augiworld marapr10 lr

8/8/2019 AUGIWorld MarApr10 lr

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March/April 2010

Also in this issue:• How do you use AutoCAD Civil 3D?

• Groups Inside Revit Structure



Table of Contents

EditorialManaging EditorMarilyn [email protected]

Technical EditorDavid [email protected]

Contributing AuthorsThe CAD ManagerMark Kiker

Education & Training

Antonio FonteneleADNKean Walmsley

AutoCAD ArchitectureMelinda Heavrin

AutoCAD ElectricalShafali Pandita

AutoCAD Civil 3D John Evans

Autodesk Revit ArchitectureChris FoxFelix M. Gonzalez

Autodesk Revit MEP

Todd Shackleford

Autodesk Revit StructurePhil Russo

Art & ProductionTim [email protected]

SubmissionsWe encourage prospective authors tocontact our editors or [email protected] to discuss article submissions,guidelines and processes.

Advertising

[email protected]

AUGI Board of Directors, 2010Bill AdamsDonnie GladfelterDavid HarringtonPeter JamtgaardMark W. KikerPaul KirillKenneth Leary John MorganDario Passariello Jane Smith

AUGI Ocers, 2010Mark Kiker, President

David Harrington, Sr. Vice President John Morgan, Vice PresidentPaul Krill, Treasurer Bill Adams, Secretary

© Copyright 2010 – Autodesk User Group International.

All rights reserved.

re 8

2 w w w . A U G I . c o m

4 The CAD Manager6 Peopleware, Part 2

12 Creating ScheduleTables in ACA 2010

16 Put a Shine onThose Floors!

20 Saving Circuits toan Icon Menu

22 Using GroupsInside RevitStructure 2010

26 Schedules for Life

30 Civil 3D – How Do You Use It?

34 Creating a RevitMEP Fire AlarmFamily

http://www.augi.com/




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It does not take very long for most CADmanagers to realize that Autodesk® prod-ucts are not the only things they need tomanage. Working in a design environmentbrings several tools together in the effortto move a design from concept to comple-tion. Autodesk plays a major part in theprocess, but others tools ll in areas where

special needs may exist.Third-party or partner products are ad-

ditional software tools that work inside,alongside, and in cooperation with theCAD and BIM tools that we use every day.These tools embed themselves into theinterface or add additional dialog boxes orcommands that enable or expand the tech-nology that comes out of the box.

Many of us are working in a mixed housethat contains multiple tools and multipleCAD platforms. We may have multipleplotters and we work on multiple projects,

using multiple standards, with multiple us-ers. How do we keep it all in order? Howmany plates are you spinning?

The goals should remain the same nomatter what mixture we may have.

We need to establish several overarch-ing perspectives that drive our ofces andteams. Keeping these things in mind willhelp keep the mixture from becoming apoisonous potion.

Unied Document Output – makesure that all tools are producing outputthat is in line with your standard. Colors,pen weights, plotting output, and docu-mentation consistency is a must.

Fully trained Users – with an expand-ing set of tools, it is harder to keep every-one up to date on all products. Training

needs to be a focus from now on.Productivity Enhancements – review

every tool with the goal of increasing pro-ductivity. This may seem like a given, butmany tools are selected because someonehas used it before or because it is cheap.

Ease of Management – make surethat the tools all work together. Nothing

is worse than having one tool make a leunusable by another.

Clean CAD Files – review the creationand editing functions of all the tools to verify that they do not “mess up” your les.

Sharing Documents – when passingles on to others, no product should makethem difcult to work with for those out-

side your rm.Solid Client Deliverables – the over-

arching goal of it all—your clients deserveproperly working les.

Where do you nd third-party products?

Ask those in your rm who are in tune with the tools that you use now. They may know where to nd other utili-ties to increase the impact of what youhave already.

Ask the new hires. When someone new joins your rm, sit with them to nd out what they used at their previous rm. Findout what the tools did for them. Find out which ones worked and which ones failed.

Ask AUGI. Go to the forums andsearch or post a question. Look forthose who have used the tools you arereviewing and see what they posted.Ask Autodesk and your reseller. The re-sellers are in the trenches and in tune with what others are using. They hear the suc-cessful stories and the troubles that oth-ers are having. They know the trends inthe industry.

Autodesk also has a webpage with an ex-tensive list… go to http://partnerproducts.autodesk.com

The CADManager


Autodesk PartnerProducts





M a r / A p r 2010 5

There are lists for CAD and Geospatialand for Media and Entertainment

This site is maintained so that you cannd the latest Partner Products. It is greatfor seeing what is out there. You can searchand sift through the available tools and nd what you need. You can lter by category and nd the ones that apply only to yourtoolset.

Select from the list of products on theleft sash to lter the list.

You can also rummage through thelist alphabetically

This is a very valuable list of products.There are too many in there to count. Takea look and enjoy the wide variety of prod-ucts available to support the Autodesk environment you have created.

Mark W. Kiker is president

of the AUGI Board of Di-

rectors. He is a NationalCAD Standards Project

Team Member and team

member of the National

BIM Standard. Mark is

general editor of BLAUGI and also publishes

caddmanager.com, the CADD Manager’s

journal, as well as the caddmanager.com

blog. He is a returning faculty member at

Autodesk University. He is currently chief

information ocer for HMC Architects in

Ontario, California.

Celebrate 20 Yearswith AUGI!








Peopleware, Part 2

Education& Training


In the rst part of this “CAD and Peo-pleware” series ( AUGIWorld , January/

February 2010), author Antonio Fontenelediscussed the pros and cons of training

existing employees versus hiring new pro-

fessionals to ll open positions. In this is-sue, Fontenele continues with tips on hir-

ing outside the rm. - Editor

To hire the highly skilled design-ers needed for CAD positions, you willhave to modify your traditional job de-

scriptions to specify the technical skillsthat the candidates need in order to useAutoCAD® correctly and effectively in your ofce.

