- 08:00am - 09:30am Autodesk® Revit® for Film and Stage AB304-1
- 10:00am - 11:30am BIM Bids Only! How to Get Your Subcontractors to Bid an Autodesk® Revit® Project CR308-1
- 01:00pm - 02:30pm The Real Engineer's Workflow: MEP Massing for Pre-Design Analysis MP314-3
- 03:00pm - 04:30pm Next Generation AEC Collaboration AB318-1
- 05:00pm Integrated Architecture and Interior Design Documentation with Autodesk® Revit® AB322-3
Revit for Film and Stage
I wondered if this class would ever happen… thankfully sanity prevailed.
Phil Read presented a session based on the movie design work of Revit genius, it’s the only word that fits, Bryan Sutton. If you’ve ever thought “Revit can’t model that” then take a look at Phil’s notes for this class. You’ll see Bryan has already done it or something far more complex.
In addition to showing Bryan’s awesome modelling the Phil shared many of the presentation techniques used to create and communicate his designs. Extensive use of profiles/sweeps, solids/voids and nested families create the geometry. Merging hidden line and renders, image masks, clever use of phasing, render settings and artistic (not realistic) lighting techniques all combine to bring Bryan’s beautiful models to life. Although developed for film set work they are applicable to any conceptual work where form is important. Oh yeah, the point of all this is use of the Revit model for set construction and sometimes even downstream CGI work. While the modelling applications could do much of Bryan’s work Revit parametric control and documentation tools makes these models constructible. Isn’t that what BIM is all about even for a fictional world?
(image credit: Phil Read’s image of Bryan’s work)
BIM Bids Only!
This session was fun. I’ve read Greg Arkin’s blog for a long time but met him for the first time at AU. The “BIM’vangelistic” style of his writing reflects his personality, presentation style and passion for BIM.
I ran into Jason Howden in the hallway heading to this session so arrived a few minutes late. It wasn’t a problem as all I missed was Greg’s machine crashing! He restarted only to have PowerPoint 2010 freeze (lesson of the day, don’t use beta software for presentations!) but recovered from that by using MindManager for most of the session. I think it worked better than PowerPoint (would have even if it had worked).
Greg had a “brain dump” map with lots of topics, thoughts and questions to kick off a fun discussion on BIM for subcontractors, tender and project management. It allowed a non-linear presentation prompted by discussion. I was taking “non-linear notes” with MindManager in this session!
I found the discussion interesting as came from the sub-contractor, project manager and owner point of view rather than the usual BIM for design. Maybe it was just the sessions I chose but “non-design BIM” seemed to be the theme of my AU. Some comments from the audience highlighted the role Government/State/Regional Authorities could play pushing BIM for projects, some even specifying .rvt format as a deliverable. BIM makes sense when the client is the owner.
It was also refreshing to hear subcontractors who wanted to do BIM, for their own benefit, pushing the design side of the business to enable it. There was also a mention of how to overcome the obstacles, present even if you can mandate BIM. Imagine the client supplying software, data hosting or implementation support to get subcontractors into BIM?
This was another non-typical AU session, no real technical content, but enjoyable all the same. Unfortunately the recording doesn’t really capture much of the audience input, in spite of of Greg literally running around the room to get his radio mike within range of the audience.
The Real Engineer's Workflow…
Simon’s session focused on using MEP BIM with a variety of projects. In the rarefied world of “Pure BIM” everyone will be modelling perfectly with compatible platforms so all you need to do is link the building and get mepping. Simon dealt with the real world where the incoming “Building” could be anything from a 2D CAD file or a “less than ideal for MEP” BIM model. He showed how massing and tracing can turn 2D documents into a model. Even a simple mass model can provide valuable results early in in a project when analysis could yield the most benefit.
If an architectural BIM is supplied Simon outlined approaches to reviewing and, if necessary, “healing” the model to ensure its suitable for MEP. The apparently fine design model can have all sorts of problems with MEP if rooms aren’t properly formed (vertical overlap) or “holes” in the structure allow leaks. Although not a MEP designer much of it was applicable as we have a variety of old projects to migrate to Revit (from legacy data) and I have been using Revit MEP spaces to track retail space allocation.
Next Generation AEC Collaboration…
I had discovered a thing called Bluestreak on the Autodesk Labs site just a week or so before heading to AU. I fired off a few questions about it to the generic “contact us” email and they were rapidly answered by Mark Evans. It wasn’t until I got to AU it clicked that it was his session I had booked at AU (Doh!).
Bluestreak is a technology pilot that combines design applications, file sharing and a “social media like” conversation. One goal of Bluestreak is to facilitate and capture the discussion around project changes and allow the related information to flow. I see it as Buzzsaw meets Twitter but bundled into the UI you design in. I’m not sure how far that will go but imagine clicking on a model element and finding the discussion that relates to it. It’s an extension of BIM to capture more than design intent but also design resolution.
I felt a bit sorry for Mark that his presentation was impaired a little by the, event supplied, computer only running IE6. Although Bluestreak worked it prefers a newer browser. Try Project Bluestreak - bluestreak.autodesk.com and tell them what you think!
Integrated Architecture and Interior Design…
The last, but definitely not least, formal session of AU for me. Scott, Doug, Keith and Damian showed how they are using a variety of approaches for Revit projects. This was demonstrated using project examples with some stunning modelling and resulting documentation. They discussed project structures, linking methodologies, worksets and group/family approaches.
Also of interest to me were approaches to space allocation/planning and how “incomplete BIM” could still deliver many benefits of full BIM for far less investment. One example was a hotel plan traced in room separation lines as the deliverable was only furniture placement and room allocation scheduling.
It was a great finish to the formal part of Autodesk University. I’ll have more on “the Autodesk University” experience in future posts.