CAD-1 Blog
What is being billed as the world's most energy-efficient skyscraper is being built here in the center of one of China's smoggiest cities by state-owned China National Tobacco Co.
The 750 million yuan building, set to open in October as the Guangzhou International Finance Center, features high-efficiency chilled water systems and heat recovery design, an air-conditioning system that recycles condensed water, built-in carbon dioxide sensors and double-glazed windows. Link Here and More Info Here
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Posted 1/13/2010 by Jarod Schultz |
Category:
Building
Autodesk created a list of performance expectations for the new headquarters of its largest division by revenue, the Fortune 1000 software company wanted the space to deliver all those benefits.
Link Here
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Posted 1/6/2010 by Jarod Schultz |
Category:
Building
Play the RetroFits game and help raise awareness about the benefits of better, greener buildings. Buildings are the number 1 source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Make these buildings better with sustainable and energy efficient design. Don’t just stand there. Play the game, post your high score, and invite your friends to compete—every little fit helps.
Link Here
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Posted 12/14/2009 by Jarod Schultz |
Category:
Building
Project Bluestreak is a web-based collaboration environment for accelerating building information modeling through the open exchange of design information and ideas between desktop applications, web-based services, and people.
With this initial release, you can:
•Create and join project groups
•Communicate with your project group members
•Share project designs and documents
•Quickly respond to project activities
More incremental releases will come Alive in the Lab as more features are developed, and your feedback is incorporated.
Link to more info
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Posted 11/19/2009 by Jarod Schultz |
Autodesk Subscription Advantage Packs are now available for 2010 Autodesk software. They provide Subscription customers with early access to the latest product enhancements—boosting productivity and offering a significant competitive edge.
With new features and specialized functionality, tools, and content that are fully compatible with the latest software release, Subscription Advantage Packs help you benefit from the latest capabilities. And, they can be downloaded from Subscription Center—or right from inside most 2010 software.
Link to More Info
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Posted 11/2/2009 by Jarod Schultz |
Categories:
Building
AutoCAD
Geospatial
Civil
In this final article we will talk about implementation and transition planning. Your key BIM “Checklist for Success” must include the following:
- Get assistance developing a sound implementation strategy. There are a wide variety of information sources to help you. Talk with firms that are at various stages of adoption, read AIA documents, go through the McGraw-Hill BIM report, talk with your allied professional network, and talk with CAD-1. Then decide what is right for your firm’s personality.
- Understand that BIM is a business decision, not just a new drawing tool. Successful BIM based firms rethink everything from workflow to billing practices, from client marketing to staffing, services offered and more. Make sure you develop a broad vision as your firm makes the transition.
- Assemble your “A-list” team. These are the people that will absorb the new technologies, help you rethink the processes, mentor the rest of the staff and provide the “glue” that keeps transition on track and vital.
- Select a suitable starting project. Your first project or two should be “familiar” projects that allow you a great deal of freedom to think about, explore and master the new technology and workflow. Projects with an extremely tight time table and projects that are highly design intensive should be reserved for a point where the team feels comfortable with the technological fundamentals.
- Evaluate and improve after each step and project. Meet regularly to evaluate what is going well, what needs to be improved and how to incorporate the necessary changes into your workflow. Tie this in with outside mentoring assistance for a couple projects, and you will see much faster gains in productivity. Of all of the “Checklist for Success” steps, this is the most often neglected and perhaps the most essential for ongoing success.
Building Information Modeling is one of the most important shifts ever in the design field. It allows for exciting new possibilities in design, essential movement towards a more sustainable world and many new business opportunities. Change managed well has the power to bring additional energy to your practice.
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Posted 10/23/2009 by Jarod Schultz |
Category:
Building
The project is testing remote delivery of Autodesk applications over the Internet. The goal of project Twitch is to enable you to test and try the latest versions of AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor, and Maya without having to install or download the applications. These applications run remotely on our servers and are delivered to you over the Internet. You will use them in the same way that you would if they were on installed on your system.
Autodesk Labs Link
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Posted 10/7/2009 by Jarod Schultz |
Here is a link to a Autodesk Technical Document TS1106667 about the top issues when it comes to building Revit families.
Issue: You would like to know about the top issues that can occur when creating family content in Revit® products.
