AUGI World May Issue is out

From the AUGI Connection email. Check out the May issue of AUGI World When it comes to implementing any Autodesk product, most professionals know that the mechanics of installing the software, whether from disc or download, are only the beginning of the implementation process. What comes before, and after, the installation is the focus of the May 2012 issue of AUGIWorld magazine. Elisha Sage's article on Pain-free Implementation of AutoCAD MEP software begins with challenging readers to decide whether they even need to implement the latest version. In his article on implementing 3ds Max, Osama Ali explores the forethought and planning that should occur before implementation begins. And Jesse Ocon discusses how to achieve success in implementing Navisworks - defining scope and program and giving some thought to training. But implementation isn't the only topic in the May issue. Readers will find a nice range of topics among these articles: AutoCAD Architecture: Renovation Mode Boosts Productivity – Melinda Heavrin brings to the table one of her favorite features, Renovation Mode, which easily identifies objects and associates them with different phases of a renovation project, allowing for clear construction drawings every time. Revit Architecture: Mimic a Master Builder: A Tribute to Felix Candela’s Work – Alfred Medina pays tribute to architect Felix Candela, who was known as a master builder of thin shell structures. This article provides a method to use Autodesk Revit to model, and control by parameters, the basic version of nine types of forms that Felix Candela used, with several variations, during his career. Revit MEP: Using Rooms & Spaces for Leverage – Author David Raynor discusses ways to use rooms and spaces to leverage our models to design more efficiently. Autodesk PLM 360: A Success Story – In an eyewitness account, Scott Moyse reveals the details of implementing Autodesk PLM 360 in his own company. AutoCAD Civil 3D: Wind Farm Infrastructure – Donal McMoreland takes a practical look at the tools used (and lessons learned) to design wind farm infrastructure from an AutoCAD Civil 3D perspective. Revit Server 2013: Improvements to the Core – The newest release of Revit Server reveals vast improvements to much of the core functionality of the software. Author Jason Bailly provides the details. Revit Structure 2012: Footing Elevations in Foundation Tags – Including top of footing elevation in a foundation tag doesn't exist "out of the box." Author Desirée (Dezi) Mackey shows you a creative way to get it done. Wicked Education: Teaching IPD, BIM, and Lean Business Processes – James Salmon continues his Wicked Series for the BUILT industry with issues related to implementing an effective IPD, BIM, and lean process education program. CAD Employee Hiring 101 – The fundamentals of hiring CAD employees are often overlooked. Walt Sparling examines why even the simplest HR practices are critical. Product Review: BOXX 3970 Extreme – Does this product live up to the "Extreme" name? Reviewers Bill Debevc and Lonnie Cumpton make the call. Heads Up – Updates, Service Packs and Top Known Issues obtained from product pages at Autodesk.com. Inside Track – This month's Inside Track column focuses on Autodesk Exchange Apps, Featured Apps for Revit.

Everything about Revit Schedules

The Schedule tool is found on the View tab of the ribbon and includes five types of schedules; Schedule/Quantities, Material Takeoff, Sheet List, Note Block, and View List.

Schedule/Quantities

The Schedule/Quantities type produces a schedule of a selected family category. Most of Alvine’s schedules are of this type. The image below shows a list schedules for differing family categories in the Alvine template.

To create a new schedule, select the Schedules/Quantities tool. This opens the New Schedule dialog.

Select the appropriate family category to schedule by clicking on it. Only one category can be selected at a time. <Multi-Category> can be used to use all categories at once. Typically filtering is used with <Multi-Category> to narrow the schedule to the desired categories.

The Name of the schedule will automatically fill out once the category is selected. The name can be accepted as is or cleared and typed in as desired.

Under the name, users have the choice of creating a schedule of building components of creating a schedule keys for every category except <Multi-Category>. Schedule keys can be used to apply information to multiple items that have the same characteristics. If an electrical device, mechanical equipment, or telecom device has a defined key, and is added to a schedule, fields in the schedule will automatically update with the keyed information, reducing the time required to produce the schedule. Schedule keys are instance parameters and project parameters which automatically apply themselves to every family of a particular category. Values applied to the key, are applied to the individual elements.

