BIM & BEAM

Interview with Faber Maunsell /AECOM

Faber Maunsell, www.fabermaunsell.com, is an award-winning, international consultancy specializing in buildings, transportation and environmental services. Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Gemunu Nanayakkara, Principal CAD Modeler at Faber Maunsell. Gemunu and his team have immersed themselves in the use of Revit® Structure and had these great things to say about the product.

 

1. Culotta: Gemunu, Please tell us about your business, the markets you serve and the services that you provide.
   1. Nanayakkara: AECOM is One of the world's leading providers of professional, technical and management support services for government and private clients. Faber Maunsell comprises an exceptionally broad range of skills and disciplines in     building engineering, transportation and environmental consultancy services. Our markets include commercial offices, transport infrastructure, health, retail, utilities infrastructure, education, residential, industrial, laboratories and pharmaceutical, sport and entertainment, hotels, and defense, both in the public and private sectors.
2. Culotta: What is your role in the company? How long have you been with the company?
   1. Nanayakkara: Role: Principal CAD Modeler- and my main duties are to give in-house Revit Structure training to all technicians and to set up company standards on Revit Structure while actively involved in live projects. I've been with the company for just over six months now.
3. Culotta: When did you and the company begin using Revit Structure?
   1. Nanayakkara: I started about five to six years ago. St Albans office started using as soon as I joined the company and it spread across to other offices throughout the U.K.
4. Culotta: What were you using before? For how long were you using it?
   1. Nanayakkara: I was using AutoCAD for about 15 years. The company was using Auto CAD and 3D+. Currently we continue to use AutoCAD in parallel with Revit Structure until we train all our technicians and engineers on Revit Structure and increase the number of license.
5. Culotta: What made your company switch to Revit Structure and how did you do it?
   1. Nanayakkara: Understanding of the power of BIM and the ability to integrate with Revit Structure models with design software at an early stage of the design process. In-house training for CAD technicians and on the job training enabled us to get in to a fine start on new projects.
6. Culotta: What is the biggest advantage or benefit to your company in using Revit Structure?
   1. Biggest advantage is that we are now able to produce presentation materials with very fine details to a highest quality within the shortest possible time.
7. Culotta: How does your company transfer the benefits gained in using Revit Structure onto your client?
   1. Nanayakkara: We share the BIM information with all parties to facilitate coordination in a 3D environment. Production of presentation models, fly through & walk through, time liner presentations using Navisworks etc. based on Revit Structure model.
8. Culotta: Please share with us a few projects you've created with Revit Structure? What was the situation and how did you deliver the solution?
   1. Nanayakkara: Recently we were involved in producing a structural solution to one of the largest projects related to 2012 Olympics and our sustainable green solution was created 100 % on Revit Structure. Also we are working on number of school projects throughout U.K. and Revit Structure gives us the complete flexibility to achieve feasible solutions to complex situations.
9. Culotta: Are there any images you can share with us of these projects?
   1. Nanayakkara: Yes. Take a look at a few images from some projects.

      

      

10. Culotta: Anything else you'd like to share about your experience with Revit Structure?
    1. Nanayakkara: We are very impressed with Revit Structure's ability to manage frequent changes of project details and specifications with minimal time. Also the capability of creating complex geometries in 3D with least effort.

    

11. Culotta: If you could give one piece of advice to someone in the field of structural engineering who is NOT using Revit Structure today, what would it be?
    1. Nanayakkara: Revit Structure is probably the best BIM software package available in the market! It allows you to integrate and coordinate with other disciplines and to produce a complete solution to any situation

Culotta: Gemunu, Thank you for your time today.

Nanayakkara: You are very welcome.

The Autodesk Experience Virtual Event This Tuesday June 3, 2008

OK, so have you ever been to one of these Virtual events? If not then you really should check this one out. Imagine going to a tradeshow, but instead of physically being there, you can attend it online. The user interface is very cool in that it looks just like a real trade show. You can go and visit the different booths and interact with people at those booths. See below a screen shot of what it will look like. Live people will be online and will interact with you. Of course my preference is that if you go to this event, and check out the Structural Industry booth and Session.

