Inside the System

Why We're Here

I recently came across a thread on our discussion forums that was asking about customizing the Rise/Drop symbols that are shown when a Pipe or Duct has a vertical segment relative to the plane of the view in Revit, see below.

We currently provide the user the ability to choose from a number of different symbols that display these situations.  These symbols came from some generally accepted methods for displaying these situations.

We do this for a reason, and it had to do with Revit MEP being a design tool and not a drafting tool.  So, I set off to write a post explaining this point.  When I was done, I realized that I had gone into a lot more depth on the purpose of the product (big surprise knowing me), and that it might be useful for you in my blog audience.

So I've decided to add some snippets from the thread below.

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Post from User:
    Hi there Kyle.
I would like to get some control over symbols - some of them are OK, but others need some customization to meet my company's standards. Piping symbols are mostly OK.
On the other hand, I would like to assign different symbols to ducts. Round ducts, no matter what system type, would always get the filled yin yang (seems I can't do this at this moment), and rectangular ducts would get a "section" symbol (see the attached picture).
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Response from me:
There's currently no way to customize the display of Rise/Drop symbols. This touches on Revit MEP's intention as a design tool and not a drafting tool. As we design features for Revit MEP, we try and ensure that it is capable of conveying designed intent through generally accepted methods.

The design and development task is significantly larger when it includes providing the ability to fully customize the way that we convey design intent, which is really a drafting requirement.

Ultimately our goal is to get to a point where we support the BIM process for all disciplines and stages of an MEP project. This requires that we can do the following:

• Model the required systems for the MEP portion of the project.
• Facilitate the calculations required for the design of those systems; either through native calculations or interface with other applications.
• Coordinate the MEP systems with other disciplines on the project.
• Allow for other applications to leverage the data in the BIM for Upstream and Downstream purposes.
• Construction Documents that convey the designed intent of the MEP systems.

Adding in the requirement for those construction documents to have fully customizable graphical representations of the BIM elements is not a requirement of the above goals, and ultimately slows our progress towards our goal with the product.

That's not to say that we won't provide some of this functionality in the future once we reach our goal.

This is why I asked my original question. We are glad to investigate and try and implement functionality to allow you to convey designed intent, if we currently do not have that ability in the application.
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I'd be interested to hear the comments from all of you on this subject, as it's an important point to understand Revit MEP's trajectory as a product.

GreenBuild - The Quest for Content

As I spoke about in an earlier post The Quest for Content, content for our applications is in high demand, and even though there's no way we at Autodesk can create all necessary content for Revit MEP, as the Product Manager I feel it's my responsibility to try and facilitate the creation of the content by all interested parties.

Because of this, I set out to engage every manufacturer who would listen and discuss this topic.  I had some very in-depth conversations with a number of very large manufacturers who understood the looming value to integrating their product lines with BIM workflows.  At the end of the conference I had a stack of business cards from household names in the industry, all of whom were interested in pursuing further this subject.  You can bet I'll be following up with them.

And to those of you reading this, be sure to re-affirm your need for manufacturer's content every time you see your local rep.  Your voice is the strongest voice in the industry to influence the strategies of these companies.

England Calling

Whew. I’ve never been to the UK until recently, and it sure is a lovely place. I was asked to support some Revit MEP events for the Reseller channel in Europe, so I figured it would be the time to travel to the land of Crumpets, Bangers, and Curries.

I was able to get some touring in London early in my trip, which was brilliant (UK influence), and I also caught a Rugby World Cup game in a local pub, good times. After that, my week turned into a blur of presentations and concept explanations.

It’s always an incredibly interesting conversation when I present the strategy of Revit MEP; what we’re trying to do, why we’re trying to do it, and how we think it fits into a larger change in the overall building industry. Not everybody always agrees, which really makes it a lively discussion. Nonetheless, I really look forward to forcing people to really think about why they feel strong about things, and how a change in process can change the industry.

I almost always end to going to a white board and drawing a graph to illustrate a point. When I first saw a saw tooth diagram, it struck me as a great way to illustrate the inefficiency of the way projects are completed today, and how a BIM process can make things better. It’s a simplified way to view a project’s life, but equally powerful.

In most projects today, each time a set of 2D documents are produced, the team downstream loses valuable information about that project, and the designed intent of the project. The downstream team then spends a whole lot of time putting the pieces back together, so they can understand then get on to doing their part of the project. If the information was passed more effectively between teams, we’d have an overall more efficient process.

That’s why we are so heavily developing software to support the BIM process, it allows for so much more information to be passed between project teams. It just makes more sense.

Here’s to flattening the curve.

Hello World

It’s been a long time coming, and after much planning and effort I am launching my Autodesk Blog, Inside the System. This blog will focus on the MEP industry, Sustainability, Building Information Modeling (BIM), and how new technologies help to meet the demands of today’s MEP projects. This means that I’ve got a lot of ground to cover, but ultimately I hope that this provides a diverse range of useful information for all of my readers.

Many of you already know me as Kyle B on both the Autodesk and AUGI discussion forums, where I frequently post. You can find me there helping customers with technical issues, discussing larger industry issues, and soliciting customer feedback. As you can see in my picture on the left frame of the page, I’m on the younger side, 26 in fact, and as such I’m part of the internet generation. Check out my bio if you want to know more about me.

I believe that communities like discussion forums, and media like this blog, are revolutionary ways to communicate on a global scale. No longer must information be passed along from person to person through seminars and conferences. I can write a helpful tip about Revit MEP, solve a technical problem, or ask for feedback on a future product capability, and anyone on the internet with an English skill can consume that information.  I encourage everyone to participate, a larger community means a larger resource of information.

This fills a critical need. As a Product Manager for Revit MEP, I am tasked with setting the year-to-year direction of Revit MEP, and working with others at Autodesk and our Reseller channel; ultimately making sure that our customers succeed with our MEP solutions. A critical component of that success is having the right information to succeed.

With that in mind, I set out on this journey through the blogosphere.