Freeform Modelling (and Revit 8.1)

[stefan]

The wrote:
Main Improvements in Revit Building 8.1:
Considering that it is just a point release, Revit Building 8.1 packs a surprising number of new features. To start with, it enhances the Building Maker functionality for conceptual design mentioned in the previous section by enabling the import of NURBS surfaces from other applications in the form of DWG or SAT files. These can be turned into mass objects in Building Maker, after which you can create roofs, walls, floors, and curtain systems from selected faces (see Figure 5-a). A separate but related ability is the creation of non-vertical walls from massing components, created within Revit Building or imported from other applications (see Figure 5-b). These non-vertical walls behave like the regular walls: you can place doors and windows in them; they can be joined to other walls; they appear properly cut in plan views; they are correctly listed in schedules; and they can be exported along with their information to ODBC and other formats. Considering that Revit Building lacks a good set of freeform modeling tools, these new capabilities make it easier to bring conceptual massing models created in other applications into Revit Building and convert them into building models rather than having to start from scratch.
http://www.aecbytes.com/review/RevitBuilding8.htm

This would interest many people in the discussion around MaxonForm.

[Anonymous]

and you never shut up about it either. still haven't.

I do have that bad habbit

nd how much time did you save with those 5 simple productivity enhancements?

A LOT. But 5 features cannot increase the version by one. Maybe call it 8.2 but not V9.

I do agree that having handy an acceptable quality rendering engine is nice.
But for me, its much more important to be able to create and maintain a project. It would not hurt me, if they took all rendering out and gave me the greatest building tool possible (i hope you understand i am exaggerating)

for example i have a big wall ,say 30 meters high, and then create 5 slabs at various heights. The slab does not cut the wall in section. I have to split the wall at various heights and ajust it. And now maintanance.
I want to move that wall. I have to move each part of that wall (now it is split) and if i want to edit the height of the slabs, i have to edit the walls again. Does that seem normal for a 20 year old program.
If i have a small project, then ok, two three walls, i will do them.
But if they are many. Its a nightmare.

[stefan]

oreopoulos wrote:
for example i have a big wall ,say 30 meters high, and then create 5 slabs at various heights. The slab does not cut the wall in section. I have to split the wall at various heights and ajust it. And now maintanance.
I want to move that wall. I have to move each part of that wall (now it is split) and if i want to edit the height of the slabs, i have to edit the walls again. Does that seem normal for a 20 year old program.
If i have a small project, then ok, two three walls, i will do them.
But if they are many. Its a nightmare.

I agree here. But this is partly solved with the Solid Element Operators (which is missing a graphical "manager" dialog) and is probably closely related to some major conceptual decision from a long time ago, which clearly proposed to split up the building and it's walls floor by floor (which still is a valid choice, IMHO).
The Revit parametrics indeed provide a usable solution to your problem.

[__archiben]

stefan wrote:
The Revit parametrics indeed provide a usable solution to your problem.

i actually believe that the marquee tool combined with solid element operations have the potential to provide a more powerful solution to the revit 'relationships' thing . . . needs more thought and plenty of development, but i have this feeling that it could bring a more efficient, user-centric associativity to the model . . .

~/archiben

[Djordje]

Chazz wrote:
Perhaps more importantly, they have an astronomical user base all lined up to migrate.

Are you really sure of this?

Why is the ADT then given free, why didn't the astronomical user base migrate already?

Migrating from a flatland Autodesk product to either Revit or ArchiCAD is the same process - breaking the fear of modeling and showing people what they really don't know. That has nothing to do with Autodesk or Graphisoft, or the respective softwares.

[Djordje]

Chazz wrote:
I think it's fair to say that Revit's aspiration (whether it has succeeded is perhaps debatable) is to focus on the relationship between building elements so that the model becomes more intelligent and less delicate when the inevitable revisions are needed. In other words: parametrics. Reveit basically takes everything that ArchiCad has done to date as rote. BIM is now old hat. Parametrics as applied to architecture is a revolutionary rather than evolutionary step and so far GS is an almost total no-show in this department (yes, the library parts are nice).

Read your CAD history books and try to filter out the marketing from the facts.

The first architectural software that had the relationship engine was Pro Reflex, from late 80s. It died, as the principle applied was from the mechanical engineering mindset - no wonder, the company that produced it was PTC, one of the major mechanical players - and the computing overhead was enourmous. I know a couple of people still using it, one of them is even here in the UAE, on an SGI workstation. The man is happy!

Revit did not bring anything new. It just picked up all the good things everybody else tried, tested, and most of them did not survive, like ArchiTrion, Sonata, ProReflex, and so on. They had the best makerting, shamelessly copying Graphisoft texts and concept statements. To quote Ben, Graphisoft marketing is appaling at best - frequently I said that it would be great if it existed at all! - so that is why people know about Revit after five years more than about ArchiCAD after 25.

Another problem is - are you talking US or the world? Not that the rest of the planet matters much anyway (?), but you guys are not alone and are not the majority of CAD users worldwide, however hard that may seem to be.

