Stickers!

Tomorrow I leave for Denmark to speak at the BILT-EUR conference in Aarhus. Jumping on the bandwagon, based on what transpired at BILT-NA in Toronto this past July, I have made some stickers.

This sticker promotes my blog and includes the cool blog mascot my 15 year old son created.

This is the first sticker I have made and wish I could hope in the TARDIS and go back and change a few things... like, the text color and overall size. The sticker is a bit small and the text does not have enough contrast. It will be better next time!

Below are the stickers I collected at BILT-NA. There may have been others, but these are the ones I managed to get my hands on.

These stickers were created by...

• Aaron Maller; promoting his company Parallax Team
• Bill Debevc; promoting his podcast BIMThoughts
• Carl Storm; promoting his blog The BIMsider
• John Pierson; promoting his Dynamo packages and blog sixtysecondrevit
• Marcello Sgambelluri; promoting his blog and podcast Simply Complex

Update: Carl commented below on an oversight I made. The "pro-wrestler-like" stickers are promoting the active Canadian user groups Doc - Dynamaniacs of Calgary: https://dynamaniacsyyc.ca/ and DoE - Dynamaniacs of Edmonton: http://ebimc.ca/doe/.

Some overachievers even bring t-sheets (Aaron:)). I need to get one of those. Of course, he is the only one in the list above promoting his actual business, and not a side-gig (or hobby?)!

New Revizto Promotional Video

Revitzo just published a nice new promotional video. Several people were interviewed for this piece, including myself. The footage was shot during the BILT-NA event in Toronto this past July (2017).

Additionally...

How to Check Out a Revit Network License

If you use Autodesk Revit on a network, and use network licensing, you have to check out a license in order to use Revit when away from the office. Not the most intuitive sequence of steps... this post will show you how.

But first, a little background info... many mid to large sized firms use network licensing to save money. With people in meetings, on vacation and such, you never need one Revit/AutoCAD license for each person. Using a network licensing scheme allows you to have the software installed on as many computers as you want, but only 35 people can use the software if you have 35 pooled network licenses. The 36th person is given a message that there are no licenses available. Of course, you would change those numbers based on the number of  network licenses your firm has.

A little Revit history: before the Autodesk acquisition, Revit licensing was exclusively cloud-based, much like Enscape or Revizto are today. You had to be connected to the internet to use the software.

If you forget to check out a license,

Increased Efficiency Through Training; For Staff and Buildings

I would like to share the highlights from recent staff training I did on Autodesk’s cloud-based energy modeling tool called Insight®. But first I would like to share some “insight” on LHB’s culture of staff training and professional growth from my perspective.

Over the 13 years I have been at LHB, the firm has always supported and embraced new technology and high performance design. To fully leverage the new computer hardware and software, or to properly develop each thermal bypass out of a design, staff need training and mentors. Not everyone has the time, or motivation, to research everything on their own. To help achieve the goals and mission of LHB, the firm promotes, supports and directly offers learning opportunities to staff.

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Judging the 2017 AEC Excellence Awards

I had the honor of being one of the judges in this year's AEC Excellence Awards 2017 - in the Sustainable Category.

As you may, or may not know, LHB is a leader in sustainable design; click here to read more on that, if interested. LHB is one of just over 400 firms who signed on to the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2030 Commitment initiative. The USGBC-MN staff also have their offices within our Minneapolis office through donated space.

I presented on energy modelling last year at RTC-NA in Arizona and earned a top speaker ranking for that! This November I will be speaking again, on this subject, at the 2017 Minnesota AIA Convention at the Minneapolis Convention Center. I am working on another post which talks about recent staff training I have done on energy modelling.

Additionally...This competition was meant to highlight a design team's use of

ElumTools Blog Post: Luminaire Family Validation Made Easy

Matt Kincaid, software developer at Lighting Analysts, Inc., makers of AGI32 and ElumTools, posted on their blog about a new luminaire validation feature in ElumTools.

In case you don't know, ElumTools (ET) is an add-in for Revit which facilitates professional lighting analysis. One of the dialog boxes available within ET is the Luminaire Manager. Here we see a listing of all the light fixture families in the current Revit project and their settings. By default, all the settings come from the Revit family. Most changes made here, such as picking a different IES file or adjusting the Light Loss values, automatically get pushed back into the family in the current project.

Calculated point-by-point illuminance results in foot candles (FC)

Additionally...

Dell Visits LHB to Make Promo VR Video

Earlier this week, Dell began the processes of creating a promotional video of LHB, an AE firm, using VR on their hardware (yes - Dell, the giant computer company). It was an honor and a lot of fun. It is super exciting to see our efforts implementing VR getting such widespread attention.

Dell hired a media agency, Metia, who captured video of staff, clients and even contractors using VR on a large project we are working on for United Properties. In the image below, LHB architect Karin Stuber is showing our client Gordy Stofer, United Properties’ Vice President, Office Development, the project in Virtual Reality while they are being filmed.

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