Taking a Chance in 2018

The new year always presents opportunities and risks.  We sometimes resist change claiming the cost or effort involved.  My experience is that caution, comfort, and complacency are the true conspirators in blocking progress. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” is easy to say, but nagging doubt, and fear of failure, is the human condition. 

12 years ago I decided to move to Singapore from Kansas City.  The exciting and exotic draw of Asia compelled me, but still I was hesitant. This was a life-change at daunting scale. 

I went to my mentor, an older fellow who had lived about 3/4 of a full life. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Tom, I am so excited to go. I got a great job over there. It’s gonna be so new, different, and cool... but I’m still a little scared!

Tom: There’s no such thing as a parking spot you can’t pull out of. 

Me: (eyebrow raised) What do mean?

Tom: You’ve made a decision to move Singapore, right?

Me: uh-huh....

Tom: well, if you get there and it doesn’t work out, you can make another decision. You can try something else or even come back home. 

Me: ohhhhhh....

It’s been 12 years.

If I hadn’t ignored my fear and taken a risk back then, my life wouldn’t be what it is now!

My career took off like a rocket in Singapore. I’ve been on more adventures & taken more photos than I can ever share. I found a beautiful Wife and we have 2 great kids. Everything seems to have worked out and this parking space is awfully comfortable. Too comfortable....maybe it’s time for another decision.

Let’s not be afraid to get out of the comfort zone in 2018. Wether with adopting new technology, opening up to new love, welcoming work challenges, meeting new people, going to new places, or trying new foods.... let’s grab it all.

If things doesn’t work out, we can always make another decision!

BILT Asia 2017: Get Your 4D Game Tight with the BIMTroublemaker Dataset

Presentation PDF here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B101ixgLlSGXbVZuT0ZhTTBVQlU

Download the data set for the class here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B101ixgLlSGXc09rQ2w0OVhqSGM

IT’S TIME TO SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT FOR RTCASIA 2017!

You know what time its is? Its time to quit procrastinating!

ABSTRACTS  for RTC ASIA 2017 are DUE WEDNESDAY AUGUST 31st!!!!

No more time to waste!

If you have an idea for a class, SUBMIT IT!!

If you have some cool modelling tips and tricks in ANY PLATFORM that you would like to share, SUBMIT IT!!

If you are doing something interesting with BIM and Technology and want to present it to a global audience, SUBMIT IT!!

SPEAKING ABOUT REVIT IS NOT REQUIRED!

We are looking for speakers to talk about BIM in Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Infrastructure, Management, and Implementation.  We welcome discussions related to all platforms, building types, disciplines and workflows.

We need you.

SUBMIT YOUR IDEAS AND ABSTRACTS NOW!

How to Write a BIM Conference Abstract

Time is running out and we need your proposals for RTC ASIA 2017 at Marina Bay Sands!  But how exactly do you write a good abstract? Let me help a little bit.

An abstract shouldn’t be too long or too short. A few paragraphs should suffice, enough to give us an idea that your presentation will be interesting and you are a knowledgeable speaker.

Your presentation does not have to include Revit. We are open to all comers. We welcome other platforms and new tools in the market. If it’s useful, we are interested!

We have a whole list of topics on the ABSTRACT SUBMISSION PAGE

Other things to include in your RTC Asia Abstract:

• A few lines about yourself.
  • Where do you work? What do you do?
• Tell us about the relevant topic for your proposal
  • Architecture?  Engineering?  Construction?
  • BIM management?  Revit tips?  Family building?
  • Visualization?  Workflows? Legos?
• Give your class a title!
  • Something catchy always helps!
• What is your format?
  • Will it be a lecture? A panel discussion? A Lab?
• Summarize your Class description
  • Why do people NEED to take your class?
  • What problem are you addressing?
  • What software or workflows are being presented?
• List a few learning objectives
  • What key skills will attendees learn?
  • 3-5 should suffice
• Give some thought to your target audience and the level of expertise required
  • Is this an overview for executives?
  • Basics for newcomers?
  • Are you going to geek out and get very detailed?

You only have until AUGUST 31 to get in your proposals!  No time to waste!

WE NEED YOUR PARTICIPATION! CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE ABSTRACT SUBMISSION PAGE!
For more info on RTCEVENTS, go here!