Here are the details on it. The event takes place on June 3, 2008 at 10:00 AM EDT. Register for this event at www.autodesk.com/aecvirtualevent

The Autodesk Experience Virtual Event will include:

• Autodesk Solutions for Structural Engineering sessions with live Q&A (see details below)
• An exhibit hall where you can stop by our booths to chat with Autodesk representatives and receive more information about our new line of software solutions
• Networking opportunities
• Chance to win a 16GB iPod touch!

Structural Industry Sessions include:

11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EDT - Autodesk Solutions for Structural Engineering session:

Find out how Revit® Structure 2009, the building information modeling (BIM) software integrates physical and analytical modeling for efficient, accurate, and flexible analysis, design, and documentation. In this session you'll be introduced to a multimaterial physical model integrated with an independently editable analytical model allowing you to deliver more efficient, accurate, and flexible analysis, design, and documentation.  You'll also learn about improved coordination by leveraging information from architectural files, and about effective change management with structural analysis and parametric change management technologies.

3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EDT - Building Information Modeling for Architects, Civil Engineers and Building Engineers:

This session will cover the principles of building information modeling (BIM), the innovative approach to coordinated and consistent communication between architects and engineers.  Learn how BIM can help you efficiently create and exchange information among all your project stakeholders.  You'll get an overview of how Revit, our premier BIM design software, instantly updates design changes and reflects them throughout all design views, making coordination easy and efficient, and how Civil, MEP, and Structural Engineers can work more efficiently with less errors and omissions. We'll outline ways to utilize your existing AutoCAD data while migrating to BIM and discuss in-process design visualization tools that let you leverage BIM quickly and effectively.

I hope you can make this event and attend the Structural sessions!

All the best,

Tom

Interview with URS Corporation LTD

I had the great opportunity to interview Allan Brown, Senior Technician in the Buildings Structure Division at URS Corporation for my first posting in the Tom's Corner. Allan is a big fan of Revit Structure and has shared with me some great information and a few cool images as well that I believe you'll find interesting. Take a look at my questions and Allan's responses below.

1. Culotta: Allan, tell us about your business, the markets you serve and the services that you provide.
   1. Brown: Revit Structure is used in our engineering service line. This service line covers design services in Residential, Commercial, Industrial, Transportation, US Department of Defense, Ministry of Defence, Health, Education, Stadia, Custodial and Retail sectors.
2. Culotta: What is your role in the company? How long have you been with the company?
   1. Brown: My primary role within URS is of Senior Technician in the Building Structures department in our Glasgow office. I have been with URS for eight years and I have been in involved with various work sectors, from Health, Leisure, Commercial, and Residential to Industrial.
3. Culotta: When did you and the company begin using Revit Structure?
   1. Brown: URS started to look into Revit Structure in the summer of 2007. We download the 30-day free trial to review the software and it's capabilities and started to work through the metric tutorials provided over the course of the summer. Once we were happy with what Revit could provide we had our formal training in October 2007.
4. Culotta: What were you using before? For how long were you using it?
   1. Brown: Currently we run three software packages for our drafting work, not just within Glasgow, but also throughout the UK, these are AutoCAD 2008, CSC's 3D+ and now Revit Structure.
5. Culotta: What made your company switch to Revit Structure and how did you do it?
   1. Brown: We have always looked into better and more efficient ways of working, we had moved over to 3D modeling around six years ago as we felt that it was inevitable that the industry would move over to 3D modeling as a standard in years to come. As such, we wanted to have as much experience within this style of drawing generation as we could.

      A colleague and I started looking at the 30-day trial and working through the tutorials. We wrote a report based on our experience with the software and to compare it against our other 3D modeling package to draw up the pros and cons of the software. This was provided to our CAD service line leader for review.

      Once we had approval to move forward we arranged formal training with three members of staff from the Glasgow office initially fully trained. With the turn of the new year, we then rolled out Revit Structure to our London office who also took on a further two licenses with a further three members of staff gaining training.

      We hope to roll out Revit Structure to our complete Structures department within Glasgow by the end of the year and in the long-term roll out Revit Structure as our standard CAD platform UK wide.

6. Culotta: What is the biggest advantage or benefit to your company in using Revit Structure?
   1. Brown: With the 3D package we had it was limited primarily to steelwork. When we reviewed Revit Structure we were impressed at how compact and self contained the software was. We were able to do complex foundations, ground slabs, metal decking, steelwork and retaining walls with no real requirement to move externally outside of Revit Structure. Other packages were AutoCAD based and drawing generation in itself could be time consuming. Furthermore, amending the models could be awkward if any changes occurred due to external parties requiring changes and once the model was updated drawings then had to be regenerated and tidied before they could be issued.

