Semarak 4 Tahun HN Community

Semarak 4 Tahun HN Community ini adalah semangat dari HN Community yang sekarang sudah beranjak dewasa dengan bertambahnya umur yaitu genap 4 Tahun, Semarak 4 Tahun HN Community ini lah yang membuat Member HN Community ingin menjadi lebih baik dari sebelumnya dan tak terasa pula kehadiran HN Community forum ini sudah menciptakan generasi muda yang paham IT saya pun termasuk atau tidak ya, ya saya kurang tahu karena saya tidak bisa menilai diri saya sendiri disini, awal yang indah yang membuat saya bergabung di HN Community karena sampai saat ini pun saya masih aktif dan belajar disana, hacking dan security lah forum yang paling banyak thread nya dan banyak yang replay, saya disana pun belajar dengan asik karena didukung oleh para master-master yang memiliki skill di atas rata-rata sikap royalitas dari HN Community lah yang membuat saya nyaman berada disana, banyak ilmu yang saya dapat disana dari HN Community lah saya mengerti programing, sekurity, hacking dll. kemudahan yang saya dapat selama belajar di HN Community adalah mereka yang yang memberi tutorial dengan baik dan jelas dan membuat saya semakin mampu untuk bisa memahami isi tutorial maklum saya awan dalam dunia ini jika ada pertanyaan yang kurang saya mengerti pasti akan di jawab disana oleh member HN Community , semangat yang di ciptakan dengan Semarak 4 Tahun HN Community lah yang membuat saya masih tetap berada disana untuk belajar berbagi ilmu yang saya miliki, walaupun tidak sehebat thread-thread yang dibuat oleh para master disana, sampai pada saat ini pun saya masih belajar di sana dengan semangat Semarak 4 Tahun HN Community , tanpa disadari sudah menginjak usia yang ke empat semoga HN Community semakin solid dan tetap eksis di koridornya, itu lah sepengal cerita dari saya salam HN Community .

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Laser Cut files & Fabrication from Revit

Now that it is no longer under NDA, I'd show off a quick project that I recently completed for a client where we were asked to produce laser cut files for all the steelwork.

Thankfully I had a copy of Revit 2012 pre-release to play around with which just happened to add a new feature that allows me to create face based void families or nest voids in families and have them cut other families in the project beyond just system families such as walls/floors/roofs etc.  (love it when Autodesk release a feature that I can use straight away)

Using Structural framing, and structural columns I was able to quickly generate all the members to their accurate sizes.  The difficulty was that each of the 3 layers of 40x16mm RHS channels that make up the infill actually need to penetrate the external channels.  Of course the laser cut machine can only cut penetrations perpendicular, so this complicated things.  As such I generated a face based void family with instance parameters to control its lengths and radius corners.  I placed all 1340 instances of these and flexed their lengths to suit the required opening for each of the intersecting members based upon their angle of incidence and ensured no members intersected each other.

I then had our developer create a macro command using VSTA to isolate each member, create a 3D view of only that member and then export out a .SAT file and .DXF file for the laser cutting service.

I was also asked to advise the weight of this structure. Easily done through some schedules to pull out the volume of steel and a calculated parameter based upon the mass of steel being 7850kg/m³ this was all able to be automated.

Lessons learnt: I found a few bugs in this tool where the face based voids families would cut certain structural columns, which have now been addressed in the released version.  I managed to source the issue and devise a workaround. I had planned to make this much more complicated to facilitate change, but I opted for the manpower approach as I thought it was resolved.  Unfortunately for me, there were a couple of design iterations which we somewhat painful to redo.  Had I have known these were coming I would have made the mesh members and penetrations parametric.

NEXT PROJECT for the same client:

A 4.5 metre Bird made from aluminium sheet with a polystyrene core to be suspended in the foyer.

Requirements:

• An IGS file for the CNC router to cut the polystyrene blocking to shape.
• Fully nested cut files for all the aluminium sheet
• Structural Steel Cut files for the support frame
• An overall weight of the bird

Challenge accepted!

We were supplied with a model created in 3DS Max. My first thought was great, I'll use the unfolding tools of Autodesk Inventor to make light work of this.  This way I could build in K factors etc.  But of course Inventor doesn't handle geometry created by other applications well at all.  I didn't feel in the mood to remodel the complicated form from scratch in Inventor so instead I looked to Revit. Unfortunately there was some issues in the nurbs translation and the import into Revit - which I didn't discover straight away.  As you may know a nurbs face can only have 3 or 4 sides.  When importing into Revit the surface was being triangulated.  Some of the planar faces on this bird had as much as 12 sides.  Working with the designer in 3DS Max we managed to sort out a workflow that gave me the best possible base to work from.  We even explored tidying up the bird directly in Revit, so we create a tool using the API that was able to automatically convert the import into native Revit Reference Lines, Points and forms.  We didn't end up using it, but I'm sure it will come in handy in the future.  We may even make it publicly available if we get the time to make it robust to everyone elses different scenarios.