Autodesk University ASEAN in Bangkok

Boy oh Boy am I excited to finally be presenting in Bangkok at AU ASEAN
Many thanks to Autodesk for the invitation.
You can download the lecture slides here
You can download the dataset here

RTC Asia 2015 – Event Schedule and Costs Announced

Did you know that the class schedule and event costs for RTC Asia 2015 have been posted on the website? If not, you need to hustle yourself over to the RTC EVENTS SITE RIGHT NOW!

The Full Schedule with the list of ~60 classes is here

The table of registration fees is here

Earlybird Registration starts on Monday July 6th but only lasts until the 17th, but there are limited slots SO GET IN QUICK!

Attendance at the event will also give you the opportunity to sit for the Certified Revit Professional Exam for free.  This is a S$500 value!  Again limited slots are available so sign up fast.

Special group rates will be available for 5 or more people from the same organization.  Special rates for students and professors as well.

Prepare yourselves.  Get your ducks in a row.  Get your affairs in order.  Get your manager’s credit card.  Get ready. The time is nearly upon us.

Making the Sausage 102: Setting the Schedule for RTCAsia 2015

Do you know about RTC?  Next September, an epic BIM event is being planned to gather Revit heads & BIM-Geeks in Singapore for 3 days of focused training.  75 classes taught by global Reviteers from all disciplines.  If you live, breathe, eat and sleep BIM, this is the place for you....more info to come.

http://www.rtcevents.com/blog/?p=1557

BIM is Too New, We Still Need Time to Figure it Out!

If you have been in this business for as long as I have, that statement sounds less like business reality and more like an admission of laziness and avoidance of a changing marketplace.

Occasionally, I am lucky enough to find artifacts which backup my (pointed) opinion.  This weekend at a thrift store I found a stack of old issues of National Geographic.  This one from June 1989 caught my eye...

Who wouldn't want to walk down memory lane and see the hot & sexy computer graphics of yester-year!  I got an eyeful.

"Intergraph now sells workstations with graphics software packages for as little as $20,000!"

"A few keystrokes and you can see the building structure glowing through transparent walls..."

"Designers are using these workstations to minimize tedious work, freeing up time for the creative side of design..."

Classic...

Do you mean to tell me that NASA had VR goggles before the fellows who invented Oculus Rift were even born????

Have some Autodesk Software: "After the customers wishes have all been satisfied, the computer will generate blueprints and calculate costs"

1989.... A year on the bleeding edge.

RTCASIA v1.0 in SINGAPORE!

Have you been looking for a way to roll a trip to SEA into a business expense?  Look no further!

RTC is having its first ever Asian event in Singapore!

Submit your abstract here!

Singapore is a pretty righteous place to visit on its own but its a short flight from several south east asian tourist destinations!  Phuket, Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Yangon, Angkor Wat!  All accessible by short hops on budget carriers!

THIS IS AN EVENT NOT TO BE MISSED!

Come one!  Come all!  Lets make it the BIGGEST & BESTEST RTC EVER!

Revit Basics: Display Configurations and Graphic Display Options

So i have been doing a Forum for Advanced Revit Training in Singapore for the last year or so... trying to bring a bit of AU to South East Asia.  Last night, I had the first event at Autodesk's local office.  Had about 40-50 interested Reviteers show up.

I gave an hour talk on Categories, Display Configuration, Graphic Display Options and then a few tips to make graphics that pop.  The presentation and dataset can be downloaded from here if anyone is interested  in some free training materials.

Farts 2.01: Display Configurations In Depth

I also reference a presentation given by David Light and Jason Grant.at AU 2011 called GRAPHICS THAT POP.  The class really opened my eyes to some of the possibilities. Their material can be viewed and downloaded by clicking here.

Looking forward to doing this about once per month and will continue to post up the lessons to float them out to the far reaches of the interwebs.  Its all part of my efforts to save the world one model at a time.

TBT

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi in Revit

The other day I stumbled upon the Ferrari World Building by Benoy Architects.  Like so many other buildings which have been the basis for this blog, it captured my imagination because i wanted to know how you would generate and refine such a form in Revit's conceptual massing environment.

First thing i did was to start in sketchup so i could grab some key dimensions to start with:

The i recreated the circles and key curves in a conceptual mass family.  A 3 point curve sets up the pincers.  Points offset from a pair of constrained reference points along the bisector set up a curve for the broad side of the form.

