Inside the System

New RDB Link Tool for Revit Family

New RDB Link Tool for Revit Family Available on Autodesk Labs!

Check out the new RDB Link Tool! The RDB Link tool enables you to export data from the elements in a Revit project and maintain relationships against data that exists outside of Revit.  The tool allows for both import and export of the project data and will allow the user to make changes on the database side that affect the data within the project once imported. Learn more by visiting Autodesk Labs and downloading today!

Supported Applications

§  Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010

§  Autodesk Revit Structure 2010

§  Autodesk Revit MEP 2010

Supported database platforms

§  Supported databases when running under 32 bit: MS Access 2003/2007 and SQL Server

2005/2008.

§  Supported databases when running under 64 bit: SQL Server 2005/2008.

Storage, Storage, Everywhere

A recent thread on the Revit MEP discussed the topic of archiving Revit projects.  With the transition to Revit as the primary design and documentation tool for a project, this presents an order of magnitude larger need for long-term storage for most firms.  In this case, a user was concerned about the amount of space needed to archive projects.

This thread pointed out that there still may be folks out in the user community that don't realize that storage is mad cheap these days.  So I thought I'd point out some good options for folks out there.

Network Attached Storage (NAS)

This is an enclosure that contains one or more hard drives, and is connected to your network.  It generally shows up as a network drive on your machine.  Check out the Wiki on this to learn more.

You can configure your NAS as a RAID array, to better plan for the eventual failure of your drive.

You can get these cheap...a Gigabit bandwidth 1Terabyte version can be found on Amazon for about $350.

Cloud-Based Storage

The next step, IMO, is to use cloud-based storage.  This option allows you to use web services to have basically unlimited storage capacity "in the cloud", rather than building that infrastructure in your organization.  The theory goes that the infrastructure to support this need is best handled by the folks who focus a business on the subject.  Everybody's got web access these days, and a backup by definition means that the data does not need to be accessed frequently, or at the speeds available in your internal network.

This would be my choice, if I were an IT guy.  The best option out there, IMO, is the Amazon S3 web infrustructure.  To support their business Amazon built this redundant, scalable infrastructure, and said "hmm, maybe this would be valuable to others?".  So they did, and provided that infrastructure to users at a dirt cheap price.  You can get effectively unlimited storage space in their redundant infrastructure, and if you want it to be very secure, you are able to use industry standard AES encryption.

We actualy use this for the storage of content for Autodesk Seek.

The core S3 service is not really a consumer service, so interfacing with it is non-trivial if you're not a web developer.  To meet that need, there are software vendors like JungleDisk, that have developed a simple software application to facilitate that communication.  I use this for my personal data storage, as it allows me to access my data from anywhere that has web access...pretty cool stuff.

So let's not have to worry about backing up our Revit projects, you've got some great options out there.

New Look for Seek

I wanted to let all of you know that the Autodesk Seek folks have just pulled back the curtain on a new and improved UI for the site.  I give them good marks on this re-design, and I personally enjoy the new format.

The Seek folks have been busy with manufacturers too, with some new featured content from the folks at McQuay.  Go check it out!

Required Reading

For the second day in a row I have an exciting announcement.  We have just released our Revit Platform 2009 Technical Note as a Subscription benefit for all customers with entitlements to a Revit 2009 product.  What is this technical note you say?

Well, it is a comprehensive paper that discusses best practices for optimal performance and productivity within the Revit 2009 family of products.  It is required reading for all Revit users interested to know this information straight from the Product Teams themselves.

It is the result of a comprehensive effort among the Designers, Developers, Quality Assurance, Consulting, Customer Success Engineers, and Product Managers, and we are excited to get this information straight to users.

Some major topics that are discussed:

• Project Structuring
• Worksharing
• Linked Files
• Hardware Optimization
• Large Model Performance

As somebody who interacts with Revit users on a regular basis, I know these are all topics of much interest to firms implementing Revit.  I would especially recommend that MEP users read the MEP-specific section, as it contains information and strategies to optimize the performance of your MEP models, which is something I encounter frequently in the market.

It is our hope that this information is very useful to you all, and we welcome your comments or concerns that are started from the document.  There will be Discussion Forum threads to spur this discussion, and I'll add those links later today.

And like yesterday, here is a video showing how to access the White Paper.

Dowloading Revit Platform Technical Note

Note: Be sure to Right-Click->Zoom->Full Screen inside of the embedded video player to see it in all its 1024x768 beauty.  You you can download the full video by clicking on the linked title.

Enjoy!

Extensions Released for Revit MEP

I wanted to let all of you in the Revit MEP community know that we have just released a new Subscription benefit for Revit MEP, Revit Extensions.  These are a series of Plugin applications that work with Revit MEP to provide enhanced functionality.

Those of you familiar with Revit Structure know about the Revit Extensions developed by Robobat.  As some of those Extensions have functionality that applies to all Revit users, we wanted to make those available to all of you.  Check out the links below to know more about the Extensions.

• Text Generator
• Elements Positioning
• Freeze Drawings
• Compare Models

All Subscription customers of Revit Products can download these Extensions for use with the Revit 2009 Family of products.  As is customary for Inside the System, I have made a video on getting to the downloads in the Subscription Center.

Downloading Revit Extensions

There you go, I encourage everybody to take a look at these handy plug-ins.

IES Releases VE-Ware

I wanted to let everybody know that Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES), our Business Partner in delivering Heating and Cooling Load Analysis inside of Revit MEP, has released VE-Ware, a FREE analysis tool to all users of Revit 2008 and 2009 products.

What is VE-Ware you say?  Well their website has a much better explanation than I can provide, but I'll give it a try.

