I would like to point it out two tools that can make a big difference when designing roofs, the Truss or Rafter tool and the Extending to Core tool. They also affect the shape and size of the eave truss.
Revit offers to options to justify the roof and the reasons why is because the bearing condition is very different between the two. The Rafter or Truss option is only available if we choose the Pick Walls tool.
When we select Roof by Footprint, and the Pick Walls tool, we see at the Options Bar the Extend to wall core check box.
The diagram below explains the different roof configurations that result from switching on and off the Overhang Extend to Core option and the Rafter or Truss option. When the Extend to Wall Core is activated, Revit will measure the overhang from the core. When it is not activated, it will measure the overhang from the exterior face of the wall. Also noticed how the Truss and the Rafter connections change. The Truss sits on the Exterior face of the wall while Rafter sits on the interior face of the wall.
Another advantage of using the Pick Walls tool is to assure stability when editing the overhang. When we use the Pick Lines tool, Revit create a line that not attached to the wall. Notice that there is no option to change between Truss or Rafter. Below I draw a roof using the Pick Lines tool and another one using the Pick Wall command. See the difference when I change the overhang dimension.
Notice that when using the Pick Lines tool, the roof and the wall are not aligned and to fix that we would have to drag the roof manually. On the contrary, using the Pick Walls command, the roof remains aligned to the wall. Whenever is possible, it is best to justify the roof using the Pick Walls tool when creating the roof footprint. By doing that we are avoiding future issues, saving time and getting the most out of Revit!
Since my last post about the path of travel, Autodesk made a very useful update on the path of travel tool.
The path of travel was calculated automatically by Revit picking the start and end point. Now we have the ability to add waypoints along the path of travel. This allows us to drag the points and adjust the path. You can also delete the waypoints to restore to default position.
To activate the tool, simply select the path of travel. The tool will appear under the Modify| Path of Travel Lines. Select the Add Waypoint, click on the path of travel and drag it to adjust it. To delete it, select the Delete Waypoint and click on the point.
Plan production tools in Civil 3D are great for creating plan and profile sheets, but what about when the inevitable design changes come and you need to update your sheets? You either update them manually or recreate all new sheets. With CTC Software’s Sheet Generator, you can create plan and profile sheets that update after designs change, including refreshing of viewports, north arrows, matchlines, sheet names and numbers, sheet set data, and more. Sheet Generator provides better control on Profile Views, more flexible sheet management workflows, and easily dovetails with your company standards.
When I sometimes look at some architectural projects, I tell myself that as much as the design is beautiful, the various estimators involved in the project must have pulled their hair out. So, let’s look at this wonderful (but still underused) function of Dynamic Filling.
Before starting with this tool, we are going to create a surface with Area Measurements tool which we will call Ground surface and which we will save in the toolbox (it is important for the continuation).
Once our surface has been created, we will finally use Dynamic Fill. To do this, first go to your menu, then in Tools, go to the Measure section and then go to the last Dynamic Fill icon. Or else, type “j” on your keyboard 😊
It will bring up this menu on your screen
Now, let’s take an area that is hard to calculate on our plan like this one for example
Click on the paint bucket to select it then point with your mouse at the area that must be measured area and keep pressing the right button and you will see like paint pouring into the room
Once the room is filled, we will choose what we want Bluebeam to calculate by choosing our previously created surface to apply it on the painted area
Finally, we click on Apply and here we go!
_______________________________________________________________
Tabling, legend creation and QTO workflows leave a lot to be desired in Civil 3D, forcing to use many different subpar tools, or worse, performing the work manually. With Data Wizard you can scan any number of drawings for AutoCAD and Civil 3D objects to generate legends, tables, QTOs, and more, all to company standards, and all automatically. When drawings change, refresh tables to automatically incorporate updates. Save out templates for quick recreation of custom tables and legends.
Have you ever turned on background BING imagery inside AutoCAD products only to find they don’t appear? There could be a few reasons for this:
No Geolocation or coordinate system is set.