      With Revit Structure there is no draw regeneration process. When elements are updated all drawings with the elements relating tags move, it is an almost instant process which has saved a lot of drafting time. The nature of Revit Structure enables you to build up your information on a plan-to-plan basis just as you would with a conventional AutoCAD drawing. We are hoping this approach to 3D modeling will enable our staff with little or no experience in 3D modeling to adapt to the software easier than that of our previous 3D modeling package.

7. Culotta: How does your company transfer the benefits gained in using Revit Structure onto your client?
   1. Brown: for the main part we can create more detailed 3D models, which we can present to a client to look at and move around through the DWF viewer that Autodesk provide. Previously we could not have given over a model with the same sort of detail as we can now. This obviously will apply to the rest of the design team as well, architects and mechanical and electrical Engineers also benefit from Revit Structures detailed models.
8. Culotta: What kind of return on investment have you seen since using Revit Structure?
   1. Brown: Limited at present as live projects are only just beginning. We expect to see a return based around the nature of effectively drafting and modeling at the same time and the quick ability to cut sections and elevate elements anywhere within the model, which is significantly different to how we have worked in the past.

      We also expect to see a return on the process of amending drawings. This process has been made easier through Revit Structures technology and removing the issue of possible errors occurring over multiple drawings. Updates, which would have been handled manually, previously (even to a certain degree on other 3D packages) are now automated thanks to the nature of Revit's technology.

9. Culotta: Please share with us a few projects you've created with Revit Structure? What was the situation and how did you deliver the solution?
   1. When we first started out with Revit Structure after our training we wanted to move into it as soon as we could. Any new work that came through was to be done in Revit Structure no matter how big or small the projects were as we were aware that there can be the opinion you should only model larger structures with 3D technology, and that smaller work would be quicker in AutoCAD. So we knew that we had to show that Revit Structure could produce quality just as quickly if not faster than that of AutoCAD even on the smallest of jobs.

      The jobs we came across first were external retaining walls. We would never have modeled retaining walls with our previous 3D package and we knew this was an excellent opportunity to see what Revit Structure could do outside of a traditional building construction. With the inbuilt wall and foundation tools we felt that Revit Structure could handle it. We were dealing with a tight site with an approx 5-6m drop across the length of the site. There was in the region of 30 different retaining walls with pedestrian ramps with varying wall head and foundation levels. Using the architects CAD plan as a base we used the wall tool to pick the wall locations on plan and then using the foundation tool applied the foundation to the underside of wall locking the two together. With all the walls modeled it was a simple process of elevating all the walls using the section tool, once the sections were cut we detailed up the walls as you would traditionally within AutoCAD using Revit Structure's own drafting tools.

      As a bonus we were able to utilize the topography tool within Revit Structure so we could check the ground profiles against wall heads and foundation levels to ensure there were no clashes, something we would never had been able to do within AutoCAD. The whole process took in the region of five working days, which we estimate is about half the time it would have taken if we had used the AutoCAD route.

1. Culotta: Are there any images you can share with us of these projects?
   1. Brown: Yes take a look…

      

      

      

      

      

2. Culotta: Anything else you'd like to share about your experience with Revit Structure?
   1. Brown: Generally we have had a very positive experience with the software. We found that, as you gain experience and knowledge the process of generating models and drawings grows quicker and you really start to see the huge benefits when elements have to be changed.
3. Culotta: If you could give one piece of advice to someone in the field of structural engineering who is NOT using Revit Structure today, what would it be?
   1. Brown: Download the free trial to see what it does. Revit Structure has handled everything we have done in it so far in projects, small and large. Once you get around how Revit Structure works you do feel your work process is more efficient and you feel confident all elements are linked through your model and drawings.

The Proof is in the Footing

You can find an article on Revit Structure at: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/jam/augiworld0508/

And go to page 14.