Most of you already know about IES' flagship application for Building Performance Analysis, the Virtual Environment (<VE>).  For those of you who don't, it is a model-based analysis platform that leverages one model to carry our different types of Building Performance Analysis.

The <VE> is a fully featured, very capable analysis environment.  With that capability comes a significant amount of information that must be authored in a model to carry out analysis, and users must learn how to enter that information.  The folks at IES recognized that there was an opportunity to streamline the <VE> analysis workflow for early-stage design, and they delivered what they called Toolkits.  Toolkits are tools that leverage a Revit BIM to carry out different types of Building Performance Analysis.  They released last year a plug-in for Revit that facilitates the model transfer and analysis.

Well, VE-Ware is a FREE (you read that right) tool that allows users to become familiar with the Toolkit workflow, while delivering valuable analsys related to the Energy Usage and Carbon Emissions related to the operation of a building designed in the Revit environment.  Cool stuff, I know.

I highly recommend that those of you interested in Sustainable Design and its integration with BIM tools, go the to IES website and download VE-Ware.  While you're at it, check out the White Paper on model preparation in Revit.  That should help to provide you all with a good baseline on the concepts involved.  I know it's from last year, we're updating it for this year at the moment.

MEP Analysis Extension Released on Autodesk Labs

I am excited to announce that we have today released the MEP Analysis Extension on Autodesk Labs.  Scott Shepard has a post on this on his It is Alive in the Lab blog.

Go check it out and kick the tires.

One Little Item for Today

I know I've been quiet lately.  I'll get to that in a bit down the road.  Today is a day of big news for Autodesk.  I will let our press release do the talking on that front.

We are all very excited here on the Autodesk team to have such world-class talent in the sustainability realm injected into our organization, and we are looking forward to further developing these tools to meet the needs of you all in the market.

Of course I cannot go into much detail on our plans, so I'll just summarize the tools as they exist today.

Revit
Best-in-class BIM authoring tool, with a growing ecosystem of analysis and construction partners.

Green Building Studio
SaaS-based (Software as a Service) analysis tool that runs on the gbXML fuel that Revit produces.  Caters to early stage design and helps to guide benchmarking against potential energy savings with your design.

Ecotect
Model-based analysis tool that facilitates many different kinds of analysis and and simulation within a very approachable and usable interface.  Allows for great visualization of analysis results as well as goal-driven studies.  With its most recent inception it also runs on the gbXML that Revit produces.

Loadsoft
ASHRAE-based heating and cooling load calculations based upon information provided by, you guessed it, a gbXML file.

As we look to streamline the workflows between this ecosystem of tools, I think there are big things we can accomplish.  And as a good Product Manager, I would be remiss to mention that you all in the market are the strongest voice to help influence the path we take.  With that in mind, drop me a comment or an e-mail with your thoughts.

A Step in the Right Direction

In the horse race that is our effort to build a Distribution component of a Content Ecosystem for Autodesk Content, we are out of the gates cleanly and pulling into the front of the pack.  Two major indicators of progress have happened recently, and I wanted to share them with you all.

McGraw-Hill Sweets Catalog Integration
Yes, you read that correctly...Seriously.  The McGraw-Hill Sweets catalog has been added to the Autodesk Seek ecosystem, check out the press release.  This immediately adds a huge amount of Manufacturer's content to the Seek search engine.  As more companies work with McGraw-Hill to make their product information available on their Sweets catalog, this content will be automatically available in Seek.

Adding to the value to you all in the market is the additional data that's posted with the content like Product Datasheets and Guide Specifications.  Feel free to place any specific feedback on content you would find useful on Seek to this address.

Direct Manufacturer's Content
Recognizing the value that BIM Content provides to their customers, both Lightolier and Visa Lighting have begun publishing their content on Seek.  I applaud both of these firms in their approach to meeting customer demand, as well as their efforts in working with the Seek team.  Hopefully their efforts will make it easier for you as specifying and purchasing customers to use their products.  I implore those of you in the market who want to drive participation of additional manufacturers to recognize those who have already made this commitment.

With more such content in "production", I am just pumped about the progress we are making.  As we begin to round the bend, I think the tipping point may be just be coming into sight.

Autodesk Seek Steps Out From Behind the Curtain

I've spoken about the need for BIM content before, and I'll be speaking about it for the foreseeable future, it's just that big of a need for the marketplace.  In order to design a building using the BIM process, one must have intelligent content.

We at Autodesk have developed a strategy to create a Content Ecosystem for our products, so that the content needed for success is at the fingertips of the people that need it.  There are a number of angles to this strategy, but today I'm going to focus on the Distribution component of the strategy.

Autodesk Seek
When we last discussed this subject, Autodesk Seek was still an alpha and temporarily named Content Search.  The technology has continued to develop, and with the integration into our 2009 family of AEC Design products, Autodesk has formally released itself to the world, in the form of a press release.  I highly recommend that you give it a read and tell your friends.

Now this formality is not the only thing up our sleeve, we are actively working to populate Seek with high quality content to meet the needs of the marketplace.  Without naming names, I can say that we've had some great success working with Manufacturers and 3rd Party Aggregators to develop content for our design applications, and using Seek as the distribution mechanism.  You will hear some more specifics on this subject in the coming weeks.

Still though, there is still need for more participation, and that's where YOU come in.  Yes, you, the dedicated reader of Inside the System.  Last time I checked, Autodesk was not a major specifier and buyer of Building Products.  You all in the design and construction markets are exactly those people, and thus have the largest influence on manufacturers.

So, when the Sales Rep swings by next time to make their office visit, be sure to let them know that you would specify and buy more of their products if they provided you with BIM content.

Here's to being part of the solution.