The BIM exchange zone

You’re now entering the BIM exchange zone.

Don’t be afraid – even though we act like it’s the twilight zone, (man is that an old reference), sharing design information between architects and engineers shouldn’t be frightening.

At the end of the day, architects using Revit can export a file that contains the footprint, door locations and any utility connections with the appropriate coordinates. Conversely, engineers using Civil 3D can pass along not only the desirable coordinates, but also topography.  How do we do this? Read on…

C3D 2011 Announced Today

Ed Note: Just finished blogger civil 3d “party” for 2011. Autodesk has uploaded a few videos of new & improved functions:

http://www.youtube.com/adskinfrastructure#p/u

 

Hey – just a quick post to bring everyone up to speed. Autodesk has updated the Civil 3D page (and all other apps for that matter) with information about the 2011 release (http://bit.ly/Civil3D2011). Except for maybe when you’ll get it.

Good news is that myself and a small group of other bloggers will be attending a webcast later in the day to see what’s new and ask questions that inquiring minds want to know. That happens @ 1pm EDT. So if can think of a question, either post a comment or hit me on twitter @kspear and i’ll find out for you! I’ll update the blog later and will take notes using twitter…

Dana, ever the leader in positive energy, has a few links to get you started:

http://bimontherocks.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/03/ready-for-the-excitement-lots-of-news-coming-32510.html

Bloggers covering the event

Earlier webcast open to the public @ Noon EDT
http://www.autodesk.com/webcast

One quick note. On the Civil 3D front page, there is one announcement to download & try 2011. It appears that the download is still 2010.  So be patient, not sure when that’ll be up.

See you later!

HOW TO: Set Tool Palette Flyout speeds

For anyone on a laptop or with too many palettes open, managing them can become burdensome. This is an old, but often revisited topic. Of the 23 palettes, you may have these open;

1. Layer Propertie Manager
2. External References
3. Toolspace
4. Properties
5. Markup Set Manager
6. Tool Palette (contains subassemblies)
7. Sheet Set Manager

With each one, you resize them accordingly to see the information they contain.  Doing so will probably impact your efficiency, ironically.

One option is to let them collapse after you move your cursor away from them. In this case, you end up with several disorganized bars roaming around on your second monitor. And, the default settings often frustrate users. 

Why is american leadership missing?

Among many periodicals that frequent my inbox, one of which is the daily ZDNET Tech Update.  It includes many interesting articles; one such ”column” is titled SmartPlanet.  Todays topic was “The new arms race: China planning high-speed rail network to Russia, India, Europe“.  I can only sit in true awe at this concept.  We live in a country that can’t seem to get out of the way of its own ego at times, National Transportation not withstanding. So why is it that as our country continues to grow, that our infrastructure lags behind in development and maintenance?  I wish I knew. Here’s the rail plan for Asia:

HOW TO: Fix the 64 bit nightmare?

With many applications from Autodesk having moved to 64 bit platforms OR maybe your firm anticipated such a move and have 64 bit desktops already, you may have come across at least this single snafu – PDF preview in outlook and in windows explorer (you know, when you do one of the ICON views).  The dang thing just doesn’t work. Something about blah blah blah and no preview.

Oh yeah, the “handler” is out to lunch and ain’t coming back.  Nothing more frustrating (ok, maybe a bit of an overstatement) than having to OPEN the attached PDF to see it. Man, we’re roughing it now….

Idealism in an Economic State

What in the world could I be writing about today? First, lets begin with what i started reading recently. Via Twitter, @MattAnderson noted he was reading an article at SitePrep.com (http://bit.ly/NewTin). I thought, I should take a look at that. In short, the author begins by talking about a need to update / replace the delaunay triangulation method for creating surfaces. His reasons include:

• The ability for contours to distinguish between hard (road, concrete, etc.) and soft (off-road) surfaces;
• That the shape of contours match the underlying design intent when smoothed;
• Ability to represent subsurface and surface conditions that have negative slopes (ie – overhangs, caves) when viewed from above;
• User-friendly methods for creating design / construction surfaces.

His point being that the current delaunay method is  limited and cannot accommodate these desired advancements. Now, I’m no genius, but let me offer a counter-point of thought.  Are the TIN methods we use broken? I have heard much grumbling in the various places I’ve worked. Let’s step out of our forest for a moment and look at another and see what they might be doing.