Quick post today. We had a question on the Autodesk Revit MEP forum this morning, that I thought I'd share with all of you. The user wanted to sum the individual Heating and Cooling Load values for the Volumes in his model, in order to get the Total Building Load. That's not the best way to calculate that value, so I went ahead and provided an explanation of how we do it in Revit MEP 2009.
So I'm going to change gears today to something not product-related....well not directly. We currently have two important roles in the MEP Marketing team that are open for hiring, so I wanted to let everybody know about them. I am linking to the actual job postings, so I'm just going to summarize them quickly here.
MEP Industry Marketing Manager This highly visible, strategic role is responsible for defining the marketing messaging for our MEP products. The successful candidate will apply market experience, market research, and new media to determine effective messaging for the different MEP market segments. This is done in collaboration with the MEP Product Management team, and has a high level of interaction with the rest of the Autodesk marketing teams. Strong interpersonal skills a must. MEP Technical Marketing Manager This highly visible, tactical role is responsible for consuming the marketing messaging for our MEP products, and producing and presenting the marketing deliverables that are distributed to our sales channel and customer base. The successful candidate will apply product knowledge, domain expertise, and new media to create effective marketing collateral for our MEP products. Delivery of technical training and sales readiness activities require strong presentation skills.
As you all know from my bio, I love my job at Autodesk, and we have a great MEP team.
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.
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.
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.
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.