I sad this many times and will say it again - I do NOT believe a piece of software to control the relationships in the model. I want to work with the model, not to set the relationships or disable them. As Oreopulos said, changing walls to slab thickness is OK - what if I need a custom solution for each storey? Don't I have to go and re-define everything? How does that reflect to the rest of the model?

The VB (no, I am not using BIM) model is too precious to be left to the control of the software, and has to be controlled by us. We are trained and have the knowledge to do it. No programmer knows what relationships of my building's elements I want, nor can he.

Basically, we should get the work done. Until the whole industry is on VB/BIM software, we can't say who or that anybody is going to "win"

Just my private thoughts, as usual ...

[stefan]

Djordje,

I think that the software is THE place to control all these relationships. That's what computers are good at: keeping large amounts of data.

The architect/designer is the one responsable for defining those relationships, though. But a good software should be perfectly able to handle them.

It's sometimes called "constraint modelling" and is the de facto way of modelling mechanical parts. I can assume that to extrapolate this to architecture is not trivial, since we are talking about large amounts of relationships on highly customised designs: a building.

But I understand your fear. Yet it seems to be desirable to explore this huge potential of letting computers get more involved. I'm not talking about design decisions: the architect/designer makes design decisions and instead of putting the outcome of such a decision into the Virtual Building, he/she puts the actual design decisions itself into the model. That is what I believe is the core goal of using VB or BIM tools. I'm not saying that Revit today fullfills all of that, but at least it makes a huge step forward to achieving this goal. ArchiCAD layed out a pathway which is probably less spectacular and less marketed. But ArchiCAD (well, Graphisoft) should not stagnate on this achievement. I do expect the next version of ArchiCAD to make a step forward.

[Anonymous]

Djordje,

There is almost no doubt ArchiCAD will have to adopt relationships at least in some small, flexible way. This the biggest productivity enhancing feature I see in modelling. Revit doesn't force relationships on you. Carefully used, I think you can avoid your hands being tied later. There are many simple conditions that DEMAND relationships.. Whenever a floor of a house is all one level (90% of the time?), entities should know they are attached to it and adjust if the floor level is changed.. I see no risks here.. Same thing with roofs.. This frees us even further to do what we should be doing..

As an example in my work 2 x 10 floor systems are increasingly being replaced by 14" and 16" truss joists.. I want to change all my stock plans to reflect this as well as add the extra step in the stairs.. Revit achieves this in ONE CLICK.

I absolutely wish to remain with ArchiCAD though, mainly as it is visually a planet ahead of Revit plus a host of other reasons.. Revit currently looks as if run by talented programmers and marketers while ArchiCAD by talented Architects, notorious for being slow to adopt new methods. Ironically they were 15 years ahead of Revit.

If Archicad gained relationships and some of the smart dimensions/cursors in Revit, never again will I mention the R word..

[Anonymous]

stefan

SEO as is now, can be used only to a small part of the project, cause else i will loose control. Will not know what i did with what.

Relationships are very important.
Sooner or later, we will have them in archicad too.
I am sure this is the way to go.

[Chazz]

Djordje wrote:

Chazz wrote:
Perhaps more importantly, they have an astronomical user base all lined up to migrate.

Are you really sure of this?
Why is the ADT then given free, why didn't the astronomical user base migrate already?

Am I sure? Well, yes. My assertion is simply that these users (and I'm talking only about architects and their ilk, not the billions of surveyors, mechanical engineers, etc using Autocad) are going to be much more predisposed to migrate to Revit than something called ArchiCAD (wait a minute, I've heard of that, it's from Russia, right?). That predisposition is all it takes. Having a single-vendor upgrade path is an incalculable advantage. Having the new product (Revit) maintain close ties to your old one -AutoCad- makes it that much more reassuring to the migratee.

Look, ADT failed because it is bad software --it was bad when it was a stand-alone product and it sucked equally when it was bundled with AutoCad. I don't know anyone who uses it seriously. I think the ignoble decision to purchase Revit was informed by the disappointing progress of ADT. Indeed, sometimes I think Autodesk bundled it with release whatever to show users what hell was so they could then sell them the promise of heaven: Revit.

[__archiben]

Djordje wrote:
I sad this many times and will say it again - I do NOT believe a piece of software to control the relationships in the model. I want to work with the model, not to set the relationships or disable them. As Oreopulos said, changing walls to slab thickness is OK - what if I need a custom solution for each storey? Don't I have to go and re-define everything? How does that reflect to the rest of the model?

The VB (no, I am not using BIM) model is too precious to be left to the control of the software, and has to be controlled by us. We are trained and have the knowledge to do it. No programmer knows what relationships of my building's elements I want, nor can he.

with the exception of the relationship between 'top-of-wall' and 'underside-of-story-above' i agree with djordje . . . but i will say that i think a development of the marquee tool combined with solid element operations will give archiCAD a far more efficient and user-centric version of associativity.

~/archiben