To determine the required skills, review your current projects and the necessitiesassociated with them. Also, consult yourexisting staff and your CAD manager. Youmight even check newspapers, magazines,or online job search websites to come up with a list of qualications your candidatesshould possess.

Some of the typical qualications

include:• Architectural, engineering, or design

degree from a respected university.• At least two or three years of experience

in a design ofce.

• Proven experience in the productionof contract documents sets, schematicdrawings, design presentations, proj-ects, and other drawings. Decide if you

need experience in a particular special-ization such as hospitals or school build-ings, commercial or residential designs.There is an obvious benet from hiring a





M a r / A p r 2010 7

person who has experience in your rm’sspecialty areas.

• Experience in using other types of software such as Corel, Photoshop,and others.

The hiring processOnce you have nished modifying the

qualications that your ideal candidates

should have, you might also need to mod-ify the way you conduct the interview andevaluate your candidates.

An interview of a candidate for a jobthat requires the use of AutoCAD shouldinclude these components:

1. Review of résumé and portfolio. Usethese items to obtain information on your candidate’s breadth of experience,responsibilities on the previous job, anddecision-making capacity. Be sure tocheck for items such as Autodesk Cer-tication. A certied professional willbring a lot of AutoCAD experience to your company.

2. Review of AutoCAD drawings. Whiletraditional printed drawings can show what the candidate has produced usingAutoCAD, what they don’t show is howthe candidate did the work. A growingnumber of design ofces ask that can-didates include DWG les to demon-strate their prociency level and degreeof organization. This le can help youdetermine not only drawing quality andorganization, but also these importantelements:• Basic drawing congurations

such as drawing limits and layerorganization.

• Customization level and reuse of work, indicated by the existence of blocks, text styles, layer standards,linetype styles, and so on. You canmeasure the customization level when you are opening the les. For

example, if you are asked about any absent menu when you open the le,this means menus were personalized.The use of external references (xrefs),typefaces, AutoLISP routines, andother characteristics shows that thele was created in a highly customizedsystem. Another sign of customizationcan be found after you open the leand access the dialog box RENAME(type RENAME in the commandline and press ENTER), which ana-lyzes all the items that are available to

be renamed.• Intensive use of blocks. You can ana-

lyze the blocks, their appearance,name, and insertion point choice.

• Computer memory usage. Use the

PURGE command and count howmany blocks are not in use as un-used layers and linetypes present inthe drawing. If the le size is largedue to the presence of unused con-tent, the candidate for the job posi-tion will need training in optimizingAutoCAD resources.

3. AutoCAD tests. Some companies ap-ply tests to evaluate the skills of draftersand designers in their use of AutoCAD.Products such as AutoCAD Evalua-tor from software house Prosee offersmultiple-choice tests. The candidatechooses answers and the software auto-matically shows the scores and analyzesthe results, sorted by question catego-ries. Such tests can be quite useful indiscovering a candidate’s knowledgelevel. Remember, though, that these

tests cannot evaluate knowledge related

to design and project experience.4. Training center reputation. The repu-

tation of the places from which a can-didate received training in AutoCADcan also serve as an indication of theirskills in that software. If a candidate’sprimary training was received at a university, you need to verify that placeand its resources to evaluate the valid-ity of that training. If the school wasan ofcial Autodesk Training Center,then it has been Autodesk “approved”to certain minimum requirements re-garding instructors’ competence andcomputing resources.

5. Information from former employers. Youcan ask for information about a candidatefrom his or her former employers andthis will help you to analyze his/her dedi-cation, performance, and knowledge.

Salaries and benetsIn many cities, the number of good de-

signers who specialize in CAD is low in re-lation to the demand for them. Therefore,good designers hope to receive many joboffers as well as salaries above the average.Because of this, some design ofces optto train existing employees to help reducehuman resources costs. A good, in-house

CAD training program is a welcome ben-et to both existing employees and thosecandidates you wish to hire.

Temporary JobsIn these economic times, more ofces

are opting to use temporary employees in-stead of hiring new staff members. Whiletalented temporary help can sometimes be

found through “word of mouth” among in-dustry colleagues or networking websitessuch as Linked In (www.linkedin.com), forexample, many design ofces turn to jobagencies to help them locate talent.

These agencies maintain a database of designer contacts and take responsibility for the labor documentation. Sometimesthey pay the designers, too. Using jobagencies, design ofces can contract tem-porary help without having to worry aboutthe details involved in hiring full-time staff.

The job agency might do an adequate job of “ltering” candidates and send-

ing you top-notch professionals, but youstill must go through the interview pro-cess to make sure the candidate in ques-tion is a good t and that his or her skillset matches your requirements. This isparticularly true in cases of a long-term assignment.

Many ofces discover that the em-ployment of temporary teams is a good way to locate efcient candidates for adened period.

Agency rules vary, so make sure you un-derstand up front how the temporary em-ployee is to be paid and whether benetsneed to be made available. In the eventthat you decide to offer the temporary employee a full-time job with your rm– which sometimes happens – make sure you understand the agency’s policy withregard to that.

Antonio Fontenele is a

Brazilian architect, ATC

Faculty, AUGI Training

Program Faculty, and

member of AUGI since

2001. He is an AutoCAD

2009 Certied Associate

and AutoCAD 2009 Certied Professional.

You can contact him at

[email protected].

A good, in-house CAD trainingprogram is a welcome beneftto both existing employees andthose candidates you wish to hire.




Autodesk has a long history of working with and supporting third-party innovatorsthrough formalized programs such as theAutodesk Developer Network (ADN). Inthis article, Autodesk’s Kean Walmsley talksabout a program at Autodesk Labs dubbed“ADN Plugin of the Month” (http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/ADN_plugins), which shines the spotlight on promisingnew plugins for Autodesk products.

