DP and BIM: BFF

Well, it's spring and there are a few changes around here that I have to let you know about. First of all, I am no longer the sole evangelist for the Manufacturing Industry Group, I am now part of a team of evangelists that resembles the lineups of the great New York Yankee teams of the 60's, 70's and late 90's. Powerhouse is the word that comes to mind, and we will deal with the introductions at a later date, but suffice it to say that it is a VERY strong team and I am proud to be part of it. Oh... the things we are going to show you...

So, this is no longer my blog, but rather it is now "our blog", and without further ado, I will turn this post over to Rob Cohee, Industry Solution Evangelist specializing in Building Product Manufacturing... or BPM... the first of many new acronyms you are all about be innundated with... [grin]

DP and BIM: BFF’s?

Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as the industry begins to collaborate in ways that is challenging contractual agreements on building projects now all of the sudden everyone wants BIM content, aka Revit Families. And the exchange process has to be quick and easy and… Oh yeah, don’t give away the farm when you pass the design to an architectural firm, plus the architect isn’t necessarily looking for something they can create CNC code from anyway. And what about integrating the product into the buildings infrastructure, plugging in MEP elements so that the manufacturers model can participate in the BIM project?

Sounds to me like architects are asking me to make a new lightweight version of the model that I have already exceeded my engineering budget for. I don’t even know if they can accept .SAT, .IGES, or the new one, the all popular .DMWISYUWBATRA (Doesn’t Matter What I Send You U Won’t Be Able to Read it Anyway) file type. Some people prefer the longer version of the new format which is the .DMWISYUWBATRA-YERA (You’ll End up Re-modeling it anyhow).

That’s right, I just came up with the longest acronym in Autodesk history. I’m so proud…there are so many people to thank… tears are welling up… eh eh ehmm.

Ok, sorry about that – very proud moment. SO, you don’t want to give away the farm when people ask for your designs and you don’t want to spend any time making a dummy version of your gazillion part assembly. Groovy, neither did I and now we have something that will make your day (insert dramatic pause and drum roll here..). We now have Shrinkwrap! Stay away from the Seinfeld references here guys… Seriously this is killer functionality that is not only going to allow you to collaborate with people that are asking to include your designs in with their projects; it’s an opportunity for BPE manufacturers (see another acronym – Building Product and Equipment) to drive new business opportunities. How impactful is it for architects to literally cut out one of your designs from a shop drawing and glue it down on to a drawing? (please, please tell me if anyone has heard of or has had to do this…)

Here is how it works in the new AEC Exchange Environment click the option for Shrinkwrap. It’s a lot like Derived in an assembly – and should be used together when you need to get real specific on what gets packaged up, I’ll save that one for another post.

Take a look at the detail here. Bolts, washers, nuts, welds – everything you could put into a model is typically in your Digital Prototype.

You’ll want to play around a bit with the settings to give you the desired result for your company, but for the most part the interface is wicked easy to understand (just move to New Hampshire – had to work in a wicked reference). About 10% will do for me here, patch up the remaining holes and I now have a much more simplified version of this model.

The preview shows me the areas where the parts were removed and the holes that will be filled in for me.

Once I’m done with the shrinkwrap, hit Export Building Components, add the Component Type so that the design matches up with the appropriate SIC codes, include any relevant metadata and hit OK.

It’s going to save out a .ADSK file. That .ADSK will be able to be read in Revit Architecture, Revit Structure, Revit MEP, AutoCAD MEP, and AutoCAD Architecture. The file is as native to those applications as a .RFA (Revit Family file) or a block in the AutoCAD applications.

I’ll blog more on what is included in the file, how it can be integrated into a Revit project, and more in later posts. I’m getting a lot of questions about this new functionality which tells me that the paradigm is shifting so far beyond 2D shop drawings, and block libraries to a true collaboration within the design process. So no worries, I’ll get plenty of mileage out of blogging about AEC Exchange. Who said coming up with topics was hard…? (ask me in two years, right Jay?)

Since I can’t think of a cool pen name…
-Rob