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Property Wizardry at Its Finest

Understanding View Range in

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Backstop Backstory

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contents

columns

6 22

3632

4 Editors Note

43 Inside Track

Cover image:Cal RedbackPhoto Copyright 2013 - Cal Redback. Reuse of full or partial copyright image, in any form, with

prior written permission is strictly prohibited.Visit Cals website at http://CalRedback.500px.com/

AUGIWorld

6 AutoCAD ArchitectureCreate, Edit & Share

with Google SketchUp

11 InventorProperty Wizardry at Its Finest

17 Revit ArchitectureAdventures with Revit

Plug-ins

22 Programming Backstop Backstory

28 RevitFive Tips for Selecting Quality Apps

32 AutoCAD Civil 3DSupporting Roles

36 Navisworks ManageDynamic Workflow

40 Revit MEPUnderstanding View Range

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EditorsEditor-in-ChiefDavid Harrington - [email protected]

Copy EditorMarilyn Law - [email protected]

Layout EditorTim Varnau - [email protected]

Content Managers3ds Max - Osama AliAutoCAD - Curt MorenoAutoCAD Architecture - Melinda HeavrinAutoCAD Civil 3D - Christopher FugittAutoCAD MEP - William CampbellColumn: Inside Track - Lee AmbrosiusInventor - John EvansNavisworks - Michael SmithProduct Review - Lonnie CumptonRevit Architecture - Jay ZallanRevit MEP - Todd ShackelfordRevit Structure - Phil Russo

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Publication InformationAUGIWorldmagazine is a benefit of specificAUGI membership plans. Direct magazinesubscriptions are not available. Please visithttp://www.augi.com/account/register to join or grade your membership to receiveAUGIWorldmzine in print. To manage your AUGI membershipaddress, please visit http://www.augi.com/accouFor all other magazine inquires please [email protected]

Published by:AUGIWorld is published by Autodesk User GrouInternational, Inc. AUGI makes no warranty for tuse of its products and assumes no responsibilityany errors which may appear in this publication does it make a commitment to update the informcontained herein.

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AUGIWorld (San Francisco, Calif.)ISSN 2163-7547

Hello, AUGIWorldReader!

Welcome to another wonderful edition of AUGIWorldmagazine. We have a great issue ready for you! Tisissue has the general theme of third-party apps.We asked our authors to consider what third-party

application is doing it for them. None of our authors are compensated for sharingtheir thoughts and experiences on their respective productsthey write simplyfor the sheer pleasure of it.

We begin this edition with our own Melinda Heavrin, an avid user of AutoCADArchitecture. She pens her focus on Google SketchUp this time around andenlightens us with how to create, edit, and share. Ten we have Scott Moyse, whouses Inventor and is sharing his experience with iPropWiz, property wizardry atits finest!

Ten jumping to Revit Architecture where Shaun Farrell and Rory Macagueteam up to recount their personal adventures with Revit plug-ins! And thenguest author Larry Daubenspeck brings a story of his personal experiences inprogramming. Michael Beall brings us the AutoCAD tip of the monthhow to

make a copy of a Qleader arrow.

Returning to the Revit world, Monica Petersen shares her top five tips for selectingquality apps for Revit. And then Christopher Fugitt runs down a list of third-partysolutions which play supporting roles when using AutoCAD Civil 3D. Some ofthe ones Chris mentions seem like real winners!

We have Michael Smith discussing dynamic workflows when using NavisworksManage. Ten we wrap the issue with Jerad Meidinger, a user of Revit MEP whogives us a well-earned lesson for understanding view range settings. Ending ourissue this month is the Inside rack article by Lee Ambrosius, who presents a few

more new products coming to market.

Te cover art this month was provided by Cal Redback (with some assistance byDaniel Hurtubise). Cal takes the idea of reaching out and grabbing a handful ofthird-party apps to quite a visual impact!

And with this, another issue of AUGIWorld rolls out the door and onto yourdesk. Now just pick it up and enjoy!

ake care,

David

Editors Note

JUNE2013

4

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We put the info in BIM

These objects, plus thousands more, have all been developed by ARCAT

BIM experts, so you can rely on them as you do for ARCAT specs andSpecWizards. These 3D objects are packed with all the crical product

data you need, and are free of charge like all of ARCAT services!

Objects Systems Materia

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AutoCAD Architecture 2013 by: Melinda Hea

In every industry, there are many third-partytools that can help in all aspects of drawingquality. For AutoCAD Architecture users, aprime example is Google SketchUp, an excellent

tool with a lot of great capabilities.

WHAT IS GOOGLE SKETCHUP?

SketchUp is used by architects and civil engineers for creating,editing, and sharing 3D models. SketchUp drawings can beexported to AutoCAD Architecture very easily. Tere are twoversions of SketchUp: SketchUp Pro and a free downloadableversion that is very limited in its use. Te free download includesintegrated tools for use in uploading to Google Earth. Teremainder of this article will discuss SketchUp Pro.

SketchUp is part of the same product family as Google Earth.With this tool, you can import a scaled aerial photograph fromGoogle Earth to SketchUp with the click of a button. Tis caninclude topographical information as well.

SketchUp Pro comes with Layout, which is a 2D companiSketchUp Pro. With Layout you can create professional ddocuments, dimensioned drawings, and presentation documfrom the 3D models you created in SketchUp Pro. Whemodel is updated in SketchUp Pro, the changes are automaupdated in Layout.

THE FIRST TIMEWhen using SketchUp for the first time, you may notice a difference in the navigation system. By going to the Help and selecting Help Center, SketchUp Reference Guide, andQuick Reference Card, you can print a PDF showing some hshortcuts. Tere is a link for SketchUp as well as a link for La

Here are a few tips to help you get started. When using your mthe left button is for tool operations and the right button is fcontext menu. Te middle button (wheel) has several funcclick and drag to orbit, shift click and drag to pan, double clre-center your view, and scroll to zoom. Te spacebar operatSelect ool. You can use ctrl spacebar to add to a selection set

Create, Edit &

Share withGoogle

SketchUp
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June 2013 www.augiworld.

AutoCAD Architecture 201

spacebar to toggle in and out of a selection set, ctrl A to select all,and shift ctrl to subtract from a selection set. Please print and readthe Quick Reference Card before proceeding to use SketchUp.

COMPATIBLE FILE FORMATSOne of the many great features of Google SketchUp is that it usesa wide variety of file formats, including DWG, DXF, OBJ, FBX,

XSI, and WRL. If you dont want to take the time to import a fileinto AutoCAD Architecture, you can create a screenshot of the fileand save it in BMP, JPG, PNG, PDF, EPS, and IF formats forpresentation purposes.

IMPORTING AN AUTOCAD

ARCHITECTURE FILE INTO SKETCHUPNow that weve looked a few basic features of SketchUp, lets tryimporting a file from AutoCAD Architecture into SketchUp.Begin by opening SketchUp and select the File menu. Next selectImport. Under the Preview area, you will see an Options button.Select Options and then select the options you need in the dialog

box that opens. Click OK (see Figure 1). Now you will need toselect the file you wish to import and click open. If you do not see

the file you are looking for, be sure to click on the drop down nto Files of type to ensure that you are searching for the correcttype. You have now successfully imported a drawing into GooSketchUp! It is important to note that the SketchUp file will hthe same 0,0 origin as your AutoCAD Architecture drawing.

CREATING WALLS

Now that you have a drawing imported into Google SketchUconsider this: What if the walls are in 2D and you want to mthem 3D in SketchUp? Heres how you do that.

Begin by right-clicking and selecting Make Group. Ten selthe Line tool and select any corner of the perimeter to start line. Now, enter the wall height in the Measurements box press enter. Next select the Rectangle tool. Begin your rectanby selecting the endpoint of the line you just drew and end rectangle at a point on the wall. Continue until all exterwalls are erected. I have found that its easier to complete exterior first.

