Saturday, January 14, 2012
Semarak 4 Tahun HN Community
Monday, January 2, 2012
Laser Cut files & Fabrication from Revit
- 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.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Clyde Brothers: http://bit.ly/vdfGzF
Esteban Sapir: http://bit.ly/w4JhNL
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Xrev - Trial Survey Competition Results
What people are saying:
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Easily changing building levels
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)
- Switch to an Elevation/Section,
- On the Manage Tab, Project Location Panel, Position Drop down, Choose "Relocate Project"
- 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.
- 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...
Monday, October 31, 2011
Lots of congratulations to go around at the moment; commercial director Jeannette Godoy has made the Shots 2011 New Director of the Year Short List, proving what we already knew -- she's really, really awesome and on her way to very great things.
Director Simón Bross took on producing duties in addition to his ad work, helping to usher the documentary "Carrière: 250 Meters" to the San Sebastian Film Festival. The film traces the life of Jean Claude Carrière, long-term collaborator of legendary Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel.
Director Ted Melfi sold his feature film script "St. Vincent Van Nuys" to Fox; the story, in the vein of AS GOOD AS IT GETS, follows a fatherless boy as he befriends a grumpy old man and the two develop an unlikely relationship.
Andres Muschietti, one half of our Doble Nelson directing duo (plus beloved producer/sister Barbara Muschietti) are hard at work on MAMA, the horror film executive produced by Guillermo del Toro. The story follows a couple caring for their young nieces and nephews as they face off against a supernatural force intent on taking them back.
Angel Gracia's FROM PRADA TO NADA won the audience's choice for best film of the year at Univision's "Premios Juventud" youth awards show... That's in addition to Alexa Vega taking home Favorite Movie Actress at the Alma Awards (beating out Christina Aguilera, Cameron Diaz, Selena Gomez and Eva Mendes).
Finally, The Cortez Brothers adds two new siblings...
Pilar de Posadas is a former Executive Producer at Flehner Films, overseeing productions in North, Central and South America as well as Spain and France. Fluent in English, Spanish, French and conversational Portuguese, she perfectly embodies the international experience of The Cortez Brothers.
Jerome Williams, a native New Yorker, brings over 14 years of executive entertainment experience to The Cortez Brothers. As SVP with Exodus Film Group, he negotiated the deal to develop, produce and finance the first animated project for Tyler Perry Productions. With Williams as a producer, Exodus' 2008 animated feature, IGOR, grossed over $20 million in domestic box office.
Pilar will be handling all of our television initiatives, while Jerome contributes his extensive management experience to our family.
Monday, September 26, 2011
But my structural slab isn't flat!
- The first question you need to ask is do I need a thickening where the recess is? If so, then the correct approach would be to simply model another floor with the required negative level offset and overlap the floors. Then provided the floors are of the same materials and both have the same structural property then you can simply use the Join Geometry tool to clean them up.
- However, if you don’t need a thickening Revit 2012 allows you the ability to create families with Voids that can cut multiple elements in the project:
- Create a new Generic Model family - I like to use face based;
- Add reference planes to control its length and width by instance, and its depth by type.
- Then add a void and constrain it to the reference planes.
- Now ensure you check the option “Cut when nested”.
- Finally create an initial type for a standard set down depth.
- Then just load into your project, place where needed and drag the grips to make it the appropriate size.
- Then use the Cut geometry tool, select the floor you wish to cut and then the generic model family to have it cut the floor. You can even have it cut structural beams and multiple floors.
- For balconies with structural falls to the top face only you can use the point editing tools to drop edges/points lower to create the falls and ensure the layer of the floor is set to be “variable” in its properties. However, if the balcony isn’t rectangular, may be it is L shaped, then this approach can result in all sorts of triangulation edges – this can be worked around by turning off “interior edges” in the visibility settings. But you could also produce a similar generic model family for falls (using a void blend). This way the fall could also cut structural beams as well!
Monday, August 8, 2011
The first season of our debut television show, "Pati's Mexican Table," has garnered some impressive statistics since hitting the airwaves... It's now available in some 108 million homes in the U.S., and has a mind-boggling carriage rate of almost 94% nationwide. We are deeply and deliciously in pre-production on the next season of the popular cooking program.
