Dassault Systemes Live Buildings

This about all I can say...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xAVJD5sJac

Code Words and Mystery

For those who have been watching, closely, something has been building...
Quietly...
Lurking in the shadows...

A bit more has been revealed in the past few days.

First a post by Phil Read with a cryptic image.
Then a LinkedIn Company page appears - with a website in its company info - using the same image Phil posted...

M-SIX - something to keep an eye on?

Node Based Control for Functions + Revit = ~gasp~

Is this what I think it is?
dynamo + arduino

A node based workflow for Revit? What do you say now, lovers of grasshopper? =)

Yes I know it's not fully there, but still...

Formation of Alliances...

Something is underfoot - Frank Ghery just released 2 press releases this week announcing strategic partnerships and alliances. On the 18th, Ghery announced: "Architectural Leaders Join Frank Gehry to Form Strategic Alliance  Dedicated to Transforming the Building Industry Through Technology". The names on that list are quite impressive! Then, on the 19th a second press release announced: "Autodesk and Gehry Technologies to work Together to Improve the Way Buildings are Designed and Constructed".

Hmm... World leading architects + world leading design software company =______________

I'll let you fill in the blank, but I have to hope this leads to some really cool things happening in the near future. This is a pretty big development considering Ghery technologies uses their proprietary Digital Project so prominently. Since Digital Project is built on the same platform as Solidworks from Dassault Systems, one can't help but speculate what is going on. Ghery is dabbling in two technology pools now...

Elevation tags in Revit not updating...

On Monday this week I spent about 4 hours cursing at elevation tags in Revit. Last I recalled, an elevation tag in Revit is supposed to update to reflect the detail and sheet info once placed on a sheet, no matter what. Well, not this time. I could change the detail number in properties for the elevation and it would show on the sheet and in properties as having updated, but the marker itself would not update. Steve Stafford posted a great video showing this. Steve S. found that changing the elevation type would cause the marker to update and display correctly.

I also found that the marker would resume displaying updates to the detail number on a consistent basis provided it cut building geometry. If the extents of the marker view depth did not cross any geometry, it would not update the detail number if updated. So, another temporary solution would be to ensure the depth of the elevation view touches or cuts through building geometry. However, I haven't had a chance for successful testing to ensure this is the case. Like Steve S., I too am on WU2, so I'm curious if others are experiencing this under WU1 or if on WU2, if you can verify that cutting geometry ensures the tags update correctly.

Autodesk Cloud Services

Out of the ashes of a scattered set of tools arises a new service from Autodesk - Cloud Services. Many others have blogged about this, but I felt I should give a heads up to all those of you out there of a few things you should be immediately aware of.

1. ALL of your subscription users will be given access to the cloud features IMMEDIATELY.
2. Project Neon from Autodesk labs has been retired. A shame as I was just getting this deployed firm wide...

Of course, there is no global way to control settings for your subscription users, so if you should need to turn off/on settings company wide due to security reasons, you get to do so ONE by ONE. Fortunately I only had about 30-40 people to change this setting on. :/

More on this to come as I explore this new service. I wish Autodesk had communicated this better to its Subscription account managers...

SHINY!!!!

So, yes all Revit bloggers have posted about Vasari 2.1 with the great new ability to analyze CFD. But today I finally broke down to post when they added the latest shiny tool - SLIDERS!!!!

Everyone likes sliders, especially designers.

You can download from the main Vasari page on Labs!