Select “Schedule building components” for this example.

Schedules are phase aware. Use the Phase drop down to select which phase of the current project to schedule components from. This way existing or future elements can be filtered out of a schedule.

Select “OK” to open the Schedule Properties dialog. The first tab in this dialog is the Fields tab. Different parameters for the selected category are listed in the Available fields: window on the left. Use the Add->  button in the middle of the dialog to add selected parameters to the right hand side Scheduled fields window. The <-Remove button can be used to send parameters back to the left window. If a required parameter is not available in the left window the Add Parameter can be used to select/create a project or shared parameter.

The Calculated Value button can be used to add percentages and formula driven data to the schedule. Give the field a name, select formula or percentage, then pick the discipline of the field. This is used to apply the proper units to the field. When entering formulas parameters are case sensitive.

The Filter tab allows a category to be filters by the parameters of that category. Alvine uses a schedule number parameter to associate families of the same category to differing schedules.

The Sorting and Grouping tab lets the user sort the data in the schedule by parameters either ascending or descending. A header, footer or both can be added to each sorted parameter in the finished schedule along with a blank line by checking those boxes.

Below is a check box for Grand totals. If checked the drop down to the right gives different combinations of data to associate with the totals.

The Itemize every instance check box creates a separate line for every instance of a model element. If left unchecked similar elements are combined into a single row in the schedule.

The Formatting tab addresses how each field in the schedule will appear. Select a field on the left to control its formatting. The heading of the schedules automatically reflect the name of the field, but can be overridden by typing a new heading in the provided box. The orientation and alignment can also be controlled here per field.

There is a check box to hide the field in the schedule. This enables sorting and filtering by a fields that are hidden in the schedule.

If Grand Totals is checked in the Sorting/Grouping tab for a field the Calculate totals box is enabled. This will place a grand total at the bottom of the schedule.

The Conditional Format button can be used to change the background color of a cell based of the value of the data in the cell. This is usually used to alert users of the schedule that a condition needs attention like low volume, under lit or exceeded distance.

The Field Formatting button is available for numeric fields, and allows for control of numbers format. By default the Use project settings box is checked. When checked the settings in Project units are used. When unchecked these settings can be overridden in the schedule. This is handy to remove the unit symbol, suppress zeros, or change the rounding of a number.

The last tab, Appearance controls the title, headers, fonts, and linework of the schedule. Alvine has standard line styles for the grid and border lines.

What's New Revit MEP 2013?

Check out all the great articles including mine.

AUGI World - Tips to Leverage Data Efficiently

Check out Emy McGann's article in the March Edition of AUGI World "Tips to Leverage Data Efficiently". Skip to page 33 to get the low down on some elegant Revit MEP tips and tricks to try with the data in your model.

Oh yeah, there are a lot of other great articles in there as well like Jay Zallan's "The Ultimate Revit Hand: Every Revit Tip, Trick, Technique & Workaround (known & unknown)".


All right close up this window and get on with the learning. 

Duct Width and Height

What is Width? Well it depends.


In the image below a piece of rectangular duct is selected in Plan view. The Width is listed as 30".

In the image below the same piece of rectangular duct is selected in Section view. The Width is listed as 12".

Revit seems to list the dimension for the visible side of the duct in the view first. If it is listed as the Width or the Height of the duct depends on your point of view... literally.

Custom Sheet Sizes in Revit

In an AutoCAD environment when you need to have a custom sheet size, you can leverage the PC3 file to create what you need. Since Revit wants to use the Windows drivers, you need to be a bit more creative to add the custom sheet sizes you might need.


Go to the start button and select Devices and Printers.


Select the printer/plotter that you need custom sheet sizes for then check below the menu bar for a button that says "Printer server properties"

The dialog that comes up includes a check box to "Create a new form". This will be the new sheet size. Give it a width and a height. Make sure to give it an identifiable name (including the company name helps), then just click the "Save Form" button to add it to the list of available sizes when plotting.


If the printer/plotter is shared from a network location, make sure to complete these steps from the computer the plotter is installed on.

