Do you blog? Well I have just been fortunate enough to get a new laptop, a Dell Precision M4500! So in the process of downloading and installing some of my regular web apps….I realised that Microsoft have introduced LIve Writer 2011. Well worth installing from what I have seen so far, it can be downloaded from here.
Drivers Download
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
I’ve had a couple of questions with regards to where you get the Revit 2011 Subscription Advantage pack from, once its released. As always this is from the Autodesk Subscription Centre. If you are on Subscription you should have been provided with login details to the site where you will be able to see your product entitlement and the listed subscription tools available to you.
Got an email from Matt Jezyk and Lira Nikolovska from Autodesk today about a forthcoming event you may be interested in. It a series of workshops at the upcoming ACADIA conference in New York City, scheduled October 18-20th 2010. The Summary of the event is below:-
The 3-day Conceptual Design workshop will explore the new Revit conceptual design workflows, specifically parametric modelling and performative design using Autodesk® Revit®. The first two days of the workshop will focus on the ins and outs of the new form making and manipulation tools including creation of parametric rigs to drive and modify form, surface panelization, reporting parameters and adaptive components. The second part of the workshop will focus on analysis applied early into the design process (conceptual energy analysis, solar radiation, use of structural analysis plug-ins), and will also provide overview of API features such as Analysis Visualization Framework and Dynamic Updating.
More details can be found here…
http://www.acadia.org/acadia2010/
If you are in and around New York at that time, you may want to consider signing up, especially if you want to understand Revits conceptual tools much better.
My colleague and friend, William Lopez Campo has finally decided to unleash a blog on us. You may well remember William from last years AU 2009 design slam, he was also the winner for the Berlin design slam with this little beauty…
A quick chat with William today and this is his vision for the blog…
“I’m hoping to capture some of those little developments I start but never finish, like the Inverse Kinematics application in Revit, or some scripting ideas that never progressed. Hopefully the comments and feedback will keep me going and I may get help to go past the tricky bits where I get stuck or inspire other explorations.”
Be sure to check out his blog at http://undernda.blogspot.com/
I promise you, there will be some high level stuff here! Welcome William, to the world of blogging. :-)
As noted on Steve Staffords blog, the spring issue of AUGI | AEC EDGE is out. Some great content in this issue and look out for an article by a chap called “Light” who claims he knows a thing or two about Revit. :-)
I had an email from Ben Bishop from Ideate yesterday to say they have released an updated version of their successful Ideate Explorer Application for Revit 2011. If you haven’t seen Ideate explorer take a look here….
http://www.ideateexplorer.com/index.php
A trial version can be downloaded from:-
http://www.ideateexplorer.com/trial.php
By far the coolest feature is the ability to export your saved searches to Microsoft Excel.
I have been receiving this message a lot when running Revit 2011 on a Dell Latitude with 8gigs of ram, Windows & (64bit) and a Nvidia v3100m graphics card.
Display Driver Nvidia Windows Kernel Mode Driver Version xxx.xx stopped responding and has successfully recovered
What normally happens, is that I will be happily working away in Revit 2011 then suddenly the screen with go black; a little disconcerting; next a message box will appear in the bottom left had corner of the screen with the above message. Revit doesn’t crash, but you do notice that the graphics will be rather sluggish. A save and restart of Revit resolves the problem. It would seem that this crash is as intended, even though very annoying, this statement refers to something called a TDR. A TDR or Timeout Detection and Recovery is a feature that attempts to detect problematic situations and recover to a functional desktop automatically. This feature first appeared in Windows Vista, but it tries to keep the OS going without freezing the PC and forcing a restart.
One issue is that this particularly laptop does not have certified graphic card drivers, it certainly doesn't appear on the Autodesk graphic card list. I have tried drivers from the Nvidia website, but this hasn’t helped. So after a bit of digging around on the internet last night, it was suggested that if you turned off the Windows 7 icandy and actually run in Windows classic mode it would stop the issue. I have been trying this for the 12 hours now and so far……the issue hasn’t returned.
My copy of Mastering Revit Architecture 2011 arrived this morning ( a big thanks to James, Eddie and Phil as well as Peter at Wileys). If you have not seen this book and you are new or even a seasoned Revit user, you need this book! What Eddie, Phil and James have included in terms of depth and breath of knowledge makes it an essential book to have on your desk. What makes this book even more important is that it is Official Autodesk Training material and it will prepare you for everything you need to undertake the Autodesk Certified Associate and Professional level exams.
