Whats New in Revit Structure 2010

Have a pdf document on their web site with
Whats New in Revit Structure 2010

AUGI HotNews

HotNews



AUGI HotNews January 2009 ~ Do Revit Users Need User-Generated Content?
AUGI HotNews August 2008 ~ A Look Behind the Curtain (Wall) - Part 2
AUGI HotNews July 2008 ~ A Look Behind the Curtain (Wall) - Part 1
AUGI HotNews June 2008 ~ Diary of a Revit User: Hitting a Nerve
AUGI HotNews May 2008 ~ Revit Architecture: Setting the Site - Part 3
AUGI HotNews April 2008 ~ Revit Architecture: Setting the Site - Part 2
AUGI HotNews March 2008 ~ Revit Architecture: Setting the Site - Part 1
AUGI HotNews February 2008 ~ Rendering in Revit Architecture - Part 2
AUGI HotNews January 2008 ~ Rendering in Revit Architecture - Part 1

UK Web Site With Tips and Tricks

William Sutherland apologies "to anyone coming across his page from a search engine link hoping for nicely arranged Revit tips ;-) the rate of acquisition of Revit tips makes it more of a scribbling pad..." but what a great resource with personal insight of what can and does go wrong. Click Here to visit

More on Ribbon Blues

Feeling just a little frustrated that I had only just purchased the book Mastering Revit 2009 and that they are going to change the whole darn User Interface for the Ribbon that I hate in Word 2007, I posted the Ribbon! We Don't Want Your Stinkin' Ribbon on my blog and on the AUGI forum.

Wes Macaulay posted the reply on the AUGI forum below:-

“The Ribbon is an intelligent response to feature bloat. I would encourage everyone who is opposed to the Ribbon to look at the Microsoft video on why the Ribbon was developed.

I think the Ribbon is a good idea, but it has to be implemented right. Evidently Acad 2010's ribbon is better than 2009's so even the Ribbon we get in Revit 2010 could be improved upon.

The Ribbon isn't marketing balderdash at all -- you have no idea about the thought that went into it. But should they have finished the site tools in this release instead of the Ribbon? Maybe... or maybe getting the Ribbon needed to happen now, because at some point, Windoze users are going to have to come to terms with the Ribbon. I didn't like it either, but the video in the link above made me see why they're doing it. And the Factory might as well get us accustomed to the new era of UI design sooner rather than later.”

I downloaded and watched the video as he suggested.I can see what he means about the amount of thought that went into it......

In Word It just makes me feel like I've lost control, and I really don't want that again, just as I'm finding my feet with Revit.

I was one of the first to jump from DOS to Windows, and that did not feel as awkward as the move from menus to ribbon!

Perhaps it's just my age catching up with me?

But if you feel the same about the Ribbon then it is well worth watching the video as Wes suggests, just to find out why they have done what they have done, like it or not!

CADDHELP

David Harringtons' blog is called CADDHELP

David is a Structural Designer based in Tampa Florida United States a Revit Structure power user With very deep knowledge and many years of experience in AutoCAD, Dave has also been an AUGI Top DAUG, AUGI President, AUGI writer and he is one of the Authors of Mastering Revit Structure 2009

His Blog is always an initeresting read, and worth keeping an eye on.

Ribbon! We Don't Want Your Stinkin' Ribbon

Autodesk’s 2010 Product Portfolio Launch
AECbytes Newsletter #39 (February 12, 2009)

The article is about Autodesk’s two webcasts to officially launch the next version of its design software portfolio, one focused on AutoCAD and the other on its building, transportation, and geospatial products.

Quoting the article:-

“With version 2010, Revit sports a slightly different look and feel in contrast to the interface the application has had since it was introduced, so existing users will have to go through an adjustment period to get used to it. Instead of the toolbar on the left, Revit now sports the ribbon-based tabbed UI running at the top of the application window that Microsoft has popularized with its Office 2007 applications (see Figure 4).”

The question has to be WHY?

Why not more content and less cosmetic crap that make you feel like your getting more for your money or subscription. There are lots of add ons for those on subscription and who in there right mind would buy Revit without subscription? It’s the only way of getting what should be a full package anyway.

For too long software companies have got away with, “we will fix that in the next release” or "please download the latest service patch” to fix the buggy software we have just sold you.

It’s got to be said, I used Microsoft Word from the start, and recently I had a new computer with Office 2007 and I hate the bloody Ribbon.

Why move everything around from where I knew where it was, my productivity dropped considerably whilst I looked for the new locations of known features.

