A moment of silence - The Revit Cow is going into Retirement

Its time to finally say farewell to one of my old friends, The Revit Cow.

I have decided to place the "old girl" into retirement.
It has been a long road and I am happy to say she has taught us so much about how to model complex geometry. Below is a timeline of some (not all) of here appearances in her life and I have to say I was happy to be a part of it.


January 2011 - Zach Kron from Autodesk asks (me) to model a "cow" in Revit to test "wall by parts"
June 2011 - The Revit cow makes an appearance at the Inagural RTCNA Conference
September 2011 - The Revit Cow make an appearance in AUGI World
October 2011 - The Revit Cow becomes the offical mascot of LARUG
May 2012 - The Revit Cow makes an appearance at RTCAUS in my Complex Geometry Class
June 2012 - The Revit Cow makes an appearance at RTCNA in my Complex Geometry Class
December 2012 - The Revit Cow makes an appearance at AU2012 in my Complex Geometry Class
June 2013 - The Revit Cow makes an appearance at RTCNA in my Scale and Morph Class
December 2013 - The Revit Cow makes an appearance at AU2013 in my Scale and Morph Class
June 2014 - The Revit Cow makes an appearance at RTCNA in my Dynamo 101 lab
September 2014 - The Revit Cow makes an appearance at BIM Workshop Dynamo 101 lab

December 2014 - The Revit Cow makes an appearance at AU2014 in my Dynamo For Dummies Lab

I have decided to provided the community all the files of the Revit Cow including the Revit Family as shown,

the Dynamo Design Script version as shown... if you want to recreate the cow using design script just copy the text from the .txt file, double click on the dynamo canvas, paste and click run. You should see the Revit Cow created in Design Script as shown below!!!

Enjoy and keep using the Revit Cow as an education tool to enspire others to do some crazy modeling in Revit, dynamo and help others learn the massing and adaptive component environment in Revit

Join the blog site and then download the Revit Cow Files here

ENJOY Good Bye Old Friend

Watch a raw uncut Practice Session from my hands on lab at AU2014 "Dynamo For Dummies" Lab Exersize 4

I just got back from Autodesk University 2014 and it was the best AU I have ever been too.
I was able to meet a lot of wonderful people, the audience in each of one my classes were spectacular and I got to hang out with the Dynamo Developers in the evening.

I taught a hands-on-lab titled "Dynamo for Dummies"
I practice all my sessions I present many times so I thought it would be fun to share with all my blog readers one of my Practice Sessions for Dynamo For Dummies Lab Ex 4 because I understand that not everyone was able to attend AU2014 and labs are not recorded at AU2014.

This was a practice session so it is raw and unedited. I record my sessions so I could watch them later and make corrections... that is why you will hear me talking and taking notes as I speak.
Enjoy

https://screencast.autodesk.com/Embed/Timeline/437f6a91-91a9-4233-8b91-43a190326f50

Applying IK in the Revit Classical Family Editor (one application... Folding Doors)

I recently taught a lab at RTCNA 2014 "Inverse Kinematics in Revit"
In the lab we covered how to apply IK principals to Revit families.

I wanted to share a video with everyone on how to use IK principles and apply them to the classical family editor. (the folding door) (there is no commentary from me... its pretty simple to follow...there is music though that starts at the 1/3 point of the video.

Its Simple! All you do is  host revolves onto each-other This takes the principle of the "revolve" method and hosts them onto eachother.

This IK method (that uses hosted revolves) could be applied to any family in the classical family editor that has MULTIPLE joints. What do you want to apply it to?

How I Remove seams from Mass and AC revolve surfaces and solids in Revit

Ever want to remove those annoying seams that show up when you create a "revolve" in the Mass and Adaptive component environment for both surfaces and solids as shown in the image below?

The way I have removed them is simply JOIN another piece of geometry to them. 

SOLID REVOLVES

For solids join another solid to it. I use a small cylinder and if I don't want it to show up outside of the solid (a sphere in this case) I hide it within the solid as shown in the image below.

SURFACE REVOLVES

For surfaces, I just use a small void cylinder and "cut" the surface with the void. I don't use a solid cylinder (as the case with the sphere) because solids do not join with surfaces as shown in the image below.

NOTE: When you "cut" a surface with a void or "join" a solid with another solid then you are essentially creating a "new" element that is similar to a Boolean operation in 3dsmax. This new element has no seams!  Hope this helps. 

Dynamo for Revit and Topography and your Thoughts

I plan  (meaning I am hoping) to teach a few classes on Dynamo this year at a few conferences including RTC, AU, and the BIM Workshops.

I would really like to hear your thoughts about Dynamo. If you have any suggestions or comments please post them here on this forum post.  My plan for the dynamo classes this year is to teach a class that is heavy on beginners and heavy on day to day applications.

Below are some of the samples I plan to show in the class that relate to dynamo and topography.

If you are not able to attend any of these conferences, don't worry I will make sure there are other means for you to access this information.

Free Revit 747 and 787 jet family from Marcello

Here are some more free revit jet models, the 747 (added back) and the 787.
I built these about 3 years ago. So here they are!

Revit 747 Family

Revit 787 Family

Subscribe to the blog. Then Return and download these families here.
Use these families as an education tool only....which also means use them at your own risk. Make sure to deconstruct it and enjoy.

Preparing for a Technical Presentation and Class Conference Rankings

I am in the process of developing a course and potential book about how I prepare and deliver a technical presentation. I thought I would write a blog post and show one of the outlines that show the phases that I go through to prepare for a lecture at a conference.  Preparing for a presentation at a conference such as AU or RTC does not happen overnight for me, in fact it takes months of planning as shown below. Stay tuned because I will keep everyone informed on my progress on the class and book.

PREP LECTURE OUTLINE

·        (+-1 year to 11 months prior) The "You can’t do that in that software" phase

·        (11 months to 10 months prior) The "I need a breakthrough" phase

·        (10 months to 9 months prior) The "Hurry, Proposals are due" phase

·        (9 months to 4 months prior) The "Testing" phase

·        (9 months to 4 months prior) The "Example Selection" phase

·        (4 months to 2 months prior) The "Practice" phase

·        (2 months to 1 months prior) The "Handout Writing" phase

·        (1 months to 0 months prior) The "Final Presentation Prep" phase

·        (0 months to 0 days prior) The "Delivery" phase