And now there are two: Part 1

In the beginning there was only Robert blogging. Now there are two.

Finally, after a long week at AU and pushing for a deadline as soon as I got back, I get to post my first post on this blog.

As some avid readers of this blog (and people I met at AU) already know Robert is my husband. So because most of you know his story let me first start off by telling you a little about myself.

I grew up in Albany, NY. I met Robert while attending RPI in Troy, NY. Came to work in Philadelphia, seeing as I wanted to actually live with my husband and he graduated first so I had no choice of location. I started working for a small 5 person residential firm in the area. After about a year I decided that I wanted to work on larger projects so I started working for Burt Hill with Robert. My first two weeks there I was thrown onto their first Revit project 2 weeks before CD’s were due. Talk about sink or swim strategy. :-) I fell in love with the program and have been an avid “evangelist” ever since. I now work for NELSON, a 500 person mostly interiors firm implementing Revit. Currently, we have two projects in Revit (well we’re back to one now that my deadline is over). The ongoing project is a 200,000 s.f. ground up project where we are doing the interiors only.

Now that I got that out of the way now on the more interesting topics: AU Unplugged. I really enjoyed my first speaking engagement at AU this year. It was a little nerve racking seeing as I’m not the best public speaker (thus why I’ve been staying out of the limelight thus far). But for some reason when I got that Unplugged email I felt compelled to submit.

It was really interesting to hear the debate about how much people model vs. don’t model. Some people were under the category of modeling everything save you time. Others were under the modeling everything makes the files too big. Both are very valid points. As far as me, I fall somewhere in between. If I’m going to cut a ton of sections through stuff or I’m going to render something, I tend to model it. But for other stuff, such as public bathrooms, nobody cares if they see the toilets in 3d. I mean unless you’ve designed some really hot looking bathroom, you’re not going to need to render it. By the way, I was on a project where we did end up rendering the bathrooms to show the client.

TO BE CONTINUED ....

-Krista-

Design Symposium (afternoon)

For those in the UK or designing for temperate climates, check out www.carbonbuzz.org. You can upload data anonymously, or let people know who you are, you can also benchmark against published standards. Either way, it helps you determine how you're doing on carbon use for a building. The trick is account for this type of information as you design (which is where the computation part comes in).

Earlier in the morning saw some interesting real examples of active facade elements designed by Hoberman Associates (Chuck Hoberman).

AU 2008 - Computational Design Symposium

So, Krista and I arrived yesterday. We're now attending the inaugural "Design Computation Symposium" hosted by Robert Aish. So far we have had a a fascinating presentation by Neil Katz of SOM, showing examples of 20 years of "Computational Design" work and application to a variety of scales from skyscrapers to interior "transparent" walls made of metal or corian.

After that we've seen some hints of what is coming in Revit Structure and Robot (Structural Anaylsis) to help Architects work with engineers to better understand how to derive efficient, elegant structures to support our building designs. By using analysis and permutation to understand various possibilities meeting different criteria.

Most recently we just saw a great "demo/review" of Ecotect by Dr. Andrew Marsh and the possibilities of scripting with Ecotect to generate "realtime" parametric anaylsis to understand the impact of passive sustianable design strategies on one's building design.

So far, an eventful and interesting morning, with more to come.

Andersen Windows

Anyone who has been around Revit for awhile knows that a long time ago Andersen Window and door came out with some families that impossibly complex and overbearing. So, since we're modeling/designing our own house, and we want Andersen Windows and Doors, I broke down and built some for myself. I've loaded them up on Revit city, you'll find single, double and triple casements & awnings (which share the same basic details). I followed the 200 series, but that generally matches the 400 series too. I did type catalogs for the casements. They all use a "core" casement or awning family that is shared nested. The cores are built with simple sweeps based on simplified Andersen details, so feel free to make more detailed if you desire. You'll also find simple interior and exterior trim that you can easily modify if you want. Find them here.