The Cortez Brothers' Storytelling Department congratulates two projects it had a slight and hopefully mostly-imperceptible hand in on making it into the pages of Variety recently... Metanoia Films' "Little Boy," directed by Alejandro Monteverde, is a family drama set in 1940s America at the start of World War II; director Fede Alvarez's reboot of the cult horror pic "The Evil Dead," co-written by Alvarez and Rodo Sayaguez, was given a touch-up by screenwriter Diablo Cody and will be produced by Sam Raimi (writer/director of the original) of Ghost House Pictures.
More film-related accolades are in order for part of our Doble Nelson directing team; Andres Muschietti expands on his fantastic short film, turning it into the feature-length "Mama," co-written with our equally beloved Barbara Muschietti, which is currently being produced by Guillermo del Toro. The story follows two girls who flee from a ghostly woman they believe to be their mother.
Our company welcomes a new hire, Pilar de Posadas, to head up our brand spankin' new television department. She'll be helping establish a slate of programs, both Latin and non-Latin, reality and fiction, for the Cortez Brothers.
We've shuffled and fine-tuned our roster with some great new directors...
JEANNETTE GODOY started her career as a choreographer, most notably bringing her energetic dance moves to Sir Mix-A-Lot's famous "Baby Got Back" video; fast-forward to 2011, when SHOOT MAGAZINE named her as an Up-And-Coming Director to watch (amongst many, many reasons we're happy to have her for the Hispanic market).
KARIM OUARET brings his own background in music videos and promos to the table, not to mention experience with Fox Studios, multilingual filming and rhythm, fashion and still photography.
FATTY, meanwhile, got a peculiar start in the world of advertising, creating a homemade commercial for a TV show contest; his first place prize led him to a workshop at the New York Film Academy. From there he served as AD under a number of the commercial world's most talented and award-winning Argentine directors (including Lucho Bender), then branched out by becoming a skilled director in his own right -- and a perfect addition to our lineup of great directorial talent.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Revit 2012 - AS1428.1-2009 Door Circulation Checker
Sorry I still haven't posted the video and datasets from RTC2011, I will do it when I get a spare few hours, need the incentive to sit down and record it all!
In the meantime I thought I'd share a little freebie, especially useful for all Australian users. I have compiled a detail component family to graphically represent disabled circulation requirements as per AS1428.1-2009 to match Figure 31. It has been setup to be completely fool proof, that is if you set any values that don't comply to this standard, you will get a nice large warning advising that the door doesn't comply.
It has some pretty darn long nested conditional statements (each about half a page of single line text) to match the requirements. To help manage such long formulas I used an Excel spreadsheet to compile the formulas directly from the table.
Hope all find this useful. Please let me know if you do as it may give me incentive to post some more...
Technically you could nest this family directly into your doors and use some formulas to to have it set to the appropriate sizes. However, you may find that when you flip your door it will flip around the centre of the extents of the family and not about its origin. A really annoying limitation of Revit that drives me nuts!!
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| Door Circulation Family. |
Friday, June 24, 2011
RTC USA - Conference Materials
For those attending the sessions I will post links to the course materials, including presentation and datasets when I return to Australia. These materials will also be available for download from the RTC ftp site. Access details are typically emailed out to attendees with a couple of weeks of the conference completion...
Hope all attending are getting a lot of information out of it. I've picked up a few little things that I've missed in the recent version - as such it is a very worthwhile trip. Hope more people show interest next year and make this event a regular mark on your calendar!
Cheers,
Chris Price
aka Mr Spot :)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Australia and New Zealand Revit Standards Released (ANZRS)
http://anzrs.wordpress.com/
Monday, May 9, 2011
The Cortez Brothers announces a few new names and faces on our roster, all of them very talented directors and directing teams with more than a little Latin flair...
