Ryan Lenihan

Showing per Unit and Total Counts in a Schedule

Revit General

This is one that catches out new and experienced Revit users alike, when you have a schedule that you want to show both a per unit column and a total count column.

A great example is this plumbing fixture schedule below

2014-06-05_16-09-12

Usually the first thing a user will do is find their fixture unit parameter, in this case WFU, head over to the formatting tab of the schedule properties and check the ‘calculate totals’ box, which will give you something like this

2014-06-05_16-13-15 2014-06-05_16-12-20

This of course is not what you want, what you have here is the total fixture units for each plumbing fixture of a certain type without actually being told what the fixture unit for each individual fixture is.

To overcome this, you need to use a calculated value to show the per unit count.

In the schedule properties dialogue, under the fields tab, select Calculated Value.. as shown at 1 in the image below.

Next, I’m going to name our calculated value to be ‘Fixture Unit Rating’ and because in this instance we want to know the per unit count is the parameter ‘WFU’ we simply need to type in WFU into our formula as shown at 2 in the image below.

2014-06-05_16-18-24

Finally, at 3 in the image above we have our per unit fixture rating in our 3rd column and our total fixture unit count for each fixture type, as well as our grand total of fixture units in our 4th column.

 

It’s Not Bim, But It’s 3D Printing On A Whole New Level

Technology

Still on the subject of 3D printing, my lovely fiancée sent me a link this morning:

http://lixpen.com/

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDWsCEU8HQs”]

LIX 3D printing pen has the similar function as 3D printers. It melts and cools coloured plastic, letting you create rigid and freestanding structures. Lix has a hot-end nozzle that is power supplied from USB 3.0 port. The plastic filament ABS/PLA is introduced in the upper extremity of Lix Pen. The filament goes through a patented mechanism while moving through the pen to finally reach the hot-end nozzle which melts and cools it down. An interesting fact about this light-weight, engineered pen is that these structures can be formed in any imaginable shape.

The company is currently raising funds through Kickstarter, by funding the project you can grab yourself a LIX 3D pen for US$135 (currently AU$145)

I can imagine architects will go crazy for this, but there are so many other potential uses beyond art and design.

 

3D Print Construction of Buildings

Technology

A few months ago I stumbled across an article about a team from the University of Southern California that designed a 3D printer that can construct houses out of layered concrete.

http://www.contourcrafting.org/

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yv-IWdSdns”]

I eagerly sent it around to all my BIM buddies, to which most replied “Not in our lifetime” and other similar replies. A little dismayed I left it at that, still hopeful that we will see technology emerge into the mainstream in the near future and not just a proof of concept.

Well, over the weekend, this video popped up in my newsfeed; a Chinese inventor and his 3D printer are creating 10 houses per 24 hours out of a mix of concrete and recycled products.

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SObzNdyRTBs”]

He even built his office using his 3D printer! The obvious immediate advantage of this technology is to use it to construct low cost housing in disadvantaged areas, or even as disaster relief, but why should it stop there?

Looking further into the construction of 3D printed buildings, an architectural firm in Amsterdam are slowly building a canal house. In this instance, the canal house is being constructed out of recycled plastics.

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObJ6TVJYSdM”]

With developments like this, it’s really exciting to be involved in the BIM and construction industry at the moment.

This robot printer runs around the page laying down ink.

Technology

Many people would probably say the hard copy is a dead medium, but sometimes you just need to see the bigger picture on a full size plot.

I’m loving the innovation we’re seeing come out of crowd funded projects. This robot printer runs around the page laying down ink. As long as you have a flat surface large enough you can print to any paper size you need. Site teams could print off an A0 sheet in the lunch shed then put the printer away again in a drawer.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/10/zuta-labs-pocket-printer/?ncid=rss_truncated

ACO H100K Trench Grate – Revit Family

Revit Families

I have another family download to help out with hydraulics services documentation. This time around, I have an ACO H100K Slab Drain.

This family has a little more smarts than the Steibel Eltron that I posted earlier and shows that with a little bit of extra thinking you can produce quite powerful Revit families. This time around you can adjust then length and grade of the drain. The grade can be controlled by entering the grade i.e. 200 for 1:200 and then the family will calculate the angle that it needs to tilt. You can also override the grade if you require the trench to be flat.