Now that all exterior walls have been erected and closed, you hcreated a Face. Te Face is used to build the roof once you

Figure 1: Import options
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ready to do so. Next, select the Face and select the Offset tool andenter the thickness for the exterior walls you have just created.Now select the Face and use the Push/Pull tool. Push the Facedown to create the interior Face of the walls. Tis will develop theinterior face of the exterior walls so you can continue to create theinterior walls at this point using the steps above.

ADDING DOORS AND WINDOWSAt this point, you have walls created. Now you will need to decideon header heights, door and window sizes, and styles beforecontinuing. Once you are ready, be sure you are in X-ray mode.Now insert the door component you selected and place it byreferencing a point on an opening in your imported AutoCADArchitecture file. Continue placing all door components usingX-ray mode. Next place all windows using the same methodstated above for door placement. For example, if you were placing awindow component above an overhead door, you would referencea point on the window and a point on the door.

VIEWING A MODEL IN 3DA camera is used by SketchUp to represent your point of view ofthe model. Basically, the program treats you as though you are acamera looking at your model as you work. SketchUp uses severaltools for viewing your model in 3D space. Tese are tools thatyou are familiar with in AutoCAD ArchitecturePan, Orbit,Zoom and Zoom Extents. Each of these tools can be found on theCamera toolbar.

DYNAMIC COMPONENTSDynamic Components can be defined as components that haveparametrics. For example, a cabinet component has doors thatopen and close. A component is only considered dynamic when

it has parametric data. Dynamic components will display with aspecial badge when parametric data is present. Attaching attributesto a component is what makes the component dynamic. Attributesare items such as the components name, description, location, sizeand number of copies. Some attributes are predefined attributes,which means they are automatically available for every dynamiccomponent. Tere are also custom attributes, which are uniqueattributes defined by the developer of the dynamic component.

Every attribute of a component has a value that can be a textualstring, a number, or the result of a formula. Each attribute and itsassociated value are called an attribute name/value pair. Formulas

can consist of predefined functions, mathematical operators, or thevalues of other attributes. Functions are shortcuts that perform anoperation such as calculating the square root of a number.

It is important to note that all SketchUp users can use dynamiccomponents. However, only SketchUp Pro users can developdynamic components.

o make a component dynamic, right-click on the component,select Dynamic Components and then select ComponentAttributes (see Figure 2). Select Add Attributes and a dialog boxwill display with attributes that can be added to your component(see Figure 3). Once you have added the desired attributes, the

Figure 2: Dynamic components

Figure 3: Component attributes

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new dynamic component can be saved to a component file foradditional use later.

EXPORTING A SKETCHUP FILE INTO

AUTOCAD ARCHITECTUREExporting a Google SketchUp file into AutoCAD Architecture iseasy. Once you are ready to export, select the File menu and select

Export. Next select 2D Graphic or 3D Model, depending on thefile you are exporting. Select the export file type from the drop-down. Since we are exporting to AutoCAD Architecture, youwould select AutoCAD DWG. By selecting the Options buttonat the bottom, you can choose the AutoCAD version to which youare exporting as well as the drawing scale and size. Select OK andthen select Export. Te export is now complete! It is importantto note that you can alternate between AutoCAD Architectureand SketchUp multiple times. Your drawing does not have to becomplete before importing it into SketchUp or from SketchUpinto AutoCAD Architecture.

3D WAREHOUSEA great feature of SketchUp is the 3D Warehouse, which alloyou to search for 3D models made by other users as wellcontribute 3D models of your own. It contains 3D modelsbuildings, cars, bridges, interior furnishings, and much more. A nfeature allowing you to search for similarly shaped models inst

Figure 4: Export dialog box

Figure 5: 3D Warehouse

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of relying on a text search hasbeen added. Tis really savestime when youre in a hurryto find a specific item. Te 3DWarehouse offers a wealth ofinformation and can help youdesign quickly when facing atough deadline. Best of all, thisfeature is free!

LAYOUT TOOLSketchUp contains a vastlibrary of colors, textures,shadows, lighting, and others.You are limited only by yourimagination when completingrenderings in SketchUp.Rendering tools and materialslibraries in AutoCADArchitecture, combined with

the tools in SketchUp, canproduce awesome presentationrenderings! o use the library,select the File menu and selectSend o Layout. Tis will openLayout. Te Layout feature isincluded with SketchUp Proand is used for creating andsharing presentations madefrom SketchUp. You can addtitle blocks, save templates, addgraphics, and create multi-page

documents. Layout gives you more control over color, style

weight of the lines and faces in your SketchUp model.

CONCLUSIONGoogle SketchUp has many capabilities for great qpresentation drawings. Weve barely scraped the tip of the icin this article, but now its your turn. Download the free vegive it a try and see how you like it. Tere is nothing bettergoing to a meeting with awesome drawings that took only mito complete! Need more SketchUp training? SketchUps GStarted application includes self-paced tutorials that will intryou to many tools, techniques, and procedures.

Melinda Heavrin is a CAD Coonator & Facility Planner for NorHealthcare in Louisville, Kentucky.has been using AutoCAD Architecsince release 2000. Melinda canreached for comments and [email protected]

Figure 6: Layout

Figure 7: Layout rendering

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Inventor 201by: Scott Moyse

Most of the seasoned Autodesk Inventorusers out there will have heard ofiPropWiz. For those who havent, orfor those new to the game, iPropWiz

is an Inventor add-in created to simplify and ease themanagement of component properties. Te native

Inventor iProperty dialog is clunky to use and, though it supportsthe creation of custom iProperties, the interface supportingthose is horrid. iPropWiz presents all the properties you areinterested in, within a single view. Over the years it has matured,moving way beyond just presenting properties to the user. Indoing so, it continues to expand into areas within which Inventorperforms inadequately.

IPROPWIZ HISTORY 2002 iPropWiz V1 2004 iPropWiz V2 iPropWiz V3 (Never Released) Late 2008 - iPropWiz 2009 (V4) 2010 - iPropWiz V5 2013 - iPropWiz V6

PropertyWizardry atIts Finest

Figure 1: iPropWiz V1 property editor

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Inventor 2013

A FEW QUESTIONS FOR THE WIZARDSIt has been nearly three years since I last got involved with betatesting iPropWiz V5. Im at a loss to know where those three years

have gone, but I do know they have most likely gone slower forme than for the wiser individuals among us. Te upside to theseforegone years is we now get to play with iPropWiz V6. Ive takenthis opportunity to not only fill you in on the new features, butalso to ask the products creators, Sean Dotson and Neil Munro,a few questions.

Scott:When and why did you start iPropWiz?

Sean: I first wrote iPropWiz in 2002 as a VBA macro. I wastired of users using the wrong fields for properties (Descriptionsvs. itle, etc.). It was fairly primitive compared to what wenow have.

Amen to that and thank you for ripping into it.

Scott: Were you both always involved? If not, how did theformidable partnership come to be?

Sean:Sometime after V2.2 I knew I was getting over my headin regards to programming. I had turned it into an add-in at thistime, but I lacked the skill set to evolve it further. Neil and I hadworked together (with Charles Bliss) on Animator, another add-into do animations in Inventor. Since we worked well together, wepartnered on iPropWiz and released v2009 soon after.

Scott: Are there any silent contributors to the program, than the beta testers?

Sean: Nojust Neil, myself, beta testers, and, of coursesupport of our beautiful wives.

Scott:Whats your favourite new feature in iPropWiz V6?

Neil:Tats a better question for users, but I like that theProperty Editor is a modeless (non-blocking) window.

Neil is a user as well, so his opinion very much counts. ExposinProperty Editor permanently like this brings property managemthe forefront of the design process. Ideal!

