ASCENT Blog

Autodesk University is Right Around the Corner

By: Michelle Rasmussen

Autodesk University 2018 in Las Vegas is just around the corner (November 13-15). AU presenters around the world are wrapping up their presentations as I write this. If you have ever thought about attending, now is the time to register. Early bird pricing ends soon. If you are thinking to yourself, “Is it really worth that much money?” I will be the first to tell you that it is.

Not only does Autodesk put on a great conference, they really strive to make the experience the best it can be. They do so by making sure they acquire only the best of everything. Here are the top 5 reasons I love AU over any other conference throughout the year.

5. The best venue: The Venetian/Palazzo is my absolute favorite hotel in Las Vegas. Every room is a suite with a separate bed and sitting area. I also love that I can get from my room to the conference area via the scenic canal shops on the second level where I can enjoy free entertainment on the way. The best part is that I feel like I am outside even though I am not because of the way they have painted and illuminated the ceiling (shown in picture below).

4. There’s plenty to eat…and drink! AU provides all attendees 3 meals per day, each day of the conference. It amazes me how streamlined the food lines are. Even with 10,000 people to feed, you can easily get into the dining hall, get your food and be seated within 10 minutes. In the evening, they provide both food and alcohol in the exhibit hall. In between classes, they provide snacks to make sure you are able to concentrate on the information being taught.

3. Great place for Networking: Did I mention there are often 10,000 or more people that attend AU? Even if you cannot find a class specific to the topic you want to learn, you can always find an expert on your topic through networking. Find that expert, ‘buy’ them a drink in the exhibit hall (remember they are free!) or exchange business cards to gain the knowledge you need to succeed. If you do not learn something new this week, then you are not trying.

2. You get to see the future today! The exhibit hall showcases some of the most amazing technology that many have not seen before. Companies showcase how they are designing bigger, better, and more efficiently. I was completely amazed over 10 years ago when I saw my first 3D printer at AU. I cannot wait to see what new technology awaits me this year. Here is a video Autodesk put together highlighting a few things we saw last year:

 

1. Amazing classes taught by people who use the software: It is one thing to teach people how to use the basics of the software; it is another to teach real world examples that use outside the box thinking to get the job done. Sometimes, engineers who are geniuses at making the software work for their needs, may not always be the best presenters. That is why Autodesk has a speaker mentoring program just for Autodesk University speakers. The mentoring program is multi-faceted and includes:

• Asynchronous learning modules to teach the presenters how to prepare their handouts and slide decks.
• Weekly office hours where award-winning AU speakers answer questions live every Friday.

• A Slack channel to allow presenters to network and ask questions as they arise rather than wait for the weekly broadcasts.
• One-on-One mentoring for new speakers and veteran speakers who want to improve their ratings.

For the last two years, I have been honored to be a part of the steering committee that helped define the mentoring program we know today. I have also been fortunate to have at least two people each year as mentees. It feels so good to be able to take someone who has never presented before and help them become a top rated presenter.

I stand amazed at how many AU veterans are willing to help others improve. According to Autodesk, the one-on-one piece of the AU Speaker Mentor Program has three times the number of participants as it did when it first began. There are around 250 participants in the program this year. Though many of the mentees are first time speakers, a few returning speakers also signed up to be mentored.

The mentors selected to participate are hand picked and invited to the program. In order to be invited, they must have spoken several times at AU and be among the more highly rated speakers of the AU community. In fact, many have won speaker awards from past conferences. I love what Janice Miller-Kellerman, Content Manager, Autodesk University, had to say, “Mentors must not only be adept speakers, but also must share the mindset that honing the quality of our instructors raises the quality of the conference as a whole...”

If you have not already registered, go to www.au.autodesk.com and register today. If you want to meet up with me or any of my ASCENT co-workers at AU, here is a short list of some of the places we will be:

• November 13-15 during Exhibit Hall hours: ASCENT booth #A210
• Monday
  • 6:00-7:30 pm – Welcome Reception
• Tuesday
  • 6:00-7:00 am - AU 5K and Fun Run by the Venetian Fountain outside.
  • 7:00-8:00 am – Autodesk Military Veterans Network: Breakfast Session in Galileo 1006, Level 1 - Join us for our Military Veterans Breakfast session and connect with other military veterans to learn how to leverage Autodesk solutions to elevate your career. -- I am one of the people presenting at this networking event.
  • 9:15-10:15 am – Session AE196307 – Up Close and Personal with Arnold: A Workflow Process for Using Arnold in 3ds Max 2019--Renu Muthoo from ASCENT is presenting this session.
  • 1:00-2:30 pm – Session BLD225500 - A Coming Convergence? Revit 2019 and Advance Steel Interoperability.--Martha Hollowell from ASCENT in presenting this session.
  • 1:30-2:30 pm – Session BLD225827 – A Winning Combination: 3ds Max 2019 and Revit Interoperability.--Renu Muthoo from ASCENT is presenting this session.
  • 5:30-6:30 pm – Women at AU Networking - Join women and male allies from every industry to share knowledge and strengthen bonds with others who are solving the same challenges as you.
  • 6:30pm-close – Exhibit Hall

