Getting Started with BIM 360 Team and Collaboration for Revit

If your project team would like to work together, in a single cloud-based location, then you need BIM 360 Team and Collaboration for Revit (C4R). This is the only reliable Cloud-based way to work between different firms, and while you are away from the office. Drop Box, Google Drive and even Windows Remote Desktop should not be used to access workshared Revit models. Doing so will result in model corruption and slow access to those in the office. Using a VDI solution works (we use one), but that is a different topic with other limitations/challenges which I will not get into today.

BIM 360 Team and C4R is an additional service from Autodesk. It is not cheap, but opens a lot of doors. I know at least one firm, BKV Group, with over 100 Revit users who do ALL of their projects in C4R; one of their BIM Managers (Mike Matheny) and I used to work together. This allows any staff member to work from home if they have a sick kid, or from a coffee shop if they just want to get out of the office for a while. Plus, this also allows all projects to work with any structural and/or MEP consultants via the Cloud with live linked models. Internally at the multi-discipline firm I work at, we have been using live linked Revit models every day, on every project, since Revit Structure and Revit MEP first came out.

Here are the basic steps to get started...

Initial Setup Done by Each Person

• FYI: An 'Administrator' of this Autodesk service within your firm needs to invite you and give you access to C4R.

Log into Team 360 and make sure you can see your Hub & Projects, as shown in the image below. Save this page as a Favorites in your web browser.

Then, install the Desktop Connector for BIM 360 (everyone needs to do this). This will give you the ability to easily share other files, like Excel and PDFs.

Select the correct version of...

Oculus Down

Not a lot of light coming through the oculus yesterday! The company, Oculus - who is owned by Facebook, somehow forgot to update a security certificate which rendered all of the Rift headsets around the world inoperable. We have nine of them...

With nothing else to do, gamers , and some professionals I am sure, spent the day posting on the Oculus forum; 1.9k posts in roughly 24 hours!

An Oculus official had posted a couple updates during the day... as seen in this next image:

Revit Model Maintenance Best Practices

Once a project is in CDs, or when it starts getting to be about 200MB, you should start doing weekly maintenance on each Revit model for that project (curious is others have a different opinion on the when and how big). I recommend these steps be followed while no one else is in the  project (use Worksharing monitor to confirm). Below are the steps to perform weekly maintenance on your Revit model:

Audit the Central File Weekly

In the Revit’s Open dialog, select the Central file, check Audit and un-check Create local

Compact Central

Use the Sync w/ Central dialog to...

BILT-Europe 2018 Sessions Accepted; Ljubjana, Slovenia Here We Come!

I am happy to report that I was selected to speak again at the European BILT conference this year in Ljubjana, Slovenia. The plan is to bring my family as well... continuing the tradition of conference + vacation-crazy-busy-fun! For more on the family fun part,  you can read a post I wrote for the RTC blog back in 2014: RTC Family Vacation – An Attendee’s Letter.

Sessions selected:

• Dynamic Energy Optimization with Autodesk Revit and Insight
• Revit MEP Remodels and Alternates; Hands On
• A Multi-Disciplinary Design Firm’s Journey to Embrace Early Stage Energy 

Session on reserve:

• Practical Applications of VR/AR in Architecture

Here is a photo of my lab session from last year in Denmark...

And if that is not exciting enough, Carl Storms has now officially been selected to speak at all...

Bio Update for 2018

I recently updated my biography for the next round of book updates, as well as for LinkedIn and work. Some who read this blog may be interested in this information, but I also thought it would be a good way to capture this info over time; via blog posts.

It should be pointed out that the bio will appear over the next year in mass produced printed format (i.e. a book), so a couple of the conferences I have "spoken" at have not actually happened yet:)

Here is the updated text...

Enscape Blog Post: SOFTWARE AROUND YOUR FIRM WORKFLOW

My latest blog post is now live over on the Enscape website. This is a unique post with very few images, but I think it will help spark ideas within the AEC industry on how to maximize the use of Enscape to win commissions, impress clients, improve design and get the most value out of a tool.

The post has some great quotes from customers who share their impressions and success with Enscape within their firm at various stages of a project's life.

Link to post: SOFTWARE AROUND YOUR FIRM WORKFLOW

I also hope this post will help enlighten architecture students on the typically prescribed design process. If you are an instructor or professor, consider having your students read this post and write a short response for class credit. I know I will, next semester when my class starts up again at NDSU.

Thanks for reading...

For BIM Chapters updates, follow @DanStine_MN on Twitter

Managing Content with Revit's Preview Visibility Feature

Back in the day, just a few versions of Revit ago, it was tricky to manage element visibility within the Family Editor environment.

For example, the screen shot of the title block below shows the address for each of our offices all piled up on each other. Dealing with this in older versions of Revit, I would select one (not really knowing which one was going to get selected) and move it a specific distance to the right (e.g. 6"). I would do this until the one I needed was selected, or the last one.

Now, we have an amazing, yet somewhat hard-to-find-on-your-own new feature called Preview Visibility. I do not see it used or mentioned very often. And, just the other day someone was telling me how they just told a super experienced Revit use about this, who had no idea!

The Preview Visibility feature is controlled by an icon on the View Control Bar in the...