Scott:How would you define iPropWiz V6s primary role?

Neil:Practices on how/when properties are filled in are so va

Figure 2: iPropWiz V6 property editor

Figure 3: Sean Dotson

Figure 4: Neil Munro

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Inventor 201

that we cant tailor it to fit one solution. Te ability to make iteasy to check and reasonably easy to fill in is probably the best wecan do. Encouraging users to fill in property info at the part level,or in small assemblies, is part and parcel of making it as painlessas possible.

Scott:Where do you see iPropWiz going in the future?

Sean:We would like it to become even more engrained into theInventor workflow. We feel IPW offers the types of features thatusers want built into the product.

Scott:What would be your number one wish list item for theInventor API to improve iPropWiz?

Neil:Better tools for dockable windows in Inventor.

Scott:Do you plan to expand it into other products? If not, why?

Sean:No. Te time to learn other APIs and the costs associated

with that mean its prohibitive.

Im sure Neil and Sean would be open to coders from other platformslicensing the iPropWiz brand.

Scott:Can you say roughly how many seats of active iPropWizthere are around the world (including 2009 and later)?

Sean:We have roughly 350 separate companies using the productwith approximately 2,750 seats sold. However, we know there aresome people still using iPropWiz V2.

Scott:Without naming names, can you say what is your largestsingle installation of iPropWiz?

Sean:We have a couple of companies with 100 seat installs andseveral with 50+.

Scott:Why cant we purchase and download a licensed version ofiPropWiz directly from the Inventor Exchange App store?

Sean:It has to do with our licensing structure. We are workingwith Autodesk to find a way to simplify this.

Neil:I would add that we gear our sales to CAD managers or

admins, not individual users (although we have lots of those aswell). Te Configuration Editor/Property Editor concept is thereso standards can be better enforced by CAD managers.

Scott: How much is iPropWiz V6 going to cost, includingupgrade pricing?

Sean:We have yet to set pricing for V6.

Ive decided Im going to ask the following question at the end of everyinterview I do. Since we all know Sean is mad about sports and some of

you may know Neil is a bike nut, I thought it was entirely appropriate.

Scott:Formula One or NASCAR?

Sean:Im not going to answer that one.

Sean is sick of this debate raging on witter and refuses to partake thas well. I think the American in him has to go with NASCAR, whes torn by the engineer in him going with the technically supeFormula One

Neil:MotoGP, go 2 or go home!

Full respect to that answer. Tose lads are nuts and bloody good fto watch.

WHATS NEWTe layout from V5 remains largely unchanged, albeit withimproved user interface experience.

Tere are quite a few changes with this release. A number of thare subtle, so I will focus on the big ticket features, since you

read the official Whats New/Read me document to find everything. Most of the changes are within the configurateditor, so lets start there.

CONFIGURATION EDITORGENERAL AWESOMENESS

Maximum number of characters (see Figure 5).

Drag-and-drop property reordering. Capitalize values by property and configuration. Configuration setting to prompt for unfilled required val

when a document is closed. Improved property feedback: Modified aliases are bo

read-only checkboxes are filled in; assign expression buttindicate availability.

Configuration option to allow editing of properties in Invenlibrary parts.

iPropWiz Copy/Paste tools now support copy and paacross different document types, including the choice betwcopying the expression or the value.

Figure 5: Maximum character settings

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Inventor 2013

Significant improvements in handling property expressions.

In conjunction with the traditional expression tools availablewithin Inventor but also with iPropWiz, Neil and Sean haveintroduced a Property Extraction tool (see Figure 6). Using thisin combination with expressions will no doubt prove to be veryhandy. I look forward to getting rid of some iLogic code and thosedastardly iLogic event triggers once I set about leveraging this baby.

New List types: ree list Multi-property text list Material-based multi-property list Parameter-based multi-property list

Te new list types are among the most powerful new featuiPropWiz V6 (see Figure 7). Te Multi-Property, MaterialParameter-based multi-property lists allow the administratmonitor the value of a targeted property. When that promatches the criteria set by the list rule, it takes control of preset properties. Tis can either be in the form of enforcvalue, or chopping and changing lists assigned to these contr

properties. Using material as a good example, steel has a diffset of finishing requirements than plastic. Tese tools allow ypresent those options to the user. Very, very cool stuff!

Te ree lists are a bit different. I personally wouldnt have use for these. However, for companies with huge unruly lists,lists provide a means to organize the list values into logical foor categories. Importing data from Excel into lists has been impr

Commented samples for all list types are provided.

Figure 6: Property extraction tools

Figure 7: iPropWiz V6 sports clever new list types

Figure 8: Exported properties secondary format rule

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Inventor 201

EXPORTED MODEL AND SHEET METAL PROPERTIES

All exported properties now support an optional secondformat rule. A single comparison operator provides thedivision of primary and secondary formatting (seeFigure 8).

iPropWiz can now export a set of ordered extents (smallestto largest). Tis is supported for both model and sheetmetal extents.

wo additional model extents calculations: Align to user-dened UCS (see Figure 9). Align to the principle axes.

Sheet metal properties: Tree options for exported at pattern area: Bounding box, outer loop area, and face area. Additional sheet metal properties can now be exported.

Tese new features are my favourites by a long way. Im hugelyexcited by the possibilities of combining user-defined UCSs withthe ordered extents options. Tis will result in a far quicker way ofobtaining reliable overall dimensions for parts lists and BOMs. Inaddition, this will allow woodworkers to align their UCS X axiswith the grain of their parts if they so choose. As a result, they will

be able to align the length of their parts with the X axis.

I also have some other very exciting plans, which I have no intentionof sharing here (for the time being, at least).

PROPERTY EDITOR

Starting with the biggie: Te Property editor is now a modeless, dockable window (

Figure 10), making property management omnipresent.

I dont see the value of docking it myself, unless of course you ha 30 monitor. However, being able to keep it on a second monimeans you are constantly aware and working with the properfundamental to the design process.

You can still open and close the PE just like in previoversions; however, now you can also enable or disable it. Tis more of a benefit when you have large assemblies open.

Te PE now has a toolbar (see Figure 11) with a numbergoodies, including the ability to import and export currenlisted properties.

Figure 9: Extents aligned to user-defined UCSFigure 10: The PE is now dockable and modeless

Figure 11: Property editor toolbar

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Inventor 2013

THE GRID

Shift and Shift + ab navigation between cells is nowsupported. Awesome!

Pressing while in a date cell will now set the value totodays date.

Te Comments Property editor now supports pasting ofrich text.

Addition of a Reset button to wipe out non-committedchanges.

Virtual Component properties are now much bettersupported.

Te document browser. A raft of new filters has been added in the quick select list (see

Figure 13).

New View ypes are shown in Figure 12. You can nowthe referenced documents in either a flat or sorted viewcourse, you can still use the hierarchical view.

New Document type filters, including virtual compo(see Figure 12).

One of the most annoying aspects of iPropWiz V5 invmaking a chunk of property changes, but when you selanother component to edit its properties you realized that, wiwarning, all your work had been wiped out. It turns out thahave to apply your changes to commit them. Logical reallyeasily forgotten. iPropWiz V6 takes care of that by promptinof pending saves and asking if you want to save them. Notdoes this occur when switching selections in the PE, but althe Inventor browser or by changing the active document. Treally covered all the bases there.

SOME BORING STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW

Supported for Autodesk Inventor 2013 and 2014. Automated update of iPropWiz 2009 and V5 configur

and list information. \Admin$ folder renamed to \Admin. Limited support for deactivation of a license for install

on a computer with a different name.

CLOSING THOUGHTSIm extremely excited about this release of iPropWiz. Its to solve a number of problems Ive been wrestling with ioffice for years. In addition, the tools it provides will improvproductivity of our own in-house productivity add-ins.

