I wanted to let you all know that we just released the Revit MEP 2009 Web Update #1. You can download it here.
This Web Update includes numerous fixes to reported issues and performance optimizations, which are documented in the Web Update Enhancement List found on the Download Page.
Go get it!
There's a whole lot of variety in the MEP world; from the different system types that can meet the occupancy requirements of a building, to the different standards that can be used to create each of those system types, to the different materials and connection types that can be used to for a given standard for a given system type...you catch my drift.
The Wall of Blinking Lights, Switches, and Knobs
For us as a product team, it means that we need to architect an application that is flexible enough to meet those needs, but is not a "wall of blinking lights, switches, and knobs". While the "wall of blinking lights, switches, and knobs" certainly does accomplish the task, it's not the most usable or learnable solutions.
The guy who's been working at that wall for 10 years? Well he's got that wall down, ask him to do something and he know which knob to turn to get the desired result. If that guy gets hit by a bus, or decides he wants to work somewhere else, then the next guy just kind of stares at the wall in awe while there is a near meltdown because the Safety Inspector in Sector 7G is working from home due to an obesity disability claim (Simpsons referenece).
The contrary solution involves good UI design, user testing, and a lot more resources. Therefore, as a product team we must pick and choose where we apply our finite resources to provide the more usable and learnable product, while still making sure it is still a capable one. Just a little insight into our decision-making process.
The Old Way - In an XML File
With that in mind, we've made a nice step (admittedly biased opinion) forward with Revit MEP 2009 regarding a piece of functionality that was previously such a "wall of blinking lights, switches, and knobs". As a way of delivering the aforementioned application flexibility, we previously kept record of the sizing information available for both Pipes and Wire for a given Revit project in XML files.
We willed these XML files with the information we felt was needed for a good chunk of our users' projects. But, due to the aforementioned variety in the MEP industry, there was need to add more information to these XML files. Simple enough, if you were comfortable editing XML files. That is a big "IF", and certainly not the most learnable or usable solution.
Add to that fact that for projects with customized XML files, those XML files had to be accessible to every user working on that project, or else some users would not be able to use these custom sizes/materials. This created an additional coordination hurdle for CAD/BIM Managers.
In short, we had a bit of a "wall of blinking lights, switches, and knobs" on our hands.
The New Way - In the Project
So in Revit MEP 2009 we have moved this previously XML-based information into the Revit Project file itself, creating a much more usable/learnable solution. At the same time, we have made users aware that such capability existed in the first place...all good things.
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.
As you can see, this is a nice enhancement to the previously available functionality, and with the Transfer Project Standards functionality, it's a straightforward process to move your customized settings from one project to another.
Now, for those of you who managed to navigate the previous "wall of blinking lights, knobs, and switches", we did not forget about you. Watch the following video for the process to migrate this previously customized data from Revit MEP 2008 into Revit MEP 2009.
Migrating Custom Settings from 2008 to 2009
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.
I hope that helps to cover this new functionality. As always posts comments/questions you have and I'll try to answer.
A recent post on our discussion forums asked a pretty basic question about how to select multiple elements at the same time. To me this is Revit 101, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I've had the luxury of learning this stuff from the gurus that roam the halls of the Revit Factory. Not all of you have this opportunity, so hey, let's spread the wealth.
When you select something in a Revit view, it highlights in Red to let you know it's selected. When I have multiple Elements selected, we call that a Selection Set. If I have similar items selected, like Pipes and Pipe Fittings, I can make changes to all the Elements in the Selection Set, which is quite handy.
Being the huge dork that I am, I've put together a video explaining the various options in Revit to select Elements in a Revit view.
I know was probably a bit basic for some of you out there, but I've got to lay the foundation from time to time. I hope you all learned something today, at the very least that my dork quotient continues to remain high.
One of the most powerful value propositions of the Revit Platform is a model-based environment. I knew that when I first read about the product and saw it years back, before I started working at Autodesk. To me, the writing was on the wall...an intelligent model can be leveraged for so many design tasks. Pretty pictures of your designs, composed with lines, arcs, and circles? Well, let's just say that there's a little less long-term value embedded in such a deliverable.
One of the immediate values to MEP Engineers, even before they have made any major decisions about their building service designs, is to leverage the architect's model to determine the peak energy requirements of their design. That peak energy requirement needs to be met by the building services, which are up to the MEP Engineer to design. Their designed systems must remove from the building the peak cooling load in the summer, and add to the building the peak heating load in the winter. How they go about achieving this task plays out later in the design process, but you must start with the energy requirements.
We understood this requirement at Autodesk, and saw the potential for Revit MEP to meet this need for MEP Engineers. With the release of Revit MEP 2008 last year, we delivered the first version of this capabilty to our user base. This year, we're delivering the second release of this capability, which takes advantage of the capabilities I have outlined extensively in previous posts. Let's see how it all works.
Heating and Cooling Load Analsis in Revit MEP 2009
I'm sure you can see the value here, and the capabilities that we've provided to MEP Engineers even before they model a single duct, pipe, or circuit. With the major capability of the application covered, we can move on the other enhancements that are delivered with Revit MEP 2009.
Note: For those of you checking the site for updates on a daily basis, why not just add my RSS Feed to your RSS reader? That's how I keep up to date on my favorite blogs.