• Wednesday
  • 6:00-7:00 am – Sunrise Yoga
  • 8:30-10:00 am – Session CS226509 - Secrets Revealed for Construction Simulation in Navisworks Manage.--I am presenting this session.
  • 7:00-10:00 pm - AU party! - Have fun, enjoy great food and drink, and don’t miss the awesome activities and live entertainment.
• Thursday
  • 5:00 pm-7:00 pm - Farewell Happy Hour

I cannot wait to see you there!

What’s New Badges in Inventor!

By Jennifer MacMillan

If you are anything like me, when a new software release (or update) is released by Autodesk my first stop is always the What’s New documents located in Help. These documents provide a great running list of the current and all past enhancements in one convenient location for me to review. As a content creator, this makes my life much easier in learning about all the great new tools.

But wait!!! There is a new enhancement called Highlight New in Inventor 2019.1 that makes things even easier when trying to figure out what changes have been made. On the Get Started tab > New Features panel when you enable the Highlight New option, orange colored badges are added to the new or updated commands DIRECTLY in the software, as shown below.

What I really like about this is that I am able to easily see where changes are made and then I can refer to Help to read and investigate further. I can even select how far back I want to go. Love it! Thanks Autodesk!

Jennifer

Tips for Implementing MBD with Creo Parametric

You can loosely define MBD as the integration of Product and Manufacturing Information (PMI), which can include dimensions, tolerances, notes, surface finishes and so on, directly into the 3D model.

With MBD, the 3D model becomes the design authority on which downstream manufacturing activities and deliverables are based. Many organizations are moving to MBD, but the path forward is not always clear. The following tips will help you to start down the path toward MBD in your organization.

Get Support at the Top

It is imperative that the push to MBD comes from management. Models developed in an MBD environment touch many areas and teams within an organization.

Implementing MBD can change to how models are developed and used downstream, so there needs to be direction from the top to ensure buy-in. The biggest obstacle can be the shift in mindset toward new processes, rather than a technical one.

Setup an MBD Team

With buy-in and direction from management, a team should be established to champion the change to MBD with the user community. Having a select group of users who lead the initiative and keep stakeholders from management to manufacturing abreast of the project requirements and status, will help to move things forward. The team will be responsible for understanding and communicating the technical and corporate use cases for the product designs, and the impacts of moving to MBD on the various areas of the organization.

Develop Initial Processes

Your team will develop an initial set of processes and best practices to apply. This will be somewhat fluid as the team iterates through the required data, annotation practices, tolerancing standards, required output and so on. Some initial recommended practices the team may want to investigate are as follows:

• Develop a MBD instruction sheet (also known as a Schema) that indicates the information that is to be included, where to place it, and how it is to be shown.
• Use the minimum number of views required to show the part details.
• Use Combination States to display the part's filtered information and any PMI or Inspection information.
• Name any combination states, saved orientations and layer states that are associated with one another, using the same name so the association is obvious.
• Include only GD&T objects that are required to manufacture, inspect, and/or assemble the parts.
• Follow all standards as outlined by ASME 14.5.

Start Small

Moving to MBD does not happen overnight. You will ensure the initial project is large enough to be meaningful, but not so large or so mission-critical that the process fails to be fully vetted due to time or resource constraints.

Train Users

It is highly recommended that end users be trained in MBD – both the tools and the reasons for shifting to it. As stated, MBD is as much a mental shift as it is a technical one, and proper training can avoid some of the natural push-back that can occur.

ASCENT has standard Creo MBD training in the Working with 3D Annotations and Model Based Definition guide. Our Rand 3D division teaches this course in Rand training centers, on-site or live online. Your organization may also benefit from custom training development, where the standard course is used as a start point and is augmented by using your organization’s processes and models.

BIM 360 Train the Trainer Event

By Michelle Rasmussen

I am a tactile learner. That is why, in all the training guides I write, I make sure the drawing/model files I used to create the images in the training guides are included with them in the data set files. I also ensure I make the practices as close to real-world projects as I can. I do this because I have noticed that the light bulb goes on faster when you get to experience a project rather than just talk about hypotheticals.