People in the Autodesk Inventor community consistently w

why Autodesk hasnt bought IPropWiz and added it intproduct so everyone can benefit. Its hardly expensive, so treally no reason why every Inventor seat shouldnt just taconto their initial purchase cost.

During the review of this article with Neil and Sean, Neil revthat more than 90 percent of user requests had been implemin this release. Tis incredible achievement really shows iproduct. Te more you tinker with it the more you realize jusgood this tool is. Te ROI this wizardry affords is a no braineget it and enjoy a veritable productivity jump.

Scott Moyse is the Design Manafor SMI Design, a high end bespinteriors company in New ZealaHIs background is in MotorspEngineering & CNC programing. Scott has been using variAutodesk software over the last

years. He contributes regularly DesignandMotion.net - Scott canreached using witter @[email protected]

Figure 12: New view types and document type filters

Figure 13: There are many more filters in this release

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Revit Architecture 201

Figure 1: Revit Extension ribbon

by: Shaun Farrell and Rory MacTague

Adventures

with RevitPlug-ins

Shaun Farrell and Rory Macague of ZahaHadid Architects (ZHA), London, UK,examine various plug-ins and add-ons to seewhat tools are out there and which ones are

actually useful. Tis article covers just a subset of allthe tools currently being researched by the practice.

PART ONEby Shaun Farrell

I set up the Revit Specialists team within ZHA with the goal ofensuring that tools such as Autodesk Revit are used effectivelywithin the practice and that ideas are generated at all levels andacted on. Our team has looked at various tools and continues to do

so. For this article, we have selected Chameleon, Geometry GyRevit Extensions, Roombook, Model Review, and Smart Shee

REVIT EXTENSIONS 2013Tese tools are available as part of your Autodesk subscriptin the Products Enhancement section. On first look they seto be targeted to engineers with reinforcement, steel, bridges, ebut there are a few items worthy of note for an architect or other user.

Te Grids Generator tool lets you create levels and grids throan easy data entry wizard, rapidly increasing the initial set up

large or small projects as well as assigning basic Revit componesuch as columns to these objects. It does, however, create level markers to the maximized 3D extents, which may or m

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not be what you want. Its older brother, the Excel-based modelgenerator, is a slightly more complex version that uses Excel insteadof the wizard. Tese tools are only really useful in straightforwardstructures rather than anything of great complexity.

Te Model Compare tool requires you to have two Revit files openin order to compare them. We did this on only small files as aninitial test took a couple of minutes to process even the simplestmodel. Te output was a side-by-side comparison of generalinformation, elements, and parameters. Tis did throw up someinteresting possibilities, but we believe that it would take furtherprocessing of the output to be really useful for analysing anddisplaying differences and similarities between files (Figure 1a).

We also found the Element Positioning tool potentially useful.Tis promised to create position-based tags for elements. For allintents and purposes it did exactly that, using the mark field. Tisis a very useful tool for applying data to a lot of objects at the sametime, as far as labeling goes.

ROOMBOOK AND AREABOOKRoombook and Areabook are among the more in-depth add-inswe tried. Te sheer multitude of options available when these twoproducts are combined would warrant an article on their own.Tey go some way in overcoming the limitations of the calculationside of the in-built Revit tool with regard to areas and calculationmethods. In addition, these products give new users an insight intowhat is possible to extract from a Revit object.

Te ability to classify rooms with a sub-area type and calculation rule percentages by sub-area is a very ugranular approach to the complex task of the rules for utilisation. Tere is, of course, the ubiquitous Excel exwhose default template does not do a bad job of givwell-presented report.

MODEL REVIEWIf you have ever used standards checker in AutoCAD thenwill immediately know where this tool is coming from. All I cais download it and use it today! Whilst it can take some effoconfigure the checker to your standards, the sheer range of tit can check out of the box (see Figure 3) makes it worth the e

Figure 1a: Model Compare

Figure 2: Roombook and Areabook ribbons

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SMART SHEETSSmarts sheets by ools4Revit is the first of the tools weve reviewedin this article that is not a free tool. Tis caught our eye for twomain reasons: 1) the ability to duplicate sheets including layout,

views, and alignments; and 2) the ability to make large numbers ofsheets in one go.

Simply set up one sheet how you want it to look and then, usingthe Smart Sheets tool, you can create a series of drawings usingyour default drawing as a guide. So at long last you can easily domultiple floors of a tower or more modest buildings with just afew clicks. You can also go back and manage the attached viewsafterward and swap/update across all sheets or a selection set. Wellworth a trialeven just to see how the interface works. Once youhave tried the interface, you will immediately be familiar with howthe other tools from 4R work.

PART TWOby Rory Macague

CHAMELEONWHY WAS IT CHOSEN?

Chameleon is a lightweight plug-in for Robert McNeel & AssociatesRhino modeler and its companion open source programming tool,Grasshopper. Chameleon promises (amongst other things) to beable to bring geometry from Rhino/Grasshopper (RH/GH) intoRevit. It attracted us on a practical level as it was able to get rationalmetric objects out of Revit and parametricise them within RH/GH. It also attracted us on a conceptual level as we were able to

bring Cartesian information directly from RH/GH into Rerather than having to bring in the often non-rational topolfrom which the surfaces and forms were derived.

WHAT PROBLEM WILL IT SOLVE?

A key problem Revit has is with shapes-created-in-some-suother-than-Revit-softwareit doesnt like them and hates youit, too. Terefore, we experimented with .SA files from variprograms and found that slicing up the forms into surfaces panellising these surfaces to get them into Revit worked, but vslowly, and with often unpredictable results. Linking the .SA slinto Revit also created headaches with file loading and asset track

Hiroshi Jacobs Chameleon for Grasshopper & Revit plugsolved this with a minimum amount of fuss.

HOW WAS IT INSTALLED?

It is drag and drop into both Revit and Grasshopper, which wperfect for usa team of Revit users and another team of RGH users who could not communicate with each other.

HOW DID IT PERFORM?

Te examples and instructions for the adaptive components ageometry export are very thorough and we were able to tranfrom RH/GH a 15-point adaptive component with three levof nesting (rain-screen panel, secondary strut-work, lininstructure), all of which were themselves adaptive, metric, aproducing reporting parameters for scheduling. It did this in than five minutes of calculation time, having previously taupwards of an hour with the .SA process.

Figure 3: Model Review interface

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LESSONS LEARNT FROM INSTALLATION

Firstly, Chameleon is a superb product and its author, HiroshiJacobs, should be on your one-to-watch list. Te ability to installand use the program within five minutes of downloading was keyfor us at ZHA. Finally, the clear and concise instructions helpedas we were able to understand and adapt our work very quickly.

GEOMETRY GYMWHY WAS IT CHOSEN?

Geometry Gym is a series of Grasshopper plug-ins that createwithin Grasshopper building elements (floor, wall, column)that are then mapped to their IFC equivalent. Tis will allow us toexport parametrically derived forms, structures, and organisations

(le spcialit de la maison Zaha), directly into Revit.

WHAT PROBLEM WILL IT SOLVE?

Currently within ZHA there is a disconnection between thecreation of form and the creation of documentation to enablecoordination. By unifying within a single workflow, the creation ofform and its underlying logic/structure, we hope to both improvethe quality of the detailed product and also inform the earlieratectonic design stages with more constructible logic, creating anon-hierarchical discussion between the non-linear parametricaldesign process and the constituted artifact.

HOW WAS IT INSTALLED?

We are currently trialing the open source version and a re-tooledversion made by our Rhino reseller. We have a policy of requiringall new software to be used for a 30-day period, after which areport on its effectiveness is made to the software committee.

HOW DID IT PERFORM?

We understand that Geometry Gym is both a mature productand is being adapted by a number of engineering firms for theirown purposes.

