From CAD Manager to CIO

"CIO...? What's that?" I hear you say.

Chief Information Officer.. I like that title... so much better than BIM Manager don't you think!

Many of us have made that transition from CAD Manager to BIM Manager, many of us are finding that the role of BIM manager is growing beyond the scope of managing the project Building Information Model and more involved in the operational aspects of the business.

The transition from traditional 2D CAD to 3D BIM is probably more complex than we ever imagined. It's impact on the overall design and construction process is EPIC... yes I said Epic!

It affects not only how we produce our printed drawings (ugh..until the model supersedes flat printed drawings!) but also the business of design and our flow of operations involving everyone from the VP's to the tech's.

And who's on the front lines.... the BIM Manager! (in my opinion).

Robert Green, yes you know him from his CAD Manager blog, or Cadlyst articles or have had the opportunity to be in one of his session at numerous conferences, has recently writen an article specific to this topic on the new CAD Managers Center site. 
Very insightful!

Read his article here: http://cadmanager.autodesk.com/competitive-advantage/how-to-advance-from-cad-manager-to-cio/

Also check out the resources available on the CAD Managers Center site. Worth checking out and bookmarking.

Are you a CIO in the making? 
Your firm or office may not even know that they need a CIO, just like they didn't know they needed a BIM Manager until it became apparent. 

Great advice I've followed for most of my career, "Take on the Role that you Aspire too".

Sc.

The 8 Worst Things You Can Do In Revit

The 8 Worst Things You Can Do In Revit

1. Never leave inserted AutoCAD DWGs in a Revit model. Although you can insert a block or drawing into Revit it can cause severe performance and stability issues. DWG files bloat the model by using far more memory than pure Revit entities. If the AutoCAD file is necessary as a background, linking the file in rather than importing it can prevent and reduce some of these issues.

2. Don’t let unresolved Revit warnings languish. Large numbers of unresolved warnings can seriously degrade model performance and stability. Resolve warnings as they occur to keep them from building up in the model. Periodically check the “Warnings” tool on the “Manage” ribbon to see what warnings (if any) have built up in the model.

3. Don’t use Revit Families from Manufacturers without checking them first. Building Product Manufacturers are responding to your requests for Revit content by having families of their products created in Revit. These families may look great when viewed, but if they contain too much detail they can quickly bloat your model.

4. Don’t over-model. One of the most common mistakes among new users of Revit is to put too much detail in the model. Determine how much detail is really necessary to convey your design intent, and then monitor your team to prevent over-modeling.

5. Don’t use in-place families too often. While it is inevitable that you will have to use in-place families in a typical project, be selective in their use. If you create an in-place family and later decide that it should be a component family, there is absolutely no way to convert it. If you must use an in place family, do not duplicate it. For example, if you have to use in-place families to create light coves in several rooms, create them all in one in-place family; don’t create a different in-place family for each room. 

6. Don’t over-constrain model geometry in a project file. Dimension and alignment constraints add overhead to the file and increase the potential for the dreaded “constraints not satisfied” error message. If you’re not absolutely sure that you should constrain something, then you probably shouldn’t.

7. Don’t lose control of your views. Exercise good view management. Don’t create unnecessary views and don’t leave views unnamed. During the course of a project, the project browser can become populated with a large number of unnecessary views that add to file size.

8. Don’t over-use Groups. An inordinate number of groups in a project can impact performance and bloat the model. Make sure to purge unused groups from the model regularly and turn off the “Group and Associate” option when using the Array tool. 

Sc
I found #5 :-)

Revit file Maintenance

Here are some tips for your Revit file Maintenance

Periodic File Maintenance (e.g. every sheet set issue).

In addition to weekly maintenance tasks, perform the following steps:

·       Audit the central file.

·       Create a new central file.

·       Review and resolve warnings.

·       Delete unused or redundant views.

·       Purge unused elements that will not potentially be used in later phases of the project.

·       Compact the central and local files.

·       Have all users create new local files from this central file.

Sc

Working with a Local File

Here are some tips when working with the Local file

·       Be selective about which worksets you decide to open. Avoid opening worksets that are not needed for the work you are doing in the project. Limiting the amount of worksets will speed up the process of opening and saving the project.

·       Close unused views on a regular basis while you are working on the project.

·       Before saving to Central or closing the project close all your hidden views using the Close Hidden tool, Revit only loads into memory what it displays so this will save memory the next time the file is opened, this can also be used before plotting to increase the amount of available RAM.

·       Create a new Local file daily rather than rely on the Reload Latest command to update your current Local file.

Sc

Reducing Revit File Size

Here are some tips on how to reduce your Revit file size

      Warnings - These get ignored and pile up and some of these are more offensive than others. Room, space and area errors caused by boundary issues or redundancy is wasting your cpu's time. Any warning is a waste of "space" and "resources" to some degree.

      View Detail - Do you have a lot of views that are using fine or medium detail level but have scales like 1/16", 1/8"=1'-0" (1:200, 1:100, 1:50)? These views won't really show this level of detail for all elements effectively and you are asking the computer to show it anyway.

      Unused Content - Families that are not going to be used at all can contributed to some bloat. Especially if they are complex families that are quite large to begin with. Purge out any unused families, if you’re not sure export the families into a container file before purging the project file.

      Compact Central - An oversimplification, it is akin to the operating system performing defragmentation of your computer's hard drive. Think of it as asking Revit to clean up after a busy day, it allows Revit to reduce file size.

      Create New Central File - Open the Central file with the “detach from Central” box checked, and then save as a new Central file with a different file name, or to a different location on their server. What this does is it rewrites the database associated with the file and can dramatically reduce the file size.

      Audit your Families – You can check the file size of your families simply by “export family types” then going through the family list to check the file size. You’ll easily be able to spot large family files at a glance.

      Limit custom crop regions – Custom crop regions are “resource intense”, you computer has to think every time you go to that view, reducing the amount of custom crop regions will help reduce the file size.

      Limit 3D views – Keep the number of 3D views in your project to a minimum where possible. Similar to custom crop regions, 3D views are “resource intense”.

      Limit imported images – Images can easily inflate your file size, if you have any background images for rendering or images in your title block that you need to keep, look at reducing the image file size by as much as possible without compromising the quality of the image.

      Export Renderings and walk-thru’s – Any renderings or walkthroughs created in Revit increase your file size, by exporting these you can dramatically reduce the file size.

      Limit the use of Groups and Array’s – Large numbers of groups and array’s in a project can bloat the model. Purge unused groups from the model regularly and turn off the “Group and Associate” option when using the Array tool.