Breakfast
What do you do to feed 7500 attendees. I cannot imagine the logistics of pulling off breakfast for that large a group. I ran into Shaan Hurley (check out his blog). He gave me a couple of AU ribbons – one for being a blogger and the other for participating in the Feedback site. As always he had camera in hand and was marching in the long line of attendees headed toward the keynote address. Check out his AU 2006 photos. They actually only had 5000 or so chairs for the keynote and the Adeskers were in another room watching on video feed to make room for all of us. It was still SRO.
Keynote Address
Autodesk just finished the keynote address and kickoff of the event. Carl Bass actually wore a tie! and some goofy glasses at one point. Here are some highlights from the presentation.
GMJ – They presented the first of many “super” models. They have modeled central London, 36 kilometers worth. Every building, every tree. It is a one gig model running on 64bit using Max.
Parsons Brinkerhoff – showed some even more detailed models and had us (all 7500 of us) put on 3D glasses for some really good images.
Carl Bass – came back on with some wild 3D glasses!
Next there was an Army tactical officer showing how they are using 3D for tactical planning in war zones. Imagine a marine team going into an area of a city that they had already seen via 3D. Revit and Max used.
Patriot Mechanical showed high end planning and field location services provided by Autodesk and Nextel to locate and map out service routes.
Adesk MFG demoed a full 3D (Inventor model) of a factory floor and then placed it into an imported Revit model.
Also discussed were the zero download DWF viewer, Alias Studio and Showcase for Automotive design. Can we do this with buildings? And Kone showed plastic design processes thru using Inventor.
There was a demo of Impression for Arch rendering and coloring. Carl Bass mentioned that it can be downloaded from Autodesk Labs.
Crescendo Design displayed some cool stuff inside of Second Life. Putting designs in front of clients via the virtual world.
Well – it is off to classes now. I am attending and presenting. Today I am presenting CAD Management – Juggling Chainsaws.
You can use these for just about any event you attend but they are focused on AU 2006.
I wrote them and posted them on BLAUGI – the AUGI Blog.
Take a look…
Republished from my article in AUGI Hot News for November 2006
Many companies have not grabbed firmly onto the need for CAD Standards or for keeping them current. I was looking through some boxes of CAD Standards I have. Yes, that’s “Boxes,” plural. I have collected CAD Standards over the years and have seen just about everything from War and Peace-sized volumes to one-page standards. I have seen some of the best and many of the worst standards in the business over the years.
So, who needs CAD Standards? Everyone!
Here are a few reasons why you need a CAD standard and why you need to keep it up to date.
- Unify output
No one likes to work through a set of files in which one is done a little differently—Xrefs that are set up in a variety of ways or layer names that are “creative” and varied. Working with a diverse set of plans is no fun. Plotting, on the other hand, is unified bacause everyone is using the same CTB or STB. No longer do you have to search around for the file. No longer do you discover that you are unable to reproduce a plot because someone made some special CTB on their local machine. - Automate routine efforts
If the files are not the same then routine efforts cannot be automated. If I need to grab entities by layer name, then the layer names need to be the same on every file, every project. Having a project setup template or procedure will smooth out the front-end of a job. - Reduce CAD Users’ stress levels
Working with chaotic files drive people up a wall. They grind their teeth and bang their fists. Then they start fixing things to get the files to work right—what a waste of time. I’ve been there; you’ve been there. It is so frustrating to try to get something done when the files are twisted into knots. You end up using Match Properties on existing linework and just pass the problem on. - Protect future projects
A solid CAD Standard reduces the number of errors in projects and it allows for sharing of data between projects. We have all gone back to a previous project to grab some old data such as a detail or a schedule. If the data is created correctly, then our files are still okay, but if that old data is badly constructed, it infects our new project and the cycle just keeps on going. - Automate production routines
Batch processing is out the window if the files are not standardized. You cannot get a blind batch process to produce consistent results in an inconsistent world. - Get new employees up to speed faster
When things are done one way, new users can quickly catch on. How many times have you been asked, “What is the standard?” because a new employee, or someone new to the project, cannot figure out what to do because each drawing is different. - Get predictable sub-consultant files
If you cannot get your own house in order, what do you think the subs are going to do? Maybe their files will actually be better than yours, but from what I have seen they usually are worse. This is because you have not told them what you want. And just maybe that is because you don’t have a consistent answer as to what you want. - Increase client satisfaction
Clients are in no mood to get bad files. Many of them may not know or care, but the ones who do will soon let you know about it. Have you ever had a Project Manager come back from a client meeting and “bark” about the client comments? The PM is not happy when the client complains.
Why standardize?
Standards drive the unification of producing files. They also drive the automation of creating data. Of course, they don’t guarantee that the data will be technically correct or interpreted correctly, but that is the job of your designers.