So how do you convert grade to an angle in Revit? Do you remember sitting in your high school maths class telling everyone “What am I going to ever use this trigonometry stuff for?” well, this is one of those times. If you check the Revit Forum post Revit formulas for “everyday” usage there is a handy reference about halfway down the page showing formulas for trigonometry.

trig

 

In the instance of this diagram, we know that 1:200 is 1mm of fall to 200mm of run or “rise over run”, in the case of our diagram above a = 1 and b = 200, and from that we can calculate angle A.

To perform this in our Revit family, I have created a parameter named GRADE_RATIO_1_IN which allows us to enter our grade and the parameter CALCULATED_ANGLE which is the result of our calculation, or the angle of tilt required.

So what we end up with is:

GRADE_RATIO_1_IN = 200
CALCULATED_ANGLE = atan(1 mm / GRADE_RATIO_1_IN)

Which gives us the result of 0.286°

To add the flat grade, I have included a check box associated with the parameter IS_FLAT to then allow that to override the angle, I have changed the formula of CALCULATED_ANGLE to

if(IS_FLAT, 0°, atan(1 mm / GRADE_RATIO_1_IN))

which sets simply sets the angle to 0° if the checkbox is ticked.

To allow the family to tilt, I have used reference lines and an angle parameter associated with a circular reference line as outlined in great detail at The Revit Complex in the fantastic article Rotation Rigs That Do Not Use the Angluar Dimension. In this particular instance, I nested the 3D face based family and hosted it to my reference lines.

Finally to round the family out, there is the obvious adjustable trench grating length with grips and the option for HDPE (110 dia) or PVC (100 dia) pipework connections.

Steibel Eltron DHE – Revit 2013 Family

Revit Families

I’ve had an empty Downloads page for a while now, I thought that it is probably time that I start populating it.

Not the most stunning of downloads for my first adventure in sharing Revit content, but useful for hydraulics teams none the less. The family is a Steibel Eltron DHE 3 Phase instantaneous hot water unit.

There are 2 family types included – the DHE18 and DHE27. There is no actual change in dimensions between the two units, just the model number for scheduling purposes. The product brochure link is also included within the family. The idea was to keep the family as generic as possible while making it obvious that it is the Steibel Eltron product, allowing you, the end user to add more information as required.

If you have any comments on the family iteself, including suggested improvements, there is a dedicated page to leave a comments on.

So You Want to Model All Services in One Model?

Revit General, Revit MEP

..but you don’t have an all services template to start with. How do you go about setting this up?

Firstly start with any one of your company MEP templates. Be it mechanical, electrical or hydraulics it doesn’t matter.

Next step is to bring the families across. You can either load all the required families via the Insert tab on the ribbon and then Load Family or you link and bind a blank project of the remaining templates into your new project. The reason I say link and bind is just to make sure that you get absolutely everything. Only load the families that are required though. Don’t load every single family you have into the model. You need duct, cable tray, conduit and pipe, plus a few generic air terminals, light fittings and valves, that should be enough for any combined services template.

Once you have all the families loaded, transfer the project standards from each of the remaining templates that you just bound in. Even though you have loaded the families in, you will not get settings through such as project parameters, pipe/duct/cable tray sizing and routing methods, systems, schedules, view filters and view templates. Transferring the project standards will bring this remaining information across.

Once you’ve done this, get each discipline to test their service briefly to make sure everything works as intended. At this point, you should save your file as your new single MEP template.

Now, when it comes to working in the combined discipline template, each discipline should be on their own workset. Name the worksets something sensible and easy to split between disciplines.

i.e.

Ceiling level electrical services
Electrical basement
Links
Hydraulic ground floor
Water hydraulics
Workset 1

This is a list of actual worksets I encountered when reviewing a model. This is the wrong way to go about it, there isn’t even consistency between the one discipline.

AA – Arch Links
CIV – Civil Links
EL – Lighting
EL – Power
HY – Drainage
HY – Water
ME – Chilled Water
ME – Ducting
STR – Structure Links
XX – Shared Levels and Grids

is the right way to go about it. The discipline abbreviation code to begin the workset name makes it easy to find what you want to work with, the remainder of the name is as simple as you can make it.

Don’t go overboard with worksets, as they start to become too much to handle. One per discipline or sub discipline is usually enough, just keep in mind how many people will be needing to work on the project and how big the models might become.

Set all the discipline worksets so that they’re not visible in all views by default and set the common worksets such as those for linked files and grids to on in all views, this just makes things a little easier when creating new views, you turn on your discipline workset rather than figuring out what needs to be turned on and off each time.