Preset Sub Catagories

I like to use sub disciplines to sort by in the Project Browser. It is easy to define M, E,P, and even T disciplines, whatever. What is not so great is when users get creative with their sub discipline naming and things don't end up matching creating a mess in the  Project Browser .  A nice way to pre-load your standard sub discipline naming convention is to create view templates in your template and assign the sub discipline names in them. Because they are in the view templates, they will show in the drop down list of sub disciplines even if they have not been used in a view yet. Sweet!

So you Deleted the Central File...

It happens so often that I wrote down what to do.

In the case where the central file has been accidentally upgraded or some other equally bad thing has happened to the central file, a local file can be used to create a new central file. Find a person on the project that has not synced with central and has a very recent version for a local file that can be turned into the new central file. The user with the good local file must;

1. Open the local file directly remembering to detach from central on open. 
2. 'Save As' overwriting the bad central.
3. Open Options in the Save As dialog to ensure the "Make Central after save" is checked.
4. All users must create new locals to continue working on this project.

Not so bad, considering the alternative.

Revit Family Formula Examples and Tricks

When creating formulas in a family it is helpful to have a go to list of examples. Here is mine.

IF Statement
IF (Length < 30′, 2′ 6″, 4′)    
     If the Length parameter is less than 30' x = 1 , y = 22'-6"
     If the Length parameter is greater than 30' this parameter will have a value of 4'-0"


IF that Returns a String
IF (Height > 30′, “This thing is tall”, “This thing is short”)     
     If the Height parameter is greater than 30' this parameter will return  This thing is tall
     If the Height parameter is less than 30' this parameter will return  This thing is short
Nested IF Statements
IF (Length < 35’, 2′ 6″ , IF (Length < 45′, 3′ , IF (Length < 55′, 5′, 8′ ) ) )
     If Length is less than 35', this parameter will have a value of 2'-6"
     If Length is between 35' and 45', this parameter will have a value of 3'
     If Length is between 45' and 55', this parameter will have a value of 5'
     If Length is greater than 55', this parameter will have a value of 8'

IF applied to a Yes/No condition
Length > 40' 
     If Length is greater than 40' the the statement is true and the Yes/No check box is checked
     If Length is 40' or less the statement is false and the Yes/No check box is NOT checked


IF OR
IF (OR (A = 1 , B = 3 ) , 10 , 5) 
     If A = 1 or B = 3 this parameter will have a value of 10
     If A is not = 1 and B is not = 3 this parameter will have a value of 5


IF AND
IF (AND (x = 1 , y = 2), 8 , 3 )     
     If x = 1 and y = 2 this parameter will have a value of 8

     If x is not = 1 or y is not = 2 this parameter will have a value of 3

Some Formula Tricks of the Trade

This or That only with a Yes/No parameters

By specifing that metal can not be true while Wood is true the user can only specify one of the two materials. They both can not be checked at the same time. This can be used for visibility where a left or right access panel may be required but never both.

Pick One and Only One

Here the condtion number will allow only one paramter to be true in a list. Associated with a type, you could control a ton of things simply back picking the correct type.

"Don't Change Me Bro"

If you need some text to not change, put that text in the Formula column with quotes around it. It greys it out in the Value column. This should stop the majority of users from changing its value.

Swapping Nested Families
In a bookcase family with a nested shelf family, follow these steps to add a parameter that will allow the user to switch from one type of shelf to another.


1. Open the original shelf family and save it as the second shelf option. Add something to make it different. 

2. Load this new shelf into the bookcase family, but do not place it.


3. In the Family Types dialog create a new Type parameter named “Swappable Shelf”. Make its discipline Common, its Type of Parameter and group it under Constraints.

4. When you select the Type of Parameter Revit will open the Select Category dialog. Pick Generic Models.

5.  Select the original shelf in the bookcase family now. In the Properties dialog, look for the Label parameter and change it to “Swappable Shelf”.

6.  In the Family Types dialog Create 2 shelf types, Shelf Type 1 and Shelf Type 2. Associate the swappable shelf parameter with the appropriate type.

7. Flex the family. Change the family type and verify that the shelf changes.