Justifying a Revit Manager

Here's a great blog posting by Steve Stafford from Revit OpEd.

It's titled "Justifying a Revit Manager" and its about justifying having a Revit Manager. 
... note there the term Revit... not BIM.... Steve's talking about a Revit Manager, not a BIM Manager. 

There is a distinct difference in the two roles. Early BIM Managers did focus on Revit and developing Revit standards etc, now that those standards have been established BIM Managers typically hand the maintenance of the Revit Standards off to someone else in the company so they can focus on BIM Management which includes project "BIM" management among many other things.

Here at CEI we even break it down to project specific roles by having BIM Lead's (multiple if the project requires) who's focus is the BIM requirements of the project.

It's an interesting read and worth checking out...

Sc  

Revit 2016 and the new Energy Analysis features

Yeah! 

Autodesk finally released Revit 2016. Cant wait to check it out and see what new features have been added and how well it performs.

Frankly I don't expect any "Earth Shattering" features... in fact I'll be happy if they don't have anything too new! I think were beyond that point of truly "new features" with Revit. 

For 2016, all I expect is for it to perform better than 2015 with the inclusion of some of the add on features such as the Building Performance Analysis tools which I think will become more main stream as we use these tools as part of the development of our designs.

I think 2016 (version) will be the juncture where we move from desktop applications to cloud computing, I believe that is the direction Autodesk is going, along with the integration  of software such as Inventor as we go from design straight to fabrication.

Check out some of the new BPA tools for Revit 2016 here and keep up to date on the BPA tools by checking out the BPA New and Community blog.

Sc

Finally!!! The Force Awakens

Finally the trailer for the new Star Wars Movie is out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=104&v=ngElkyQ6Rhs

The Force Awakens!

Sc.

Troubleshooting Revit Issues - Part 3

This is part 2 of a 3 part series addressing ways to troubleshoot issues in your Revit project.

The Autodesk Help site has some great information. Here, I have taken the liberty of adding my experiences to their outline. 

Here are some tips when troubleshooting mysterious issues with Revit.

Note: When troubleshooting Revit, you might make changes that you will not want to keep. To avoid making unwanted changes to your project file, make a copy of the project (and if necessary linked project files) and only work with the copied file.

Views and View Templates

If you find that one view, is not behaving like your other views in your project create a view template from the view that is working and apply that template to the problematic view. If the issue is cleared rebuild the view based upon the working view template, If you’re still having issues with the new View Template try deleting the view and re-creating it.

Also check your “Hardware Acceleration” setting under Revit Options, try un-checking the Hardware Acceleration option to see if this makes a difference.

Families and Components

If you have particular elements that you suspect are causing the issue, delete them, and test if the issue continues. Sometimes a family or a component may be causing an error, an error may be related to a specific instance of a family, not the family itself. If this is the case either re-build the family instance type or start eliminating unnecessary family types.

Try cutting to the clipboard and then pasting it back into the same place. If this does not work (or is not possible), remove the items and recreate it.

After selecting the elements, and before deleting them, filter your selection by category, removing groups of categories. This will allow you to find the category of the problematic elements.  

Once you know the category, use the project browser to find all of the families associated with that category, expand the family, right click and Select All Instances, and select In Entire Project. Remove groups of families within the category to find the specific family related to the issue. 

Crashing in a particular view or a particular command

If you find you’re crashing when accessing a particular view or selecting particular commands, you can quickly check if the issue is related to elements within the project (by deleting "all" elements), and then narrow down and isolate the problematic elements.

Delete all elements from the project by going through the following steps:

1. Go to a default 3D view
2. Draw a crossing selection box (from bottom right to top left) over all the visible elements, and delete them all
3. Delete all of the project views, except for the default 3D view
4. Delete all of the schedules 
5. Delete all of the sheets 
6. Delete all of the loaded families 
7. Delete any Design Options 
8. Disable Worksharing

If the issue stops after removing "everything" from the project, then we know it is related to one of the items removed. Start removing less elements to find the group responsible. 

I hope this helps, feel free to add your own tips by sending me your comments, hopefully I'll be able to add more as I come across solutions.

Sc

For additional postings and BIM information check out the BIM User Group Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OkanaganBIMUsers

Troubleshooting Revit Issues - Part 2

This is part 2 of a 3 part series addressing ways to troubleshoot issues in your Revit project.

The Autodesk Help site has some great information. Here, I have taken the liberty of adding my experiences to their outline. 

Here are some tips when troubleshooting mysterious issues with Revit.