Solution: The following is a list of the top issues that can occur when creating family content in Revit products:
- Modifying objects in an array
- Controlling visibility of the room name label in a room tag
- Cut plane of architectural columns
- Creating conditional geometry in your custom family
- Model lines and symbolic lines
- Void geometry prevented from cutting solid geometry
- Arraying within a defined length
- Setting Yes/No parameters
- Void and solid forms in the Family editor
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Posted 9/11/2009 by Jarod Schultz |
Category:
Building
As firms consider their move to Building Information Modeling (BIM), these five typical concerns commonly arise. Let’s list and briefly address each concern.
1. Productivity suffers during the transition to BIM.
Yes, productivity can be expected to decrease by an average of 30% during the learning period and first project or two. However, these initial productivity declines are generally made up with productivity gains. CAD-1 has helped well over 125 firms of various sizes make the BIM transition. In most cases, we see clients back to parity by about four months into the transition. From there nearly half of our clients say they have experienced a 40% to 50% gain in productivity within a year. An additional 15% say they have experienced an 80% to 100% gain. These figures are in line with surveys Autodesk conducts on their overall client base
2. BIM tools are difficult to learn.
There are always matters of understanding the hows and whys of the way any tool works. When this is mixed with the anxiety that any change brings, learning these new tools can appear much more daunting than it usually is. BIM tools such as Revit are purpose built to help designers think about their buildings.
Rule #1 for any firm needs to be to get training and schedule it as close to the beginning of the chosen first project as possible. This will greatly increase retention for the design team.
Rule #2 is to check your AutoCAD knowledge at the door, and come to training with an open mind. Things will be much clearer and easier for you.
Rule #3 is to schedule several hours of follow up time with a knowledgeable coach during the course of the first couple projects. This “in context” mentoring will make all the difference in your return on investment.
3. BIM disrupts established workflow.
The two dimensions to the concept of workflow are the progress of an activity as it moves through a company, as well as the rate at which this progress takes place. Does BIM affect workflows?
Absolutely, BIM affects workflows—the progress as well as the rate. But the reality is that the workflows it disrupts are inefficient ones, workflows that a firm is probably seeking to change if it is looking at BIM in the first place. In a Revit implementation web survey conducted by Autodesk, 82% of the respondents noted their design process was changing as a result of using the Revit platform, and once they were past the training period, more than half the respondents experienced productivity gains of more than 50% due to those enhanced processes.
4. The benefits of BIM are not shared equally among the designers, contractors and owners.
By reducing the duplicated efforts of conventional drafting and coordination methods, BIM allows the design and engineering team to focus more on high-value design, understand more about the design earlier through analysis and visualization, and deliver as much value to the owner as possible. The client gets better use of resources on the project and a more predictable outcome. The contractor gets higher quality, more complete construction documents, making for a smoother, more predicable project delivery.
BIM is all about a highly intelligent process for design, construction and life cycle management. It sometimes takes a different business mind set as well as design process mind set to fully realize the across the board benefits.
5. BIM increases risk and exposure.
BIM provides a way to reduce the risk of errors occurring in the design process. By extending coordination across the entire design team, even across disciplines in some workflows, a purpose-built BIM solution like the Revit platform can increase the likelihood that human errors will be caught and corrected during the design process. With automatic document coordination and with clearer project communication based on consistent, computable information about a building project, BIM improves design decision making, predicting performance, cost-estimating and construction planning.
But does sharing a building information model increase the chances of mistakes and misunderstandings? Does it increase a designer‘s risk of errors?
For design teams who are willing to collaborate that closely, sharing building information models can make BIM even more effective—but that choice is left entirely to the project team members. There are efficient process methods for which we can help firms plan which address a variety of comfort levels around risk management.
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Posted 8/27/2009 by Jarod Schultz |
Category:
Building
Autodesk Labs has just released a add-on for preview that plugs into Revit Architecture and Revit MEP. The solar radiation plug-in will analyze the effects of solar radiation on various surfaces of your conceptual building model. During the conceptual design stage of your project you can make fundamental design decisions about building shape, orientation, and surfaces early on, when changes are least expensive. Make sure you are "Update 1" of Revit Architecture and Revit MEP before installing the plug-in.
YouTube Video
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Posted 7/15/2009 by Jarod Schultz |
Category:
Building