder what exactly Apple is trying to patent. Never-the-less, it an awesome idea.

I have to say. as the idea of augmented reality hits the ground running, how far can we be from someone taking the technology of motion capture (it's come a loooong way from ping pong balls and hooray for the reduction mof spandex in current solutions)

and creating a fully immersive 3D UI (user interface) that mimics the experience of the new hit movie Avatar. If your in doubt about how close we are, check out Project Natal from xbox... maybe a little overwrought in the advertising (especially when it appears to be solely camera based tracking and doesn't use any sensors (the ping pong balls above, or the modern inertial sensors) but it looks like we are about to enter a whole new world of virtual/augmented reality manipulation.

A Christmas present for my wife…

I don’t often have personal posts on my blog, but with the two little girls, being busy at work, etc (I know we are ALL busy this time of year) I wasn’t able to get everything I wanted for my wife.

So, right about now we are waking up and making our way down the stairs with the girls. It’s a first Christmas for one and the first that the other will really remember.

What my wife doesn’t know is that in addition to the presents under our tree and in her stocking, she has one more big gift.

And that’s the purpose of this post. The only thing she has to do know is choose one from all the great suggestions she has put out there for the past month…

Will it be the bedroom furniture set? The living room furniture? (I see a theme…) The flat screen TV? Or the… dare I say it… the mini-van?

She doesn’t know I’m writing this, but she does subscribe. My prediction is, when she sees this on her radar, she will think it is a big joke… Well, that’s why it’s HERE, out where EVERYONE can see. I want her to know that this is better than your everyday IOU. I’m sure one of my “Loyal Readers” will hold me accountable…

Stay tuned to see what she chooses. (I'm wishing Flat screen, but I'm thinking a van... you know the one with cool remote open/close doors, the DVD and the convertible seats? Yeah, THAT one...)

Meet the 2009 Routan APR Special.

0% APR* for 72 months.

Merry Christmas to all, and all a Good night.

Happy Holidays... I think.

Rather than compose my own politically correct, religiously neutral, legally viable, and morally responsible Holiday Greeting, I will just link to the all encompassing greeting at REVIT Structure Learning Curve.

Happy Holidays All!! Even you CAD users out there...

Santa is a Reviteer?....

The general Revit population, must have been good boys and girls this year. Check out this link to a special Christmas Eve gift from Arch in 3D.

Happy Holidays and Peace on Earth.

AU 2009 Classes available online…

At least according to the email I recently got from AU. I haven’t double checked, but here is the link if you want to see for yourself.

AU 2009

Yep they are there... Just checked.