LESSONS LEARNT FROM INSTALLATION

A practical lesson in that it may be good to earmark a project for

trialing a new process, but if the project comes to a halt, sothe research.

CONCLUSIONSTere are many plug-ins out there. Some free, some subscriand some retail. Many do things that Revit really should dof the box and some delve into specialty areas of modeling omanipulation/reporting. We continue to look for solutions aas there are fresh challenges, and we constantly review the wcurrent tools work to see if they could be made to work bett

Shaun Farrell, at the time of wri

(May 2013), is the Practice BManager for Zaha Hadid Archiand an Autodesk Expert Elite wover 20 years experience in the artecture, engineering, and construcindustry.

Rory Macague is a widely respeBIM Coordinator and Architec

Zaha Hadid Architects with mthan 10 years experience in the Aindustry.

We continue to look fo

solutions as long as ther

are fresh challenges, an

we constantly review th

way the current tools wor

to see if they could b

made to work bette

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Programming by: Larry Daubensp

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Backstop

Backstory

A

nyone who has ever visited a gym-nasium for any purpose other than abasketball game has probably noticed

the backstops stored up and out of theway. Its funny when they are down in the play-ing position, one doesnt even think about it. But

fold them up into an unnatural position, and you can spot thefew mechanical types in the crowdstaring up at the ceiling,tracing the cable from pulley to pulley, taking note of the bendsand twists, and eventually finding the winch somewhere in themaze. he looks on their faces begin as uncertainty, but slowlygive way to understanding. hey have figured it out, and cannow concentrate on other matters. Admit ityou know whoyou are!

Among other things, my company manufactures such stops, which get bid on before and during the construphase. At this point, I should back up and state for th

cord that we use Autodesk Inventor. Part of the bidcess requires submittal drawings, and the program Idto highlight in this article a rose out of a need for a toprogram, which would automate some rather monototasks in Inventor.

One such program is what we lovingly refer to as the Routine. It allows the CAD designer to sit back and while it creates, on the fly, a new part (a cable) withicontext of the backstop assembly. For the most part,launched, the program runs by itself, pausing only to inthe user that it has finished. Only when a cable has to ve

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http://www.xicomputer.com/http://www.xicomputer.com/

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in some strange direction will the user be asked to point thewaythe redirection will come in the form of a click here orthere on the next pulley or winch.

he Cable Routine started out in life as a VBA program. Aclick on a custom toolbar button loaded the program and ex-ecuted the main macro. When finished, it unloaded itself. Butbecause of the uncertainty of VBAs future, we moved all ourVBA code to dot net. In its current form, this program is anInventor add-in, created in VB.net, compiled, and available foruse on a custom tab on the ribbon.

Creating a part in place is an adventure. If that part is a ca-ble that wraps around several pulleys, it gets downright scary.Rather than bore you with line after line of code, I thought thebest thing to get the point across would be to outline the stepstaken to get from start to finish. You can then tailor the stepsto your own needs.

o find a starting point, lets look at the process in reverse,

starting with the desired result and working backward. hegoal is to create another component, a cable in this case, whichruns from a winch, around some pulleys, and finally gets an-chored in some fashion. he cable will be the result of sweep-ing a round profile along a path. he path will be created byconnecting the dots on a sketch, the dots being points withincritical components we find in our assembly and project ontothe sketch. Our winch has a pre-defined WorkPoint for use asthe cable starting point. Most of the other points are centerpoints of pulleys or chain links that have also been projectedonto the sketch. A couple of our points must have their loca-tions calculated and created in mid-air, but thats just due to

the nature of our product. One of the things I like about pro-

grams such as Inventor is the fact that it is smartan ably knows whats in itself. So, after some basic housekechores, the first order of business is to take inventory orelevant components.

Now, you could loop through all the components in thsembly each time you needed to find a specific part, bu

just seems ineff icient to me, so I l ike to loop just one timsort them out as I go, in a subroutine I like to call SearchDestroy. It does several things at once as it looks overcomponent occurrence. It will take note of the relevantponents as it f inds them and assign them to a variable. I use of classes for the important items, so I have a Pulley cWinch class, a ChainLink class, and so on. hese will be erties of the parent Backstop class. Each class will have acurrence property that gets assigned to the actual compooccurrence. For some items, such as pulleys, Ill also drill to find the center point (this assumes the part was createdthe Center Point at the center; otherwise, you can go iparts mass properties and get its Center of Mass point

create a property for its proxy. (Proxies: get to know andthem!)

SearchAndDestroy() will also find and delete an existing I found this to be a must if I were to re-run the routine oassembly. Another benefit of this subroutine is that it wila component that is unique to a specific model of back

Knowing the model comes in handy later for us. It mighyou, too.

As stated earlier, the goal is to create a new part. At this in the program, the new part has to be inserted into the ably as an empty part template. Its PartComponentDefincan then be referenced for later use in building the part.

he pulleys in our backstop assemblies do not appear itop-level of the browser. Instead, theyre buried, somenested three or four levels deep inside sub-assembliesweldments. Its like looking for a needle in a haystack. do you find these? he answer is: recursion! FindOccuris one of the hardest-working subroutines I have. hervariations of this theme out there if you look, but it basgoes like this: Give it the name (or portion of the name) component for which youre searching, the top-level assebeing searched, a Boolean flag to indicate when the itembeen found, and an empty variable to hold the result. Hmy version:

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Programmin

Once the major components have been identified and the rel-evant WorkPoints harvested, the next step is to convert theWorkPoints into SketchPoints (either 2D or 3D), and projectthem onto a sketch. If all your points lie within a plane, youcan get by with a planar sketch, which has its advantages, butits possible that youll need a 3D sketch. Our backstops andtheir cables are such that the vast majority of the cables canbe created with a planar sketch. However, there are occasionswhen the winch will be located off to the side and a 3D sketchwill be required, at least for the portion that zigzags throughextra pulleys.

he code gets routed through a function, DetermineIf3D,which compares some relevant planes to see whether or notthey are coplanar, and then returns either true or false.

If the cable is found to require a 3D portion, it means I haveto show it where the extra pulleys and winch are located. hesubroutine SelectPulleys returns a collection or list of compo-nent occurrences. It loops through a selection process, whichfilters out all but those few part numbers recognized as ei-ther pulleys or winches. he user is prompted to pick the pul-leys in order, ending with the winch. Once it sees the winch,the loop is exited and the collection is returned. he relevantpoints are harvested from these component occurrences in the

list, converted into SketchPoints3D, and projected onto thesketch. Simple!

Once all the sketch points are in place, connect the dots withan array of SketchLines

or SketchLine3D

Planar sketches are nice in that the two SketchLines tmeet at a SketchPoint can be sent off to a subroutineRoundheCorners.

Given the desired radius and a few other parametersSketchArc can be inserted, and its resulting center relocatedthe original vertex. his will make the eventual cable look its conforming to the pulley, as illustrated below.

3D sketches, with their properties and methods, do not althis technique. While it is possible to fillet the corners, fillets center information is Read Only and cannot be recated to the original vertex like their 2D counterparts (at lethat I have found). Left with the choice, I have opted to le

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them alone, so the resulting corners require a bit more imagi-nation on the part of the observer. Even if the corners couldberounded and the resulting fillet moved to look like it wrappedaround the pulley, the challenge of orienting the pulley to looklike it is being pulled in the correct direction is still there. Inmy example, the pulley and chain are a pre-built subassemblyand cant be manipulated, except to spin it around the mount-ing tube. Like a lot of things, the further away you get, thebetter it looks!

Once the SketchLine is complete, it is used to create the path:

We next have to focus on the cables cross section. Once againworking backwards, it will require a sketch, which will requirecreating a WorkPlane, normal to the path at its endpoint.