Happy Thanksgiving, and see you at AU!
-R

AU 2008 UnConference

If you follow the AU blog you know the UnConference Schedule has been released. This is the second annual UnConference at AU and for a second year in a row I will be running a session. You can also find out more information here.

My session this year is entitled: Size Doesn't Matter: A Discussion on Strategies for Complex Revit Projects Large and Small

So what would I like to see this discussion all about? In the last four years of working with Revit, I've come to realize that any number of conditions—such as multiple design firms, Integrated Project Delivery, multiple 3D models, phasing or early bid packages—can transform a straightforward design job into a knotty Revit problem. In that time I've discussed, observed and participated in several projects exploring a variety of techniques to address these issues.

This session is meant to be an active conversation by the attendees about their experiences and expertise. This will allow a broader and more detailed discussion of what works, what doesn’t, and when and where various strategies are appropriate. I'm expecting participants to use example project and conditions from their experiences to focus on Revit techniques, which may be influenced by hardware considerations but are fundamentally about selecting approaches when working in Revit. Be prepared to actively participate if you come.

My wife Krista will also be running her own UnConfernece session: Pros & Cons of 3D
Modeling vs. 2d Detailing in Revit

Hope to see you there.

A new favorite software & toy

Awhile back I bought myself a small little Bamboo tablet from Wacom. For those more familiar with the larger versions, this little $70 toy, is nice, it slips in my laptop bag effortlessly, and only requires a USB cable (no wall wart!). I can use it on my lap or at a desk without a problem.

The problem was, outside of Photoshop, I didn't have any good software to use it with, my laptop doesn't have TabletPC Edition on it, and most other programs (even sketch-up) are not really tablet friendly. You may recall I talked about Moi awhile back, adn while it is built for tablet use, I never have gotten into it, and I don't really need a modeling program like that at this time.

What I was originally hoping for when buying the tablet, was the ability to do some sketching, either on digital printouts (like PDF's), image files or freehand. Enter Autodesk, this summer they showed us a cheap little program called "Sketchbook Pro".

Sketchbok Pro is a nice little sketching program. Nothing fancy really, Autodesk says they benchmark against Photoshop as they develop Sketchbook. What is extremely nice is that its built for use with a tablet and stylus. The interface requires no right clicking and the gestures to manage the interface are tablet friendly. I've been using it primarily at the moment to work on our house, while we have a beautiful Revit model, it is often nice to sketch out ideas (check out the screenshot).

CSI Revit (Part III): Recreating a "crime"

We've discussed how to read journals, and how to use them to track down problems. Journals can also be used to recreate and create. Complex journal files built over a full working session perhaps don't work so well, but journal files created for specific purpose can be useful. For instance, Ken Stowe from Autodesk has in the past created journal files that can be used to sequence a Revit model using multiple phases to generate still frames of a Revit model being assembled. Journal files can be used to repeat tasks. Code can also be inserted into journal files to make changes or make things happen.

One useful thing you can do is insert code to create timers. Creating timers in a journal file allows us to test how long Revit takes to perform certain operations. So, we can create a journal file with specific tasks and operations that we plan to time. When creating a journal file to use for whatever purposes you need to be very specific about the tasks you do. In order to make it easier to read/edit the journal, excessive view manipulation, and "errors" should be avoided. Rather the specific tasks should carried out with the least possible mouse movement (shortcuts help). Once you've written your journal file, it is much easier to edit it if it has been cleaned (see the end of this post). When "writing" a journal file it is important that you always have the original file available that you start with, otherwise the journal will not run correctly. Another note, it is possible to save when creating a journal file, however when running the journal it must be able to exactly replicate the saving conditions. Writing journals with Workshared files also creates some difficulties, your best bet is to work with a detached copy, and not save.

With the clean journal file to create timers some basic code needs to be inserted at the beginning, after the line that contains "username":

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") 'create external file object
Set outf = fso.OpenTextFile("c:\My Temp\Journal Results\TimeResults.txt", 2, True) 'insert path for results file
Dim sTime,eTime,comment 'initialize variables

The first line starts the process, the second line "Set out f..." establishes where the results from the timers will be saved, and the last line "Dim..." sets the variables for the timers. After that, it is only a matter of actually creating the timers themselves.

