RobiNZ CAD Blog

Notice of RUGAKL (formally known as RUGNZ) October Meeting

Revit User Group - Auckland (RUGAKL)** was formerly known as Revit User Group of New Zealand. RUGNZ is now the home for New Zealand's regional Revit User Groups:

RUGAKL Meeting - Wednesday 15th October at Jasmax Offices, Level 4, Upper Queen Street

Join us from 5.30pm for Drinks and Nibbles ($5 donation-receipts available)
 
Agenda: 

6pm: Welcome, General Business and Presentation Introduction - Kerry Thompson
 
Presentation: "Revit as never seen before"
Exploring the Revit Database File - Presented by Rich Sales (to which I add: yes that's really his name and he does commute by Segway)

6.45pm:  Q & A , Tricks and Tips and general Revit discussion. If you have any examples of work you would like to share - please bring them along.
 
7.30pm: Meeting Closes
 
Please RSVP via the new website - http://www.rugakl.org/ - by Tuesday 13th October, 5pm (for catering  purposes)

* I will retain my Revit User Group NZ blog category for all user group posts.
** I wonder if it's pronounced "RUG A.K.L" or "RUG'AKLe"?

What does Autodesk University mean to me?

I was asked this today and pondered how best to respond. Perhaps the most complete answer;

"Just read what I've blogged about it over the years"

But that means digesting (excluding this post) over four years of blogging;

• 113 posts
• 1,360 paragraphs
• 18,111 words 
• 84,366 characters

Or maybe just one image to summarise them all!

Click the thumbnail for the full image, created in seconds by pasting all those posts into the totally brilliant Wordle

Revitize - The 157th Revit Blog?

Revitize is not new, but is new to me. I stumbled upon it, thanks Google, while searching for solutions to repair a broken Revit project (more on that in another post). Nicholas has some good ideas, nicely documented, like using a "Locked" user & workset to lock views and many other tips in the past year or so of posts. Subscribed!

Revitize - Another Revit Blog
157th Blog on Revit - These are some of the Revit questions people have asked me and some (almost correct) answers.

I've got about 55 "all Revit" blogs in my reader but many others which, like this one, have some Revit content.

Google Search for Cad Blog - 2001 vs 2004

To celebrate their 10th Birthday Google have enabled Searches of their January 2001 index linked to Internet Archive versions of the pages as they were then..

http://www.google.com/search2001.html

A search for cad blog reveals a remarkable change over the past seven years ...

cad blog - Google 2001 Search - 172 Results

cad blog - Google 10-03 2008 - about 11,300,000 Results

A few more comparisons;

• BIM blog - 9 results 2001, 1,080,000 today
• AutoCAD blog - 25 results 2001, 3,350,000 today
• Revit blog - 0 results 2001, 468,000 today

It wouldn't cost that much...

  

1 Man Blog Sells for $15 Million Dollars *

* Not this one

Oracle acquire Advanced Visual Technology (Retail FOCUS)

cnet news, via All Points Blog, report Oracle have recognised the value in providing a total design solution for retail with the acquisition of Advanced Visual Technology Ltd (AVT). 

Their Retail FOCUS application fills the gap between Architectural & Retail Design by linking the CAD Building/Store Fitting Layout & Shelf Planogram (POG) data. It also adds retail intelligence, space/layout planning/analysis and asset management database tools to the AutoCAD store model. Companion applications add visualisation and enable the store asset database to be maintained from the retail floor.

I first saw both Retail FOCUS and Revit about 7 years ago when, independently, AVT and (pre-Autodesk) Revit visited New Zealand. I could see the potential and (then) limitations in both products. Retail FOCUS's main weakness were OEM AutoCAD limitations (CAD objects/display) and Revit's were it's incomplete BIM (no services then), work flow challenges and closed nature preventing integration. I have followed both products evolution in the hope they might connect.

A combined AEC BIM + Retail Focus + POG "Database" could be the ultimate retail design/management tool. What I've termed "Retail BIM" could be used to design and manage every retail business asset from the site, building, down to shelf product allocation. With the addition of geo/location and demographic/sales data you'd have a powerful combination of database solutions for retail forecasting, design, management and analysis.

I hope this acquisition doesn't mean Autodesk have missed the boat. Could an Oracle Revit based Retail BIM still happen?

Oracle Buys Advanced Visual Technology
Redwood Shores, CA – October 1, 2008

Oracle today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Advanced Visual Technology Ltd. (AVT), a leading provider of 3D visual macro space planning software for retailers. AVT enables retailers to collaborate with their stores and supplier partners to design and plan retail floor space in real time with a current photo-realistic view of each store. AVT products combined with Oracle Retail’s comprehensive application suite is expected to increase the profitability of a store’s selling space through enhanced space allocation and performance monitoring across categories, aisles, departments and the entire store... [cont]

Note: TWL does not use AutoCAD (vanilla), Revit, Retail FOCUS or Oracle Retail Products for Retail Layout. The MindManager map above is my personal speculation, wish list, for the possible combination of BIM/POG technology for Retail Design Management.

UPDATE 2008-10-03: To acknowledge sources

Why blog? This is why...

Via PROBLOGGER, I saw this gem;

Although my initial motivation, and blog platform, differ from Glenda's I can relate to her video in many ways. I have shared her thrill of being at an event, local and international, and meeting readers and fellow bloggers. If I appear surprised because I still find it astonishing that people spend their precious time here. On my travels, from Korea to Orlando, the connections made via this four year old experiment with web publishing still amaze me. One regret is I'm sometimes not as diligent following up some contacts as I should be, but that's something I'm working on improving.

When you hit  it can change more than just the contents of a web page. It's why I blog.

The MEP CAD Engineer blogs

Beth introduced me to a new'ish MEP blog by David Butts. The first few posts cover the long history of Autodesk BIM/MEP and one has the best explanation of the convoluted marketing used for ADT/ACA/AMEP over the years that I've seen. A more recent post covers Revit MEP content with some great tips. We only use a few aspects of MEP but I'm always keen to learn more, I've subscribed.

The MEP CAD Engineer - mep-cad.blogspot.com

Still using Windows 2000?

I was surprised to see a knowledge base item regarding Revit 2009 and Windows 2000. As XP heads for retirement - although still much used - and the Windows world starts thinking about Windows 7 I wondered who, other than Ralph , is using Windows 2000?

A completely unscientific look at my blog stats over the last year shows 1.1% of visits coming from Windows 2000. It's fine for legacy software/hardware but I'm surprised enough are trying to run Revit 2009 on 2000 to justify a KB Article!

Apart from a tablet machine with Vista I still work in a world running on XP. At home I won't bother with Vista till I get a new machine, if Windows 7 isn't out by then!, and at work XP still rules the desktop. Changing OS is always disruptive so I can understand the reluctance to move on but I'm glad that Windows 2000 is history for me.

Autodesk - Revit Architecture Services & Support

• Issue: License error [1.1.1.] when attempting to activate in Windows 2000
• Solution: Windows 2000 is not a supported operating system for Revit Architecture 2009.

Tags: windows+2000

Kean's interview with John Walker - Part 3

Did Bill Gates miss an opportunity to make money? Find out in Part 3... 

Through the Interface: An interview with John Walker - Part 3
This is the third part of the series documenting my recent interview with John Walker.