What it is…Since September 2009, Autodesk Labs

(http://labs.autodesk.com) has been host-ing free, monthly Autodesk productplugins provided by the Autodesk Devel-

oper Network team. A new plugin showsup each month, having been developedeither by a member of the technical staff supporting ADN members (DeveloperTechnical Services—the team I’m proud

to say that I manage as my “day job”) or by a member of the network.

Why it is…There were two primary drivers behind

this initiative: rst, to solve real problemsthat have been frustrating customers, andsecond, to encourage people to take theplunge and start developing their ownplugins for their favorite Autodesk prod-uct. Each plugin is provided with fullsource code that people can extend fortheir own purposes.

By taking the hood off the implementa-tion of these mini-features, we hope thatpeople will see the relative simplicity—and

signicant benet—of developing customtools that are specic to the needs of theirbusiness. Autodesk’s success, over the years,has in no small part been due to the belief that tailored software—whether this custom-

ization is done in-house or by a third party—allows our customers to maximize the returnon their technology investment and greatly streamline their use of our software.

Where it started…So where did the idea for this initiative

originally come from? It all started at theend of April 2009 when Mark Doel, who works for an Autodesk customer in HongKong, contacted Autodesk about somefrustrations both he and other Autodeskcustomers have had with the naming con- vention AutoCAD uses when publishingPDF documents. A member of my team,Gopinath Taget, worked with Mark to

identify and implement a solution that would address the problem. On deliveringthis to Mark, we happened to ask if there were other issues he’d hit that had causedsimilar frustrations.

Beyond

Autodesk:Are you plugged in?





10 w w w . A U G I . c o m

polyline, as selected by the user. This tool will be of use to people needing to exportcomplex curves to an environment—suchas a CNC system—that may not supportthat particular type of object natively.

Screenshot for Inventor

(February 2010)This is a version of November’s pluginadapted to work with Autodesk Inventor.Use it to capture parts of 2D drawingsor 3D parts and assemblies, remappingthe foreground and background colors orconverting the entire image to grayscale.This is very handy for anyone who needs toquickly capture portions of Inventor mod-els and drawings for inclusion in externaldocuments.

Batch Publish for AutoCAD

(March 2010)This plugin automates the use of AutoCAD’s publish command to cre-ate DWF and/or PDF les for a folderof DWGs: useful for people who need to

maintain lighter-weight versions of theirmodels for viewing and markup.

Wherever pos-sible we’ve madesure the plugins workfor multiple releasesof our software: allAutoCAD plugins will work for releasesgoing back to Auto-CAD 2007 (both 32-and 64-bit versions, when available) as well as the various,corresponding Auto-CAD-based verticalproducts.

If you would like topropose a prospectiveplugin of the month— whether you have an

idea for a plugin you’dlike to see developedor have a plugin you would like to makeavailable to the usercommunity of your favorite Autodesk prod-uct—send us an emailat [email protected] or post acomment on my blog

(http://blogs.autodesk.com/through-the-interface).

About the AutodeskDeveloper Network(http://autodesk.com/joinadn)

Membership in the Autodesk Devel-oper Network (ADN) provides individualsand companies with the help they need todevelop software based on Autodesk tech-nology. Some of the benets include:

• Access to Autodesk software: we provide licenses for your developmentstaff.

• Technical assistance: my team provides training, support, and mentor-ing around our products’ ApplicationProgramming Interfaces (APIs).

• Business assistance: members of the

ADN team are avail-able to help withquestions companieshave about bringingsoftware to market.• A wa renes sof new products andAPIs: we hold an-nual conferences and

online events to helppeople get advancedknowledge about fu-ture product features,to help companies

plan their development activities. While a good number of the 3,300 com-

panies belonging to ADN are commercialsoftware providers or consultants, moreand more customers are joining ADN,having seen the value in a tailored solution.

This year we’re also holding our annual

DevCamps, where ADN members get thechance to attend a multi-day event held

near one of our development centers. This

year we have a Manufacturing DevCampin Lake Oswego, Oregon, from June 2-4and an AEC DevCamp in Waltham, Mas-sachusetts, from June 7-9. These eventsare great opportunities to learn about ourproducts and how to develop with them,as well as getting to network with my teamand the engineers who build our software.

Kean Walmsley has been

with Autodesk since 1995,

focusing on providing pro-

gramming support, consulting, training, and

evangelizing Autodesk

software to external de-

velopers. He has worked for Autodesk in a

number of countries: he started his career in

the UK and has since moved to Switzerland,

the United States, and India. He and his fam-

ily have now settled back in Switzerland.

Kean’s current position is Senior Manager of

Developer Technical Services (DevTech), the

worldwide team of API gurus providing

technical services through the Autodesk De-

veloper Network. Kean also spends timeblogging about developing on Autodesk

platform products at http://blogs.autodesk.

com/through-the-interface, a popular

Autodesk-related blog.

Figure 6: Screenshot for Inventor

Figure 7: Batch Publish for AutoCAD

Figure 5: Facet Curve for AutoCAD

A new plugin shows up each

month having been developed

either by a member of the

technical staff supporting

ADN members or by a

member of the network.





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12 w w w . A U G I . c o m12

S

chedule tables have evolvedthrough many version of AutoCAD® Architecture software.Schedule tables are created to

graphically represent information specicto objects in your drawing. For example, you may want a schedule table for objectssuch as doors or windows. You may even want a schedule table for room nishes orspace inventory. There are many possibili-ties for the use of schedule tables.

Let’s look at how to create a scheduletable in AutoCAD Architecture 2010.

Creating schedule table

stylesSchedule table styles are used to control

the appearance and the content of scheduletables. A schedule table style for the type of schedule table you want to create must becontained in the drawing. When a sched-ule table style is copied into a drawing, dataformats and property set denitions speci-ed in the style are also copied. Property data formats and property set denitions will be discussed later in this article.