There are now software companies offering bolt ons to Word 2007 to replace the known interface. In AutoCAD 2009 they at least provided a Classic AutoCAD radio button to get rid of the Ribbon.

Can anyone please confirm that they have done the same in Revit Structure and Architecture 2010?

From one of the 2010 brochures

“Improved User Interface

• New customizable ribbon toolbar is task-oriented with redesigned, intuitive icons.”

You can smell the marketing bull**** from here.

New Kid on the Block

The Revit Kid! AKA Jeff Pinheiro has created a Blog and Facebook site and hopes his Blog becomes a major source of information for students using Autodesk Revit, he says:-

"Ultimately, I plan for this blog to be a source of information for the student using Revit in the classroom at a design studio level. I would also like to open it up to the readers to ask me questions to further stimulate the information being produced. By a student, for students..."

AUGI New Forum Area

NEW FORUM AREA AutoCAD Structural Detailing
Companion Product to Revit Structure - Part of AutoCAD Revit Structure Suite

Revit Structure Support
Revit Structure discussion forums are here!

Revit Structure - General
Main discussion area for the latest release of Revit Structure.

Revit Structure - Tips & Tricks
Got a hot tip? Share it here!

Revit Structure - Families
Topics about creating families specifically for Revit Structure.

Revit Structure - Wishlist
Got a wish? Blow out the candle here!

A Hyperlinked list to all the AUGI forum areas can now be found on the left panel of this web site.

Cadalot Web Site is moving over to Blogs

I was hoping that normal service was going to be resumed to my web site.

I moved over the UK Revit Register and then thought why not move the whole web site over to Blogs?

My cadalot web site has been around since 2000 and has been Tenlinks Top Ten Listed since 2001. There was a lot of information on it, and I’m in the process of porting the web site over to the family of Blogs that you may have noticed I have created and has appeared on the top left of the screen.

This is a bit like a spring clean, and it is giving me the opportunity to check links and content and update the information.

My cadalot.co.uk domain name now points to a Cadalot Index Blog which is like the old index page of the web site and give people access to the various areas of the old web site but now provided on Blogs!.

New Home for UK Revit Register

Some of you might have noticed that my cadalot web site has not been available for the last few days

It would appear that that my virtual hosting providers are having a few problems at the moment.

I’m hoping that normal service may be resumed as soon as possible but who knows? I’m still waiting for answers to emails as they appear to busy to answer my questions over the phone.

In the mean time, I’m looking at alternative ways of providing some of the cadalot web site information, so that UK Revit Register is now on it’s own blog rather than being provided on the web site.

CSC (UK) Ltd become Revit resellers

It has just come to my attention that CSC (UK) Ltd have recently announce its appointment as an authorised Autodesk AEC reseller for the supply of Autodesk Revit Structure, together with associated training and support services, within the UK and Ireland.

Their web site states that:-

“Both CSC and Autodesk are firmly committed to Revit Structure as it represents the future of BIM (Building Information Modelling) for Structural Engineers in the UK. CSC's core design products - Fastrak and Orion - both integrate with Revit Structure and already enjoy market dominance in the UK building structure sector. Therefore the agreement to supply Revit Structure as a complementary application is a logical and strategic progression for CSC.”

CSC can be contacted on 0113 239 3000 or email mailto:sales@cscworld.com?subject=CSC%20Revit:%20More%20Info

Free Quarterly Magazine for Northern Europe

Experience Building is the only official publication for the Autodesk AEC user community in Northern Europe. Fully endorsed by Autodesk, and published by X3DMedia Ltd, Experience Building brings a highly independent and well respected editorial team together to keep users up to speed with the fast changing world of products, technology and community surrounding Building Information Modelling (BIM), AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit, Buzzsaw and other industry leading solutions.

Register now for the printed version and or e-zine.

New Revit Structure 2009 Book Now Here

Mastering Revit Structure 2009 (Paperback) by David Harrington (Author), Tom Weir (Author), Paul Andersen (Author), Jamie Richardson (Author).

RRP: £42.50

Price: £25.89 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery.

Amazon.co.uk.

Usually dispatched within 10 to 13 days. Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Note: orders placed now for this item will not be dispatched in time for Christmas (see last-order dates).

Educational copy 13 month licence for FREE

One of my trainee technicians has informed me of something very interesting.