Set up the project browser using a few parameters to assist you with sorting your files. Consider sorting your files by discipline as a minimum, however you can sort a step further if you want to sort into sub disciplines or building areas.

From here on out it’s just good model management and good modelling practices.

  • Keep on top of people moving stuff that they’re not supposed to. If you’re an electrical modeller that wants to move some hydraulic pipework because your inground conduits are going to clash or vice versa, go and speak to the relevant team before shifting their elements.
  • Make sure correct worksets are being used. Don’t model on any of the common worksets and don’t model on another discipline’s workset.
  • Audit the model once every 1 – 2 weeks and make a new central file at the same time. This also means each modeller will need to recreate their local file as well.
  • Delete all the views that aren’t required, with multiple modellers in the same model, you end up with so many working views and sections that it slows the models down. I find a good time to clean out the views is after a major issue.
  • If you don’t want to lose a section or a view that you’ve been using, add a working view category to your project browser and apply usernames to the views, that way when redundant views are removed, you wont lose anything you’ve been working on.
  • If you’re creating a section detail that hasn’t been referenced to a drawing sheet yet, make it clear that you don’t want the section deleted. Setup a tempory section marker that makes it obvious that the section is being used.

Finally, 100 is a nice round number to remember. The aim would be to keep the model under 100mb, but it’s not just about file size. Try limit the number of views and sheets to 100 as well. i.e. 100 of each, not 50 of each. This is all just about keeping the model speedy and usable and also limiting possible errors as the project progresses. It’s not a definitive rule, just a bit of a guide based on working on large projects.

 

Deleting Sheets and Views Before Issue

Revit General

It’s good practice to strip out views from Revit that aren’t required when issuing to other people, in fact some companies list it as a requirement in their BIM execution plan that when models are received they are to have all views stripped.

The main reason for this is file size, but it could be for anything as simple as views and details that you’re still developing and you don’t want to issue these views prior to completion.

It surprises me though how many people still do this manually!

When you have the realisation that there must be a better way to remove all these views and sheets, usually the first idea for most is “There must be an addin for this!” They start looking around to spend a few dollars to make their lives easier, there are some great apps around like Case Apps Delete Views and Sheets (US$900/yr which gets you access to the entire catalogue) or Kiwi Codes Bonus Tools (US$35) but if you don’t want to rely on 3rd party applications, you can remove all views and sheets from your model quickly and easily using Revit schedules.

Start by defining a shared parameter on your views. I have just used the shared parameters that we normally use for the Project Browser organisation.

Create a view list / schedule.

2014-03-31_8-43-23

Select a few parameters to get the information that you want. In this instance I have selected the view name and the parameter that I’m using to filter my views.

2014-03-31_9-38-32

I have decided that I want to keep all views where the parameter AUR_DWG_SERIES is ‘FOR ISSUE’. Do do this, simply filter the schedule based on the parameter you have decided to use, in my instance this is AUR_DWG_SERIES, and then set the filter to ‘does not equal’ and then again in my instance I have selected ‘FOR ISSUE’ from the drop down list.

2014-03-31_8-51-28

Now, you can either change your Sorting/Grouping setting to not itemise every instance, or you can select all the views by clicking and dragging the mouse along the list. Once you have all the views that you wish to delete selected, simply hit the delete button in the ribbon.

2014-03-31_8-52-49

Depending on how many views you have in your model, this could take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. If you want to remove sheets as well, you’ll need to setup a schedule for them as well.

2014-03-31_8-53-31

It takes about 5mins to setup and can even be setup in your standard template, it’s then a simple select and delete prior to issue. Then it’s as simple as using the Autodesk eTransmit addin to purge and detach your models ready for issue.

BIMFrame Connect – Cloud Collaborated Revit Schedules

Revit Families

An intersting alternative to BIM Link for Revit, although this addin directly interacts with schedules created within Revit it really isn’t that different to what BIM Link does.

From What Revit Wants:

 The overall concept is that you can export data to a Google Spreadsheet, collaborate using a web client or mobile device, then import the data and update the Revit model. Collaborators obviously don’t need Revit – just access to the Google spreadsheet.

A great example of where Connect could be used is when you have scheduled engineering data from within the Revit model. The engineer could be at a meeting, where elements of the project change, it could be lighting loads, pressure and flow data, structural reinforcement rates etc, anything that is scheduled, the engineer could then update the schedule in the cloud from their tablet while in the meeting.

[su_youtube_advanced url=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/9R-8n6qctt8″]