Like many entities of ACA, schedule

table styles are created and edited in theStyle Manager under the Manage tab of the Ribbon. To create a new style, expandDocumentation Objects, right-click onSchedule Table Styles, and click new. En-ter a name for the new style and hit enter.

Next, you will edit the options for theschedule table style. The eight tabs youhave to choose from are as follows.

• General is where you would add adescription, if desired. You can alsoclick on Notes and add a note and/ora reference document.

• Default Format allows you to specify the format you want for your newschedule table style. This includestext appearance, matrix symbol, andcell size.

• Applies To enables you to specify which objects you want the scheduletable style to track. This could be assimple as a polyline or a door. Thiscould also be several ACA objects,depending on what information you wish to include in your schedule table.

• Columns allows you to add columnsto represent properties that are re-ported in the schedule table style. Youcan also add column headings, editcolumn data, and edit column place-ment in your style (see Figure 1).

• Sorting lets you specify the sort or-der of each row within the schedule

table style.

• Layout allows you to specify theformat of the table title, the col-umn headings, and the matrixcolumn headings.

• Classications enables you to assigna group of named properties to vari-ous objects. These properties assist incontrolling how objects are displayedand scheduled.

• Display Properties allows you tospecify the visibility, line type, layer,and other display properties of theschedule table style you are creating.

Once your style has been created, youcan drag and drop it onto your tool pal-ette for quick access. You can also add theschedule table to the Annotation tab onthe Ribbon by using the CUI. I highly rec-ommend doing this if you plan to use yournew schedule table style frequently.

Property data formats andproperty set denitions

Before you create a schedule table, you will need to attach the property sets thatare referenced in the schedule table styleto the objects and object styles. These at-tached property sets become the contain-ers for the data that will appear in yourschedule table. A schedule table extractsthe data from objects and displays it in thetable. Data is not saved in the table itself.

Property set denitions are createdand edited in the Style Manager underthe Manage tab of the Ribbon. To cre-ate a new property set denition, ex-

CreatingScheduleTables inACA 2010

AutoCAD ARCHITECTURE





M a r / A p r 2010 1 3

pand Documentation Objects, right-clickProperty Set Denitions, and click new.Enter a name for the new denition andclick enter. As with the Schedule TableStyle, you will want to check which enti-

ties your new Denition Applies To. Now you want to click on the Denition tab andadd Property denitions as needed (seeFigure 2). Click Apply and OK when youare nished. Property Set Denitions are

added to objects throughthe properties palette, ex-tended data tab.

A property data formatis applied to each deni-tion within a property setdenition. Property dataformats are created andedited in the Style Man-

ager under the Manage tabof the Ribbon. To create anew property data format,expand DocumentationObjects, right-click Prop-erty Data Formats, andclick new. Enter a namefor the new format andclick enter.

Now you want to clickon the Formatting tab.Here, you will need to

specify how you want theformatting to appear. Fillin all information pertinentto the format you are cre-ating. Click Apply and OK when you are nished.

Insert a scheduletable

Begin by opening theAnnotation tab of the Rib-bon or opening your toolpalette (depending on where you placed yournew schedule table style)and selecting the ScheduleTable you created.

Next, select the objects you wish to include in theschedule table or you canpress enter to schedule anexternal drawing. Objectsselected that are not of the type specied for theschedule table will auto-

matically be ltered out of the drawing.Next, you need to specify

in the drawing area the in-sertion point for the upper-left corner of the scheduletable and then specify thelower-right corner of thetable or you can press en-ter to scale the scheduletable to the current draw-ing scale (see Figure 3).

If your schedule table

contains question marks inany of the cells, the property set denitionthat contains that property is not attachedto an object or object style. If you haveempty cells or dashes within cells, this in-

Figure 1: Schedule Table Style – Add Column.

Figure 2: Dene a property data format.



14 w w w . A U G I . c o m

dicates that the property set denition is at-tached but data is either not available or isnot entered for that object or object style.

It is important to note that property data formats, property set denitions, andschedule table styles cannot be changedthrough RefEdit. Changes made throughRefEdit seem to work, but the drawing willrevert to the previous settings when savedback to the xref le.

If you are using an xref le and wantchanges made to the schedule table, you will need to open the xref drawing directly and make your changes there.

Updating a schedule tableA schedule table will update changes

automatically when the automatic updateoption is turned on. This option can beturned on by right clicking on the scheduletable style on the tools palette and select-

ing properties. Under Selection you canchoose Add New Objects Automatically.If this option is turned off, you can man-

ually update a schedule table. To do this,select the schedule table, right-click, and

click Update Schedule Table. Please notethat when you select a schedule table in your drawing, the Schedule Table Tabappears in the Ribbon. Updates and editscan be performed straight from the Rib-bon. (See Figure 4.)

You can also add objects to or removeobjects from a schedule table after it hasbeen inserted in the drawing. All youhave to do is select the schedule table,right-click, and click Selection. Nextclick either Add or Remove, dependingon what you want to do. You then selectthe objects in the drawing that you wantto add to or remove from the table andpress enter.

ConclusionSchedule tables are useful and widely

used tools in the architecture industry.Creating your own schedule table styles

can help increase your productivity. It surebeats manually drawing a table, manually placing text in each cell, then manually updating text changes. I challenge you togo through the steps to create your own

schedule table style and observe the powerat your ngertips!

Melinda Heavrin is a CAD

Coordinator for Norton

Healthcare in Louisville,Kentucky. She can be

reached for comments

and questions at

[email protected].

Figure 3: Annotation Ribbon

Figure 4: Update schedule table.





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REVIT ARCHITECTURE

16 w w w . A U G I . c o m

Editor’s note:

In this column we concentrate on

modeling techniques for a common

item that is often under-used, the ba-sic oor.