You’re not logged in with your Autodesk account.
You’re zoomed into an area compatible with the geolocation you’ve chose.
These two are the pre-requisites for using images from BING, but there is one more which has many of my customers stumped. Have you ever seen this message? You almost certainly have.
If you choose Yes, then you will see your images. If you choose No, you won’t. If you check that little button on the bottom left, you’ll never see this message again. Good, right? Well, if you chose Yes, then yes. If you chose No, well…you’ll never receive this message again and you’ll never see images!
There is a saviour, however. There are other message like this in AutoCAD. Toggles that prevent that box from appearing in the future. These are called “Hidden Messages” and they can be turned back on by opening AutoCAD’s Options dialog box [OPTIONS]. Then opening the hidden message settings in the System tab.
I hope you can use this to avoid any unnecessary frustration in your day.
Many firms struggle to fully keep their Revit models healthy. There are manual, and tedious workflows that can be error prone.
Do you want to do a thorough health check of your model prior to sending it out? Exhausting time checking to ensure information is correct, accurate and consistent across the project team, and projects can be tedious. Let’s look at a few tools from CTC Software that can help you make this process quicker and more effective project to project.
BIM Manager Suite – Dimension Checker, Project Cleaner*, Type Swapper, Shared Parameter Manager, Family Processor, Import Link Manager
BIM Batch Suite – Family Loader*, Family Exporter*, Plotter & Exporter
BIM Project Suite – Model Compare, Spreadsheet Link
Problems We Face
We need to have, and should have standards
Standards can be hard to maintain
Standards can be cumbersome and tedious
Consistency can be hard to track manually
Workflow Process with 3 CTC Tools
Shared Parameter Manager – Much easier way to manage your shares parameters compared to the out of the box method. Browse your master shared parameters file and compare to a source file. Filter differences between the master and source file, and add, modify, delete, move, duplicate, and find/replace.
Family Processor – Able to make multiple changes to multiple families in batch to ensure the content’s schedules are consistent and accurate. Powerful when you are building a library, adding new content, or downloading content from manufacturers. Builds a summary health check file of each family so the BIM Management team is able to track new or changed content.
Family Loader* – Once the content is up to date and standardized by using Shared Parameter Manager, and Family Processor, you can batch load those specific fixed or new families in a project.
*For Free Tools, contact SolidCAD to discover and evaluate your current workflow in Revit and let us find the right solution for you.
A lot of people are still estimating on paper plan to quote their job on a project. So, why should they use Bluebeam for doing it? In fact, we’ve got the answer from the same people; faster, direct export to Excel, more precise than ever with the calibration integrated in the document (from Bluebeam or directly from the drawing software where the plan came from) and finally (maybe the most important) no printing.
So, what do you need to know about Bluebeam to start estimating?
In this article, we will see tools to be used in order to give you the basic knowledge to begin quoting on your PDF plans within Bluebeam.
(1) Calibrate your plan
The first step is to calibrate your plan. In order to be able to quote lengths and areas, you need to make sure your plan has been calibrated correctly and accurately to avoid any mistake (or at least, limit those mistakes)
For this purpose, we will have to set the calibration by selecting Measurements and then, Calibrate.
Then, we will use a measure already indicated in the drawing to calibrate our plan by using the side line as our guide.
Then, we will use a measure already indicated in the drawing to calibrate our plan by using the side line as our guide.
When you finish tracing your calibration line between the 2 extremities of the side line, click again and a Calibrate menu will appear. Now, write the same length as indicated in your side line and you’re done. Your plan has been calibrated. Pretty simple, isn’t it?
You are now ready to start.
Note from the author: I always double check after calibration by measuring another sideline length to be sure the date I used was correct. It could happen a drawer changed manually a length to have a rounded number in place of the real length.
Most user rather use the calibration within Bluebeam instead of the scale indicated on plan because it’s more accurate.
