Aligning Reference Lines

Its taken me a few years, but i am finally gonna put up something useful.

Sometimes i have to deal with reference lines flying through space and i am damn sick of the fact that they rotate willy nilly about thier axis without regard for my feelings.

take this shape for example:

looks nice enough.  A couple of reference lines defining a plane in space.  but if we look carefully, you can see things ain't too kosher.

Them thar reference lines aren't square up to the plane they define!  Bastards!  And what happens if you want to extrude a form along its edges?

WTF????  I don't want my mullions at 72.72dgerees to the face.  Call me a primadonna, and many have, but I want my damn rectangles perpendicular to that face.  not 89.9, not 90.1...but a dead on 90 Degrees!


Have you struggled with this?  If you are reading my blog, drink the same koolade as me, and play in the same sandbox as me, chances are you have had this problem at some point....Well this week i found a solution.  Hallelujah!

Now this ia solution that may create duplicate reference lines in the same place, so you gotta be careful when you are making your family, but this does work!  Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.

I'll start with my 3d triangle and draw a rectangle on its face.  Lookie Dis!  They are aligned in the direction i want!

I deleted 2 lines i didn't need, slapped reference points hosting my extrusion profile on the 2 remaining, and then pulled them to the edges of my triangle...

And BAM!  My edge profiles are aligned!

Cool!  BUT, a word of caution, when you flex the family, these relationships can fall apart, and you will have unhappiness and sorrow....none the less, this is a really good trick to know about!  It has saved my a55 this week.

Now, here is food for thought.  When i go back to my original triangle and pick one of the unaligned, original reference lines,

 I noticed on the properties panel a little greyed out box called "Follow Surface" but for the life of me i can't figure out how to 'un-grey' it.

My hope is that the Wizard of BUILDZ might be able to shed some light on this one when he is done futzing with the balloon animals.

Small Stellated Dodecahedron - Shout At The Devil!

I woke up to an email from Yoda at Autodesk challenging me and another blogger to make one of these in Revit:

as featured in some MAKEZINE Blog....

Being a dutiful Padawan, I jumped right in....First stop, Wikipedia, to find out what exactly a Small Stellated Dodecahedron is.  They said its one of these:

Aha!  Its a bunch of stars all wrapped around each other....that should be easy.  First thing to do is make a Pentagram...a tilted Pentagram....so come now children of the beast and take a walk with me....

Point 1 is the origin of the whole affair.

Point 2 is a Z offset from Point 1

Point 3 is a Y offset from Point 1

Using Trigonometry, these points establish both the tilt and height of the star.

Points 4 & 5 are offset from Point 3 and will establish the width at the base of the star.

Point 6 is a backward offset from the angled reference line in order to create the circle.

Now you can see the circle...and the devil is coming home to roost!

Setting out the circle is important because it was the only way I could figure out how to locate Points 7 & 8 accurately.

Point 9 is the host for the circle and it located at the midpoint of a reference line between Points 2 & 6.

I created an adaptive component with 10 points which would establish the surfaces on the finished form.

I nested my tilted pentagram rig into a new conceptual mass family and started stitching in the adaptive component.  This is only one half of the final form.  To complete the deal, I nested this one inside yet another family and then flipped it upside down like this:

add in some bubbles and bones...

and Booyah, I believe I'm the Devil's Child....

Download it here:

Small Stellated Dodecahedron

An "Architecture Degree" is the new "English Major"

Following on from this post about Phil Read's class on How to Get Ahead in Architecture, I found these two columns via Architectural Record that make good reading.

The architecture meltdown

One of the coolest creative-class careers has cratered with the economy. Where does architecture go from here?

Featuring great quotes like:

• These days, “We are making less than a cleaning lady,” 
• as an educator, I feel like an ayatollah sending kids running into the minefield
• Architects are supposed to be serving society, but I think we’re struggling to maintain our position in society. 

and this article

Want a Job? Go to College, and Don’t Major in Architecture

Featuring this chart which shows that architecture graduates have a higher unemployment rate than artists!

Though i am not sure if they are counting the "sandwich-artists" at SUBWAY.

And things are still shitty in Asia too so don't get any ideas.

RTC Here I come!

I feel loved....

Dear BIMTroublemaker,

Thank you for submitting an abstract for consideration at RTC 2012 Australasia, to be held at Novotel Wollongong Northbeach, NSW, Australia on 24 - 26 May 2012.

I am pleased to inform you that the RTC Organising Committee has accepted your abstract, "Can nine people make a baby in one month? Revit Server may have the answer!" as a 75 Minute Presentation in the BIM Management & Collaboration stream, Advanced level.

Blah blah blah...

sign here XXXX 

Now where the hell is Wollongong????