–Chris Fox, AUGI Revit Editor

As a building designer or drafter, youmay feel shy about putting energy intomodeling oors or slabs. At an extreme,one could probably go for years doing proj-ects in Revit without ever really creatinga oor. After all, you can fake them easily enough in plan and elevation views, and who really uses oor schedules anyway?

Readers of my Autodesk® Revit® col-umns will know by now that I have alwaysadvocated making a complete, accuratemodel as the most effective, efcient, and

quickest method of creating your con-struction documents. Floor objects, prop-erly created and nished, hold and display a wealth of information that is tedious, dif-cult, or simply not accurate when createdby 2D drafting.

In this article I will outline many tech-niques for creating and managing oors;not all of them will be equally useful to alldesigners at all times, but knowing how toemploy the myriad techniques that Revitholds for working with oors will at somepoint save you time and grief.

Etch a sketchThe Floor tool on the Home tab in

Revit Architecture shows four options:Floor, Structural Floor, Floor by Face,and Floor Slab Edge. (In AutodeskRevit Structure, the Floor tool options areStructural Floor, Architectural Floor, andSlab Edge). In Revit Architecture, youcan simply ignore the Structural Floor op-tion. Any oor you create using this hasthe same instance and type properties as a

regular (Architectural) oor, and you can-not tick the Structural box in the instanceproperties anyway! Structural oors cre-ated in Revit Structure will display cer-tain structural properties when viewed inRevit Architecture.

A wordabout nomen-clature: RevitArchi tec turemakes a dis-tinction be-tween a oor

and a slab.Slabs are foun-dation items,i.e., they sup-port other objects as theirprimary func-tion. However,

the Structural Analysis/Structural Usageeld of a oor’s instance properties willshow Slab, and that same eld of a Slab will show Foundation. In Revit Architec-

ture you place a Foundation Slab by usingthe Foundation tool from the Structuralpanel on the Home tab.

Floors are sketched items unless you are working with mass objects (Floor by Face).Slab Edges are applied to existing oors.

Put a Shine on Those Floors!Creating and Finishing Floors in Revit

Figure 1: The Floor tool on theHome tab in Revit Architec-ture.






M a r / A p r 2010 1 7

Both of these techniques will be coveredin a later paragraph. You always have topick Finish Floor when in sketch mode,and sketches have to be complete: no caps,no overlapping lines. You can create andedit oor sketches in plan or 3D views.

Working through a oor sketch is oneplace to make haste slowly; take the timeto create your oor boundary carefully,

with appropriate constraints, and it willex as needed later on. Learn the sketchoptions (line, rectangle, circle, etc.) so they become second nature; 3D modeling isbuilt on 2D drafting.

Pick ‘emThe default oor sketch option is to Pick

Walls; Revit assumes that by the time youare creating oors, you have placed at least your external walls. When you pick walls you have a choice to have the oor extend

into the wall to a core layer. This will affecthow the oor and wall display in section views. You can pick lines as well, such asedges of model objects, lines from a CAD

le, or grids. When you pick items you can

specify an offset. Revit Structure has a PickSupports option as well.Pick options, combined with TAB + se-

lect, can greatly speed up your sketchingand make it more accurate. Whenever pos-sible, do not trace lines endpoint to end-point. Let the software nd the line for youand you can edit your sketch later if theoriginal line is too short or too long. Split,Trim, Extend, Offset, and Align are alwaysavailable on the Modify tab. Use themconstantly to rene oor sketches and yourmodeling will become precise and con-

dent very quickly.

Mass appeal When you use Massing as part of Con-

cept Design, you can create oors, walls,

and roofs directly from themass shape and these can beedited by changing the mass.

Making built oors frommasses is a two-step process:create Mass Floors inside themass, and then use those tocreate Floor by Face. Select

a mass object and click MassFloors on the context tab thatappears. In the dialog, specify the levels for the mass oors.Those remain part of themass, and toggle on and off along with the host mass by using Show Mass and other visibility controls.

When the mass and itscontained oors are visible,

it’s a quick process to create one or moreoors using Floor by Face. This tool is alsoavailable on the Massing & Site tab, Con-ceptual Mass panel, as Model by Face >Floor. You can offset the edge of a oorcreated this way to allow for the thicknessof walls you create by using Wall by Face,and so avoid unwanted intersections. Cre-ating and scheduling oors from mass objects can be a very quick way of derivingarea calculations at early stages of a proj-ect, while the shape of the building enve-lope is being developed.

Life on the edgeYou can apply Slab Edge objects tooors to represent thickened conditions,as under external walls. These are pro-le-based hosted sweeps, much like wall

sweeps. Offsetting them produces drop-edge conditions. Walls sitting at slab edgescan be modied to have their outside layer(such as brick or block) extend below thenominal base of the wall to meet the edge.This will create correct conditions throughany sections cut around the slab edge.

Views, materials, and paintGet used to working on oors in 3D

views. In fact, create 3D views just foroors! You can hide elements individu-

ally or by category to emphasize a oor.You can activate the Section Box of a 3D view to clip the display of walls above andbelow a oor. You can override the graph-ics of elements to make them transparent,and you can make materials such as roof and wall coverings partially or totally trans-parent to enhance visibility of oors. Allthese settings can be saved in view tem-plates so you can restore a particular viewcondition quickly.

Use materials with surface patterns

when rst creating oors, so it will be obvi-ous in plan views when oors are present.It’s easy to change the material pattern lat-er if your graphic standards require. When you have many different oor surface ma-terials present, such as tile, carpet, wood,and concrete in close proximity, considerusing Split Face and Paint to apply graphicoverrides to relevant sections of a singleoor’s surface to represent the materials,rather than creating separate oors all atexactly the same level. Painted materials will appear in all views that show the sur-

face of the oor.

Floor structureFloors are made up of parallel layers of

material, as are walls, ceilings, and roofs.

