Getting started with BIM 360

I've been struggling with getting BIM 360 set up for a IPD project. One of the biggest challenges has been the new workflow of including and setting up team members, having all the applications and add-in's in place and the "new" terminology Autodesk is using for their BIM 360 platform.

We were quite familiar with the old C4R platform and terminology so we understand the fundamentals of the cloud collaboration workflow, our challenge was working through the new process and understanding the new features and terminology.

We eventually figured it out, mostly through trial and error and support from Autodesk (Thanks John).

I recently came across this "Getting Started Guide" which clearly explains the steps to set up a project and the team.

Getting Started Guide




Autodesk BIM 360 platform is an excellent cloud collaboration platform for the entire project team, this will likely become the standard for the majority of projects in the future. Having access to the most current model in an online collaborative platform ensures the communication needs of the project are met.

If you not aware of the BIM 360 platform check it out here: BIM 360

Collaboration for Revit Crash

We recently experienced our first "glitch" with Collaboration for Revit

One of my users recently experienced C4R crashing when opening up the project.
We couldn't find any obvious triggers for the crash, other users on the project went having any issues and the project and linked files were all audited and working fine as were the families being used, there was no obvious reason for the crashing for this specific user.

So if your getting unexpected crashing on your C4R project try deleting the recently opened files/families directly from your Revit.ini file.

Seems to be working fine now for us...

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Collaboration for Revit - New to us....

Were starting to use Collaboration for Revit on a number of projects, subsequently I’ve had a couple questions about local files and back-ups for C4R projects.

Here’s a couple quick points about C4R that are different to what we normally do.

Autodesk A360-Collaboration for Revit is a Cloud Subscription service that hosts building information models in the cloud, enabling project participants from multiple companies or locations to concurrently author models.

Locals:

There technically is a local RVT + an RVT for each linked model. They are tucked away in the Collaboration Cache but you’re not meant to access them.

This is purposely located in special location because team members using Revit shouldn't need to access their locals. Team members navigate to A360 within Revit's file browser, and Revit makes sure they are working on fresh local versions of the Cloud Workshared model in C4R.

You can Publish, Rename and Relinquish elements from C4R.

Saving a back-up file.

Currently there is not “official” way to create a back-up file. However every time we share our model with the consultants we keep a duplicate which can be considered as our back-up file. You can do a "Save As" from Revit for any cloud workshared model and that'll detach it and save it locally. You can also download RVT files in bulk from the A360 Hub, and they'll be downloaded along with any links into a zip file.

I’m sure something will be developed soon as I think it’ll be a commonly requested task.

How does C4R cache Data?

Collaboration for Revit, proactively caches updated model data locally on the machine. This helps to significantly improve the overall performance experience.

It caches the date differently to how Revit Server does

Will there be any “Latency” in accessing the file in the Cloud?

Since Collaboration for Revit operates with a Revit application naively executed on a Windows PC, the overall performance experience depends on the hardware of the machine and the size of the model(s) being operated on. Operations that require a transaction with Collaboration for Revit will depend on the latency and bandwidth between the PC and the Collaboration service. Basically it depends on your PC and your Internet connection, so far I haven’t seen any latency.

Here are a couple links with further information on C4R.

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/a360/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/ENU/123112/files/a360-collaboration-for-revit-cloud-subscription-faq-html.html

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/Revit-CAR/files/GUID-AE6DBCDF-3DB1-41CB-9DC5-B0C336E6C851-htm.html