For those of you lucky enough to own an iPad, or may soon own one after the holidays, you really should check out www.TouchFire.com

This transforms the iPad into a very functional laptop replacement (for some activities), without needing to lug around a separate Bluetooth keyboard or bulky case.

I met with founder Steve Isaac today in the Seattle office to get a feel for the prototype, and it’s amazingly responsive and fun to use. If you join the Kickstarter project in the next 4 days, your funding can count towards the pre-ordering of one of the first to roll off the assembly line!

I never thought I would be interesting enough, nor have enough to say when I first started in 2006. I also didn’t expect that the face of BIM and blogging/social networking would change so much.

To borrow from Wired magazine, here’s a look at AEC and technology trends as they’ve changed over the years.

Wired | Tired | Expired
Revit | ADT/ACA | AutoCAD
Living Systems | Sustainability | Green
Collaboration | Outsourcing | Specialization
Sketchbook Pro | Impression | Architectural Studio
iOS | MacOS | Windows
Wordpress | Blogger | Windows Live
Loopt | Facebook | MySpace
The infinite | The cloud | The desktop
Digital Design Leader | BIM Manager | CAD Manager

- Blogged from my iPhone.

P.S. (the makings of an omelet)

Neighbor-raised | “Free Range” Organic | Conventional
Thanks, David!

Let the games begin. Today marks the torch lighting and opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC. Now, although it is technically winter, this part of the country has seen so little snow.  You have to wonder why the climate change deniers still continue to talk conspiracy theories, when all I have to do is see the brown topped mountains where we have previously held the world annual snowfall record. Yes Mt. Baker, practically in my backyard, had a record 1,140 inches of snow fall on it’s peak during the 1998-1999 season. Put your calculator away, that’s not a typo – it was 95 feet! This year, snow needs to be trucked in to Whistler, and the other locations. Well one sport that suffers from no ill effects is speed skating.

Perhaps I’ll see Stephen Colbert practicing for his bid to take all the gold. Seriously, we wouldn’t even be taking part in these events had it not been for his generosity in getting a leg up, and sponsoring the team along with donations from fans. Apollo Ohno may not be favored to take home the gold for Team USA, but always a fan of the local underdog, I’m routing for him. The five-time Olympic medalist, and 2007 Dancing With the Stars champion is back. There are so many taleted athletes in the men’s and women’s speed skating, I just think it will be interesting to watch. I grew up playing hockey, and how could I not, growing up in Boston and watching the likes of Bobby Orr, and Raymond Bourque glide across the ice, and occasionally crushing bones. Go Bruins! Although never as good as this guy, I really enjoyed the sport, and especially the feeling of the cold air and the pungent smell of the ice and sweat in an arena.

Which finally leads us to…

What do you think? Photo or Fake? Is this a clever rendering technique? Think about it, then hit the Read More link if you are on the main blog page. Otherwise, scroll down, when you’ve decided.

What you are seeing is not a model, but a long-exposure photograph. Andrew Doran, has taken some amazing photographs of the Richmond Oval, where the Speed Skating competitions heat up over the next two weeks. Designed by Cannon Design, another Revit firm (they seem to be everywhere these days), this project is an interesting one is its focus on sustainable design, and local materials — a real challenge when creating a giant icebox. The building received a LEED Silver rating, and the design team should be applauded for creating such a dynamic space to watch a sporting event. It’s only about an hour from my house, but during the olympic events does not allow cars to park in the lots. You must buy your bus tickets, if you were lucky enough to get access to an event, for security reasons and in the interest of reducing traffic congestion. Andrew’s blog discusses the process of how he produces these very interesting and emotive images. I wonder if anyone can create similar images in Revit or 3ds Max – hmm, I’ll have to give that some thought? Read on for a description of the photographic technique and more facts about this interesting building:

Expanding your style – Apply what you have learned

2010 Olympic Oval up for World Building of the Year award

http://www.cannondesign.com/#/expertise/project_catalog/40

Archiculture Teaser from arbuckle industries on Vimeo.