Figure 2: Pick options for a oor boundary sketch.

Figure 3: Create oors from mass oors.

Figure 4: Three views of a oor with offset slab

edge under a wall with a base extension. Move the

wall and the oor (with edge) will follow.



18 w w w . A U G I . c o m

Your oors can be as simple or as complexas you desire to represent conditions mosteffectively. Do you wish to lock ceiling ma-terials to the underside of oor joists soceilings will move up or down automati-cally as oor levels adjust during design?It’s as simple as creating a layer in theoor structure.

Floors in-

teract with walls based onoor bound-ary placement,according to wall structure.You can haveoor boundar-ies terminateat wall faces orpenetrate the walls by proper

use of core lay-ers. This makessections of wall-oor inter-sections correctfor a variety of conditions withminimal draft-ing.

Framing – on the beamFloor types that include joists do not

create individual joists. These oors, whenseen in section, have lines representing thetop and bottom edge of a joist. If you cre-ate framing plans, consider making youroor type without joists or beams, and usethe Beam System tool to place joists in3D space.

Beam Systems are extremely ex-ible and very quick. You can use them forbeams, joists, rafters, and purlins. Then

sections through the oor will be correctfor detailing, and framing plans can be ex-act. If you work in custom residential de-sign, Revit’s oor tools can make balconiesand mezzanines that will make your clientssigh and the carpenters smile.

OpeningsStairs do not cut holes in oors, so you

must make openings for them. This is nota bad thing. You can make openings by ed-iting the oor boundary and adding lines;each loop must be complete and properly

drawn. Openings made this way are partof the oor. You can also use the Openingstool on the Home tab. Vertical openingsand shafts apply to oors. Hosted openingscan be moved and edited separately from

the host oor and will join with each other.Shafts are multi-story—very convenient!

Flex for the crowdYou can pitch or warp oors in various

ways. Any one line in a oor boundary sketchcan dene a slope. You can create a SlopeArrow to point in any direction, not only parallel to an edge, but corner to corner, forexample. When you select a oor, the Shape

Editing panel on the context tab allows youto create splits in the oor by adding deec-tion points, split lines to provide borders forthe splits that the points make, and you canpick supports for the oor, which will move

oor edges to align with the supports.All these changes are 3D and visible inrelevant views.

If you wish to represent drainage,for example, by placing set down pointsin a oor, you need to designate that anappropriate layer of oor material is variable thickness (done in the TypeProperties dialog) so the bottom of the

oor does not ex with the top, but re-mains at.Floor shape editing tools are not ap-

propriate for creating stepped recessesin oors. For these conditions, bitethe bullet and create separate oors of different types according to thicknessand align their lower surfaces. If youhave practiced any of the oor creationtechniques I have gone through in thisarticle, you will have no problem cre-ating complex conditions accurately and quickly!

Chris Fox is the Revit edi-

tor for AUGIWorld, and

has written numerous ar-

ticles on Revit Architec-

ture, Revit Structure and

Revit MEP. He has written

Autodesk Ocial Training

Courseware for Revit Architecture and Revit

Structure and Introducing and Implement-

ing Revit Architecture 2010 , published by

Autodesk Press. Chris recently moved from

the US to Australia, and is leading trainingclasses in Revit through corporate,

university and technical school contacts

there. You can reach him at

[email protected].

Figure 5: Floors and walls meeting.

Figure 6: Deections in a oor surface.

Knowing how to employ

the myriad techniques

that Revit holds forworking with oors will

at some point save you

time and grief.





http://www.transoftsolutions.com/



M a r / A p r 2010 2 1

option from the yout, a tick mark will bedisplayed adjacent to that option. By de-fault, the Icon with text option is chosen inthe yout. As a result, icons along with thename of the icon are displayed in the JIC:Saved User Circuits area.

If you choose the Icon only option fromthe yout, then the JIC: Saved User Cir-cuits area will display only icons.

If you choose the List view option fromthe yout, then the icons along with their

names will be displayed in the list form inthe JIC: Saved User Circuits area.

The Add button is used to add compo-nent, command, new circuit, existing cir-cuit, and submenu icons to the menu. Toadd a new circuit to the icon menu, choosethe Add button displayed at the upperright corner of the Save Circuit to IconMenu dialog box; a yout with differentoptions is displayed. Next, choose the NewCircuit option from the yout; the CreateNew Circuit dialog box will be displayed,

as shown in Figure 2.Now we’ll explore the different areasand options in the Create New Circuit dia-log box.

Icon Details areaThe Icon Details area is used to specify

the name of the icon and image for the newicon. This area also displays the preview of an image. Following are the options in theIcon Details area.

Name

Enter a name for the circuit in theName edit box.

Image leThe Image le edit box is used to specify

the image le. To specify the image le,

enter the name of the image le in the Im-age le edit box manually.

Alternatively, choose the Browse but-ton; the Select image le dialog box willbe displayed. In this dialog box, you canbrowse to the images saved in .sld or .pngles format. Select the le from the Selectimage le dialog box and choose the Openbutton; the le name will be displayed inthe Image le edit box.

You can also choose the Pick < button;

the Create New Circuit dialog will tempo-rarily disappear and you are prompted toselect the block. After selecting the block,the Create New Circuit dialog box is dis-played again and the name of the block willbe displayed in the Image le edit box.

In addition, you can specify the activedrawing name as an image le in the Im-age le edit box by choosing the Activebutton from the Create New Circuit dialogbox. On choosing the Active button, thename of the image le will be displayed in

the Image le edit box and the location of the image le will be displayed under theCreate PNG from current screen imagecheck box.