James approached me a few months back to contribute to this publication and has been a honour to be able to do so, to what is by far the best Revit book ever. Don’t believe me? Get a copy, you will not be disappointed. :-)
I attended yesterdays Excitech Revit User Group. Good event, although it was a long day and rather jam packed. Good to see many old faces either from firms that I had presented to in the past or ex colleagues. I did a 30 min presentation on Managing Large Concept Design Projects, which I think was well received, certainly got a lot of questions after the event about what I showed.
Angus Brown from Fraser Brown Mackenna Architects did an excellent presentation on how they had created parametric content for the development of many of there student accommodation projects. I remember meeting Angus about 4 years ago, his company where early adopters of Revit. But Angus had a vision on how parametrics could help with design, especially with the type of work his business was being commissioned to do. Whilst he had many frustrations in the early days with Revit, he seems to have developed some great processes and the results are excellent.
Simon Gillis from Autodesk did a inspiring presentation on Autodesk’s approach to sustainable design. Much of this can be found on the Autodesk website. Simon also showed Digital 210 King research project……
Working with the CIMS Lab at Carleton University and Faro Technologies, we are developing a digital model of our offices in Toronto using Building Information Modeling (BIM). We hope that this model becomes a valuable resource to a community of simulation and modeling researchers.
http://www.digital210king.org/
Be sure to check out the website, as datasets, images, laser scans etc can be downloaded and reviewed.
HOK are big users of Newforma. If you are looking for a document management system which seamlessly fits into workflow with no disruption to your existing processes you need to checkout Newforma. People often ask me about Newforma, “Why is it so special, what does it off that other systems don’t already provide"?” To be honest I could write a book on what it provides, but one thing is for sure, it does exactly what it says on the tin. That’s its beauty.
When I worked for an Autodesk reseller I got to see many different document management systems. My general opinion was that most where geared towards a manufacturing / engineering. The AEC industry is different and whilst it may seem to make sense that some of these system could work or be adapted, their rigid nature just didn’t allow them to work very efficiently in a AEC firm. So if you either already using Newforma are interested in what it has to offer obviously checkout the Newforma website, but also read this article on AECbytes which explains how PCS Structural Solutions are using Revit Structure and Newforma together.
http://www.aecbytes.com/tipsandtricks/2010/issue48-newforma.html
I had mentioned in a previous blog article that I have been helping James, Eddie and Phil with a chapter on concept curtain walls for the forthcoming book entitled Master Revit Architecture 2011. James did say that there where things going on in the background and that the book may become official Autodesk training material! So I’m please to announce that I got an email from James Van yesterday evening which provided a link to an official press release from Wiley.
Sybex, an Imprint of Wiley Publishing, Inc. (NYSE: JWa and JWb), a global leader in the publishing of educational materials, has executed a brand licensing agreement with Autodesk, Inc. under which ten titles on leading Autodesk products will be exclusively designated as “Autodesk Official Training Guides.” Five of these titles are from Sybex’s Mastering series and have been enhanced to cover the learning objectives for Autodesk’s certification exams.
The Autodesk Official Training Guides and their availability dates are:
- Introducing Autodesk Maya 2011 (Available)
- Mastering AutoCAD and AutoCAD 2011* (May 2010)
- AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD 2011: No Experience Required (June 2010)
- Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011: No Experience Required (July 2010)
- Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011* (July 2010)
- Mastering 3ds Max Design 2011* (August 2010)
- Mastering AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011* (August 2010)
- Mastering Autodesk Inventor 2011* (August 2010)
- Mastering Autodesk Maya 2011 (August 2010)
- Mastering Autodesk Revit MEP 2011 (August 2010)
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-74537.html
For more up to date info check out The Mastering Revit Architecture Teams Facebook page and Arc Tech blog.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mastering-Revit/102115093165238
Thought you might be interested in this career opportunity that Kevin from UberCAD passed onto me. If you are looking to take your Revit and BIM skills to the next level, be sure to drop Kevin an email.
Global player with global opportunities.
We are looking for an ambitious Revit boffin. Initially you will be co-ordinating an existing multi-disciplinary Revit team and have responsibility for assembling the Revit model for a major £200m project.
Beyond that, as one of the most valuable Revit experts within this major international multi-disciplinary company, there are opportunities to work on major projects all over the world or you could chose a more strategic role in the UK. Either way this company will invest in keeping you at the forefront of BIM.
Please call Kevin Johnson on (+44) 01275 349000 or
email: kevin@uberCAD.com
As noted yesterday, RAC 2011 is available for download from the subscription Centre. Its a fairly heavy download, all 2.6 gigs worth of it, but its worth the wait!!