Nicolas

Tom’s Corner:

Welcome to Tom's Corner!  Here you will find interesting interview's I've conducted with users of our Structural Software Products.  You'll also see some very cool images of projects that our users have created using Revit Structure.  My goal is to create awareness around the great things people do with our product line and to inspire others of its potential.  In addition to user interviews, my plan over time will be to blog about other relevant marketing topics as it relates to the Structural Software products.  I hope you enjoy this new blog category in BIM & BEAM!

 

All the best!

Tom

3DPrint: How cool is that?

This is an example from the UK that Gemunu Nanayakkara (from Faber Maunsell Ltd) just sent me

If you have examples that you want to share please contact me at Nicolas.mangon@autodesk.com

3D Printing Example from Walter P Moore

Here are a few 3D printing examples from our good friend David Harrington from Walter P Moore

Nicolas

Free SI Tools for Revit® Structure 2009 is available for download

SI Tools for Revit® Structure is a Revit Structure add-in that provides advanced selection capabilities for structural members.  Use the toolbar buttons to quickly select all beams, columns, or walls on a single level or in the entire model, regardless of type or material.  Or use the Advanced Selection options to select a custom combination of beams, columns and walls. 

Want to identify all 8X10 members, both beams and columns?  Or select all concrete members, regardless of size?  Or do you need to quickly find all members designated "not for analysis"?  It is easy with SI Tools for Revit Structure.

Free download at:

http://structuralintegrators.com/products/si_tools_r.php

Nicolas

Slab Edge Hidden Lines Display

Back in February/March 2008, during our Revit Structure 2008 Beta testing period, there was a discussion among our Beta testers (from different countries) about the slab edge hidden line display. In fact, the standard or culture of displaying slab edge hidden lines on plan could be different from country to country.

For example, many USA companies have a standard to show the inside (or bearing) line to be displayed for slab edges.

However, some other countries users have also told us that their standard is to display both/all lines which is:

 

I would like to share a technique with you in Revit Structure 2009 of which one of our QA expert Joe Charpentier has explained in the Beta discussion forum an option, to be invoked via the Revit.ini file, that can change the display of hidden lines. Quote:

"By default, the inside (or bearing) line will be displayed for slab edges.

In the official release of Revit Structure 2009, we are providing an option, to be invoked via the Revit.ini file (typically located at C:\Program Files\Revit Structure 2009\Program), that can change the display of hidden lines.  This is similar in behavior to the "Show hidden lines" options for beam families.

Add the following section heading and variable names to the Revit.ini file, if it doesn't exist already:

[Graphics]
HiddenSlabEdge=All

Possible values for HiddenSlabEdge variable:
"All"  - Show all lines from a slab edge
"Itself"  - New default behavior, the "Bearing" or lower edges
"Other" - The edge intersecting with the slab, (Beta 1 and 2 Behavior)
"None" - Show no hidden lines for Slab edges (r2008 behavior)

Note that this is not set for the project, but for the session of Revit.  That is, if you open a file with a certain variable setting, that will not prevent the project from being displayed differently if opened in a different install with a different setting."

Thanks

Wai

STL Exporter for Revit Platform 2009

Create 3D Prints of your Revit 2009 models. As architects and engineers start their digital designs earlier and keep them digital for longer, they want a way to still physically interact with their designs. With the economical availability of 3D printers this has become possible. 3D printed models increasingly serve as a critical part of the design process to study design options and improve communication between project members and owners. The STL Exporter for the Revit 2009 family of products is a proof of concept project that we are working on. It is designed to take a 3D Revit building information model and create an STL file that can be used for 3D Printing. We invite you to take it for a spin and see what you think. We look forward to hearing your feedback.

To Get Started

1. Download the ZIP package that cantinas the installer, installation and user instructions, and a feedback form.
2. Unzip the downloaded ZIP file.
3. Follow the Read Me file to install the STL Exporter.
4. The next time you open Revit 2009 you will see a new option called Export STL under the Tools::External Tools menu.

To Use It

1. Load a model and select a 3D view that you want to use as the bases for your print.
2. Using the instructions in the Read Me file set up your 3D view in the one of the Revit 2009 family of products.
3. Export the model using the command under the Tools::External Tools menu.
4. Make any required changes to the STL file using an STL viewer.
5. Print the STL file using a 3D Printer.
6. Enjoy the fruits of your labor!

Download available at: http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/revit_stl/term_and_condition/

Nicolas