I imported this form into the Revit Conceptual Massing environment and created a family for it.  I then loaded it into a new project and used the curtain panel by face tool (using a special Aluminium system panel type that I made), selected all the faces and generated the curtain system.

Great, I now had a panelised system for all the pieces.  I then manually merged some of the complicated pieces so we didn't end up with tiny little slithers to be assembled.  Next step, systematically number all the panels (434) with unique marks, we didn't automate this so it was somewhat tedious.

Again we looked to the API to create a macro that automatically created an isolated 3D view for each curtain panel orientated to look perpendicular to the surface.  Easy enough, but how do we no which side of the surface we are looking at.  The edges of each panel needed to be bevelled at 45° so this was important.  Unfortunately there seemed to be no real logic between what side revit determined the interior or exterior of the panel even though they were all part of the same system, they weren't necessarily orientated the same way.  We were able to get around this through Raytracing in the API, which aided us in determining the interior and exterior face.  We re-ran the macro and now we had an exterior view of every panel isolated in the model.

Next step, exporting the views:
As you may or may not know, if you export from a 3D view you get a 3D file.  In this instance we needed 2D Cut files.  How do you get a 3D view to export as 2D?  You place it on a sheet.  We configured the macro to then place all 434 views on a single sheet, then exported (DXF) the sheet and left the "Xref views on sheet" option checked so we would get separate files for each of the files.  Of course we had no control over the naming of these Xref's so we then had to use a small utility to systematically rename all the files so they corresponded to their Mark.

Finally to create the nested cut files, we used another commercially available utility where you can simply enter the sheet sizes, specify the individual cut files and it automatically nests the pieces and optimises them as well as tagging them.

The last task was to generate the 3D cut files for all the structural steelwork.

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Director Fernando Arrioja recently worked on "Cold Practice," a CG-intensive spot for Coors Lights via ad agency Bromley. This involved shooting in the snowy conditions of the Rockies, as well as working with Mexico's soccer greats against greenscreen and recreating snow with salt in a studio in Mexico City. http://bit.ly/ublbXM

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We're excited to welcome the Clyde Brothers & Esteban Sapir to our directorial roster! They all bring amazing vision and energy to our team. Please take a look at their recent work.

Clyde Brothers: http://bit.ly/vdfGzF
Esteban Sapir: http://bit.ly/w4JhNL

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Truly scrumptious! Our very own TV cooking superstar, Patricia Jinich of "Pati's Mexican Table," shares her secrets to adding Mexican flavor to your holiday dessert table on the "Today Show": http://on.today.com/vRT8JN

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Xrev - Trial Survey Competition Results

Results of a recently conducted survey on the Revit Add-in Xrev Transmit - designed for issuing Revit sheets to PDF, DWG, DWF etc with automatic naming and filing, including a drawing register/transmittal.

Survey Results

What people are saying:

"We have users who want to marry you they are so happy with the time savings"

"Excellent product - I couldn't Revit without it"

"The time savings are great.  Everyone loves using it."

"We absolutely love the product.  It has exceeded our expectations and is a pleasure to use"

"Xrev Transmit makes tasks that have always been tedious, fast and dare I say it enjoyable"

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Easily changing building levels

I'm always amazed when people don't know about this very easy process of changing a building's Levels to reflect the actual RL's of the site.

All to often people tell me how they go through the tedious process of selecting all their levels and using the move command, then have to select all their views/details/text etc and move it all up or down to align with the new location.

Are you crazy!!  Never do this!

Revit has multiple coordinate systems.  An internal coordinate system and a shared coordinate system.  By default all coordinates, whether they be levels, spot elevations, contour tags, spot coordinates all report the internal coordinate system.  Each of these can be easily changed in their TYPE properties to use shared.  Unfortunately the Nomenclature varies, but the principle is the same:

Level Type Properties: (change "Elevation Base" to shared)

Spot Elevation Type Properties: (change "Elevation Origin" to shared)

Spot Coordinate Type Properties: (change "Coordinate Origin" to Shared)

Contour Label Type Properties: (change "Elevation Base" to Shared)

Best Practice the Internal Coordinates of "Ground Level" should always be 0.

To move the building:

1. Switch to an Elevation/Section,
2. On the Manage Tab, Project Location Panel, Position Drop down, Choose "Relocate Project"
3. The tool works just like the move command, select the base point to move relative to, then the distance and direction you want to move it in (best to only move it vertically in elevation/section).   In this example I'm going to move my levels 6000mm up.
4. Done, coordinates have been changed, all views are still intact and no cleanup required.  For those who have been doing it some other way.  Please don't do anything irrational.  Think of all the time you can now save...

This method is also better when working with multiple discipline models and the copy/monitor.  If people are using the move command to move their project around it causes everyone grief in this scenario.

Hope this helps.

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