(2 ) The Measurement tools and their purpose
Bluebeam has 13 default tools to do measurement. It’s more than what we need to estimate. I am personally selecting 3 of them to create my own tools set for estimating. You are free to choose depending of your need. In addition to those 3 tools, I also often use Dynamic Fill, but we will see that later.
Linear estimates (imperial / metric)
To be able to do precise estimates, we’ve got 2 choices: Length and Polylength.
I prefer to use Polylength for 2 reasons: I’ve got more custom choices that I can apply to my length and, above all, I can take of sidelines in extremities to be more readable and smooth (and you can’t do that with the regular Length tool)
Now that we choose our estimating tool for measuring length, we will need to think about what we need to quote. Usually, an estimator doesn’t quote on a single product or job. So we will use our Polylength standard tool to create our different custom tools set of products/jobs we will need to quote on.
On this purpose, trace a standard Polylength on your plan (picture below).
Then, in the customization quick menu above your drawing, you will be able to change color, width, line type… and finally, give a name to your custom Polylength and save it in a custom Tool Chest (you should have created before, obviously or select an existing one). For example, in steel estimating, people use to call their length as the type of beam they need to quote. This allows them to estimate on measurements AND count them at the same time. MEP sub-contractor are doing the same for HVAC duct or general pipping.
Once you finish customizing, save your custom tools by clicking on Add to Tool Chest and select the one you have been created.
You can now use the same line to create all products / jobs you need to quote and populate your tool chest by changing name, color, type of Polylength and add it to the right Tool Chest. It will not overwrite your first custom tool already created.
Note from the author : This stage can be a bit long but once you’ve created all needed tools, your job will be really more easier than ever. The more developed your tools are, the less time you will spend after to organize your data and get your result. But, if it is your first bunch of tool, don’t overthink it too much. The more time you will use Revu, the more you will know and the more custom your tools will be.
3. Area Estimate (square feet / square meters)
For this part, we will use exactly the same process than previously done for Ploylength but we will do it by using Area standard tool.
On a similar way, we will create areas to represent what we want to quote and name them. For example: Floor, Concrete Slab…
Then we will customize them with different colors, fills and even being able to include hatch in them. Finally, we will save them in a tool chest the same way you did with Polylength.
This is the conclusion of the first part of Estimating with Bluebeam. In the next post, we will see how to create layers and how to use them smartly and how to create, customize and use columns in Markup List to create quick and easy estimates.
While Pipe Networks are a great toolset in Civil 3D, they fall short as a true design tool. With CTC Software, we can edit pipe runs through a design-oriented, dynamic interface. We can swap multiple parts, both pipes and structures, in plan or profile. We can also auto-populate properties across multiple parts at once, aiding in proper labeling or tabling.
AutoCAD has a command contained within the Express Tool named FLATTEN. It is designed to remove any non-zero elevations from selected objects within a drawing. It does an excellent job with this, but there is some behavior that may not be obvious to all users. This command works very well with many objects such as TEXT, LINES, and some BLOCKS. However, unexpected behavior results when flattening Dynamic and Annotative blocks, even blocks with embedded non-zero-elevation linework.
Annotative Blocks: For example, an annotative block with a name of Arrow, is inserted 3 times. Regardless of the attached annotative scales, the result after the FLATTEN command will be 3 blocks with 3 different names; Arrow-flat-1, Arrow-flat-2, and Arrow-flat-3. Further, they will no longer be annotative.
Dynamic Blocks: After the FLATTEN command, each dynamic block will no longer be dynamic and will become an “unnamed block” with a name similar to “*U63”.
Blocks: A typical block will FLATTEN adequately. A block which contains elements which have non-zero elevations, will also flatten adequately. Understand that the FLATTEN command will make changes to block definitions in this example to set all elevations to 0.
Be selective when flattening. Flatten objects which have no deleterious results afterwards. The AutoCAD FILTER command can be configured to easily select compatible objects. The filter can be saved for future use.
to select it then point with your mouse at the area that must be measured area and keep pressing the right button and you will see like paint pouring into the room