Los Angeles-based ANTONIO VON HILDEBRAND divided his childhood between Bogotá, Colombia and the Amazon jungle. He moved to Europe as a teenager, then to New York to continue his professional studies in publicity and design. He got his start as a creative at the Bates Agency in NY, then became a Creative Director at the JWT Agency in Mexico City, creating campaigns for Diageo, Ford, HSBC, Nestlé and J&B Scotch Whisky. He is the creator and producer of "Addiction," a hybrid series that bridged the worlds of advertising and television; it was acquired by Warner Brothers and developed by Silver Pictures for the North American market. He was the executive producer of CORMAN'S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. His feature-length documentary PABLO'S HIPPOS, commissioned by BBC/Storyville and the Sundance Channel, revolves around the life of drug dealer Pablo Escobar and his favorite pet -- a hippo.
GUIDO BELFORTE does the impossible -- he combines whimsy and reality in one package, turning stories that looked fantastical on paper into true, believable slices of life. His background in graphic design (he holds a degree from the University of Buenos Aires) and fillmmaking (studying at NYFA in New York) led him to an impressive career as a Creative and Art Director at McCann Erickson and J.W. Thompson, among others. He holds a Master's in Corporate Communication and Advertising from the Complutense University of Madrid, which speaks to his deep understanding of how to effectively craft good stories that make both clients and audiences happy. Belforte speaks fluent Spanish and English and is a recent Cannes Finalist for his Telecinco work.
BURNING CORNERS is the bright young directing duo of Aaron Burns and Carlos Rincones. Former college friends and current visual effects superstars, they've worked their magic on a number of feature film releases, including GRINDHOUSE and MACHETE (from Troublemaker Studios' director Robert Rodriguez), as well as runaway viral hits like "The Raven" (from director Ricardo de Montreuil, which led to a studio deal and a starring role in the upcoming film version for Mark Wahlberg). Burns' feature film debut, BLACKTINO, made its South by Southwest Festival debut earlier this year; it's a black comedy about an awkward half-African-American, half-Latino teenager growing up in Texas. Rincones is in post-production on his own freshman film, MALAVENTURA, a Spanish-language teen comedy about growing up -- but not growing up too much -- in modern Mexico. Together, they offer fun, cutting-edge, young and hip stories for a modern, tech-savvy crowd.
The dynamic collaborative of SHINE is comprised of two friends who both caught the filmmaking bug at the age of 12 and went on to win some pretty impressive awards as adults. One is a multicultural director specializing in live-action comedy, interactive and CGI and who has worked with the Mill NYC for several years; the other is a Cannes Award-winning creative-turned-director who has worked on everything from Levi's to MTV and Nike. Together, they combine the best of both worlds -- great creative twists and the technical know-how to actually pull it off on-screen. Zany, off-the-wall and enjoyable on set, SHINE counts a number of clients (like the BBC, Gap, Geffen Records, Nike, Nickelodeon, ATT, and Ford to name a few) among the list of those they personally deem "Brave And Wise Enough To Have Worked With Us At Least Once." On the "Accolades and Awards From Those That Don't Know Any Better" list? Several Gold, Silver and Bronze Cannes Lions; 8 Silver Andy Awards; 2 Emmy Awards; Gold and Silver from the NY Film Festival; 4 Gold Clios; FIAP and 12 AHAA awards plus, literally, several shelves full of others.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Revit 2012 Viewer Mode
Finally a reliable, built in method (without having to rely on demo modes) to enable the Principals, Engineers, or Revit Illiterate Architects access to a Revit model that they can't destroy.
With the viewer it allows all standard functionality but:
- You can't save or save as,
- Export or publish views/models if you make any changes,
- Print if you make any changes,
Revit 2012 & Nested Structural Columns Workarounds
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Revit Technology Conference USA & Australia - June / May
- Architectural Advanced Families (LAB)
- Structural Advanced Families (LAB)
- One Model (Revit Server, Worksharing API, Bluestreak, Security - Is it possible yet?)
- Referencing Parameters
- Nesting
- Arrays
- Adaptive Components (depending on the suggestions)
- Family Type parameters
- Formulas (Conditional, Mathematical, Rounding, Trig etc.)
