BIM DIARY: WEEK 08

Material schedule and floor finishes demarcation.

This week was a little short. I had been introduced to material schedule while helping my another team member to create the schedule ready for tender purposes. But before going into it, I had many questions in mind.

First of all, the project I involved in is a mix-development- the revit model is done separately for residential on the upper part and commercial units on the lower part. The combined ( or the central model) is the final model which compile the both parts into one for final checking. Here's the thing. If I were to obtain information from these imported models in the central model, I could not do this because it was locked within the model itself. In other words, I was unable to extract related information, for example, the total amount of fan used in both models when I want to create a schedule about it. 

Sadly, I wasn't given the solution and certainly I could only create a schedule with empty data. At the very least, I learned the way to create the columns of the schedule effortlessly. My training session continued by helping the team on demarcating different floor finishes on each and every plans for the project.

So,

I still couldn't taste the magic out of what I've learned so far in the documentation for tender using Revit. I was surprised by how things got messed up and even complicated. I have still a very long way to go.

BIM DIARY: WEEK 07

This week was a fresh start going back to Revit from Lumion.

My sensei finally got me into a real-time project, a project which undergoing KM process and preparing tender at the same time. I was assigned to work on window schedule with the leader in the team.

At first I thought it was a fast process- since the Revit should be more effective when it comes to documentation, well that was what I had in mind, not until I got into the real scenario. The reality is that, it will only be easy if the element is a window itself, one can simply obtain information like plans, window types, and all other data, easily generated in one click away. But in many cases especially in commercial projects, curtain walls are created for a project and yes, those ain't no windows.

Then I learned using their tricks and extra effort to generate schedule for such curtain walls using sections, a lot of hiding and revealing unrelated elements, create sheet, and then drag each and every wall one at a time into the sheet. I have to say it was pretty handful. It was doable, but quite troublesome if there are great amount of curtain walls to cut section.

So,

I thought I had a much higher expectation for Revit's efficiency performance. But I should not make a definite judgeent based on just one day experience, it is afrerall a complex software. Stay tunned.

BIM DIARY: WEEK 06

Lumion in a nutshell

This is quite a short week working on the project. But it was great that I can finally get the glimpse on how Lumion works on both exterior and interior rendering.

Due to the first week of fasting, most of my Muslim colleagues were not around to guide me through the process, so it was rather a do-it-yourself week. The first ever thing to learn is of course, exporting the model to the Lumion. It come to my surprise that the steps to do that were quite hassle-free.

On key thing to note is the difference between importing a Revit family and importing a sketchup model into Lumion. Both works extremely different and for fast production, Mr.S seems to be the better the option to do that. Mainly it shortens the time to update each and every model, while keeping the texture as it is (Lumion will recognize the texture as a material)

So,

I've completed an exterior scene in one day, and another for an interior view. In fact, Lumion is pretty user-friendly, and really fast when it comes to rendering. Not to mention the superb quality of foliage and environmental ambience (presets). I've even learned how to make a simple video of the project with just few clicks away. Love the software!

BIM DIARY: WEEK 05

CUT, CURTAIN WALL MAKING, DESIGN OPTIONS & PHRASING

It was a short Revit training this week due to busy schedule in our own office and Labour day.

First thing to do was sharping up my skills in Generic modelling- creating curtain walls with several ways, including extrusion and void, wall type, and array.

While trying to fill in more detail into the model, I discovered some useful tools like design options and phrasing- the tool to allow you to categorize things you've wanna show in your model, especially when you are sending it to the client. What it does best is hiding elements whenever you want it to hide, and group these hidden elements at your will. To illustrate, when your client asked for two options on the facade of a same building, you can create options by grouping them into Option 1, Option 2, and so on. Unlike using Mr.S, I normally will duplicate models of the same building in Mr.S and then starting to edit each and every one of them. Doing that might just increase the size of the model that you're working on and eventually lead to the risk of crashing/lagging.

Another useful tool I've learned was the 'cut' key. It's simple and it literally means cutting a model line into two (sounds funny haha). By doing that, you can delete the lines you do not need while making sure the other lines are still connected.

So,
Nothing much to conclude for this week, but my guardian is taking me to the next level of the design process ( All designer might already know what it means) next week. Yes, from Revit model to rendering. Stay tuned!

BIM DIARY: WEEK 04

Full Set of Drawings: Done in a snap!



The fourth week ( to be exact, it's only the eighth day) reached to the state of where I can now draw a schematic model for presentation, including the structure of the building. It was so far fun and enjoyable, even though the process could be taken a lot faster if I do it with Mr.S.

What impressive of Revit this week is probably the power of Sheets. Learning to create sheets and import different views into these sheets make plotting pretty much effortless. Not to mention the quick annotation and pre-filled project details while you import the title block into the sheets. Where using Mr.S or Mr.A, you'd still take some time to get these done even you're an expert. Especially in Mr.S, most of the time you'd get hairlines and unnecessary stuffs into CAD, and of course, you need the pro version to do that too! (means money la)

Another most amazing feature I've learned this week is probably the Axonometry presets that make iso drawings done in seconds! If one is unsatisfied with the result, he/she can even delete it or reset all the pullings within the iso drawings, magically, it will never affect the original drawing/model at all.

So,

I starting to understand how Revit could really save us time after we master it. Unlike the conventional way, say CAD-SKETCHUP-MAX- everything you build in Revit will be used for 2D, 3D, and eventually rendering. There will be no double work whatsoever.

Isn't that brilliant?