ASCENT Blog

Schedules Inside and Out Using Autodesk Revit – Follow-up to the Webcast

by Martha Hollowell

Thank you everyone who joined us live for the Schedules Inside and Out using Autodesk Revit webcast based on Chapter 2 of Autodesk Revit BIM Management: Template and Family Creation. If you want to review the webcast again or didn’t have a chance to listen yet you can access it here.

There were not that many questions but here are a few things that came up that I hope will help.

Schedules through the Years

The last time I did a webcast on Schedules it was still bare bones. There were big changes in Revit 2014 and a variety of smaller but helpful changes since then. Here is a quick list of the updates through the years. I used Revit 2018 on the webcast.

2014 – Autodesk added a ribbon tab and lots of formatting tools in the schedule view.  Additional families that can now be scheduled include generic models, levels, grids, and various structural reinforcement elements as well as Phase properties. The schedule view and sheet instance size are coordinated.

2015 – Additional parameters are now available for walls. You can specify custom text for Grand Totals in the Sorting/Grouping tab. You can also Include images in schedules. Several people asked about this. I cover how to add images to schedules in the webcast starting at 25:46. You can use standard image files including BMP, JPG, JPEG, PNG, and TIF. The preview image of a component that displays in the Type Selector is not automatically available but you can take a screen capture of it and save it to be used in the schedule.

2016 – Insert Data Row tool is available directly on the Rows panel. (It isn’t a big change but it makes creating key schedules much easier.)

2017 – Enhanced features include: combining parameters into a single cell, setting up view templates for schedules, the Schedule Properties dialog box is updated to match similar dialog boxes, and additional calculate options in the Formatting tab are included.

2018 – You can now schedule Model Groups and RVT Links and add custom parameters for these elements that can be used in schedules.

Schedules in Revit LT

Most of the schedule tools covered in this webcast are available in Revit LT. The only thing you cannot do is embedded schedules for MEP. (Graphical Column Schedules are not available either.)

To find out more about the differences between Revit and Revit LT check out this page from Autodesk: Revit vs. Revit LT.

Key Schedules

We had one question about Key Schedules and MEP. Most of the time these are used for architectural projects such as Room Finish Schedules I showed in the webcast starting at 31:24. I did a little searching and found a good example on creating a Lighting Device Key that can be linked to an Occupancy Sensor Schedule.

Embedded Schedules

One participant pointed out that there are five categories of elements that you can use with Embedded Schedules: duct systems, piping, systems, electrical circuits, spaces, and rooms. So, you can create an architectural room schedule and embed a schedule for another category such as Casework, Columns, Doors, and Furniture.  I haven’t seen one of these in use and when I tried to create one there seemed to be some issues with the embedded content not showing up.  I will continue to research this and post more here when I find out.

Parameters Webcast

You may also want to watch an earlier webcast: Autodesk Revit Parameters Demystified that builds on the parameters parts of schedules (and more). So, check it out here.

Thank you again for joining us for the most recent Revit webcast. For all of you who asked about the recording here you go: Schedules Inside and Out using Autodesk Revit.

Arnold Renderer in the Autodesk® 3ds Max 2018 Fundamentals - Student Guide

by

Renu Muthoo

I am excited to tell you about the Autodesk® 3ds Max 2018 Fundamentals student guide available from ASCENT. The showstopper for this year’s software is the incorporation of the Arnold renderer as one of the newest rendering engines. This year also saw the removal of NVIDIA mental ray renderer from the software. Although 3ds Max is still compatible with the mental ray renderer, it does not come as a built-in renderer (Refer to the NVIDIA site for more information). The Arnold renderer produces high-quality renderings with simple and easy to use parameters.

With these changes in mind, the Autodesk® 3ds Max 2018 Fundamentals student guide, now includes current content and practices that showcase the Arnold renderer. The content and practices that highlighted the mental ray renderer has been removed and the mental ray practices that used mental ray as the production renderer have been changed and modified to use Arnold/ART renderer. This way the student guide is relevant and up-to-date with the current software.

The changes pertaining to Arnold renderer include the following:

Chapter 6 Materials:

• In addition to restructuring various materials and removing mental ray materials (Arch and Design), this chapter contains new sections discussing the Arnold materials, which are specifically designed to work with Arnold renderer. The chapter now contains two new practices, that show how to manipulate the parameters of the Standard Surface shader (an Arnold shader) to create different materials.