Create PNG from current screenimage

The Create PNG from current screenimage check box is used to create the .pngle from the current screen image. Once you enter the name of the image le inthe Image le edit box, the Create PNGfrom current screen image check box will

be activated and it is selected by default.If you clear the Create PNG from currentscreen image check box, the Zoom < but-ton as well as the preview of the selectedblock in the Preview area will not be ac-

tivated. Note that thischeck box will not beactivated if you enterthe full path of the im-age le in the Imagele edit box.

Preview AreaThe Preview area

will be activated only after you enter thename of the image lein the Image le editbox. The preview of the selected drawingor block is displayed inthe Preview area.

CircuitDrawing Filearea

The Circuit Draw-ing File area is used

to dene the le name of the new circuit.Also, this area displays the location of thecircuit drawing le that is being created.

File nameSpecify the le name for the circuit in

the File name edit box.

LocationOnce you enter le name for circuit in

the File name edit box, the path and loca-

tion of the circuit is displayed on the rightof the Location label in the Circuit Draw-ing File area.

After specifying the parameters in theIcon Details and Circuit Drawing Fileareas, the OK button becomes avail-able. Choose the OK button; you will beprompted to specify the base point. Spec-ify the base point in the drawing area; youare prompted to select objects.

Select individual objects or all objects atonce using the crossing window and thenpress enter; the Save Circuit to Icon Menu

dialog box will be displayed again. You willnotice that the circuit is saved as an icon inthe JIC: Saved User Circuits area and thepreview of the circuit in the form of icon isalso displayed in the Save Circuit to IconMenu dialog box.

Next, choose the OK button to savethe changes made in the Save Circuit toIcon Menu dialog box and exit from thisdialog box.

Shafali Pandita is a Sr.

CAD Engineer. You can

contact her via email at

shafalipandita@gmail.

com.

Figure 2: The Create New Circuit dialog box



At one point or another if you are working inside Autodesk® Revit® Structure, you will be looking for ways to increase pro-ductivity. Like Blocks in AutoCAD®, Revit Families allow you tomake global changes to that item in your drawing and/or BIM

model. Groups take this concept one step further by allowing youto create a collection of items. These items can contain families,text, or any other item in your Revit Structure Model. Whenever you have more than one item selected, a Multi-Select Ribbon tab will become available. The Create panel in the Ribbon will featurethe Create Group tool as shown in Figure 1.

Why use groups?The main reason to use groups is to better manage change. No

matter how early or late you are in design development or theconstruction documentation process, change is inevitable. Groupsare a way to help streamline those changes.

Group creation and placement takes thought to ensure that thegroup will be effective. Groups are most effectively used if thereis a repetitive condition in your design. One of these conditionscould be something as basic as the way your standard column tobeam connections are detailed. Groups are a way to manage theseconnections. When a group is changed, it will update across allconditions where it was used, thus eliminating the need to manu-ally update each connection.

If groups are used in places that are not repeated throughout your model, they will be ineffective.

Creating a group Figure 3 shows a typicalcolumn to beam connection where the cross bracing andplate have been selected.

Once these items havebeen selected, the Multi-Select Ribbon tab becomesavailable. From the Createpanel, select Create Groupas shown in Figure 1. Once you have selected the Cre-ate Group tool, a dialog box will appear as shown in Fig-ure 4. This will allow you to

name your Model Group. If there were annotation items selectedas well, you will also be prompted in this dialog box to name yourAttached Detail Group.

REVIT STRUCTURE

22 w w w . A U G I . c o m

Using Groups Inside

Revit Structure 2010

Figure 1: Create Group tool

Figure 2: Typical beam to column connection.

Figure 3: Revit Selection set





M a r / A p r 2010 2 3

Once you select OK from the Create Model Group and At-tached Detail Group Dialog box, your Group will be available inthe project browser to drag into other locations in your model.

This typical connection may be used several times in yourRevit Structure model. However, there may be instances wherethe C3x6 X-Brace and the connector plate need to be sized dif-

ferently. Figure 6 shows another connection where the “C”channel and connector plate have been sized up to handle adifferent condition.

Figure 7 showstwo different groupsin the project brows-er. The second group was created by re-peating the steps oncreating a group pre- viously discussed.

Editing a group When groups are established in your Revit project you can

exchange them from the type selector the same way you wouldexchange a structural column for a different size. Figure 8shows the type selector after one of the connection groups havebeen selected.

To edit your group, simply select your Group and then selectthe Edit Group tool from the Ribbon panel as shown in Figure 9.

Once youselect the EditGroup tool you will be in anedit mode andthere will be anew Edit Grouppanel available.

The Edit Group panel has tools available to do the following:

Add: The Add tool allows you to add additional components tothe group.

Remove: The Remove tool allows you to remove an item fromthe group.

Figure 4: Create Model Group and Attached Detail Group dialog box.

Figure 5: Group in project browser

Figure 8: Type selector

Figure 9: Edit Group tool

Figure 10: Edit Group panel

Figure 6: Optional connection

Figure 7: Project browser

No matter how early orlate you are in designdevelopment or theconstruction documentationprocess, change is

inevitable. Groups are away to help streamlinethose changes.



24 w w w . A U G I . c o m

Group Properties: Figure 11 shows thegroup properties dialog box. As you can see,groups are a system family. The only change al-lowed in the properties dialog box is to select a

different group.

Finish: Once you select Finish, all your group instances in the model areupdated to reect that change.

Cancel: Selecting cancel will discardany changes you made to the group.

If a group is no longer required whereone was placed, you can use the ungrouptool, shown in Figure 12. This tool, onthe Group panel, is similar to exploding

a block in AutoCAD. The elements thatbelong to the group will return to individual elements like they were beforethey were grouped.

Sharing your groupThe Link tool will turn your group

into a linked le that will be stored ex-

ternally from your model. When you select the Link tool, you willhave two options to choose from, as shown in Figure 13.

The First Option, “Replace with a new project le,” will cre-ate a new Revit Project le and link it back into your model. Thisoption is useful if other projects will need to use this same group.This allows one le that can be maintained and utilized with mul-tiple projects.

