Revit Clinic Post - 3 Levels of Masking

Great post I have to share, this is especially helpful to me right now, understanding how masking works.  


Level 2 caught my attention:
Level 2 – View, Model & Annotation Elements
If you would like to mask model and annotation elements in the view, instead create a new generic annotation family.  Add a masking region inside the family.  Add any desired dimensional instance parameters [such as a width and length instance parameter] so you can easily adjust each family size in the project.

Check out the rest of the article  3 Levels of Masking

AU - 2010 - Day One

Today I attended two sessions, the last one I was kind of lost because I really should have been a part of the whole day but it was informative anyway.


I then attended the Media and Blogger Social and the AEC Mixer (originally the Revit Mixer) they were both great!  I talked with Steve Bennet from 2D or not to 2D (check out his blog, for more up to date info) and Greg Arkin from Revit 3D, he's always fun to talk to, even if it is once a year for me, but it's great conversation, you have to check out his blog, very informative on anything BIM... plus all sorts of other people.  I did meet someone from the actual media from Mexico, it was nice to talk to someone about Autodesk that isn't from the states and get to know their perspective.  Being Mexican by culture I want to know more of how the Latin community uses Autodesk products and how they learn how to use them.
Oh and I almost forgot Melanie, Mistress of the Dorkness, I follow her blog and Tweets and I met her last year, it was great to get a moment to chat with her again this year.  I did have a few questions but she's too many people to fight with for her attention!  I'll track her down, I have a few days  :-)


Tomorrow is the start of full days of the conference, and I hope to soak in a lot. I'll try and post as often as possible and let you know what sessions to look out for to download,  Remember sign up at Autodesk University website!


Ciao!

AU2010 - Design Technology Managment

Today was my first day at AU (Autodesk University)  I'm disappointed I wasn't able to participate more in the sessions offered today, Digital Technology Conference... Sessions were full, but the one session I attended was great.   Had me thinking out of the box, and got my mind working with new ideas, well new to me and our office.  You should sign up at Autodesk University website to see recorded sessions, of past years, and this years once they are available.

View Templates Dialog

Something simple I found today. I have to share because I think it's very cool and useful, I have no idea how I didn't notice this before! 
When applying a view template, I can chose a view, instead of a template, or creating a new one.



I feel silly pointing it out, but I just noticed it now and I know I will be using this often!

Blogger Day at Autodesk

If you don’t already know today is Blogger Day at Autodesk AEC Headquarters, and the tweets have been many and very exicitng.

I’m looking forward to reading about it from the bloggers that I follow that are there now. I wanted to share with everyone who I’ll be reading updates from and hopefully you can too.

Steve at Revit OpEd

David at Revit

David at Do U Revit?

Gregory Arkin at Revit 3D

Richard at beside the cursor

I'm excited I hope you are too!

Standards

Lately, more clients are seeing the benefits of BIM. So I get to ramp up our standards for 2011.  Meaning I want to change a few things to use the 2011 new features.

I finished our template a couple of weeks ago.  The few things I added/changed:

Sheet Index – With our typical sheets to choose from when creating a new sheet, this helps with our standards, I can keep people to follow our naming convention. I added a sorting parameter so the sheets are set listed in the typical set up.

View browser organization by type/category – I added a parameter so we can group our plot views, working views, and presentation views, etc. In showing staff how to use that parameter, I’m telling people they can add their name as a type so they can group all of their views.  It helps with efficiency and clean up. When I open projects to check things or help out, I can clean them up a little easier. I can easily see what views can go, without guessing anymore. Deleting views “not on sheets” is easy, but sometimes they are actually named to something that looks like it will be on a sheet, but I’m not sure so I don’t delete it or I open to see it. That takes a lot of time.

I’m working on combining our CAD and BIM standards manual so it is one, probably be named our Digital Standards Manual, so I can include some information for using 3D Studio, formZ and other programs we use in the Design Department.

I’m excited to get back on this track, after a year of not being able to do much.  Things are looking up!

In-House Training - Revit Review

I started 2010, (the year not the Revit version) with changing what I call my Revit Review's.  A weekly Tips & Tricks session I do for in-house staff.  I was hoping to blog about it often but I obviously didn't.  Now I'd like to catch you up.
This is the format.  Once a week for 30 minutes, I show how to use one tool, in about 15 minutes, and questions and closing comments the last 15 minutes.  The reason for that format, is I hoped people would go back and try what we discussed, they have a week to play with it and come back with questions.  The response wasn't as enthusiastic, but I can't expect everyone to like Revit as much as I do.

January:  I started from the beginning.  Placing Walls, Doors and Windows.  I know more than one tool, but I think these can all go together.  Nothing complicated, just how to place a wall, change the type, and important to me, location line.  Based on the questions asked, I did learn something new, a window placed next to a door going through it will generate a warning, keyword phrase here "next to" but doing the same above a door, no warning; I found that intersting. I still haven't asked Revit Guru's why this is, but I will!

Until next time!

Revit 2011 is here

We're four months into the year, I can't believe it!  This year is going by fast.  Revit 2011 is already out (for subscription customers) very exciting, I hope you've been reading like I have all the different blogs out there talking about it. David Light has some a great overview.
I hope everyone is as excited as I am about getting started with 2011, let the fun begin!