CanBIM 11 Regional Session - Edmonton

"Collaboration and Communication in BIM"

After a very successful inaugural event in Toronto, the Canada BIM Council will have it's second regional session on September 15th in Edmonton, Alberta.  The theme of the session is "Collaboration and Communication in BIM". Three presentations have been selected for the day that along with a number round table topics, knowledgeable speakers and a passionate audience should make this a great event for anyone interested in learning about the latest developments in BIM.

Date: September 15, 2011

City: Edmonton, AB Canada

Location: Delta Edmonton South Hotel and Conference Centre
Address: 4404 Gateway Boulevard, Edmonton - 780.434.6415
Time: 1:30pm - 7:30pm

For more information please visit the CanBIM 11 Regional Session Edmonton website.

123D SCULPT - Digitally Sculpt Clay

For just a little bit of Friday fun checkout 123D Sculpt. A great program that lets you digitally sculpt clay to make all sorts of 3D creations on your Ipad. Essentially, 123D sculpt might be compared to a toned down, fun version of Mudbox. I wonder if this is what modeling in Revit will be like next year?

Get it for yourself, free for a limited time at the App Store here

For News, updates, tips and tricks visit 123d Sculpt News

For an indepth review visit Shaan Hurley's blog here

CSA brings ISO energy management standard to Canada

Please visit the two links below for more information regarding the CSA announcment of the Canadian ISO 50001 Energy Management Systems Standard – the world’s first standard global energy management system
 
From the CSA Website:
CAN/CSA-ISO 50001:11 | Energy Efficiency | ShopCSA

Canadian Manufacturing article Article Here:
CSA brings ISO energy management standard to Canada | Canadian Manufacturing

Tips for Cooking Your First Design Visualization: The Recipe for Succese Recipe for Success

With a big thanks to Group2's Todd Dutton for bringing this to my attention, this Autodesk webcast is for anyone getting started with creating design visualizations. After this 22 minute overview, you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect, the workflow and the tools involved.
 

Autodesk - Tips for Cooking Your First Design Visualization: The Recipe for Success

Project Galileo has graduated to Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler

In what must be record time, the wildly popular conceptual design software preview Project Galileo, has graduated from the labs to become the next generation of Urban planning and 3d BIM software called Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler.

Description from the Autodesk Website:

Autodesk® Infrastructure Modeler conceptual design software is the next generation of Autodesk® LandXplorer® Studio Professional software, designed to help civil engineering, transportation, and urban planning professionals create, evaluate, and communicate infrastructure proposals. Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler can help drive stakeholder buy-in and inform decision making with visually rich proposals for transportation, land, water, or energy infrastructure projects. And users can share proposed infrastructure models to give designers a head start. 

Here are a few videos about creating a model, evaluating conceptual designs and communicating using a model:

Revit 2012 Roombook Extension

Roombook is an interesting extension for Revit that has been available to subscription customers for a few years now. Essentially it provides users an enhanced toolset for accurately  quantifying the materials on visible surface area of walls, floor, ceilings and other elements of a model beyond what is possible with Revit alone.

 The official description of  Roombook from the Autodesk subscription center:

"The Roombook Extension helps calculate the surface area of walls, floors and ceiling elements, room circumferences and the total number of furnishing elements within a project. In addition to the automated detection of room areas and surfaces, this extension helps users configure these elements manually to local requirements, as well as achieve more accurate model take-offs. Quantified results can be exported to Microsoft® Excel® software and Autodesk® Quantity Takeoff (QTO) software."

Autodesk Webcast - Transformed AEC Practice

A Window to the Future of Workflow, Technology and Collaboration in the Building Industry.  

The practice of architecture is evolving in pace with the evolution of new tools and attitudes. But how will the workplace look in three, five or ten years down the road? Join Autodesk for a peek into the future of technology and practice in the buildings industry.  Learn about the technologies and practices that will influence how architects work with their extended teams in the future.

Date & Time: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011, 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. PDT
Keynote Speaker: Robert Middlebrooks, AIA

For a more detailed description of the webcast and to sign up please visit this Link

Exporting Schedules to Excel

After much effort you've developed an amazing schedule in Revit but now that information is needed in another format for another reason.  Could be for further development as room data sheets or programming.  Following are simple steps for exporting any scheduled information out to Excel.

From the active schedule view browse through File - Export - Reports - Schedule.  Assign a name and location for what will be the Delimited text (*.txt) file.

Launch Excel and from the Data tab -From Text browse to the location and file that was created on export from Revit and select Import. I'm sure the next three dialogue boxes offer amazing Excel features but I'm a Revit user not an Office user so I tend to leave these on their default settings.