Each timer is broke into a start and end. The end code looks like this (remember any line that starts with ( ' ) is a comment):

'stop timer code eTime = DateDiff("s", sTime, Time) 'put this at end of sequence to be timed. outf.WriteLine eTime & " Seconds of Elapsed Time for:" & comment 'end of code

I usually start with the end code, as you may recall it is easier to find "transaction complete" then the start. Once I have my end code in, I look for the start of the operation I want to time, and then I add the start code that looks like this:
'start timer code sTime = Time 'put this at start of sequence to be timed. comment = "Test Sequence Blah Blah" 'comment to specify what we are timing. 'stuff to time here

With the start code, its important to note that you need to add a comment to describe or name the timer where it says: comment = "Test Sequence Blah Blah"

A finished journal timer should look something like the image to the right.

Once you're code is inserted, you should be all set to run the journal. To run the journal, you will want to drag and drop the Journal file onto the Revit.exe icon located under ..\Program Files\Revit flavor\Program

At Burt Hill we've developed a utility that takes care of running journal files automatically, and repeatedly, so that we can gather multiple instances of results from the same machine running the same test. This allows for a better statistical comparison of machine performance from machine to machine, and makes it easier to run the same journal. We've also modified the code a little bit so that multiple results are appended to a single results file. With the code above, the results file is overwritten everytime the journal is run.

If you're interested, pop over to this AUGI thread. You'll find our benchmarker utility, and a couple of journal and revit files available for testing your machine(s). We've also tested using project files, however simply due to size, I can't release those. You'll also find a utility for cleaning the journal files, to make them easier to read.

CSI Revit (Part II): Tracking down the culprit

We left with how to read journal files, and a suggestion on practicing reading them. Today, we're going to talk about where and how they can come in use for some computer forensic detective work.

Allow me to set the scene.

• At Burt Hill we encourage and keep multiple local files when working on a workshare project. This has come in use multiple times, and for multiple reasons. We usually suggest that a user maintain a week's worth, and sequentially overwrite the files.
• A project team has been working diligently to their deadline. Annotating views, drawing details, setting up sheets, running check prints.
• They're busy working the weekend, 12 hour days to meet their Monday evening print deadline.

Sometime late Sunday or Monday morning, someone realizes all the Keynotes are missing from all the views. The team knew they had been there as they had previous copies (digital & physical) of views/sheets that were complete.

The first step, was to figure out what could be done in the short term to deal with the problem. This is where our rule about multiple local files came in handy the first time. Team members were able to immediately start rescuing views by opening old local files and copying/pasting the missing Keynote Tags from old to current.

The next step was to figure out what happened to the Keynote tags, needless to user error was the primary suspect, but, whose error, and when? How many times have we all worked on large Revit projects, and had something "go missing" or something was "deleted" and we are left to wonder, what, who, when, how... Well one of our top users decided to track down what happened.

To start, he looked through the local files, local file history, and central file history to narrow down when the keynotes disappeared. For those who don't know, for both central and local files you can pull the save history from the File menu (see screenshot).

Once he had an idea of where to look more specifically is where the journal files became useful. With some sense of the approximate time to look for, our investigator used the find command to look for keynotes. What he eventually found was this in a journal file...

One of the users on the project had used "Select All Instances" of the keynote family used in the project, and hit "delete". For some reason this user was under the impression that "Select All Instances" was valid only for the active view! As it was, the user was helping our investigator, and was the one to find the four pages of text showing every keynote being selected, it was quite the teaching moment for the whole team.

While it took the lead investigator a good chunk of his day to sort through all the related files. It was needless to say quite useful to determine what had happened, most importantly, to help assure it doesn't happen again. While the copies of files, and back-ups helped with restoring the missing work, and helped to narrow down the time period in which the mistake happened, without the user's journal file there would have been no way to so clearly identify the culprit.

Check back at the end of this week (or beginning of next), for the my wrap up on journal files.