                                    Brushed Metal

        
                                   Transparent Glass

         

 Chapter 9 Lighting and Cameras:

• Although photometric lights work well with the Arnold renderer, Arnold specific lights have been provided with the 3ds Max 2018 software. This chapter now contains a new section that deals with Arnold lights along with a new practice for creating and adjusting Arnold lights.

                            Arnold Lights Setup

             

• The Cameras and Background practice, has been changed and it now uses the Arnold renderer instead of the mental ray renderer. The practice has also been changed to show the use of Physical camera.

                    Background image with Sun Positioner

          
        

 Chapter 10 Exposure Control, Daylight, and Rendering:

• Chapter 10 which was about the mental ray renderer in the 3ds Max 2017 Fundamentals student guide has been removed. The new Chapter 10 in the 2018 student guide was renamed to Exposure Control, Daylight, and Rendering and has been revamped to incorporate the Physical Camera Exposure Control and the Sun Positioner Daylight system both of which work with the Arnold renderer. Both the Image Based Lighting and the Lighting with Sun Positioner practices have been rewritten and now use the Arnold Renderer as the production renderer.

                       Image Based Lighting used with Arnold renderer            

                    Sun Positioner with Arnold renderer

              

• A new section detailing the Arnold Renderer and how to use its parameters has been added and the NVIDIA iray section has been removed. This chapter now contains a new practice where you learn how to set the Arnold rendering parameters to render a scene.

                         Camera AA Samples: 4

     
                        Camera AA Samples: 10

    
In addition to the Arnold renderer specifics changes, there are other changes, such as the interface changes, that have been incorporated in the student guide.

I hope that you will find all these changes useful. The Autodesk 3ds Max 2018 Fundamentals student guide is sure to keep your teaching/learning experience up-to-date and relevant to the current software.

A Quick 5-Step Guide to Working with Bills of Materials in Autodesk Vault Professional

By Barb Nash

The following 5-steps will guide you through working with Bill of Materials (BOM) in Autodesk Vault Professional: 

 1. INTRODUCTION TO BOMS

The Item in Autodesk Vault Professional is the object that is created and associated to each Inventor part or assembly (as well as other non-CAD document design files) and makes up the Bill of Materials (BOM). Every Item has a Bill of Materials as shown in the Bill of Materials tab (BOM View) of each item. 

2. CREATE / VIEW BOMS

There are 2 main methods of creating Items/BOMs in Autodesk Vault Professional: Assign/Update Item and Create New Item (BOM first). Once created, the items are shown in the Item Master. 3. MODIFY BOMS

After double-clicking an item in the Item Master, click Edit to make changes, then click Save to save the changes. Note: To edit a BOM, the structure view must be set to Multi-level.

Manage your BOM's rows by performing the actions shown in the below image for adding, deleting, and reordering rows. You can also toggle rows on and off for export purposes by clicking the light bulb icon.

To make changes such as quantity changes, click in the cell for the desired row and enter the new value.

4. COMPARE BOMs

To compare two BOMs, first (1) select the items or values from the drop-down lists, then (2) click Compare to display the compare report. 5. SHARE / EXPORT BOMS

There are many ways to share and export your BOM data. Three commands for sharing BOM information are shown below showing differences between commands.

Additional details are covered in Chapter 9, "Items and Bill of Materials Management" of the Autodesk Vault Professional 2018 Data Management for Autodesk Inventor Users  student guide and in the ASCENT Webcast: Working with Bill of Materials in Autodesk Vault Professional (has a short quiz at the end!).

Below are questions from the webcast: 

Question 1:  What is the use of turn on/off a row?

When using the BOM Export command, only rows turned on are exported. Therefore, this gives you flexibility when sharing the BOM data for downstream purposes such as sharing with suppliers and integrating with other business systems. 

Question 2:  What is the difference between a Row Number and Position Number?

The Row Number or Row Order refers to row ordering in the BOM View. The Position Number can be thought of as the number that shows in the balloon and Parts list on the drawing. 

Question 3: Can the BOM comparison be exported?

You can export the BOM Compare report by selecting File > Print Preview then File > Export Document. The output formats to choose from are shown in the image below.