His lecturer has told the student on his course to login in and download the Autodesk software they need so that they can learn how to use it and produce material for their coursework for FREE
Here is the link to the Student Engineering & Design Community :-

http://students3.autodesk.com/?nd=public_signup_v2

I had been looking into the purchase of an educational licence so that I could continue learning the package at home in the evenings. (The company I’m currently working for has not purchased REVIT yet, they are still looking into it).

If you have a school-issued email address you can get started immediately on the new member registration page.

The Autodesk resellers I contacted did no know about this and they had directed me to an academia software site where they are currently selling the same Student / Teacher 13 month licence at £59.99 Buy Online

As with most Autodesk educational software there is a plot stamp embedded within the files produced that states that the drawing has been produced by an educational version.

So make sure that your students know that they are to keep their learning copy at home and the office copy (should you have one) well away from each other i.e. don’t use any files from or produced by the educational version on real work.

Only Six Weeks to Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Long Time No Blog ..........

I’m sorry for the absence of regular postings to this blog site…

In May this year I moved to a new company that currently does not have Revit (Ok I’m working on that one.) There is the recession on (opps can’t call it that call it a “credit crunch” sounds less threatening) the fear of the workload dropping and the whispers of companies laying off engineers, graduates and draughtsmen.

I can understand that belts in the industry are going to be tightened until we see what the future brings, and there is a lot of financial difference between using seats of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT and Revit with the cost in training and implementation etc etc.

One of our Major clients insists that we use a particular 3D drafting package for there work so, we also have seats of that for their work as well as seats of AutoCAD, LT Civils etc.

I still attended the London UK Users Group run by Excitech (despite not getting paid for the day, booking it as unpaid leave) because I believe the future is Revit shaped.

I’m biting the bullet and installing the Trial version of Revit Structure 2009 to continue up the Revit Learning Curve, but there is only so much one can do without the facility of being able to save and then reload your tutorial work and continue.

During the last couple of weeks I started on a project with an Architect who bought Revit Architecture, went on a three day course but due to pressure of work is still pumping out drawings using AutoCAD and has not made the transition. It’s no good going on any kind of software training if you don’t use the package before and more importantly straight after the training.

He discussed the possibility of re taking the course (as it’s been well over a year since the last one) and trying to make the move again, the Partners where I work are obviously interested in Revit and lets face it the cost of Revit Structure Suite which comes with AutoCAD is not a lot more than just plain Full AutoCAD if you need to upgrade of buy another copy of Full AutoCAD that is.

That’s the problem justifying the need for Revit or a Full AutoCAD then getting Revit off the back of the purchase. Slowly slowly catche Monkey as my old dear departed Dad would say.

The Architects building would be a challenge in Revit purely because it is curved and you could not use gridlines. I’ve not seen a lot of non –rectangular or rectilinear building detailed in Revit. This building is curved on plan and terraced, looking as if it should be in Spain or some other holiday spot not in the centre of London.

So if there are any Revit heads out there that have curved masonry building on plan I would love to see them.

Email them to alan@cadalot.co.uk

The Revit Clinic

The Revit Clinic ~ Preventative and Rehabilitative BIM care

The primary contributor to this blog is a guy named Harlan Brumm who is the Global Technical Lead – Revit for Autodesk Product Support

The goal of this blog is to provide what a good clinic provides. Harlan want to prevent problems from occurring, and provide rehab if they do.

Well worth a visit

New Revit Structure 2009 Book On The Way

Mastering Revit Structure 2009 (Paperback) by David Harrington (Author), Tom Weir (Author), Paul Andersen (Author), Jamie Richardson (Author).

Price: £36.99 Pre-order Price Guarantee from Amazon & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery.

Availability: This title has not yet been released. You may order it now and Amazon will ship it to you when it arrives. Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.

New Web Update Build of Revit Structure

Wai Chu ~ Revit Structure Technical Product Manager for Autodesk, Inc. has just posted a message on the AUGI forum that there is a New Web Update 1 build of Revit Structure 2009 (20080602_1900) which is an English version.


The new build can be found under the Revit Structure 2009 English product download page: www.autodesk.com/revitstructure-downloads

The other languages version of Web Update 1 will be available in the next couple of weeks as the development team are still working on it.

This new build has improved several Structure, Platform and API specific issues which are documented in the "Web Update Enhancement List (pdf)".

SI Tools for Revit Structure 2009

Elizabeth Shulok ~President of Structural Integrators has informed me that they have released a version of SI Tools for Revit® Structure that is compatible with Revit Structure 2009.