The geometry defined by the Bounding Elements in the Revit Physical Model, in conjunction with the Volumes they define, make up a critical piece to accurate BPA. Without the proper metadata to define the conditions in those Volumes, one must make a lot of assumptions to produce BPA results. Like I spoke about in my last post, this metadata is the "fuel" that gets fed into our BPA capabilities.
In Revit MEP 2009, we define that information in 3 places:
We covered the Project Information in my past post, today we're going to cover the fuel that exists on the HVAC Zone and Space Elements.
It's important to note that while this information exists on these elements, that information can be authored:
Just like many other things in Revit, you have access to that same data
in many interfaces, and a change in one location updates the core
definition of that data. That means that all locations update
immediately.
2009 Improvements
With the release of Revit MEP 2009, we've completed two different categories of improvements to the metadata that exists on HVAC Zone and Space Elements.
Now let's cover this information in detail in a video.
Building Performance Analysis Data - HVAC Zones & Spaces
Next we're going to put this all to work and discuss using the Heating & Cooling Loads dialog to calculate the peak loads for our Revit projects.
For those of your following along thus far with my overview of the upcoming release, we've covered the major changes to Volumes in Revit MEP, and discussed the new recommended workflows. I hope all that is clear.
These volumes, in combination with the metadata associated with the volumes and project, constitute the input data required for our Heating and Cooling Load calculations. Today we're going to take the next logical step, and discuss the metadata that's used as "fuel" for our Building Performance Analysis (BPA) capabilities.
Although I have been focused on "new things" for the past couple of weeks, this discussion is focused on all of the "fuel" that's used for our calcs. In my cutting of the video, it seemed that this didn't hurt the process. I hope this all makes sense to you all.
Building Performance Analysis Data - Project Info
Now you all can say "I know the data that's captured at a project-level for BPA calculations." Tomorrow, I hope you can all say "I know the data that's captured on HVAC Zones and Spaces for BPA calculations."
Now that you've all had a day to calm down from the excitement induced by my last post, I thought I'd continue the momentum into the next logical step...creation of Zones.
Those of you familiar with Groups, MEP Systems, or MEP Circuits will feel right at home with the user interaction that's been implemented around Zones. Spaces are the building blocks and you can either use existing Spaces or add them from within the Zone Editor. There's my 2 sentence explanation of the workflow. For a more detailed explanation, go ahead and watch my video below.
As always, comments/questions/showering of praise is always welcomed.
So we've spent a lot of time talking about the enhancements to volume Elements (Spaces and Rooms) in Revit 2009. I hope you all enjoyed it and understand some of the new arrows that have been added to your Revit quiver. Today we are going to talk about yet another new Revit Element that involves Volumes.
Zones
Individual volumes in Revit are a handy thing, no doubt. When it comes to doing Heating and Cooling Load calculations, they are vital to understanding the peak loads, and more importantly airflow requirements. When it comes to determining the loads required for a piece of equipment, individual volumes aren't much help.
Why you ask? A piece of equipment can serve a Zone of a building that contains individual volumes that have different exterior exposures, or different internal load scheduling. This means that the individual annual peak loads occur at different times. Simply adding up the peak loads for the individual volumes just won't do the trick. Enter the Zone Element.
Anybody involved with MEP design already knows about Zoning, and the importance of Zoning schemas for carrying out design tasks. I hope the above video helps to explain the justification for the creation of the Zone Element. We'll go into detail on the creation of Zones in subsequent videos.
Till then, enjoy some awesome owning of a tv reporter.
Reporter Owned By Sled - Watch more free videos
I'll file this one under "Incredibly Useful Information". Esteemed Reviteer and burgeoning Obi-Wan-Kenobi Dave Baldacchino has posted an awesome tool for Local File Management on his great blog. Being the huge dork that I am, I follow many of the Revit forums, and David's knowledge and perspective is always valued. His blog made the cut on my Outlook RSS Feeds.
As Revit is still new for most MEP firms, the concept of Local Files and Central Files is also new to many. David's tool is a great way to streamline the creation of Local files for your Revit projects.
How does all this Local File <-> Central File stuff work you say? Well that is a simple Google search away...or you can just check out this handy article on the subject.
You're probably all aware of the Upper Limit Parameter on the Room Element from previous releases. That controls the top extent of the Room Element you've defined. The actual top extent of the Room is not always the Upper Limit value however, because of the Bounding Element behavior we have spoken about recently. So, if a Roof is encountered by Revit as it extrudes the Room vertically, then the Room Volume will stop at the Roof. Makes sense right?
Well, what happens if you need to extrude the bottom extent of the Volume in the same manner? Until this release, there was no good way to do it.
Based upon our discussion yesterday, we talked about how the overall cross section of the Volume is calculated. This is all good and logical, but there are certainly situations where your typical approach to defining Volumes breaks down. Like....let's say for instance an outward sloped wall....*hushed silence falls over the room*...this has always been difficult if not impossible until this release.
"Show me" you say? Gladly...
So there you have it, we now have a few more tools in the toolbox to handle complex building forms. The box may not have every tool necessary, but this is a step in the right direction for our Revit Analytical Models.
