The Sustainable Design Toolbox

Autodesk Sustainability Workshop - Net Zero Energy Building Design

 
The Autodesk Sustainability Team have just launched another great set of educational videos, this time focusing on the built environment.

The series contains four videos covering the following subjects:

• Energy Loads and Net Zero Energy Buildings Strategy
• Passive Heating, Cooling and Ventilation Strategy
• Lighting and Daylighting Design
• Efficient HVAC Design Strategy

You can check them out here:

Net Zero Energy Buildings Sustainability Workshop

 

ECOBIM Clean Tech Partner

 

The Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program supports pioneers in the sustainable design field and my colleague Jerker Hagglund alerted me to one such company in Norway who are benefiting from this program.

Read more about ECOBIM and the services they offer here:

ECOBIM Website

You can find out more about the Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program here:

Autodesk Cleantech

BIM Working Party Strategy Document

 
At a customer BIM event yesterday I polled the audience of approximately 80 people and only two or three had downloaded and read the UK Government's Construction Strategy and the subsequent BIM Working Group Strategy documents released end of May and end of June respectively. For convenience I thought I would post the links to both:

UK Government Construction Strategy

UK Government BIM Working Party Strategy

For anyone working in the UK on government projects these are vital reading as they outline the strategy for improving the performance of the government's estate in terms of cost, value and carbon in the coming years and BIM will play an important part in achieving that.

CIOB Carbon Action Tool

 
Here in the UK, the Chartered Institute of Building has launched an on-line resource for carbon reduction action planning. Worth a look here:

Carbon Action 2050

Revit 2012 Extensions now available

Following on from my recent post about the Roombook Extension, the Revit Architecture 2012 extension set is also now available on the Autodesk Subscription Centre.

This includes the following extensions:

Bridges
Roads and Terrain

Timber
Wood Framing Walls

Modelling
Excel Based Model Generation
Frame Generator
Grids Generator

Miscellaneous
Elements Positioning
Freeze Drawings
Compare Models
Text Generator
Content Generator
Shared Parameters Converter

Revit Architecture 2012 Roombook Extension

Following on from my post last December about the Roombook Extension, many people have been asking me if the 2012 version is available. I can now confirm the 2012 version was made available a few days ago on the Autodesk Subscription Centre and contains useful updates such as:

• Each calculated element is listed with all its single faces.
• Enhancements to prepare Roombook data for further editing in Autodesk Quantity Takeoff 2012.
• Export to DWF/DWFx via native Revit command.
• Roombook data in Revit schedule views.
• Consider material when "by element" is used.

Project Vasari 2.0 is now available

The latest version of Autodesk's conceptual modelling and analysis technology preview, Project Vasari, is now available for download. Updates include:

• Revit 2012 Compatibility
• Import Image to 3D Views
• Import Scaled Satellite Image
• Location Control on the View Cube
• 3Dconnexion 3D Mouse support
• Enhanced Visualisation capabilities
• Formula Driven Component Types
• Split Face for Custom Glazing
• Vasari WikiHelp

You can download it from:

Autodesk Labs

For those of you who have created custom glazing in the past by sketching shapes on to a surface, note that you now need to use the new split face tool:

 

Autodesk Photofly Lunchtime Session in London

 
Dominique Pouliquen, the Product Manager for the Autodesk Reality Capture technologies, will be holding a lunchtime talk at the Arup Fitzroy Street offices on Tuesday 17th May. Arup's have kindly opened this session up to non-employees so if you are in the central London area and would like to hear more about successfully using Photofly and other reality capture technologies please sign up at:

Photofly Session Booking

Please note numbers are limited and you must pre-book.

Conceptual Constructions now listed in metric

The last month has been very busy ramping up for the Autodesk 2012 products and I have neglected to post. With a slightly slower week here in the UK it's time to get back to some blogging.

One of the new features of the Revit 2012 products is the move to a web based, community focused Wikihelp system. The main advantage of this is users can contribute to the help system and share their knowledge, but it also allows Autodesk to quickly fill any gaps in the user documentation.

One such case has been the lack of metric values in the help system for the conceptual construction information used with the conceptual energy analysis tools. This has now been resolved with an update by Lillian Smith of the CEA/Vasari team.

Take a look at:Conceptual Constructions Metric Values

You will still have to convert R values to U values as these have not been listed.

Autodesk Building Design Suite 2012

 
 
Today is the official announcement day for the Autodesk 2012 Product Line. Yesterday saw a launch webcast and if you missed it you can watch the recording here:

Autodesk 2012 Product Webcast

With Suites, this year marks a significant shift in the way Autodesk delivers products to the customer. In the AEC world we are getting the Autodesk Building Design Suites that provide a comprehensive set of design tools to address a range of industry workflows. Each suite will come on a USB drive (the Ultimate Suite is approximately 55Gb uncompressed). Pricing and availability will vary from country to country.

The lineup looks like this:

Autodesk Building Design Suite Standard

AutoCAD®
AutoCAD® Architecture
AutoCAD® MEP
AutoCAD® Structural Detailing
Autodesk® Showcase®
Autodesk® SketchBook® Designer

Autodesk Building Design Suite Premium

AutoCAD®
AutoCAD® Architecture
AutoCAD® MEP
AutoCAD® Structural Detailing
Autodesk® Showcase®
Autodesk® SketchBook® Designer
Autodesk® Revit® Architecture
Autodesk® Revit® MEP
Autodesk® Revit® Structure
Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design

Autodesk Building Design Suite Ultimate

AutoCAD®
AutoCAD® Architecture
AutoCAD® MEP
AutoCAD® Structural Detailing
Autodesk® Showcase®
Autodesk® SketchBook® Designer
Autodesk® Revit® Architecture
Autodesk® Revit® MEP
Autodesk® Revit® Structure
Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design
Autodesk® Navisworks® Manage
Autodesk® Quantity Takeoff
Autodesk® Inventor®

All will include 2012 releases of the various products and interoperabilty has been worked on to improve workflow between the numerous products, for example the new Revit Construction parts can be used in Navisworks and Quantity Takeoff.

Finally, for those of you looking for new features in Revit be sure to check out Dave Light's excellent as usual round-up in his blog. I'll cover more as we near release date.