- Type Catalogues
- Shared Families
- Nested Detail Components
- Detail Level Control
- Best Practice
- Reference Planes / Lines / Points
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Cortez Brothers' production, "¿Qué Pasa, U.S.A. - The Musical," will retain its period setting, Little Havana locations and Cuban-American flavor, adding a variety of original songs to the mix.
Meanwhile, final discussions continue on "¡Three Amigos! Part Dos," a follow-up to the 1986 comedy hit with the ahead-of-its-time tagline of, "They're Down On Their Luck And Up To Their Necks In Señoritas, Margaritas, Banditos And Bullets!"
Finally, financing is nearly in place for "Son of Montana," the television pilot that follows the rise and fall of Tony Montana, Jr., son of the main character in 1983's groundbreaking feature film "Scarface." Production will begin in Oxnard and the Czech Republic this summer.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Cortez Brothers just moved offices this month, taking over a larger space down the street at 13445 Beach Avenue in sunny Marina del Rey. Ping-pong aficionados are cordially invited to try out our pro table, while our Editing, Production and Storytelling offices enjoy bigger and hipper digs just steps away.
Director Angel Gracia's feature film, "From Prada to Nada," gets a spiffy new poster and a fantastic first weekend in release. The first film out of the gate for Lionsgate's Latin-targeted Pantelion label, the movie enjoyed both our undying love and best wishes for success (since we manage Angel) as well as an overwhelmingly female audience (some 71%!).

Luis Gerard, meanwhile, did a cool movie-style trailer entitled "Sniper" that (trust us) makes reading French subtitles worthwhile.
Not one but two Cortez Brothers directors ended up on Hollywood's Black List for aspiring filmmakers recently; you can find Ricardo de Montreuil there for "The Raven" and Fede Alvarez for "Panic Attack." Actor Mark Wahlberg ("The Fighter," "The Departed," "The Perfect Storm") is attached to star in the upcoming feature version of "The Raven."
VP of Development Bernadette Rivero wrote a Latin-themed project for Warner Brothers that will make its debut over the next few months. We can't say much, except that it follows a Latin family in L.A. as they plan for a big event that doesn't exactly turn out as planned.
The Storytelling Department lends its services to an A-list director and production company working on a very scary screenplay we can't talk about, as well as a reality-based television series for a large TV network we also can't talk about. "Discretion" is a big word for us this year, as is "quality work."
Finally, the beloved writer we manage, Sierra Hall, releases a graphic teaser of her screenplay "The Machete Queen." Story by Sierra, drawings by the very talented Casey Maloney.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Roombook Extension for Revit 2011 Available
Below is some information off the subscription site:
- The program calculates the surfaces of walls, floors and ceilings as well as room circumference and furnishing elements on a per-room basis and in total.
- The calculation of each surface is made transparent by detailed listing of all sub areas.
- Apart from automatic detection of elements and sub areas, it is also possible to add further elements manually. Additionally, it is possible to illustrate situations with no constructive equivalent in the project, by numerical definition or graphical selection of detail or model lines (use case: tile panels). It is also possible to define a wall height reduction on a per-room basis, in order to calculate the material requirements in case of reflected ceilings.
- All sub areas can be modified manually, including materials. This allows to handle exceptions to the rule and special situations.
- Surface material types contain material definitions for walls, slabs, ceilings and room circumference, which are typically assigned to particular rooms (Example: Bathroom, Habitable Room Carpet etc.) This allows to assign surface materials to rooms with one click.
- The calculated quantities can be exported in a clear and detailed Excel form, separated in
- Wall surfaces (including inner reveals, and window area per room in the Excel survey)
- Floor surfaces (including threshold areas)
- Ceiling surfaces
- Room circumference
- Furnishing elements and a survey which lists face to face all quantities per room and in total.
- Material requirements are listed per room and in total.
- Additionally is supported the export to a dwf-file which later can be opened and edited further in Autodesk Quantity Takeoff (QTO), as well as a CSV output
Find out more here:
Autodesk Subscription Centre


























