As we are all awaiting with baited breath… the parametric pumpkin doesn’t have to be limited to the virtual. Here’s a working Tetris on Pumpkin, courtesy of a boat-load of LED lights, a steady hand and an Arduino board.
For more information, and detailed photos from it’s creator: http://www.hahabird.com/2012/10/pumpktris/
Life Safety Gnome, the official mascot of Revit egress paths.
For many versions of Revit, we have used Steve Stafford’s Line-Based Generic Model family for representing Egress Paths in our life safety drawings. It has served us well. At the time, this was absolutely the best way, given the available tool set. Certainly, you could use dumb drafting lines to sketch the path, and not have any ability to schedule or tag… but we like BIM here at Paradigm shift, and strongly believe in creating your own tools when they don’t already exist.
Revit 2013 has opened up some new possibilities. With railings, you can now schedule and tag their length. Mathew Miller wrote up a great process for documenting Life Safety / Code plans, and you should definitely check it out. Then go follow him on Twitter.
Are you back? Good. Yes, I completely agree – one could simply create a custom railing for the path. I liked this quite a bit, and the more I tried refining it, the more I didn’t like the ability to edit certain aspects. The new component-based railings cannot entirely have all components turned off – there’s always a rail at the overall height of the instance.
I think the best solution I’ve come across thus far, is from one of NBBJ’s own – Kelvin Tam in our Columbus office. It is made from an adaptive component, so the points can be placed manually where needed, and easily adjusted. There’s also some additional benefits to using this method, as you’ll see in my short video. This is a rough draft, and comments are always welcome.
Revit 2013 Egress Paths – YouTube.
Get the family here: LifeSafety-EgressPath_4Segments.rfa
Why are you there, silly Skeuomorph?
Have you ever noticed something expressed in modern technology that doesn’t seem right, as if it might be a relic of the past, and yet the meaning is completely lost? What will page turning in an app mean when paper books are more rare than disposable tablets?
Another less controversial example: you know those little horizontal lines under the F and J keys on a computer keyboard? In case you didn’t take a typing class in high school, these exist on physical keyboards to tell you (if you are a touch typist) you are resting at home position. Absent, you would need to look down, as you take breaks to think of what to write next. On an iPad screen they make no sense. To have them as digital ornamentation behind a polished, flat slice of Gorilla Glass, makes absolutely no sense. It isn’t even cute. Apple has these little skeuomorphs everywhere in their applications and OS. Sometimes they help, are fun (like page turning), and more often than not they make my eyes itch.
Now that is Fast!
How cool is the Touchfire? I really like it! I recently received my new light, transparent, whimsical keyboard that has been a story in the making for along while. I first learned (and posted) about this project while on Kickstarter back during Autodesk University 2011. Later in December, Steve Isaac (one of the two cofounders) demonstrated the prototype in my office. I was blown away.
This is the keyboard that iPad wishes it had shipped with. Yes, you can rest your fingers at home position. And no, you will not fire off random gibberish by doing so. The keys are specially designed to work on the capacitive touch screen of the iPad, and work so well – I have begun using only the iPad with my Touchfire for taking notes at meetings. I guess I’m not a perfect touch typist… however, there’s a typing tutorial on the website: www.Touchfire.com/start. I will improve.
The beginning of tactile computing
I’m certain this will be the spark that ignites more tactile computing with our mobile devices and look forward to things to come. What I’ve got now, is far and away better than a wireless or other keyboards that accompany a case. Those are usually sacrificing something and leave the experience as flat as glass. I am sure the recently announced Surface will be no different. The Touchfire is very different. I began composing this on my iPad using it moments after it arrived.
When unpacked, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it comes with a nicely compact hard case. Initially, the surface was a little bit tacky. However, this disappeared after just the press of each key a few times. Little bits of dust, joyriders if you will, were adhered to the surface which a quick rinse under water – the recommended way to clean – easily dispatched.
If your iPad goes to sleep, you can swipe right through the Touchfire with ease. Which means, you can also very easily swipe through to alternate keys. The only technique that I’ll mis is the ability to tap/slide, to quickly insert a capital letter or number. However, now after several paragraphs – already typing at a much faster and accurate rate – will barely miss that capability.
Caution: Heads will turn
When you first unfurl the keyboard and begin using it, people will stop and stare. This is perfectly normal. Then, people will ask to try it out. I tell them to get their own and keep typing. Then after about 30 seconds give them an opportunity to savor in the soft luxury of typing on a gel surface. It’s always fun to see their initial response. This is so much nicer on the fingertips and the reduced noise is welcome in the office. My old IBM-style mechanical keyboard is very jealous.
The Touchfire works best if you have an Apple cover – including the smart cover for iPad 2 or 3, or the original faux-suede iPad1 cover. The smart cover allows the keyboard to roll up and out of the way entirely. Regardless of iPad generation, you will have the ability to fold the keyboard back on itself, and it hangs out there at the bottom of the screen, awaiting redeployment. I do sometimes enjoy using my iPad sans cover, and this also works very well on the newer model iPads, due to the internal magnets of each device. With my original iPad, it just means that I need to swipe across it’s ‘chin’ and type away – while I do need to keep the device relatively flat.
