Micro Application Packages Limited (MAP Software)

Autodesk Acquires Micro Application Packages Limited. This acquisition Helps Extend Building Information Modeling Across the Building Lifecycle Beyond Design to Support MEP in the BIM environment.

Link to article: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/autodesk-acquires-micro-application-packages-limited-2011-10-20

AIA NC Design Conference

The AIA NC 2010 Design Conference in Asheville, NC

Quote from AIA NC website about the conference "The 2010 Design Conference will cater to the diverse needs of our membership. Many chances for exploration and learning are available as a backdrop to a conference that offers nationally known speakers, book signings, an exhibition of new green products, more than 12 HSW/SD credits, and recovery networking." Here is a link to the website: http://aianc.org/cde.cfm?event=314279

Navisworks

Brushing up on Navisworks for a presentation and class that I am teaching in the next few weeks. Navisworks is an Autodesk software for bringing together all of the 3d models from the different disciplines of a building project. This allows you to check where conflicts occur before the building is built, but also has 4d and 5d capablities. Which is Time and Money. The software is very powerful in that it can open almost every file format, and it is built on a video gaming engine, which compresses the file format making navigating around the model very quick and easy.

Find out more about Navisworks at Autodesk's website: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=10571060&siteID=123112

Traveling for 3ds Max

Spending the next 2 days in Raleigh, NC meeting clients and showing them 3ds Max Design 2011. It is always fun to show people the cool stuff you can do with this software. I really enjoy when talking to people about the software have an "a-ha!" moment, when they realize how powerful and helpful this software can be.

There are so many cool features in this release which include: Slate Editor, Quicksilver Hardware Renderer, Local Edits to Containers, FBX Linking, Materials Library, UI Customization and Composite.

Here is an example on the right showing the capabilites of what you can produce with 3ds Max design. This image, which is part of an animation sequence, really show the foliage and landscaping, not to mention the reflections of the glass.

Revit - Borrow vs. Checkout

To Borrow or not to Borrow, that is the question! I had a meeting with a client today about Revit setup and configuration. One of the topics that came up was Worksets. What are the best practices for Worksets? Worksets are interesting to understand when you first start learning about them (that's a seperate blog at a later date), but instead of the traditional Checking out feature, I have had a lot of success with just borrowing. This entails not checking out a Workset, but allowing team members to borrow items when needed. This system doesnt work for every office or studio, and all team members need to be on board with the idea. Its much more flexibile to select an item and click on the little boxes icon "make itme editable,

than to go thru the process of checking out a set, which restricts team members form accessing items in the project. Once you sync to Central you relinquish the element and move on. Again, this doesnt work for everyone, but it can be very effective and help to run a project faster. Give borrowing a chance!

Autodesk University

Greetings all! I am excited to share I've been accepted to teach at Autodesk University (AU) 2010 in Las Vegas. This will be the second time I've taught at AU, and I am really looking forward to it. My class is on creating Trusses in Revit Structure.