feature focus
Cross-Discipline to a schematic design level of detail. The process of merging the interior existing conditions modeling with the model produced by the Shanghai office was tedious and proved to be a painstaking process, but ultimately was a huge advantage to the architectural and interior design team. The existing conditions modeling for MEP was less useful, due to that fact our Shanghai office only received design intent record documents authored by the engineers of record. They were also asked to begin the modeling prior to the field surveys. This prompted a strategy of using additional levels for the duct and piping work that could be changed to the proper elevation after the field notes were available. This proved to be more problematic than helpful, especially later on in the project, when the additional levels caused confusion. The firm crafted and delivered a full suite of training tailored to the team, as well as Revit training specific to each discipline. The training consisted of 3-5 days (dependant on the discipline and team member availability) of Revit basics, essentials and advanced platform topics. The MEP group also received 2 days of discipline specific training. A trainer was brought in from Autodesk to further leverage 3D Studio Max with Revit. The team also received “Train the Project” styled training as the start date of the modeling efforts approached in earnest. The classes and training material were gathered and recorded (in the form of videos and step by step instructions) into a blog for quick and easy access by the team. The BIM Leadership Group of the firm was frequently consulted during the course of the design and document creation process. Finally, “Just in Time” styled training and troubleshooting sessions were scheduled with individual team members as well as the whole team as needed, delivered both by the firm’s centralized BIM Leadership Group and by key power users from around the firm. The team noted that this level of support allowed them to focus on the project and stay efficient and profitable. From previous project experience we learned that we needed to control the opening and saving times of the models. A Revit team consisting of almost entirely new users is going to be less efficient than the same team in a traditional 2D environment and coupling that with potentially unwieldy models (i.e. models that take 15 to 25 minutes to open) cripples a project team’s profitability and productivity. To get the team on the right track we felt it was crucial to structure model’s set up in such a way to ensure speed. The team was assigned a model (or BIM) manager, who’s responsibility it was to schedule weekly (or regularly occurring) model coordination meetings, schedule and perform model maintenance, and to be the point of contact in regard to the models. Typically, a team member on this project was given a workstation that had 1-2-4 Quad Core processors, with 8-16GB of RAM, and was running Windows Vista Business Edition in 64bit mode.
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www.autodeskcatalog.com/AECEdge
File set up schema From our past experience we had seen that Revit files begin to suffer in terms of performance at about 120 MB in size (mostly Revit 2009 projects running on Windows 32bit operating systems). For piping models this magic number lowers significantly, on some projects the optimum file size for a Plumbing / Fire Protection (PFP) model needed to be as low as 80 MB. For the scope of work planned, the team would approach this number fairly rapidly. The pipe modeling exercise had proven problematic on other projects throughout the firm since it had slowed the performance of any multi-discipline model in production significantly. The approach we settled on was to break up the models by groups of f loors instead of by discipline. Ultimately, we ended up with a low, mid, and high rise model for Architectural/ Interiors, Mechanical, and Electrical, (referred to as the “AME” models) and the same for Plumbing/ Fire Protection. These models were referred to by the team as the “working” models. The “working” models would eventually be linked together in a master or composite model. The 3D modeling as well as the annotation, tagging and dimensioning was done in the “working” models. If the team deviated from this approach they would end up having to use Generic Annotation symbols instead of intelligent tags. In Revit 2010, tags cannot reference an element in a linked model (see figure 1). Each “working” model had roughly 10 worksets on average. The preliminary testing had shown that if a designer only opened the “working” model whennecessary, with only the worksets they needed for the tasks at hand, the performance of the files was on par with CAD files. In order to ensure users kept their work on the appropriate workset, a user workset named “Open/ Closed” was established in each model. This workset that was not visible in any views and was set as the active workset before a user Synced to Central. Upon opening their files or on completion of a Sync to Central “Open / Closed” would be the active workset. This would act as a reminder, the “string around your finger”. When a user began modeling they would receive a message that the object they placed was not be visible in their view. Then they would then realize that they needed to set the appropriate workset for their work. The composite model was typically referred to as the “full” model by the team. The team needed to issue and schedule all sheets, rooms, and light fixtures for the entire project together, retain the links between f loor plans and sections, and maintain consistent standards for line weights, text styles, and revisions. In order to accomplish this a workset was created for each model that was brought together in the “full” model. This would allow the team to load only the information they needed at the time, without sacrificing the consistency and coordination they hoped to gain out of Revit. Since the sheets were all created in the “full” model, the view that was placed onto the sheet had to have a companion view
summer_2010