From Autodesk® Architectural Desktop to Facility Management Reports
How to Misuse and Abuse Autodesk® Architectural Desktop
Inside Scoop: Content and Catalogs in Autodesk® Building Systems
Autodesk® VIZ Render: Worth a Thousand Words
The morning started with a session on Facilities Management With ADT. It was based around a 3rd party package, FaciliCAD, which coordinates AutoCAD/ADT object data with a SQL Database. There was a useful overview of the BOMA measurement standard. The reassuring news was that although BOMA appears simple implementation can be confusing and conflicting depending on who wants to use the measure. We have this problem and are using a “modified BOMA” scheme for our building measures.
I also got the chance to meet John Janzen who co-hosted this session. Earlier in the year I contacted him regarding his CADMIN ADT Content Standards Management product. It was good to meet him and get news that an update is soon due to his product. We will be getting this to bring the bulk of our legacy store files up to date as part of upgrading them to ADT projects. There is a mixture of versions in our plans dating back to our initial ADT 2 work in some cases. When you only revisit store plans to relay every 3 – 5 years a lot can of have happened in the software world. I think migration of legacy content is one of the biggest hurdles facing the BIM concept. Computers change fast and buildings are around a long time.
How to Misuse and abuse ADT showed use of walls as countertops, doors as sinks, curtain walls as seating, parking and a few other tricks. It was a demo of how standard objects can be misused to good effect. This is common for us as we misuse ADT’s object for all sorts of things when creating fittings.
I met Tony Sinisi and Bill Glennie at the ADT expo booth. Bill was in the middle of demonstrating end cap creation on compound wall styles to an ADT user. In addition to saying hello I also learnt a few tips on end caps, thanks Bill!
Then was straight into another class with Rebecca Rickus on Content and Catalogs for ABS. It was a tour through the object types ABS offers (Parametric and MV Parts) and how its Catalog System is used to share them. I came to AU primarily to learn about ABS content as it is very different to anything seen in ADT/AutoCAD. There are not many users in Australasia so no local training yet. Thanks to these sessions I now have a good grounding into how it all works. I still have a huge amount to learn but at least now know where to start. Thanks to the ABS team for their efforts in the lab and other sessions.
The last session was a tag team presentation from James Smell and Paul Aubin. Between them they gave a great introduction to the ADT/Viz Render including the use of I-drop content, block substitution and web sourced IES lighting data. The resulting interior scene looked really nice.
The evening event was the main conference dinner and entertainment. Dinner was a Buffet and the entertainment opened with magician, Jay Alexander. I must admit I’m usually not that interested in magic, skeptical nature showing, but his act was a great mix of comedy & magic.
Don McMillan, an engineer-turned-comic, followed him. If that description had me worried he then announced he is the only comic known to feature PowerPoint in his act....
He started with a demo of common PowerPoint mistakes, proving every one by doing it to excess, and then launched into a multi-slide demolition of two well-known facts:
- Engineers aren’t funny
- Lengthy PowerPoint shows cause sleep-inducing boredom.
At end of a long day, towards the end of a long week, he had everyone roaring with laughter. He had some content directly relevant to AU, Autodesk and CAD mixed with general observations on the human condition. You can see him in action on his website, http://www.donmcmillan.com, including a demo video. It’s a 22 mb download but well worth a look. It was an excellent evening but not over yet!
I grabbed my camera and went on a Casino tour. Took a lot of photos hoping to capture the amazing night lighting (and night life) but won't know how they turn out until Friday. I hope Canons 300d replacement is out soon as will be going digital when its available. Film is great quality but limiting when you want to experiment with low light/long exposures etc. I missed the instant feedback you get with digital, next year...
