Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays etc etc...

Christmas is once again upon us and irregardless of your faith or beliefs this is one time of the year where we spend a lot of money either on holidays or gifts for people.

In short enjoy your Christmas, don't get stressed out and take some time to just sit and enjoy the moment....Like these guys!

Photo by the "Australian Working Dog Rescue"

Love the Bluey's and Kelpies!
Mine's half and half!

Now lets round up those pesky Reindeer....

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Preparing your CAD file for Linking or Importing into your Revit Project

Follow these steps when you receive a consultants drawing for import or link into your Revit project.

• Copy the file and place the original in the appropriate folder for archiving.

• Place a copy of the file in a BIM Links or CAD Links folder.

Tip: You can easily manage multiple files by sorting them in folders according to their source.

• Open the copied version of the received CAD file.

Here you will want to strip the CAD drawing of any miscellaneous information such as linework, blocks, title blocks, survey spot points, trees etc.

• Purge and Audit the file before saving and closing the file.

The goal is to have clean CAD geometry and only show the information that we need.

For example when receiving a Civil 3D file for use to create out surface strip everything out with the exception of contour lines and the property lines.

After you have cleaned up the CAD file, purged and Audited and then saved the file it is now ready to be imported or linked into your Revit project.

Following these processes will provide you with a smaller file size and cleaner CAD geometry to use which can help in the stability of your Revit Project.

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Rendering in the Cloud Using Autodesk 360

I have previously blogged on rendering in the Cloud using Autodesk 360 where I discussed the huge difference between your Revit rendering and the Cloud rendering.

Cloud rendering is great because it free's up your Revit workstation and is far quicker rendering in the cloud, unfortunately quite often the results are not quite as expected....however I spoke to a "high level" person from Autodesk while at AU2013 and I was assured that Autodesk is aware of this problem and that they are working on matching the materials as close as possible to the Revit materials.

I understand why the rendered materials are different, the render engines are different from Revit and the Cloud rendering engine thus producing different representations of the same material.

I'm sure glad to hear Autodesk are working on the problem and I'm looking forward to be able to properly utilize the Cloud Rendering feature on Autodesk 360.

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Glitchy Objects in your Revit Project

I attended Harlan Brumm's session called "A Crash Course in Handling Large BIM Projects" while at AU last week.

I got a phone call from a colleague the other day who was having an issues with a wall that was not behaving as it should and I remembered one of Harlan's tips which was to cut and paste geometry to same place. (Harlan use to be the technical support manager and now he's Services Design Manager for Autodesk .... he knows his stuff) 

Not sure why but this will quite often it will resolve any "Glitchy" elements in your Revit project.

It reminded me of a few other tips from Harlan's presentation.

• Create a new view 
• Cut and Paste geometry to same place 
• Cut and Paste geometry to new project 
• Apply a view template (new workflow for 2013) 
• Check for large coordinates outside 20 mile “box” 
• Save a project copy with worksets disabled 

Try these next time you've got a element that wont play fair.

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AU Summary

Well Autodesk University 2013 is over for another year.
Apparently it was a record setter for attendance, over 9,000 people registered to attend AU this year, and I'm sure with the support staff and accompanying guests it probably topped well over 10,000.

AU 2013 had it's highs and lows, I typically enjoy the keynote addresses especially the opening addresses. This years was a little "underwhelming". Wasn't too sure about the them "outside", I understand the principle of the theme but I found it funny since we rarely went "outside", it's ironic that you never leave the hotel for three days! 

Overall it was pretty good.
I got to catch up with some great people and it's a fantastic networking opportunity.

I also got the scoop on some great software an also what Autodesk is working on for next year, stay tuned...

I now have a whole bunch of work to do! 
I've got to catch up on what's going on back in the office (CEI) and also summaries my thoughts and ideas from AU and see what's viable for integration into our office. I've got some great ideas but I need to clarify them, sort them and then see what's worth chasing and what needs to go no the back burner for possible use latter!

Met some great people at AU that I need to follow up with, my good friend Bruce is great at introducing me to key people that he knows, I appreciate that and I hope I lead by example and connect my colleagues.

Caught up with some great people as well, there is a wealth of talent out there and it's great to see their enthusiasm for the industry pay off for them.

Well, I've submitted my speaker proposals for RTC, I'll submit speaker proposals for AU and CSRW when it's time. I've been working on some great presentation on BIM Management and efficiency on the BIM process for a BIM enabled office and I hope to get the opportunity to share my knowledge.

Till AU 2014!

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Another great Day at AU

Had a great day yesterday and this morning here at AU2013

I was able to catch up with Harlan Brumm who is now the "Service Design Manager Customer Service and Support" who had a great presentation this morning called "Crash course on handling a large BIM project". He's moderating another round table discussion latter today I'll be going to as well.

Harlan's a great guy, always answers question from the group of people who want to speak with him after the session.

Me and Harlan. (Selfie)

Harlans Presentation

Caught up with David Light last night at the Case "Hackathon". Found out that David now works for Autodesk as the "Solutions Executive, Autodesk Consulting". congrats on the new role David. 

Sorry about the lousy photo... !

Me and David Light (Selfie in the dark "sorry")

Some pretty cool things going on at "Case"  I'll blog about when I get some more information.

Mentoring at the Freshman Orientation

Gathering some great information I'll be able to blog about soon I hope...I have to be careful though, maybe wait until it's officially announced from Autodesk before blogging about it. ;-)

Got some great content for the Quality Control documents I'm working on at CEI as well. Looking forward to sharing that with my QC colleagues.

After attending the BIM round table yesterday with a lot of other BIM Managers i'ts good to know that I'm on the right track with the BIM Management and seem to be ahead of the game with where were at in regards to how were set up at CEI which is great!

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First Day at AU...before the official start!

Well my first day at AU and it's been so busy!

Got in around 2pm, registered, attended the Freshman Orientation as a Mentor, that was fun, met up with a couple guys from home, great to see them here, went to the Transoft open house, met some great people there, some exciting things going on there! I'm going to meet these guys (Transoft) at their head office and demo some cool stuff they're working on. Then went to Shaan Hurley's  Blogger and Social Media event and chatted with Scott Sheppard, that was great!

More tomorrow when sessions actually start!

Follow me on Twitter @BIM4ScottC and Instagram (RevitJedi) for my posts throughout the day.

Been up since 4am this morning and I'm tired!

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