It can also be downloaded from the Autodesk website
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=14973244
After all of the excitement of the trip to the Autodesks Offices in Waltham last week, I got a rather nasty flu bug which was knocked me out for the last 6 days! Mind you, if Autodesk had decided to hold the event this week, I would have been stuck in New York as the UK is currently a no fly zone. This is due to a Volcano in Iceland spitting out ash into the atmosphere and this has drifted into the UK airspace. Aeroplanes and Volcanic ash don’t seem to make a good mix!
I’ve been helping James Vandezande on a section on concept curtain walling for the forthcoming “Mastering Revit Architecture 2011” he, Phil Read and Eddie C are working on. I managed to get the draft over to James on Thursday after some initial edits. I believe its been forwarded to the technical editor to pull part! I’ve seen some of the sections and I reckon it will be an awesome book when its finally published. Get your Amazon orders in now!
Well, I’m sat in a hotel looking out of the window at a very sunny area just outside of Boston, MA. I’m here for the Autodesk AEC 2011 Media launch. This is the first time I have been to Boston; looks like a great place. Kind of strange, as on my way to the hotel, I passed a sign for “Winchester”; I had only left “Winchester, Hampshire, UK” just 9 hours earlier!
http://www.visitwinchester.co.uk/
I guess the first settlers who landed here couldn’t think up any original names, so to make them feel at home, they used City names from the UK. My American history is very poor, so I feel I need to know more.
Got this from Simon G’s blog……interesting to know…
“Autodesk yesterday announced the expansion of the Clean Tech programme into Europe. This provides grants for design and engineering software to early-stage clean technology companies who are working to solve some of the World’s most pressing environmental challenges.”
Want to know how to deploy BIM?
“The Autodesk BIM Deployment Plan offers tools and guidance for building industry professionals interested in implementing Building Information Modeling (BIM). Tools offered in this resource provide a practical framework for AEC stakeholders, and can be used by individual organizations on specific projects.”
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?id=14652957&siteID=123112
What the hell is “LRUG” you may ask? Well LRUG is short for London Revit User Group. Not more Rugs!!!! Unlike the US, the UK has always had a bit of a problem getting User Groups off the ground. They start, then run into allsorts of issues with funding, politics, goals etc etc. Been there, done that. So a couple of months ago I reopened a thread about a need for a UK group driven by users on Linkedin. It went along the lines; If I managed to get a room and a projector and every body threw in five quid for a beer and pizza, how many would actually turn up? The overall response from everybody was that it sounded like a bargain. So off the back of this, the LRUG was born. With the help of Carl Collins of Arup Associates and Alan Woolridge of Scott White Hookins and Revit Learning Curve fame; we now have a London User Group. We are even organised enough to have a web site! wow! For more details go to……
The group plans to start smallish and hopefully grow into something which is sustainable….often these groups fall apart after a few meetings. But I (we) are keen that this group can grow and flourish. It has no secret agendas, it is trying to go back to grass roots; a group for users to share knowledge and learn from one another across all disciplines of Revit. We have been speaking with AUGI in the UK, so hopefully we will get some support from these guys. Whilst internet forums are a good place to share knowledge and learn from others, sometimes there is nothing like a warm beer and a dodgy pizza and face to face conversation to share your Revit tales. The first meeting is today 17th March 2010, this will be hosted by Arup Associates in London.
What I’m also hearing, is that a user group called BIM up North for northern UK users is in process of being formed as well as a Scottish user group. So 2010 could be the year of the Revit user group for the UK! :-)
Thought you might be interested to know that I now have an YouTube page where you can get access to all my posted videos. Some have voice, others don’t. I wouldn’t say that they are edited particularly well, but hopefully they will be of use to somebody. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/user/davidlightrevit
I found this little gem before Christmas. I have been running Virtual PC for Windows for the last 12 months using it to test and try alpha and beta software. It was OK, but I found it a little slow especially in relationship to graphics. I could have gone down the route of Virtual Machine such as Parallels, but then it would required me to get my credit card out and its not something I use all the time on my works laptop.So a bit of Googling and I came up with Sun’s VirtualBox, although I am sure there are others out there as well. This is a free VM, details can be found here;
I found it very easy to setup and within an hour or so I had it working with Windows 7 (64bit) with a Windows Vista (32bit) VM running.
The VM supports Direct X and OpenGL as well as the ability to connect USB devices.It seems to offer many of the features that Parrallels has to offer and it is supported on Windows, Mac and Linux. How bizarre would that be…to run Linux as your, host with a Windows VM running Revit???? So if you are looking for a free VM, its certainly worth trying out.
I would just like to wish those of you that follow my blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! It been an interesting yet difficult year. The downturn has introduced new challenges; Revit 2010 has excited some, disappointed others, yet its popularity seems to go from strength to strength. I look forward to 2010 and the next release of the Revit story, it looks set to be another exciting rollercoaster year! :-)
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