I highly recommend this screen-top keyboard if you plan to type anything of length greater than a tweet on your iPad, and give this two big thumbs up!
I must say, no one can drive a point home through a graph quite like Patrick MacLeamy, FAIA – the CEO of HOK. This one below will surely join his other greatest hit – the MacLeamy Curve, which although completely overused in every presentation today on BIM, was authored way back in the early days of BIM, 2004.
Comments are welcome.
“Before we use any power tools, let’s take a moment to talk about shop safety. Be sure to read, understand, and follow all the safety rules that come with your power tools. Knowing how to use your power tools properly will greatly reduce the risk of personal injury. And remember this: there is no more important safety rule than to wear these — safety glasses. And also hearing protection when necessary.” – Norm Abram, The New Yankee Workshop
Don’t get me wrong, when working on a woodworking project, I love a good quality hand tool – but nothing beats a wood shop full of precision power tools. CAD is like hand drafting, minus the soul of that craft. BIM takes things to a whole new level. Having been through both of these transitions, I can honestly say that the process is not smooth, or painless. Sometimes, you lose a thumb.
In the case of the wood shop – the same product can be manufactured with each. Hand tools are amazing if you have clients who can afford your work, you are Amish, or you don’t mind only making a few things in your lifetime. With power tools, like those used by Norm, that hobby becomes possible to make a living.
Steve Stafford, hitting the nail squarely on the head, again with his post titled “Due Diligence“. Why would those who rally against BIM want to make this an ‘us’, versus technology battle? Revit is a tool, and a BIM process that supports the end goal of helping to make making buildings better. Why anyone thinks they can continue to live in the 2D drafting past and continue to get work as fees and schedules shrink is beyond imaginable, it’s irresponsible. Read more on Steve’s blog. I really like the analogy he presents.
Most of the naysayers I’ve encountered feel so strongly because they either don’t comprehend the shift in process and team organization BIM enables, or they went through an attempted implementation without a solid plan. Don’t believe the anti-hype. It’s human nature to be afraid of change. Change happened in 2008, and if members of the AEC profession that managed to survive that catastrophe still think business as usual is good enough, they won’t be around to make noise for long. By sure to sweep up the sawdust before you close up shop.
Read Steve’s take here: Revit OpEd: Due Diligence.
Do we really need Revit Standards for the firm that are paper-based doorstops? Will anyone read them? Usually, no. Most of us only have the patience for digesting spoonfuls of information at a time.
“The best thing about standards… is that there are so many to choose from.”
In my younger days, I have created a number of CAD Manuals, Handbooks, Standards documents, and guidelines. Too often the original intent gets obscured by committee ideas of what’s important to document – hint, if it’s in the help menu, leave it out. I am proposing we recycle those old dead trees, and move away from even the paper-centric Word or PDF format most of you probably have on your corporate Intranet.
You have a ground-floor opportunity. Do you want to lead, or follow? Of course, the beauty of social network projects is everyone has an equal voice. Knowledge wants to be free. Momentum is building. Announcing: The Open Revit Standards Project: http://openrevitstandards.com
The idea behind this is a wiki-based, open source, and free location where knowledge and best use practices can be documented for using Revit on projects. Developing a core approach, that is not specific to any one industry, locale or governing body, should allow this to grow and represent a very large collective knowledge base on which firms could build their preferred workflow. We want this to be accessible to new and experienced users of Revit.
It just so happens, one year ago I picked July 4, Independence Day here in the US, to declare dissatisfaction with the various industry group attempts to create CAD and BIM standards. While they continue to slog along creating behemoth pay for play documents, not even considering that much of the AEC industry gives little thought to CAD Layers anymore, we’ve moved on. Even those that do address BIM, approach it from the wrong angle. We don’t need to keep debating what BIM is, if the vast majority of mid to large firms have already been doing BIM to some level for a number of years.
As someone in the AUGI forums once said: “The best thing about standards… is that there are so many to choose from.” There’s something deeply disturbing about that concept. When you and the hundreds if not thousands of CAD/BIM managers out there toil away creating your perfect manual (that no one will ever read), it’s not really a standard. Standards are at best: good practices, or recommendations unless you get a larger group to adopt them. My original thought was - Why haven’t application specific solutions developed that work toward helping to define best practices in the US? For that matter, the only real solid efforts known to this author at the time were the AEC UK Revit BIM Standard, and the ANZRS, published soon after the Gold Coast Revit Technology Conference.
I have since learned from the outpouring of volunteer support for this effort, that this could have a global effect on the way Revit is implemented and used every day. That really has some folks jazzed. If we can work with the existing groups mentioned above, who are already focusing on Revit, all the better. So this little community is forming. As the site becomes more active, features are added and the standard grows, it may just help influence your next project.
There are too many people to thank that helped get this started. David Fano at CASE has really been instrumental in pulling this new community together. He helped out with initial funding and build out of the hosted website. The Twitter banter was very engaging and can be followed here: http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23OpenRevStds. There is also a LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Open-Revit-Standards-3993591
Other references to this effort, by some notable contributors:
When it all comes down to it, the human spirit deeply needs and enjoys the ooh and ahh moments. Summer finally came to the Pacfic Northwest this week. Better late than never.