The 2nd Annual HOK BIMies

Lachmi Khemlani  from AECbytes provides a great overview of the 2nd Annual HOK BIMies, be sure to check it out! We really do love what we do at HOK. :-)

http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2012/HOK_BIM_Awards.html

Clipping Issues in Navisworks

From the Beyond Design blog post, “Why does my model look sectioned?”

If you are experiencing clipping issues in Navisworks – especially with large models – you may have a spurious object far away from the main geometry. Your best option is to delete the extraneous element in the source model and reload it. If your composite model is just that large (airport, neighborhood, city…) then you might need to adjust the Clippng Planes under the Culling tab in File Options.

Read the complete article on the Beyond Design blog for more info.

Event: BIM in Modular and Prefab Construction

HOK’s own James Vandezande is the president of the New York City Revit Users Group (nyc-rug.com) and organizes popular monthly meetings around various BIM-related topics. The January 2012 meeting featured guest speaker Ian Atkins who shared some of his real-world experience in applying BIM to modular and prefabricated construction.

Feel free to watch the recording of the meeting (Ian’s presentation starts at 12:30 into the recording)…

Enabling Better 3D Coordination

Not too long ago, some in the industry thought that simply by exporting Revit models into Navisworks meant they were performing 3D coordination.¹ I firmly believe we are moving beyond this notion towards a more complete offering of coordinated inter-disciplinary model deliverables.

I was inspired to write this article from recent posts by Steve Stafford on RevitOpEd (“Designing Revit Content – What is Interference?”), and posts by Doug Bowers on Applying Technology to Architecture (“Clearance Zones in Revit Families – Part 1 and Part 2”). In their writings, Steve and Doug share some great tips and techniques for architects to generate more accurate clash detection results. Without reiterating their information on this blog, here are some of the key concepts:

• Overlapping windows will not generate a warning in Revit
• Know what families have 3D geometry and which consist of 2D linework
• The door swing shown in plan is only a 2D symbol, unusable for clash detection
• Clearance zones are not included in Revit door families because the rules can be different around the world

The main issue here is not necessarily about detecting interferences between 3D geometry, but one concerning model validation using implied spatial zones. I use the term ‘model validation’ because this type of checking has a range of uses including code compliance and maintenance clearance validation. Some facility owners are now starting to include such specifications in their BIM requirements. For example, writing the project execution plan for a recent project I found the following requirement:

“Clearances and access: All clearances and access to equipment, valves, etc. must be modeled in 3D and kept in a separate layer and labeled correspondingly.”

If your existing content library doesn’t include clearance zones, you might be in for some heavy duty family revisions as this project gets started.

As an alternative, an intelligent model checking platform can validate many of these rules (but not necessarily all of them). One such program in use at HOK is Solibri Model Checker (www.solibri.com). While this is worthy of future dedicated posts, the fundamental idea here is ‘intelligent model checking.’ What makes this tool intelligent? It utilizes IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) models that ‘understand’ the model parts. Navisworks does a great job in checking the raw 3D geometry, but the system cannot distinguish between various building elements - such as a wall and a door - without user interaction in the form of property search sets. In IFC, the data is generated from a compatible BIM platform and elements are classified according to international standards. As such, Solibri can understand a door and apply validation rules (ADA) to the door without the need to add them into the native door family.

Note 1: “3D Coordination“ is a defined BIM use in the “Project Execution Planning Guidelines.” Read more about BIM use definitions at the Penn State University website (bim.psu.edu). We also encourage you to follow a new blog by HOK’s Greg Schleusner: bimuse.blogspot.com

Taking Revit into the future…..

David Light HOK London explains how HOK has adapted Revit for touch screen technology.

http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=18396

DRAWING (S) in_form

 

I am proud to say that I received a copy of Disegno (E) in_Formazione today or DRAWING (S) in_form. I was contacted by Massimiliano Lo Turco earlier this year asking for an interview on HOK’s experiences with BIM; as always, I obliged. The book is bilingual Italian & English & includes a wealth of knowledge on BIM strategy & software deployment.

More detail can be found here….

http://www.bimacademy.it/2011/10/disegno-e-in_formazione-disegno-politecnico

Viewing thumbnails when loading families

Victor Martinez BIM Manager at HOK New York says; if you are loading families and want to view the icons in detail mode, hold your CTRL key down and middle mouse scroll in the window, the view will go from this:

To this:

The more you scroll with the CTRL key pressed the larger the icons will appear:

BIM Implementation – HOK buildingSMART

David Light, BIM manager, HOK London gives an overview on HOK buildingSMART.

http://www.thenbs.com/topics/BIM/articles/BIM-Implementation_HOK-buildingSMART.asp

Using conditional formatting in schedules

A request was made to me this week by one our project managers who wanted to know whether we where over or under our area requirements on one of our projects. We needed to show which rooms where providing more area than had been defined in the client brief & this needed to displayed graphically on plan. You would normally do this by setting up a Colour Scheme to display the results by a range.

However, on this occasion we just needed to display the results as either yes or no. I was able to resolve the problem which I explain in the youtube video below; it got us the result we needed. I am sure there must be a slicker way to do this, however this rather “rushed” video explains the steps I took.

AU2011 – Citrix & Revit

Wanna know more about Citrix & Revit?  Then be sure to check out HOK’s John Bartolomi, Director of IT Services class. He will be giving a presentation at Autodesk University on the virtualization of Revit. Class detail & times are below.

• ID:                          AB4595
• Title:                     Autodesk Revit Virtualization Using Citrix® Technologies
• Date:                     Thursday, Dec 1, 2011
• Time:                    5:15pm
• Duration:             90 minutes