More on PIM

A few months ago, I had a conversation with Tocci's Director of VDC (yes, my boss) about modeling every USG partition, ceiling, etc. in Revit for our system family library. I knew that it was a good idea, but also knew that it would take some time to put together and that everyone was working on critical projects. So I procrastinated and didn't mention it again.

Well, that paid off..

As of this month, you can now download a wall library and ceiling library from USG. And there are some sort of tutorials available on the site.

I haven't had any time to check it out, but I will be interested to see how they are modeling the walls and ceilings..like a designer or a builder?

Either way, I am pretty excited about this and can't way to integrate it into Tocci's library.

Project Chicago - Autodesk & USGBC

Another cool project from Autodesk. I'm in interested in finding out when this will be available to the public.

Project Chicago

Autodesk & Laser Scanning

Autodesk recently worked on a project with Lecia GeoSystems and a laser surveying company. The goal of the project was to laser scan Easter Island and then utilize the data with Civil 3D, Revit and 3ds Max. Autodesk describes it in more detail on their website and with a project diary.

I'm excited to learn more about this project at AU, but wish that they could/would get full intelligent integration with Revit.

Read about the first stages of Tocci's laser scanning and conversion experience here and here.

Speaking of Content

Revit MEP has released a content library extension.

PIM from Manufacturers

It's been a while since I last mentioned PIM; although, it has come up many times since then.

I recently (last month, actually) received some Revit files from Visa Lighting; they asked me to comment on them. Some files are currently available for download on their site.

As standards are developed for BIMs, collaboration, and implementation, I wonder who is going to develop PIM standards (or is someone already developing them?). People (buildings, designers, subcontractors, software vendors, etc.) are constantly saying that manufacturers should be providing PIMs of their products. But how can they without any standards? What information should be in a PIM for a specific product? What are the standards for parametric object modeling?

As far as the Visa Lighting fixtures go, they are okay. They models are "complete with meta-data information; for example energy usage, IES Photometrics files and lighting calculations" (which is true). But they don't render well. And they aren't parametric - the 3D geometry is represented by an imported file. That could be a good thing (why would I need to change an object that is already modeled to represent an actual product) or a bad thing. But I can't actually decide without thinking about standards.

BIMForum Internationale

BIMForum is being blogged about in Italy. Word for word from an email from John Tocci Jr.:

With phrases like:

la cui presenza rende possibili

ad esempio materiali utilizzati, soluzioni costruttive...

...anni possa diventare un’alternativa molto interessante al metodo di progettazione e sviluppo tradizionale del progetto architettonico

The BIMForum can’t help but sound good!

Roll your mouse over the word BIMForum in the above link.

time for structure?

Since we started implementing BIM, we have gotten by on using Revit Building/Architecture for the majority of our structural modeling. (I say majority because I think our outsource options use Revit Structure.) But all of our in-house structural modeling occurs in Revit Building/Architecture; we don't actually own Revit Structure.

But this morning, I was catching up on blogs (we have a deadline a week from Tuesday, so I haven't been able to read or post during work too much!), I realized that it might be time to think about Revit Structure. At first, Revit Structure didn't offer any additional structural features that would benefit us, since most of the features related to analysis or 2D documentation. But now, I've realized that there are quite a few new features that I like (this may be old news - I'm a little out of touch right now!):

• 3d rebar, which I read about on BIM & Beam
• improved library, again from BIM & Beam
• new features for Structure 2008 (that I finally got around to reading)

Something for me to think about before our next major project starts!

structure v. architecture

Background: At Tocci, we utilize one Revit file per discipline: civil/site, architecture, structure, mechanical, electrical, plumbing & fire protection.

Originally, this made modeling walls problematic (we have to place the structural core in the structural file - with openings for doors/windows - and the architectural finishes with doors/windows in the architectural file), but we've gotten over that. We occasionaly have to debate where specific objects (like lighting fixtures) should be placed, but overall we've adjusted to the system.

Recently, a new issue was brought up: a door is placed in a structural CMU wall - the only finish on the wall is paint (which we don't model). Some ideas that we brainstormed:

• Just place the door in structure (are there such things as structural doors?)
  
• Model a thin wall in architecture to represent paint & place the door there
• Place a duplicate wall in the architecture model and place the door there (that one made me cringe)

Eventually, the obvious solution came to us:

In structure, model the wall with an opening for the door:









In architecture, link the structural model. In the opening, place the same exact type of wall.









In architectural, place the door exactly over the wall - I turned off the linked structure model to do this.










The result: exactly what we wanted.