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Archive for July, 2010
Successful Revit Implementation
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
By: Dwane Lindsey
MasterGraphics helped Wight and Company implement Revit and successfully complete their pilot project. Jeff Sliepka and Nick Jaworsky of Wight discuss why they chose to implement Revit and how their experience with MasterGraphics has been, which can be seen by clicking on the link below.
Someone’s been very busy…
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
Autodesk has frequently pushed the frontier of it’s own software limits and it seems as of late they have out done even themselves with the recent release of three separate software packages on Autodesk Labs, their site for emerging software. What ties these three packages together is their use in design visualization in the AEC field.
The point cloud tool (http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/3dsmax_pointcloud/) allows the user to take point clouds from laser scans of an existing site and turn them into surfaces within 3ds Max. This allows you to scan in an existing building and then begin building geometry off of it. While this tool is still in its infancy, hence it is on the Labs site, it shows great power and applicability in the AEC field.
Project Photofly (http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/photo_scene_editor/) introduces the use of cloud computing for converting flat photographs of a scene into a 3 dimensional model format. This is similar to Autodesk ImageModeler and even results in an ImageModeler file (RZI extension) but promises the speed of multiple computers that you don’t need to own or maintain. This is an excellent way to build an urban landscape to house your latest building or public space in.
Neon (http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/neon/) is another cloud computing technology, it distributes the rendering of files across mulitple computers across a large network to reduce the rendering times. Currently, it is only available to render AutoCAD scenes, probably because the 3ds Max users would bombard it with so many job requests they’d crash the cloud. When complete, this may minimize the need to own a server farm, a very large expense in doing in-house rendering, while also bringing distributed rendering to AutoCAD users for the first time.
Individually, these software packages will likely be good productivity enhancers for anyone doing design visualization in the AEC envrionment. When used together, they have the potential to dramatically reduce the time to obtain quality renderings as well as decrease the level of effort to get high quality renderings.
Stephen Gabriel
Superelevation Changes in 2011
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
By Russ Nicloy, Civil Application Engineer
One of the changes you will notice in the 2011 release of Civil 3D is how superelevations are handled. There is a lot more control over the type and assignment of slopes. Like many tools that have been added or upgraded over the years, the superelevation tools make use of a wizard entry system to walk you through the necassary options. These wizards are further explained through the use of schematic graphics so the user will understand what setting they are atually affecting, even if the terminology is different than you might use in your particular area.
At the same time, you are still assigning this superelevation data to the alignment, but it doesn’t feel like you are tied to the alignment at the time. The data about the curves and lane slopes are in the Panorama window, and that allows for the columns of data to be broken up in a way that makes them easier to manuver through. The old charts got you the information, but it was in a tidal wave of data.
Another trend appears in the table area and that is the highlighting of objects inside the drawing area. If you click on a field for, let’s say, the Begin Full Super for curve number two (I happen to be looking at that data right now), you can look back at the alignment and Curve 2 will be highlighted in red, and the station for the End Full Super will have a blue hash mark identifying its location.
By the way, you can still manually add (or delete) stations with this method. In fact, you could still build a superelevation from scratch, with just the stations and slopes you need to target. I know that has helped many in some sticky situations utilize superelevations for not necassarily superelevation work.
Raster Design 2011
Monday, July 19th, 2010
I am REALLY excited to post this. Raster Design 2011 has been released. Raster is one of those products that does a lot of the unsung hero kind of work. If you’re like me you have been waiting with bated breath for this release (or emailing me once a week 
).
Service Pack 3, for 2010
Monday, July 19th, 2010
Just a quick note that service pack 3 for Civil 3D for 2010 has been released. As always there is a Readme file that I highly recommend. If you haven’t made the jump up to 2011 yet, and you aren’t planning to in the next month or so, I would highly suggest loading this. Of course, I will highly recommend the 2011 release as well.
By the way, you NEED service pack 2 installed to install service pack 3! Follow this link to get to SP2. The good news is that this service pack does include the new stuff for AutoCAD and Map.
Rendering in Revit 2011
Monday, July 19th, 2010
Revit has been out for a bit and I went through the courseware for our half day class to update it to the latest version. The major differences I found were in the materials, everything else is pretty much the same. If you have any other AutoCAD or Autodesk software, then you know that Autodesk has come out with a new material type, the Autodesk material. This replaces the ProMaterials from the last release so we’ll all have to get used to new naming conventions and types. All in all, the Autodesk Materials are nice. There are hundreds of useful materials with decent bitmaps attached and they are well organized and easy to browse and use. And because all software releases, including 3ds Max Design, are shipped with this same Autodesk material library, the materials will still come across to 3ds Max Design for more advanced rendering and animation.
One of the features I like most about the new Autodesk material is that we are no longer constrained to using bitmap images only for creating maps for diffuse color, reflections and bumps. The new material allows us to use procedural maps, parametrically controlled mathematically driven patterns. This means we can create maps that do not visibly tile across the image, a common problem with using bitmap images. The new maps available are Checker, Gradient, Marble, Noise, Speckle, Tiles, Waves and Wood.
The Checker map allows us to create a checkerboard effect by defining the color of the two squares and the size of the pattern.
The Gradient map blends from one color to the next but the real power of this tool is our ability to add mulitple color flags within the material and control the way the pattern is oriented and how the colors blend. The Gradient allows you to select a Type, such as Linear or Radial among many others, to set the gradient into a specific pattern. This is extremely powerful and can be used to add detail such as a proper pillow edge for tiles.
The Marble map simulates a two color veined marble material with parameters for the colors and the vein width and spacing.
The Noise map creates a random pattern shifting from one color the next with parameters for the size and colors in the map as well as the Noise type of Regular, Fractal or Turbulance. The Noise Threshold values can be used to clamp the top and bottom of the pattern, reducing the number of steps between the two selected colors. This creates sharper edges for the transition of the colors.
The Speckle map creates a pattern akin to the spray from flicking a paint brush with parameters for color and size.
The Tiles map is extremely useful for generating repetitive rectilinear patterns, such as standard tile floors, ceilings, sidewalks, and masonry walls. You can control the color, the pattern and the size of the grout lines.
The Waves map creates a series of waves originating from 1 or more points with controls over the color, the number of points generating the waves and the lengths and amplitudes of the waves.
The Wood map creates a two color grain pattern with controls for size and axial and radial noise that add variation to the grain.
The addition of these new maps greatly extends the power of the materials inside of Revit Architecture 2011, providing more professional tools for the user to more quickly match the desired appearance of a material. Give them a try the next time you are creating materials and see how quickly they become addictive.
Stephen Gabriel
Description Keys, Afterward
Friday, July 16th, 2010
By Russ Nicloy, Civil Applications Engineer
Description keys have been around for quite some time. Some groups don’t use them, but I’ve always like them for their point management functions. If you are in a group that is making use of them you should be aware of a small but VERY effective addition to their functionality.
Description Keys have historically been used to manage points at the point of creation. Either by import or creating points manually, the description keys can assign styles, labels, layers, description formats, among other settings. Since it only affected points at the point of their creation, if you needed to make changes you then had to recreate points to get the settings appropriate.
Now you can also apply these to points that are already in your file. You can do it for whole point groups, or for individual points. My screenshot below is an example of applying changes to a point group, in this case the _All Points point group (effectively applying to all of the points in the file).
It seems small, especially if you haven’t used description keys before. But this allows for a very quick turn around when project specific changes need to be made.
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