For more information and to download your free copy, visit the Structural Integrators Tools product page: http://structuralintegrators.com/products/si_tools_r.php

Arup uses Revit Structure to facilitate integrated design across multiple offices

Arup is using Revit Structure to coordinate almost 10,000 projects across 92 offices in more than 35 countries. You can find the case study here.

Impression Update

A big thank you to all those people that sent me example files to forward to Autodesk

These were sent to assist build a case for Revit Structure , Suite and MEP users on subscription to get Impression

Lisa Crounse Product Marketing Manager for Impression emailed me today to inform me that "The team has decided that Impression will be available to Revit Structure customers (both the stand-alone and suite)" She later informed me via email that "Revit MEP is also on board"

She also gave me permission to make this public knowledge

Thanks Lisa and all those at Autodesk that helped make it happen.

Will Revit Structural Suite Users get Impression ?

Autodesk has announced that Impression will be offered as a subscription benefit for customers with AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD Civil 3D, AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD MEP and AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite in March.

I have not seen any mention of Revit Structure Suite, which comes with AutoCAD so do we or don't we get Impression if we have subscription?

My reseller could not tell me, as they did not know

As a result of sending a support request to Autodesk, I have been contacted by Senior Management at Autodesk who initially asked me to build a “use case” for Structural Engineers owning Revit Structure under subscription to get Impression as part of the subscription.

In my reply I explained that Quote:

“I have not seen any mention of Revit Structure Suite, which comes withAutoCAD so do we or don't we get Impression if we have subscription?

AutoCAD is part of Structure Suite so we should but it's not mentionedin the resellers newsletter sent by email

Reading your (Autodesks) own literature

We would use it to "impress our colleagues and clients with compelling presentation-ready graphics created directly from DWG and DWF Files".

Structural Engineers in the UK do a lot of smaller schemes without the assistance of an Architect, as our drawings are sufficiently detailed for there not to be the need for an Architect. We (Structural Engineers) also undertake Civil Engineering. In the UK we take an Honours Degree in Civil Engineering and usually take the final year options of Advanced Structural design.

A picture is worth a 1000 words and the better the picture the better the understanding.

This package would be useful for civil engineering schemes which include landscaping.

I hope this helps you understand the use cases, Bottom line has to be if you are making this available to people that own AutoCAD then Revit Structural Suite owners should get it.... I just wanted it confirmed and if not lobby for it to be made available to us”

There have been further exchanges of emails and I have been requested to send some example drawings to assist in building the case.

Unfortunately I recently had my backup hard disk die on me so I am having to scour through piles of CD’s to find some good examples.

If Structural Engineers could send me some example dwg or pdf files to my work email at alan.wooldridge@byl.co.uk then I can collate them and send them back to Autodesk I would greatly appreciate it.

And then we Revit Structure Users may end up with a very useful additional tool.

To read or joint the AUGI thread on this subject http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?p=817614#post817614

To find out more about what Impression is and what it could do for you see
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=9246650&siteID=123112
There is a nice short video on this page.

Revit Structure 2008 Shortcuts Quick Reference

There are many predefined keyboard shortcuts for Revit Structure commands.

This document lists the shortcuts by Menu Item - I have printed out two copies, placed them back to back, then encapsulated them in plastic using the a laminating machine to keep nearby as a reference card.

I have also found that you can also configure your own keyboard shortcut key combinations that appear in the Revit Structure interface next to their corresponding menu item.

You can create multiple shortcuts for one menu command. In the menu, the shortcut that displays in the menu is the first shortcut listed in the KeyboardShortcuts.txt file. A job for when I'm more proficient with the package I think!

All Robobat Extensions FREE on Subscription

On the 15th Jan 20008 - Autodesk, Inc. announced that it has completed the acquisition of Robobat for approximately $42.5 million.

Today 2nd February 2008 there was an announcement on AUGI by Wai Chu Autodesk, Inc Technical Product Manager for Revit Structure that all extensions for Revit Structure formerly developed by Robobat, both fee and free, are now available through the Autodesk Subscription Program.

We are told that Revit Structure Subscription customers can login to the Subscription Center and download the Revit Extensions at no additional cost..

But they seem to be having problems again because at the moment I can’t see anything on the Subscription pages.

It took a couple of days for them to get their act together with the Work Sharing Monitor and Batch Print for Revit for UK subscribers.

Revit® Extensions are a series of easy to use applications that extend the capabilities of Revit Structure 2008 in various key areas, including structural analysis and reinforced concrete drafting.

To find out more about this acquisition of Robobat read the press release.Visit the Autodesk’s Subscription page under Services and Support to find out more about this service and becoming a member.