Define a new WorkPlane at the endpoint. hen, use the Set-ByNormaloCurve method to re-orient this new WorkPlane:

hen, create the circle, profile, and sweep:

In case you need to know the length of your new cable, tryas a property in your Cable class:

Obviously, I have left out a lot of code in my program

hopefully, you get enough of the idea to take the ball andwith it. he sample code included with Inventors Helpgreat resource for finding a lot of the missing pieces.

Larry Daubenspeck is a Software Pgrammer for Draper, Inc. in SpicelaIndiana. He specializes in creatAutoCAD and Inventor add-which get used in-house by the GEquipment CAD and AudiovisSales groups, as well as the productdepartment for some of their NC c

ting machines. He started programing in the early 1990s when he discered their DOS-based Generic CADhad a built-in scripting language. Afmigrating to AutoCAD somewharound version 10, he tried his haat Visual LISP before moving onVBA and now VB.net. Contact [email protected]
http://www.augi.com/mailto:?subject=mailto:?subject=http://www.augi.com/

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AutoCAD 201

And Heres HowTo Make a Copy of a

Qleader ArrowMultileaders are fine, but Im a fan of the good old-fashioned Quick Leader [QLEADER].

INSIGHTS TO QLEADER

Alias for the Qleader command: LE Te DIMSCALE value governs the size of the Quick Leader text and arrowhead

HOW TO COPY THE QLEADER ARROW

1. Confirm your Dimscale value, then set the desired layer to current.

2. Launch the QLEADER command.

3. Enter S to open the Settings dialog box.

4. On the Leader Line & Arrow tab, set the Second Segment to Horizontal, then click OK.

5. Specify the three points for the leader, then enter the text.

6. Click once on any part of the leader line to display the three grips.

7. Click in the arrowhead grip, and put another one where you want it!

GOLD SAR IP: Create the leader in the Source drawing for your blocks that you put on a tool palette. Now block the leader andadd it to your palette. In the Properties dialog box for the leader on the palette, set the Explode option to Yes. Good to go!

Michael E. Beall (B. Arch.) is an Autodesk Authorized Author and the owner of CAD rainer Guy, LLC.He has been presenting onsite CAD training around the planet for more than 30 years. Contact him [email protected] give him a call at 502.500.2267.
http://www.augiworld.com/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.augiworld.com/

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Revit 2013

So youve conquered the toolset in the mostcurrent release of Autodesk Revit andoptimized the tools in a production setting.However, time will reveal the flows and

limitations of any program. Lets take a look at howthird-party applications will help you break through

the technology ceiling and propel your productivity to new levels.

Luckily for all of us, Autodesk gives us access to customizationtools found through Revit API and SDK. API (ApplicationProgramming Interface) is a source code interface that anoperating system, library, or service provides to support requestsmade by computer programs. Te API gives us the code fragmentsfor commands that speak directly to the Revit application.SDK (Software Development Kit) provides the frameworkand instructions on how to format these strings of code into achronological order for Revit to execute.

by: Monica Pete

Figure 1

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Revit 201

Since 2006, Autodesk has been providing open access to RevitAPI and third-party development tools. Tis source code enablesusers and developers to customize the functionality of Revit andenhance the variety of ways Revit interfaces with other systems.

Te Revit Developer Network is a rapidly growing group of usersfocused on harnessing the power of the Revit API and makingcustom utilities for the rest of the industry. With all the customapplications that are beginning to surface it can be difficult toweed out the good apps from the great apps. Many developers arereleasing similar tools with similar features. It can be challengingto pick the right tool for the job. Here are five key factors that willhelp us identify a quality app.

1. What is the potential ROI (Return on Investment) forthis utility? Although there are several free apps that featurebasic tools, the more powerful tools on the market are goingto range from $5 to $2,000 (on subscription or one-timepayment). ake time to analyze the cost associated with usingyour standard workflow and the potential savings utilizing a

specialized app. Most developers offer a 30-day trial period;use this time to evaluate the app against your other similaroptions before committing to purchase.

2. Will the app require any training or is the tool intuitive touse? A $2 app and a $200 app are only good investments tothe degree they are used. If you happen to find a good toolwith a complex interface, inquire about training resources, userguides, or tutorials available through the developer. Spread theknowledgemake documentation available from your internalwiki; do a scrum on new features to keepyour customization current.

3. Does the developer offer troubleshooting or tech support? Weve allheard the horror story of risks taken onuntested technology. Depending on howthe add-on is integrated into a project,this could make or break your efficiency.If all else fails, Autodesk has an approvedlist of third-party apps that meetcertain criteria. Tese are a safer bet,although the better tool might be a riskworth taking.

4. Does the developer have a history of

providing updates to align with newerreleases of Revit and other interfacingprograms? Dependency on an add-oncould result in unintended consequencesof dictating if or when youll be able toupgrade to newer releases of softwareover the lifecycle of a project.

5. What credentials does the developerhave to reinforce it is producing qualityproducts? Many seasoned developersare connected through Autodeskspartner program or involved in the Revit

Developer Network. Tis can quickly make the differebetween a clean, reliable app and one that is prone to crashor corrupting project files.

As with any new technology, it is best practice to shop around atest out add-on applications, especially before committing to bthem or before deploying them in a production environment. Hare a handful of starter apps you may wish to consider.

STARTER APPSD|C|Tools by D|C|CADD Tis isnt your typical re-numtool. Many of the free apps that address numbering functiare specific to elements such as rooms only or doors only.

addition to re-numbering capabilities for both doors and roomthis tool also allows re-number by type or instance of sevefamily categories such as Casework, Electrical Fixtures, ElectrEquipment, Floors, Furniture, Grids, Lighting Fixtures, ParkSpecialty Equipment, Structural Columns, Walls, and WindoTere are also utilities included for changing case for Revit tand updating door parameters. Te D|C|ools application is a fdownload and can be found on the Autodesk Apps Exchange shttp://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RV/Home/Index

Figure 2

Figure 3
http://www.augiworld.com/http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RVT/Home/Indexhttp://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RVT/Home/Indexhttp://www.augiworld.com/

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Revit 2013

Easy Dimension by ShanghaiYeahSo Software Co., Ltd. Tis little tool enables you to adddimension strings by element. Simplychoose the type of dimension stringand select the category of elementsto measure. Tough not all categoriesare available from the selection list,

the basics include grids, walls, lines,ducts, pipes, cable trays, and conduit.In an MEP environment this couldprove to be a great time saver indocumentation or shop drawingproduction. Easy Dimension is a freedownload and can be found on theAutodesk Apps Exchange site or athttp://www.yeahso.cn/en/revitproducts

View Template Controller by CASEInc. Tis easy-to-use tool enablesyou to visualize and change viewtemplate assignments for any and all

views in the model. Unassigned views can be dragged and drointo the view template header and the view template will automatically. Tis is a quick and easy way to ensure that are all formatted to a standard and consistently across the eproject. View emplate Controller is a free download and cfound on the developers website: http://www.apps.case-inccontent/view-template-controller

Ideate BIM Link 2013 by Ideate Database migratiosometimes be a little tricky because the limitations (orof limitations) on editing rights can leave your data ope

corruption or tampering by non-Revit users. I found IdeateLink has a safe balance of editing controls and was easy to custothe export and import settings. Another excellent feature summary of updates that are itemized before importing datainto Revit. Ideate BIM Link is available as a free 30-day triacapable of exporting/importing up to 25 columns of data. IRevit DB link 2013 can be found on the Autodesk Apps Excsite or at http://www.ideatebimlink.com/

Tere are a lot of places to find the growing number of appadd-ons available on the web today. Lets take a look at the common sites for showcasing third-party developer applicati

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6
http://www.augi.com/http://www.yeahso.cn/en/revitproductshttp://www.apps.case-inc.com/content/view-template-controllerhttp://www.apps.case-inc.com/content/view-template-controllerhttp://www.ideatebimlink.com/http://www.ideatebimlink.com/http://www.apps.case-inc.com/content/view-template-controllerhttp://www.apps.case-inc.com/content/view-template-controllerhttp://www.yeahso.cn/en/revitproductshttp://www.augi.com/

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Revit 201

Autodesk Apps Exchange Tis is a web service provided byAutodesk that makes it easy to search and download plug-inextensions, companion applications, content, and learning materialsto customize and extend many Autodesk design products. Tisis the most common location to find Autodesk-supported third-party applications. Te apps exchange site is accessible directlyfrom the Revit UI by clicking on the blue and gray X icon dockedin the InfoCenter located above the ribbon.

