IMAGINiT Building Solutions Blog

Lighting Analysis for Revit

  What is ElumTools?   ElumTools is a calculation Add-in used to predict the performance of electric lighting systems within the Autodesk® Revit® Architecture or MEP software. With ElumTools the need to utilize external software to compute illuminance from light sources placed in Revit is no longer necessary.

via www.elumtools.com

This is an emerging technology for Revit from the makers of AGI32! ElumTools is in the beta testings stages and promises to provide robust tools to leverage the Revit model data directly for analysis.

eTransmit for Revit?!?!?!?

Autodesk Labs has another good one out there for testing and potential use - eTransmit for Revit. Definitely be sure that you've installed Web Update #1 for Revit 2012 before using as it seems to resolve some of the known issues:

 

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/revit_etransmit/

Quote:

With eTransmit for Revit, you can:

• Copy and detach a Revit model and associated files to a single folder for internet transmission. This removes the typical error messages when you copy central files using the operating system.

• Locate dependent files automatically and include them in the transmittal folder, reducing the possibility of error. All dependent files are automatically converted to use relative paths to ensure that the dependent files can be located by the model.

• Choose to include related dependent files such as linked Revit models, CAD files, DWF markups, decal images, and external keynote files. You can transmit any Revit (.rvt) model that has been upgraded to Revit Release 2012.

• Transmit models that are using file-based worksharing or server-based worksharing. eTransmit for Revit will also work with non-workshared Revit models.

Common uses for eTransmit

• Internal archiving
• Sending deliverables to clients
• Model exchange between consultants/partners
• Model cleanup
• Sharing models between disciplines

BIM for Fire Protection

Found on the web yesterday - promoting it here today:

"The Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) BIM Task Group has put together a DRAFT position statement that outlines how Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology is currently being used in the fire protection engineering profession and provides recommendations for the profession's future direction in the BIM arena.

SFPE is seeking public comments on this DRAFT BIM Position Statement."

Sounds good to me! Forward this along to anyone that you know of who could help contribute. The initial blog page is here, and it has a link to the DRAFT BIM Position Statement:

http://blog.sfpe.org/2011/06/sfpe-seeking-public-comments-on-draft.html

Project Neon - Rendering in the Cloud

hmmmmm.... Fresh from Autodesk Labs, an update to Project Neon (http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/neon/):

Project Neon is a rendering service that offers greater productivity and a faster turnaround of photorealistic renderings by leveraging the power and compute capabilities of the cloud. Project Neon now lets you render Revit 2012 projects using the Neon for Autodesk Revit 2012 Add-in that you can download from the Project Neon web site.

In short, you install an add-in for Revit and go to "Web Services" tab in your Revit Architecture/Structure/MEP 2012 ribbon. Adjust settings and go! When the rendering is done, you'll be emailed details on how to download the finished images. I had some authentication issues when trying it out (it's in the Labs, it's not guaranteed to be perfect yet!), but the concept and results look promising!

joe

Revit Standards!

I don’t know about you, but any time I can find Revit or BIM standards that any organization has published, I want to grab them and see where I might be able to incorporate their ideas into my standards to make things better. You also might be grabbing different client standards so that you can meet their requirements.

Well, I came across a new one today - The Australian and New Zealand Revit Standards (ANZRS).
As per their web page (http://www.anzrs.org/blog/), “The Australian and New Zealand Revit Standards (ANZRS) was an initiative conceived at RTC (Revit Technology Conference) 2009 in Melbourne in response to the Revit user community’s frustration with lack of consistency and quality in Revit families available from Autodesk, Content Creators and other sources."

There’s a link at the top to download the ANZRS pack, or you can just click on the link here, fill out your information, and get emailed a link to download the pack (it’s a roughly 7mb PDF download).
http://www.anzrs.org/blog/?page_id=113

If you have any other sources of Revit / BIM Standards that you’d like to share, leave them in the comments section below. I’ll get a future post together that combines those from the comments section with all of the other publically available Revit / BIM standards that I’ve found.

Enjoy!

Autodesk Quick Uninstall

One of my colleagues, Scott Burke, pointed out something to me recently that I thought would be nice to pass along. :)

If you’ve ever needed to do a “clean uninstall” of Autodesk software, it often involved multiple steps including the regular Windows add/remove programs process, deleting files from your hard drive and then playing with the system registry. Autodesk has released a tool to make this process a lot easier for 2012 products. If it's installed, you see a link for it in your Windows Start Menu in a location similar to this:

 

You can follow the link below for more information, and if it's not already on your system because of a different 2012 software installation you'll find a download link as well:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=17031128&linkID=9240617

Here’s a couple of qualifying statements from the bottom of the page that are good to know:

• Although this script has been tested on multiple operating systems and environments without issue, it is provided "as-is" and with no implied warranty or guarantee. Please read the disclaimer at the top of the script and use at your own discretion.
• This Uninstall Tool can uninstall the English language of the following listed PSEB 2012 products.  But it cannot uninstall all languages of AutoCAD 2012.
• We strongly recommend backing up any custom files before proceeding.
• Disable any Anti-virus that may be running on your machine before running the script.
• Ensure you are an Administrator on your machine before running this script.
• After the script is finished, it is a good idea to reboot your system to help ensure complete cleanup.

UPDATE 6/10/11:

I got a screen capture of the utility that installs with some Autodesk software (new Suites), and the version that you download off the web has a very slight difference in the wording at the top of the dialog box. It is little enough that it seems like it is the same tool, but it's always good to get some full disclosure. :)

First the downloaded Uninstall Tool:

 

And here's the Quick Uninstall tool:

 

As you can see, there is very little difference between the tools - just IMO a difference in wording based off of how the utility was acquired, but otherwise the same tool. If I find out otherwise, I'll post back. :)

joe

Revit Content Organization

I thought I'd take a moment and echo a post from the Autodesk Inside the Factory blog:

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Autodesk is working to improve the organization of Revit family content and looking for Revit customers to participate in a short online survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/revitcontent

The survey has two parts:

In Part I, you will be asked to review three proposed options for organizing Revit family content, select the option you like the most, and tell us why you chose that option.

In Part II, you will be asked to try a few tasks using the best option you chose.

The two-part survey will take about 20 minutes to complete and will only be used by the Revit product team. 
Thank you in advance.  Your involvement helps us make Revit better fit your needs.

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If you can spare 20 minutes, I highly recommend taking the time (whenever you can) to get your thoughts heard by Autodesk!