I think standards allow us to share project development better through unified methods, layers, processes, and production shortcuts. We can automate the way something is produced but we cannot always make sure that the data input is correct. If an engineer types in the wrong beam size in vanilla AutoCAD, then the wrong size will be purchased and installed.
So CAD Standards are not a panacea for every CAD ailment, but they do alleviate most of them.
Are you a subscriber?
BIM is coming on strong – or is it already here?
Revit Revolution – Deja Vu – Another change to process?
BIM – Where are all the subs?
Survey Says – Are you customizing AutoCAD?
Go to the November – CADD Manager Journal
I attended the 2006 AIA California Chapter Desert Practice Conference in Indian Wells, CA on Nov. 3-5. It was a gathering of AIA members from across California and beyond sponsored by AIACC. It was an opportunity to hear about the perspective on the future and network with others AIA members.
BIM Focus
My interest in the event was based on the presentations related to BIM. I came away with the feeling that AIA is now, and has been for a few years, pressing the practices to get into BIM. The reasons for this vary, but include the fact that GSA is requiring it, other Architects are doing it and the contractor community may be jumping into it quicker than the architectural community.
I have attended a few events focused on BIM over the years and the conversations have expanded and become more fervent. Three to four years ago the AIA began talking under its breath about BIM and most architects ignored the topic. In the last two years there are many who are awakening to BIM and now are beginning to understand it. Some architects are pioneers in this field and have been using BIM for many years. The industries embrace of the tool has been spotty but growing over the years. It appears that the success stories of the last 2 years are still the same success stories of today. With all the hype, there are still few architects who have really fully transitioned to BIM on 100% of their projects.
Yes, there are some Architects that have gone 100% BIM, but the overwhelming majority have not. The list of BIM Designs is growing and there are new case studies every day. Have we reached the tipping point? Are we getting close?
There are many voices out there who have been “calling in the wilderness”. They have prophetically been pushing toward BIM. To some the point is a settled conversation. “Move to BIM or be left behind”. To others the dialog has just begun. The Architectural arena is scattered all over the map.
Has the time come for BIM to finally start pushing other tools aside?
I have retooled my mind and my CAD systems over the years many time. Changing from one version to the next of software requires rethinking how I do CAD. I have customized extensively to get the tool to do just what I wanted it to do. It has been costly, time consuming and tedious to do this. The rewards were worth the effort for the most part.
I have finally (for some time) taken on the perspective that I no longer want to develop, support, maintain, migrate and retain some of the old custom stuff that I created. It is sometimes counter productive to entrench yourself in tools that you created long ago. I will grant that some of them are still around and they serve me well and I will keep some. But the majority mindset I have now is – Use it out of the box.
Now that BIM is entering the scene this is forced upon me. My old CAD tricks no longer work and I have to retool my brain for BIM. This means that the finely tuned CAD processes that I have used over the years no longer apply. BIM is forcing me to retool. It is no longer a choice that I can make on my own.
This can be a negative thing for some users. Since I had already started to jettison my old tools, I may be slightly ahead of the game. For some of you, this process is just starting.
Keep in mind that the point of CAD and BIM is to focus you back on design and out of the CAD customization business.
Oh – I do think that custom tools and development are far from gone. AutoCAD still needs help getting “your” job done. It is a generic tool that will be around for a while. I suspect that my grandkids will be using AutoCAD 2020.
There are several benefits to participating in the Autodesk
Adam Smith published a book named “Wealth of Nations” in 1776
Wealth of Nations is an investigation into the nature and causes of national economic development. Smith writes that greater productivity is derived from manufacturing. In a visit to a pin factory he observed that the traditional craftsman might manufacture just one pin a day. The pin factory, however, using ten men created 48,000 pins a day.
This leap of productivity, Smith attributed to organization and technology: the division of labor in which one man pulls out the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, a forth puts a point on it, a fifth grinds the head, and so on through about 18 different steps. Technology came into play when time saving machinery was used to do the work of many.
Smith indicated that the craftsman performed all of the steps, but the factory worker did just one thing repeatedly.
This concept can also be thought of as the application of technology to the drafting or design “craftsman” known as the Architect. Turning the “craft” of design into steps applied to a process of documenting the building design. It was broken down into drawing sheets long before CAD and automated by using CAD to more effeciently develop the sheets as electronic files. Each worker in the CAD factory works on one sheet at a time and only on one portion or presentation perspective of the building.
Great strides where made in productivity, but the “art” in architecture was slowly being lost. The craftsman was loosing his skills.
Enter BIM and Revit. Now the craftsman who designs the building can “build” it in 3D. He is not longer working on separate sheets or portions of the building but has returned to the overall building as one file. He is now doing multiple portions, if not all, of the building design process at the same time.
Revit is returning the craftsmanship to the Architects.
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