Autodesk Labs Tis site outlines some of the most innovative newtechnologies being tested for customers in design-based industries.Labs provides public, free, early access to prototypes, technologypreviews, and experimental web services. Much of what is offeredhere is still in conceptual development, but its a great testing groundfor new apps and emerging technologies. Most of what youll findhere is not recommended in a production environment.

Autodesk Partner Products & ServicesTis is a great sourcethat showcases add-on applications authored by developers fromaround the world. Add-ons are available in a variety of differentlanguages. Most applications are in the higher price range, but by

contrast are very powerful and tend to expaon tools used for managing manufacturand fabrication data.

Individual Company Sites Tere many apps beyond the Autodesk umbrof approved products and developSome of these developers are individuwith a passion for coding and developcustomized technologies. Some developare actually companies in the AEC industhat are choosing to share their custapps with users outside the corporloop. Whatever the case may be, I worecommend a little extra testing and reseato weed out the novice applications from professional ones.

With all the complexities and challengesthe modern AEC industry, you will find t

knowing the ins and outs of the Revit tois the threshold of maximizing the softwTird-party applications can enhance yproject as well as your process. ruth told, there is always the real possibility tthe tool you need just hasnt been developyet. Dare I say, there may notbe an app thatyet.

Te best third-party app could be the you create yourself. If youre interesin learning more about third-paapplication development, visit AutodeRevit API network to explore applicatiin development and review tutorials aeducational resources on developing custRevit add-ons.

Monica Petersen currently works foISEC Inc. in Fremont, California. Shis the BIM Design echnician for thNorthern California Region. She grewup in the Portland Metro area and atended the Art Institute of Portlan

where she received her Bachelors of Scence degree in Interior Design. She haalmost six years of experience in thBIM Coordination and Interior Design field, working on projects rangin

from hospitals and bio medical facilitieto golf resorts and private residenceShe is a Revit and AutoCAD certifie

professional looking forward to continuing exploration of integrating BIMtechnology with emerging manufacturing and fabrication strategies.

Figure 7

Figure 8
http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RVT/Home/Indexhttp://labs.autodesk.com/http://partnerproducts.autodesk.com/catalog/default.asphttp://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=6364883http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=6364883http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=6364883http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=6364883http://partnerproducts.autodesk.com/catalog/default.asphttp://labs.autodesk.com/http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RVT/Home/Index

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AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 by: Christopher Fu

As I go through the requirements forputting together a grading plan, itbecomes clear that many tasks requiredto put together a plan set are missing

from Autodesk Civil 3D. his is where third-party applications help to fill in the gaps. his article will coversome of the third-party applications that are available for use withAutoCAD Civil 3D.

SINCPAChe tools contained within SincPac from Quux Software arefocused primarily on survey-related commands. he productcontains three modules Drafting, Points, and Power. here aremore than 100 commands combined with all the modulestoomany to cover in the limited space in this article. One command Ifind useful is the PGAddRemovePoints. his command facilitatesthe organization of point groups by making it easy to add andremove points from point groups without going through multipledialog boxes for each point group.

In the Drafting module there is the ParcelOffset command. hiscommand, the first one I learned in the product, draws parcel lines

offset from the sides of the actual parcel lines. hese lines typrepresent the buildable area of the parcel. his command saved me eight to ten hours of offsetting and trimming polfor a large subdivision project.

SupportingRoles

Figure 1: SincPac

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AutoCAD Civil 3D 201

STELTMAN SOFTWARESteltman Software is a long-time providethird-party applications for Land Deskand Civil 3D. here is a plethora of commaavailable in the software package they provSome new commands created are relatedpipe networks. One new command identi

pipe interferences. Sometimes we needidentify pipe conflicts with other objewhether it is pipe representations as polylior minimum separation distance from object that Civil 3D doesnt represent. tool provides either a table of conflicts oblock at the location of the interference.

Civil 3D may contain the ability to output lengths of pipes and the count of structuUnfortunately, this doesnt take into accothe most important cost component installing pipe and structures. he depth of

pipe or structure is important in determinthe installation costs.

he pipe depths report provides the optioncalculate the depths from either the top or the bottom of the phe report may be either output to the drawing or into MicrosExcel. he depths are based on a user-selected surface. he umay determine the depths range for the pipes. his is importbecause pipes and ground usually slope and dont always havconstant depth along the pipe.

Civil 3D isnt the most user friendly when modifying pipe a

structure information, especially when you have to modify mproperties at the same time. he Pipe2Excel command facilitathe exporting of pipe and structure data to Excel and then reimporting the data. Not all of the pipe and structure properare modifiable. While not all of the properties are modifiablealso comes in handy if you need to export the data to Excel toused in another program for reporting information.

CIVIL 3D POWER TOOLSOne of the under-developed tools in Civil 3D is reportiUnfortunately, there isnt an easy way to export out desinformation from Civil 3D. You only get it one way, and that way was determined six or seven years ago. Modifying the coeither .NE or XLS, is a bit complicated and takes skills that cengineers or drafters dont normally possess.

An alternative is the Visual Report Designer, whutilizes a graphical user interface to construct the repoby dragging and dropping information at the desilocation on the reports. In addition to placing moproperties, complex custom calculations may be performBesides outputting to reports, the program is also capableinserting the reports directly into a drawing. his is useful to filthe table appearance deficiency in Civil 3D.

Figure 2: Steltman Software

Figure 3: Pipe interference dialog, Steltman Software

Figure 4: Pipe interference table, Steltman Software

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AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013

SAVOY COMPUTINGSavoy Computing provides numerous tools to do projects relatedto pavement design. Products include verifying turning radiusof vehicles, roundabout design, rail design, and airport design.I found the demonstration of the roundabout design appealing.It incorporated both the vertical and horizontal design elements

required for a roundabout. his is a well-rounded offering. Notonly is the grading taken care of, but the software also draws thestripping and signs.

TRANSOFT SOLUTIONSransoft Solutions provides competing products to SavoyComputing. Much of what I wrote for Savoy Computing appliesto ransoft Solutions products. If you are in the market, Id suggestyou look at both products and then decide which one works bestfor your workflows and design methodologies.

Recently, ransoft Solutions released a new version of AutoURN.

he newest version features a large update of the vehicle libraries,reflecting changes for AASHO, Caltrans, Florida PPM, andWisconsin DO vehicles. If you are a user in Israel youll be happyto know there are several updates to reflect the unique vehiclerequirements in Israel.

STANDARDS MANAGERManaging Civil 3D styles may cause headaches as sharing andmodifying styles across drawings is problematic. Fortunately, CADMasters has developed a solution to help limit this frustration. heproduct utilizes a database to store the Civil 3D styles and settings.

he styles may be imported into drawings as needed. his reduce drawing bloat due to having numerous unneeded stylayers in a drawing. I found the product easy to use, though ittake some work to create the standards to put in the databasonce you do the groundwork, it is easier to have a consistentacross drawings and projects.