Last week I spent time in Dallas, TX at the Autodesk office running two BIM 360 Train-the-Trainer events (see image above). I took the idea of tactile learning to the extreme during these classes. Not only did I have them practice using BIM 360 with a prepared dataset, I also asked the trainers to choose a job from the list below. These job roles are applicable for those working with BIM 360 since it is built for anyone in the AEC project workflow including those in the construction field. Then they had to act as that person on the project team during the duration of the class. Each class had two to three teams and one project to work on. This gave a much more realistic view of the BIM 360 platform’s capabilities.

• Architect
• Construction Manager
• Contractor
• Designer
• Document Manager
• Engineer
• Estimator
• Executive
• Inspector
• IT
• Owner
• Project Engineer
• Project Manager
• Scheduler
• Subcontractor
• Superintendent

For those of you who are not familiar with BIM 360, BIM 360 is built on top of the Autodesk Forge development platform. It includes multiple modules that are grouped together into four core products according to job function. All four products are accessed through a single user interface making it easy to move between them. The four products and their included modules are shown in the image below.

The key reason I made everyone in the class pick a job is that different roles will have access to different modules within the BIM 360 platform. I wanted the trainers to experience exactly what their clients’ experience on real projects. They need to understand what each person on the team will see as they coordinate together on a project. Autodesk has created an easy to understand table listing all the roles and their default rights which is shown in the image below (you can also click the image to link to the original table on the Autodesk website).

You may be asking why some people have more rights than others. The simplest answer is not everyone needs access to everything. Knowing when in the construction process specific modules are used may help you to better understand this. The AEC project workflow diagram below shows when you should use each module.

Last October ASCENT released the BIM 360 Glue User Fundamentals learning guide for those using the classic version of the software. Autodesk recently started offering the BIM 360 (Next Gen) platform, so I am in the midst of writing some books for it. I will be releasing both a BIM 360 Glue User Fundamentals and a BIM 360 Build User Fundamentals guide. Be on the lookout for both of those! Until then, I hope you are working "Smarter, not Harder".

Autodesk Revit Line-based Families Webinar Follow-up

 By Martha Hollowell

Thanks to everyone who joined our webinar Working with Revit Line-based Families. We have the recording on our YouTube channel and you can get to it here.

As always there were good questions that came up in the Q&A time so here are some of them with answers that I hope will help.

Q: ­Can line based families be made to follow topography at all?­

It doesn’t look like it will at this point. When I used the Solar Panel Array family and tried to use Place on Face I could not select topography. It is only in a recent version of Revit that you can put railings on topography so this is hopefully for sometime in the future.

Q: ­Can the array be void geometry?­

I was able to create a line-based family using a void element but I didn’t have time to figure out how best to use it. If anyone tries this let us know how it works in the comments below.

­Q: Can the line-based family example be used for a rectangular array? e.g. rows and columns­

How do you build rows and columns into an array in Revit? It is really simple – array sets of items. As you can see in the picture below you can select multiple elements to array.

But, what was even more fun is, if the array is created with Group and Associate, the array can be edited, and you can add items to the array. Let’s see the steps for this.

How to Edit an Array Group

1. Select an array that was created with Group and Associate on as shown below.

2. In the Modify | Model Groups tab> Group panel click   (Edit Group).

3. Add elements to the array.

1.  If you insert a component or model elements while you are in Edit Group mode the elements will automatically become part of the group.
2. If you want to select elements that are already in the project click  (Add) and select the elements as shown below.

4. When you have added or removed the elements you want in the group, click  (Finish). The array is created as shown below.

Array groups like this are really powerful. In just a few steps I created this array shown below.

And you can array arrays.

 

Q: ­Will that line-based family trim with another line-based family­? Will the line-based family trim or extend to other items?

Yes, to both questions. You can use a line-based family to trim/extend and it can be trimmed or extended.

Q: ­You set the distance between the panels from the centerline of panels.  What about having min distance between each panel edge.  Say like 6" between them­

This question is about the formula and parameters I was using for the solar panel array. There are a lot of different ways you can modify the array. I just chose one method to show you. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out exactly which method is best for what you are trying to accomplish. So, yes, you could try both methods and play around until you get them to work as expected.

Q: Would you use the last example for stadium seating? Only in a straight line though?

Yes, you could use the solar array example with any component including seating. But it is only in a straight line. Another participant mentioned that you can create stadium seats using a curtain wall and place them in a curve. That would be fun to try out. This is a good question to answer in the comments below. How do you add stadium seating or similar in a project?

 

None of this is new to Revit it just took some playing around and wondering what if? That is the best part about working with Revit – there are lots of ways to do things and the more you know the more you can find out. Let us know what you think of line-based arrays in the comments below. Thanks again for watching.