FILM SYNOPSIS
Archiculture is a feature-length documentary that explores the role that architecture and design play in our daily lives. The film follows five architecture students through their final senior design projects in order to shed light on the critical issues impacting our built environment.

The Revit Kid.com!: Archiculture – Movie.

Just installed the newest version of Office. It’s beta software, running on my laptop with Beta Windows 7. I think you need to be invited to this, but since there is no longer a gag order non-disclosure agreement, I will say this: I like where Office is heading.

Mini Review

Three things:

• The interface is much less cluttered looking, which is hard to explain without seeing – image included below.
• The ribbon, done right. Colors are easier on the eyes, and fit better with the Windows 7 themes. The text is very readable. No shifting tools, very fast redraw, and context only changes when you double click. Very elegant.
• But here’s my favorite part, I counted the number of seconds to launch Word, Excel, PowerPoint  and Outlook, individually. It’s Fast. *

Time Trials

For a year old laptop, and a Mac running in BootCamp I wasn’t hopeful. Here goes: One… One. That’s it! One second. Well, I am not sure what  is happening under the hood, and maybe I don’t want to know.

 Voodoo, black magic, or maybe they re-employed Clippy to run a virtual hamster wheel or something. All I know is, this can only help with productivity. Unless or course like me, you also get writers block staring at a blank page. Maybe it’s time to edit the Normal.dot to include some encouraging words.

Road to Recovery

Autodesk, listen up. Future versions of software should be more responsive, load quickly and just work. Revit Architecture 2010 now takes, 1 minute and 5 seconds to launch and manually open a blank project document. AutoCAD Architecture (yes I run both), takes 59 seconds. Word is nearly 60 times faster than either.  That is just unacceptable. If I had been writing in Word, I could have typed 45 words in that time. I know, I’m not a pro touch-typist by any stretch, but just the same it would be nice to have a nearly instant clean canvas from which to work in Revit.

We all know that project files, which can be very large in Revit, also take a while to open and parse the database. Any user who has worked with the tool has come to terms with this. It does seem that Revit has taken longer to load with the last successive releases, and it’s hard to justify why. If we could just eek out a little more performance, especially with regards to launch and the Ribbon redraw, life would be great. Just 30 seconds faster, is all I ask. This would be like a small economic stimulus package for all 300,000+ Revit users in the world. Imagine it. We could all get on with economic recovery by saving and estimated 4 hours, per user, per year. If you conservatively assume that a user will launch Revit 2 times per day, 5 days a week, for 48 weeks, you get 240 minutes, or 4 hours, equalling $340 at a billable rate of $85/hour. That’s the equivalent of half the cost of a subscription renewal right there. You could use the money saved to buy a full seat of Office Small Business edition. Getting that time back would be the equivalent of about 24 blog posts like this one… or four more hours a year to be more productive, have more fun, or take up yoga. Makes you think.

* Individual results may vary.

OK, this is silly, I know. But very addictive. The controls are interesting and so easy to learn to use. If you are unfamiliar, I’ve embedded a link to one of their tutorials on YouTube. Be prepared for silly-tecture. The return to serious posts will be soon, promise.

YouTube – Spore Building Editor Tutorial.

We didn’t think Phil would ever find the time to join the rest of us down here. Good luck in your new venture(s) Phil. We’ll be watching.

One bonus for those out there who were reluctant to comment, I no longer require user registration. You must have to answer a simple question to avoid the spambots (let’s hope).

Autodesk Founders Picture “Flying Founders”

Do you think we could get a camera large enough to capture the more than 4,000 employees worldwide now working for the company, jumping? Probably not.

No cake today, but I am happily exploring all the new architectural products that were delivered to the door last week. Yummy.

Speaking of stairs, there’s a feature improvement that may have been  missed by many AutoCAD Architecture (ADT) users, beginning in the 2007 version. Stairs can now wrap over themselves in a single object. Yes, even spiral stairs can be more than 360 degrees around. So go ahead and experiment. Just don’t try to add railings in anything but a plan view, as the location is slightly unpredictable in a 3D view. See… it can be done. ->