DOTSOFTAnother company providing solutions to civil designers is Doheir Civil/Survey offering is called MapWorks, which connumerous commands to help you design. One tool I find espeintriguing is the Grade Poly command. It lets the user sepoint and a grade. A polyline is then drawn along a surface slope provided. It makes it easy to find a preliminary route ashould take up or down a hill.

If you perform mining design you might want to take a lothe mining tools DotSoft provides. here are tools to rquantities in tonnage, which, in mining, is a more appropriatof measure than volume.

OTHERShis article doesnt represent a complete list of the third-applications available. here a numerous others that provideown solution to civil engineering design problems. he nextyou are faced with a time consuming task, take a few minutesee if there is a product available that would cut the time the task. If you dont find such a tool, the third-party applicdeveloper may be willing to create one for you. It wohurt to ask.

DISCLAIMERI have done work with some of the products mentioned inarticle or have received free versions of the products in thehe U.S. government suggests that I disclose these facts iarticle writing.

Christopher Fugitt is a civil enginwho has worked in both design construction. He is the owner blogger at Civil 3D Reminders acurrently provides civil engineerrelated services through his compa

Civil Reminders.

Figure 5: DotSofts MapWorks

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Navisworks Manage 2014

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by: Michael N. Sm

Autodesk Navisworks can read a wide

variety of file formats and aggregate themtogether. Te two different file types thatcan be saved from Navisworks are nwd

and nwf. Te nwd file type contains all the geometry,metadata, timeliner information, animator sequences,

and markups. Tis file is a static file and does not update geometrywhen the original authoring file is updated. Te nwf file typecontains metadata, timeliner information, animator sequences,and markups. It does not contain any model geometrythe nwffile references the original authoring files and displays the geometryshown in those files. When one of the authoring files is updated,the nwf will update the geometry displayed in Navisworks.

NWF WORKFLOW

Understanding the workflow of nwf is critical for successfirst activity you must perform is to obtain all the model geoyou wish to review in Navisworks. Often this is a collaboeffort and some sort of ftp site is used. One of the fundamground rules for exchanging files is that the files retain the name version to version. Keeping the same name allows thefile to be overwritten by the new file. Because the nwf is basfilename and file path, overwriting the old file tells Naviswthat it needs to re-cache all the information in the new file.

I have heard significant discussions about version control winames not changing to reflect a change in the version. Sophistfile exchange sites such as box.com take care of versioning fo

DynamicWorkflow

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Te benefits that are gained by using the same name far outweighthe chaotic method of including a date or version in the filename.

Once the models have been aggregated and the old files overwrittenby the new files, its time to open the nwf. Navisworks willautomatically create new cache files for any files that were updated.

If you have Navisworks open and you update a model, simplyclick the refresh button on the quick access toolbar to refresh thegeometry in Navisworks. If you get an error that says the file is

in use, you need to change an option in Navisworks. Click Application Button > Options > Model > Performance and cthe checkbox next to Close NWC/NWD files on load. Tis wtell Navisworks to release the files in Windows Explorer afteloads the files into the system. You can then overwrite the files arefresh them in Navisworks.

NWF SEARCH SETSFollowing the nwf standard workflow is critical to prevent l

of work. During the course oproject you will undoubtedly nto test a set of items against anotset of items. Or perhaps you nto always hide a certain set of itemFor example, suppose you receivmodel from the architect that alwcontains a mechanical system. Y

want to maintain all the geomein the architectural model excthe mechanical system. You needset to hide the mechanical systin Navisworks.

Te two types of sets in Naviswoare selection sets and search sSelection sets create a group selected geometry into a collectionNavisworks 2014, if you group objein a dwg into a selection set and upd

Figure 1: Naming changes

Figure 2: nwf workflow

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the dwg file, your selection set will no longer contain the previouslyselected geometry. Tis is true even if you do not change thegeometry that was contained in the selection set. Tese sets shouldbe considered temporary sets and should not be depended on overthe iterative coordination process.

Search sets are dynamic in nature and will update as the geometryin Navisworks changes. Search sets are queries defined by the userto aggregate model geometry into a collection. A best practice is touse search sets for all clashes to maintain a dynamic relationship.For example, if you are clashing the mechanical system againstthe ceiling system, it is best to create a search set that contains themechanical geometry and test it against another search set thatcontains the ceiling geometry.

Often, these sets will need to cover multiple files. In this example,suppose you had a file naming convention which stated that allmechanical filenames were to include the word Mech. You couldeasily create a search set with the definition shown in Figure 3.Te ceiling search set is even more critical because often the ceiling

geometry is contained in the larger architectural file. By creatingthe search criteria to find all ceilings, you are able to extractjust the ceiling geometry for testing. When the mechanical andarchitectural models are updated, their search sets will find thegeometry changes and the clash test can simply re-run to reviewthe changes.

Some might wonder what is the point of setting up a search setthat contains the mechanical files instead of simply selecting themechanical filenames in the Select tab of the Clash Detective. Tereason the search set is better is because it will capture any newmodels that are appended into the project.

Suppose you start out with six mechanical files on a floor, thenmidway through coordination a change order adds a new system

to the mechanical contract and the mechanical contractor ca new mechanical file for that system. If you used a search sesimply append in the new file and re-run all your clashes. Ididnt use a search set, you will have to open every mechanicaand add the new file in the Select tab.

Another reason to use search sets in the Clash Detective is scan export your clash tests for use in other projects. If you dall your clash tests with search sets, you can export you clashfrom the Clash Detective in an xml file. You can then imporxml file into other Navisworks projects. When imported, nowill the Clash est be populated, but all the search sets wimported as well.

CLASH DETECTIVETe Clash detective can only truly manage files when an nwfused. Following a good workflow, you would set up all yourtests with search sets and run the clash tests. Anyone who hasNavisworks knows that hundreds and even thousands of clcan be found in a test. Part of good model management inv

grouping clashes together into constructability issues.

A constructability issue can be defined as a localized arclashing objects. For example, suppose you have a hallwaya cable tray that is running through the ceiling down the ehallway. Navisworks would identify this as hundreds of claTe fix to these hundreds of clashes is the same, so rathershow hundreds of clashes, it is better to show just one representing the entire constructability issue. All the other classociated with this constructability issue will be reviewed bnature of the containing clash.

o group clashes into constructability issues I recommenfollowing workflow. First, group all the clashes found intolarge group. Using the Clash Detective display tools, click theOther tool. All geometry that is not in conflict will be hidden

Navigate to a problem area and select the geometry associatedthe constructability issue. Click the filter tool and choose inclAll the clashes shown in your folder are clashes associated

Figure 3: Mechanical search set

Figure 4: Hallway constructability issue

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the selected constructability issue. Mark one of these clashes upto represent the entire group. Move this clash to a folder namedConstructability Issues. Mark the status of the rest of the clashesto Reviewed and move them to a folder named Reviewed. Removeyour filter and move to the next constructability issue. Because

you removed the clashes associated with the first constructabilityissue from the original folder, they will not appear in the sceneview when you click Hide Other. Tis allows you to know withconfidence you have reviewed every single constructability issuein the model.

Te best part about the above workflow is that revisions becomemuch faster. When model geometry is updated, you simply re-runyour clashes. Group all the new clashes into a big folder. Go toyour current clashes and select all the geometry associated withthem. Click the filter button and move all the clashes in the newgroup that have been filtered into the Reviewed folder, because

you know your current clashes already contain the informationdisplayed in the new clashes. Tis eliminates hours of work andmakes your report extremely useful and accurate.

One note of caution about the Resolved status: Navisworkswill change the status of any clash to Resolved if the originalclashing geometry is moved in any way. Because your clashes arerepresenting many clashes as a constructability issue, you mustreview these clashes and change the status to Active if the entireconstructability issue was not fixed. Compact the clash test toremove any truly resolved constructability issues.

If you are following a workflow that establishes constructability

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