Note: When troubleshooting Revit, you might make changes that you will not want to keep. To avoid making unwanted changes to your project file, make a copy of the project (and if necessary linked project files) and only work with the copied file.

Is it a glitch or just a miss-keystroke?

Is the issue a problem with the file or have you inadvertently turned on or off a feature?

You can typically tell the difference such as a “unable to select element”, or “my ribbon is missing”, which are settings in Revit, compared too “the icons on my ribbon are blank” or “I select a component and Revit freezes”.

Copy paste into blank project file

As a test to determine if it’s a modeling issue, open up a blank default project file and copy/paste the entire project into the blank file. Test the project to see if you are getting the same issue, if you are not it may be view specific or template specific.

  

Uninstall Linked files

Linked files can sometimes cause unexpected behaviour especially if your bringing in updated linked files weekly, they can even prevent a project file from opening up in the first place. If you can't open the host project file, try copying it to a location without the linked files.

If you can open the project, you can then begin to determine which linked file is preventing the project from opening.

If you can open the project, go into the Manage Links dialogue, and remove all linked files from the project to see if the issue is related to one (or more) of the linked files.

I hope this helps, feel free to add your own tips by sending me your comments, hopefully I'll be able to add more as I come across solutions.

Sc

For additional postings and BIM information check out the BIM User Group Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OkanaganBIMUsers

Troubleshooting Revit Issues - Part 1

This is part 1 of a 3 part series addressing ways to troubleshoot issues in your Revit project.

The Autodesk Help site has some great information. Here, I have taken the liberty of adding my experiences to their outline. 

Here are some tips when troubleshooting mysterious issues with Revit.

Note: When troubleshooting Revit, you might make changes that you will not want to keep. To avoid making unwanted changes to your project file, make a copy of the project (and if necessary linked project files) and only work with the copied file.

When did the issue start?

Have there been any changes since the last time it worked properly?

Have there been any updates to your computer, inserted any new families, created any specific views?

Does rebooting your computer make a difference?

This can quite often reset Revit if you’re having a minor glitch. If it keeps reoccurring it may be worthwhile reinstalling Revit.

Does it only happen on your computer?

Can you replicate the issue on someone else’s workstation?

Check to see if you have the latest Revit build or are on the same build as your team, you can do this by going to the “About Autodesk Revit” in the top right hand corner.

If you can replicate the issue on another workstation it’s a project file issue, if you cant it’s an issue specific to your workstation.

If certain categories of elements are missing from your view, you can check whether they are turned off in the visibility graphics settings.

I hope this helps, feel free to add your own tips by sending me your comments, hopefully I'll be able to add more as I come across solutions.

Sc

For additional postings and BIM information check out the BIM User Group Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OkanaganBIMUsers

Revit Technology Conference Earlybird Registration

RTC North America 2015 Earlybird Registration is open

Earlybird registration to RTC North America 2015 is  finally OPEN and is guaranteed to SELL-OUT quickly. Last year's Earlybird allocation sold out in less than 12 hours (11 hours and 6 minutes to be exact) and limited numbers apply, so don't delay. RTC is a great opportunity to meet one on one with leading AEC industry professionals. The full Conference program can be viewed on the RTC website along with other information of interest including registration costs, accommodation options and venue details. WHEN Thursday, July 23, 2015 - Saturday, July 25, 2015 WHERE Crystal Gateway Marriott Registrations closes on Friday July 17 2015. I'm really looking forward to presenting at RTC this year and I look forward to the excellent sessions. Hope to see you there. Sc

Autodesk University Call for Proposals

Call for proposals for Autodesk University will be open on April 22nd, you then have until May 26th to get your proposal in. 

Good Luck!

I know they  literately get thousands of proposals that they have to go through and select the ones they feel best suite their audience. I wont tell you how many times I've submitted (excellent) session proposals to AU with no luck! Finally last year I got in, but only as a co-speaker thanks to my friend Justin James of Reach Consulting. We did a fantastic job last year on Justin's session BM7557 - Real Revit set up and its partnership with a BIM Execution Plan

If your going to submit a proposal here are some key topics AU are looking for are:

·       Building Information Modeling (BIM) (Duh!) ·       3D printing ·       Cloud services ·       Reality computing ·       Fabrication for AEC ·       Advanced manufacturing techniques

Theyre also looking for classes that focus on Autodesk software like Fusion 360, Revit, BIM 360, 3ds Max, Maya, AutoCAD products, and the range of other Autodesk products that support industries from infrastructure to entertainment. Check out last year's classes to get an idea of what type of sessions they're looking for. Good luck! Hope to see you at AU 2015! Sc