Category Archives: Platform

Parametric Massing with Ellipses

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The BIM TroubleMaker posted about making a parametric ellipsoid in Revit/ Vasari and Zach Kron posted his version of this.  It was great timing as I was doing a comparison take on a similar type issue.  Dezi was creating an elliptical shaped form in Rhino/Grasshopper that could represent an arena or stadium for her company and I thought I would do something similar in Vasari at the same time so we could compare.

I started with a generic adaptive component family, and created an ellipse family similar to the one Zach had shown.

I then loaded that into a mass family.  In the mass family I created two splines, one on the XZ axis and one on the YZ plane.  To create the splines I used Reference Points hosted to the two different vertical ref planes. I then used Spline by points to create the splines. I then created a vertical reference line at the intersection of the two reference planes.

When placing the ellipse family I hosted it to it to the vertical reference line created earlier.  I then selected the placement points of the ellipse and picked the splines as new hosts.  To copy the ellipse up I selected the adaptive point at the center of the ellipse.   After copying that family up a few times I had the frame work for my mass building shape.

I decided that it would be nice to use the Vasari Sliders to adjust the mass so I added parameters to the reference points that made up the splines.

Once this was finished I created a Curtain Panel Pattern Based family that kind of represented a space frame, loaded that in to the mass and divided the surface.  Another post on this later…

That is what I came up with.

I quickly changed the ellipse shape to a rectangle but kept all the same parameters, loaded that into the mass family and changed every other family to a rectangle added my space frame pattern to only a portion of the mass and came up with this shape…

Ran the wind loads from Vasari onto the entire mass and got this…

Revit Basics – The Spacebar

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This is an excerpt from an article that I wrote for AUGIWorld.

In my article I called this section “The Magical Spacebar”. No, inserting spaces between words in text is not the magical function of the spacebar.  When inserting a component, new users tend to place the component somewhere in their workspace and then will alter said component to their liking.  These alterations often include rotating the element.  What the beginner doesn’t know – and often takes a long time to learn – is that hitting the spacebar before placing the component will rotate it.  Furthermore, if hovering over another element in the view, the spacebar will cause the component to orient to the same direction. Pressing the spacebar again will then rotate the component 90 degrees from that direction.  Finally, if hovering over an intersection, the element will only rotate 45 degrees instead of 90.

In addition to rotating a component prior to placement, the spacebar can also be used to rotate or to flip elements (or multiple elements) that are already placed.  Using the spacebar to rotate after placing a component can be a little troublesome because the base of the rotation is the insertion point of the component, so rotating in this manner may require more moving and aligning.  The flipping works with any element that has a flip control (the two little blue arrows that appear when an element is selected).  For example, select a wall, or several walls, and use the spacebar to toggle the walls interior/exterior sides.

Another application of the spacebar is to use it in conjunction with elements that use the offset option.  While sketching an element with an offset option, the spacebar will toggle the direction of the offset.

Finally, when doing anything – from drawing a line to changing a dimension – the spacebar can also be used in place of the feet and inches symbol.  So, instead of typing 5’4”, for example, simply type 5 4 and the result will be the same.  Using the dash key also works in the same manner as the space bar (5-4), which is useful because the dash is one of the keys on the number pad.  Please note, however, that the dash approach only works between feet and inches; a space is still required between whole and fractional inches, i.e. 5-4 ½ works, but 5-4-1/2 does not.

Revit Basics – Snaps

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This is an excerpt from an article that I wrote for AUGIWorld.

If a new Revit user is an AutoCAD veteran, one piece of good news is that the object snaps are greatly similar from one program to the other; it is just a matter learning what snap options are available in Revit, where to find all of them, and when they are particularly useful.  Tutorial literature likely points out the snaps options dialog box, found on the Manage Tab, which provides much useful information.  What a newer user might not know, or might forget to use, are the two-key shortcuts for snaps and the snaps overrides.  To use a particular snap, type its two-key shortcut while drawing an element (the shortcuts are shown in parentheses in the aforementioned dialog box).  For a particularly useful application of the two-key snap shortcuts, try using the snap centers shortcut to rotate about the base point of an element with a very large radius.  To temporarily turn snaps on or off, right click while drawing an element to find the snaps override options.  These tools are well known for users of other programs, but are forgotten when working in Revit.

Revit Database Link

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For those of you out there who have been using the Revit Data Base Link from the subscription site will be happy to know they have posted a new version for Revit 2012. Please log on to YOUR subscription site and download the new version.

The new release is intended to address the following issues:
  1. The following error when attempting to export:    Error: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt. 
  2. A blank RoomFromToAssociations table caused by project phasing.

 

 

Revit Basics – The Filter Button

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This is an excerpt from an article that I wrote for AUGIWorld.

When multiple items are selected, it is a common practice to use the Filter option that appears on the Ribbon’s Modify/Multi-Select Contextual Tab only when multiple items are selected.

Alternately, one might use a keyboard shortcut such as “FF” to activate the filter.  One may have even noticed that there is a tiny filter symbol at the bottom right of the screen, on the Status Bar.  What is lesser known is that clicking on this symbol will activate the filter command.