The Path to BIM for Small Firms: February 20th Autodesk Webcast:

On Wednesday, February 20, 2008 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. PST, Autodesk is providing a webcast titled:

Building Information Modeling (BIM) Webcast: The Path to BIM for Small Firms

During the last 5-1/2 years, 85% of my Revit training and implementation projects; have been inside design firms with 5-10 design employees. Revit has afforded and empowered small design firms to do bigger, more specialized and profitable projects.

Here's an example (photo gallery) of a small East Coast design firm's residential project; that was designed in Revit and recognized by Architectural Digest.

Narofsky Architecture-Revit Project: Architectural Digest Recognition

Regardless of your business size, consider downloading this free, 62-page AIA Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) Guide which provides insight on the integration of a BIM design process into the IPD process.

The Path to BIM for Small Firms Webcast Registration Site

Revit. Mac or PC Platforms?

An architect in our Seattle office recently shared his successful experiences using Revit on a Mac. I did a little investigating from his email and found this blog article which I sent to him.

Blogger David Light, from Winchester, Hampshire, United Kingdom published this post on his successful experiences with Revit on the Mac

Cheers!

Engineering.com Provides 1GB Free Web File Sharing

A simple free registration on Engineering.com currently provides you with 1GB of free web-based file storage. Rather than emailing those large Revit project files, CAD drawings, image, specifications or spreadsheet files; simply post them to your Engineering.com project site.

Next step, provide your clients, staff, consultants, contractor or reprographics vendor with free permission-based access to your project site. Let the collaboration begin.

Engineering.com features engineering calculators, a university directory, national-international job postings, free downloads, library articles, job listings and a free engineering.com toolbar.

Free DWF Movie Download

It's been said that...Humor has educated more human beings by catching them at their weakest moment..."in the middle of a chuckle". This video provides a humorous educational view of the collaboration process between the designer, his digital project documents and the rest of the project team.

The movie file is titled "Waiting for Those Large Format Printers to Finish Can Drive a Man to Drink...Toner" ...its about 21Mb.

I highlighted Revit 9's new DWF capabilities in the closing paragraph on my company blog titled; Building a School? Designing a School? There is a link to a 2D DWF sheetset and a 3D DWF model I created for a Revit design-build training session I conducted.

Printing DWF Files:
Last week I sent a single Revit 9, 2D DWF file that included 8-pages in the sheet set to my reprographics vendor. They use a KIP 6000 plotter and my plan set was printed without any problems. The size of the DWF file was about 555K. It included plans, elevations, schedules, sections and several 3D views of our house for my builder ...the Revit home plan file was about 38MB. Revit's 3D capabilities and DWF have been two major components I've used to communicate my design intent with our builder, his subcontractors, my banker, his appraiser and to our county and township.

Revit's Publish to Web Feature

Here's how to share project images with your clients in a HTML format. Using the Export > Image command, you can publish multiple views and/or sheets to a HTML web page. I found it while searching the Autodesk support site. A link to a publish to web example is at the bottom of this post.

To create (publish) an HTML web page of your views and/or sheets follow these steps.

1. Open a project.
2. On the File menu, click Export > Image.
3. In the Export Image dialog box, under Export Range, select the Selected views/sheets option.
4. Click Select.
5. Select views and sheets from the list. Click OK.
6. In the Export Image dialog box, under Output, select the Create browsable web site with a linked HTML page for each view option.
7. Select a name and path for the files.
8. Click OK.
9. Open the web site or webpage file.
10. Click on section hyperlinks to navigate views.

I posted a quick sample of the output from this feature. Design-Build Presentation

DWF Takes Revit & AutoCAD Users "Beyond the Paper"

Lock and load your feeders and readers into this blog; Beyond the Paper by Scott Sheppard. You can tell he has a sense of humor when you check out one of last week's posts.

Scott Sheppard has worked for Autodesk for 14 years depending on if you count acquisitions and dot coms. Scott recently accepted the position of Engineering Project Manager for Autodesk's DWF-based Quantity Take Off application that is under development.

• As most of the major plotter manufacturers' plot drivers are able to plot DWF files, the use of DWF is soaring for reprographic service providers. DWF files are grossly smaller than PLT files.
• AutoCAD 2007 can use a DWF file as an XREF rather than a DWG file.
• In Revit, ADT and Civil 3D we can create 3D DWF files. This provides us with a lightweight format for 3D client presentations and design analysis. Which elimintates the need to drag Revit, ADT or Civil 3D to a client presentation. I've been a fan of DWF for years...it just keeps getting better.

No one is saying PDF is dead...after all, there's a PDF driver in AutoCAD 2007 platform products. Now we can choose the best tool to use for the task. You'll enjoy Scott's sense of humor that he's sprinkled throughout his blog. Here's the RSS link to feed your reader. After last week's BootCamp in Dallas, there's been "no place like home" this week.

Autodesk BootCamp-Dallas: AutoCAD/ABS 2007-Day 1 & 2

Bootcamp Dallas - Its all about Revit on Days 3 & 4

BootCamp Dallas' Big Finale is ADT 2007!