A key element of success in generating a form like this is realizing that it is essentially a 60 degree swept profile with cutaways which is then mirrored around a circle.  If you make 1/6th of the form, you've pretty much got the whole thing.
So with these key curves done, i generated the voids to cut the skin:

I found some design information about how the skin profile was generated:

It would have been easier if i'd had a CAD file but approximating the curve wasn't that hard:

Then sweep and cutaway the excess so you only get the 60 degree segment:

Tweaking the parameters which control the broad curve, we can finesse the form a bit:

Cute.  But looking back at the picture, i can see that the center is a different material and there is a silver band along the broad edge.  This requires offsetting a second set of points from the ones which drive the broad curve.

In the end, i had to take the base skin and cut it up into 3 different parts for the 3 materials of the form.  These 3 then get nested into a single family which can still be massaged:

Then brought into the project environment, mirrored around and voila!

I could have gone much further with the parameters to control many more aspects of the form, but I figure this wasn't bad for a couple of hours work.  Fun stuff.

Link to the file:

Ferrari World.RVT

Twitter Ass(ault)

Do you follow @Autodesk?

Now would be a great time to start.  Later this week they are letting me pump a bunch of pictures through their twitterfeed for a day.

Should be good fun.... I guarantee.... @bimtroublemaker

TOP 10: Secrets to Successfully Integrating BIM...

Like many BIM professionals, i get bulk mailers about BIM news.  I usually give them a cursory glance, but rarely does anything really carry any weight or grab my attention.I met the author, Robert Mencarini, at an Autodesk Revit Gunslinger event several years ago.  I remembered him because the dude was ON FIRE!  Really passionate fellow.  I was interested in what he had to say and i wasn't dissapointed.

"BIM is both a technology and a process. This forces firms to reevaluate how they produce their design services. The winners will differentiate themselves by focusing on producing services that their clients expect, such as those that impact time, money and quality."

Though the article is supposedly focused on health care facilities, I think he did a great job of clearly and concisely expressing the principles behind the 3d sandbox we are all playing in. Here is the Article:

http://www.healthcareglobal.com/hospitals/1675/TOP-10:-Secrets-to-Successfully-Integrating-BIM-in-Hospital-Construction

DYNAMO Tutorial Presentation

For the past year, i have been running an informal Advanced Revit training series in Singapore.  Last week I walked through a couple of exercises in DYNAMO to illustrate some key functions of the platform.

I figured i would make the materials generally available if anyone else wants to take a stab at it.  Maybe a good start to build a training session.  It took about 90 minutes to get through the material.  A guy on the development team came and he thought it was pretty cool.

You can download the dataset and presentation here:

FARTS 09 - DYNAMO Dataset

Have a nice day.

Practical Dynamo - Excel Linking 2: Keeping Track of Your Families

There is an advantage to living in a small city/country with a disproportionately large contingent of ADSK employees: I have great access to the development team!

In my last blog post, I pointed out how the list of values for the selected families were not in alphabetical order:

This was because the instances were sorted in order according the GUID:

Without taking the GUID into account, it was impossible to map data from excel back to the appropriate family instance.  If i sorted the data in Excel, I would end up with results like this one:

Not quite hitting the mark in terms of "Data Integrity".  What i needed was a way to export the data, taking the GUID into account, and then be able to map values to the right object on the return trip.

I got in touch with my friends Sharad and Ritesh at ADSK in Singapore and told them about my problem.  These guys love both a challenge and customer feedback; its a match made in heaven because i am a man with problems.

Explaining my dilemma to them, they knew exactly how to solve it and we developed these 2 scripts.

THE OUTPUT:

I included the UniqueID into the index stack:

Making my excel spreadsheet look like this:

THE INPUT:

Now when i bring the data back from Excel, there is the index for my elements included.  The order of the GUIDs will inherently match the order of the lists for the other data indices.

What the boys at ADSK told me about was a command ElementSelector.ByUniqueID.  They made me create a code block like you see above and then plug that into SetParameterByName node.  Now DYNAMO will pick my instances by name and in the correct sorted order.

And I am whole again!

The ElementSelector.ByUniqueID is a "hidden command" apparently.  It was in the user menu previously, but the team took it out because they couldn't think of a scenario where it would be useful!  BIMTroublemaker to the rescue!

This whole process makes me happy like ordering from the secret menu at In & Out!