The second option, “Replace with an existing project le,” willremove your group from the project and replace it with an existingRevit project that you specify.

ConclusionUsing groups in a Revit project will give you better manage-

ment over typical element congurations in your model. Convert-ing Revit groups into external linked les allows them to be usedacross the company and is a good way to standardize specic as-semblies of elements.

Phil Russo began with AutoCAD version 2.5 in

1986. Through the years, he has held positions in

the CAD industry as CAD draftsman, CAD man-

ager, applications engineer, and Autodesk Certi-

ed Instructor. Lately Phil’s focus has been on the

development and implementation of standard practices for the Autodesk Revit product line in-

cluding Revit Architecture, Revit Structure, and Revit MEP. He cur-

rently works at Lindemann Bentzon Bojack, an architectural and

engineering rm located in Clermont, Florida. He can be reached at

[email protected].

Figure 11: Group properties

Figure 12: Ungroup tool

Figure 13: Convert to Link





AUTODESK REVIT

26 w w w . A U G I . c o m

Schedules are one of the stronger andmost versatile features in Autodesk® Revit®. Schedules provide tabular viewsof element properties that can be groupedand organizeed as needed. Schedules canalso provide the means of using projectdata for performing calculations.

As we will see in this article, Revitschedules can signicantly reduce timeand effort when entering values to ele-ments with similar properties. They allow you to generate analytical information thatgoes beyond simple element lists. For ex-

ample, from an area plan, you can createa schedule to not only list the propertiesof the area objects such as square footage,but also to use that information to performoccupancy and egress calculations forlife safety.

Let’s use a simple example of a doorschedule. From the door elements you would extract properties such as width,height, mark number, re rating, location,and so on. You could spend the time to en-ter the door material and nish informa-tion for each door when inserted.

Alternatively, you could create doorfamilies with all the nish and material in-formation already in them. But let’s face it,more often than not you just want to sim-ply insert a door based on its size and/or

type, and worry about nishes and materi-als later. Moreover, you may not have allthe parameters created in each door fam-ily that you actually want to show in thedoor schedule. This is where the schedulecomes to the rescue. You can add elds to adoor schedule that will show as door prop-

erties. Then using key schedules, you canenter predene information for the prop-erties values.

Key schedulesA key schedule is nothing more than a

schedule that you dene. This schedule

SchedulesFor Life

Figure 1: Schedule key





M a r / A p r 2010 2 7

has a property called “Parameter name,” which becomes a key that will link the in-formation in it to a component schedule(see Figure 1).

You can create these key schedules topredene information you would like touse in another schedule to ll in eld val-ues automatically. A key schedule is cre-ated like a regular component schedule.

Once a category is selected, the optionto make the schedule a key schedule be-comes active. Revit automatically gener-ates the name for the schedule key orparameter name (Figure 2), which can bechanged later.

After you click OK, the Schedule Prop-erties window will open with one param-eter created called Key Name. You cancreate additional parameters as needed

to predene any information you want tohave entered automatically in your compo-

nent schedule.Continuing with the door key scheduleexample, we can create elds for door ma-terial and nish, frame material and n-ish, glazing material, hardware set, and soon. The key could indicate the door stylenumber or letter generating a schedule of door styles. Rows in the schedule are cre-ated by clicking the New Row button inthe context Ribbon bar or the right-clickcontext menu.

To link the key to a component sched-ule, you add the key and the other elds

from the key schedule as elds in theschedule properties window. Select a cellin the schedule key column to display a listof values from the schedule key, allowing you to make a selection. Then all the other

eld values will be entered based on theselected key value.

Schedules for life safetySo far we have touched on how sched-

ules and key schedules work together, butlet’s look at a real example. The followingexample is a schedule for calculating oc-cupancy and egress in a hospital building.

The building code information for thisexample is based on the Florida BuildingCode 2007 (FBC2007).

This schedule uses area objects to cre-ate re compartments for which we wantto calculate occupancy loads and egress ca-pacity. First, a gross building area plan wascreated from a plan view. When creatingan area plan using the gross building op-tion, allow Revit to automatically generate

the boundary lines around

the perimeterof the build-ing—it makesthis task easi-er. Then cre-ate boundary lines to denethe separa-tion betweenc o m p a r t -ments.

From the View menu

we can cre-ate a schedule for area components. Se-lect “Areas (Gross Building)” from thecategory list. In the Schedule Properties window, move the number, name, and

area elds from the Available Fields listinto the Schedule elds list. Click OK toexit the window and you will see a simple

table listing the dened areas and theirsquare footages.To calculate the occupancy load, we

need to refer to the building code becauseoccupancy loads are based on the area us-age. This is where a key schedule comesin handy. The occupancy load factors foreach area type can be predened in a key schedule so that a type can be assigned toeach of the created areas. In this case, Ibasically copied the information on Table1004.1.1 from FBC2007 into a key sched-ule. I called the key “Space Function” and

created two additional elds called “Areaper occupant”, to enter the square footageper occupant, and “Area Unit” to classify the square footage gross or net.

Once I created the key schedule, I add-ed its elds to the area schedule (Figure3). With all this information we can nowcreate a calculated parameter to deter-mine the occupancy load.

In the Calculated Value window, a sim-ple formula can be used to divide the com-ponent’s Area parameter value by the Areaper Occupant value from the key sched-

Figure 3: Add elds from key schedule.

Figure 2: Select option to create a schedule key

Revit schedules

can signicantly

reduce time

and effort when

entering valuesto elements

with similar

properties.



28 w w w . A U G I . c o m

ule (Figure 4). The names of parametersin a formula are case sensitive; therefore,they must be exactly the same as the eldnames.

Now the area schedule includes a key to select the area function and determinethe occupant load factor. That value isthen used to calculate the occupant load asshown in Figure 5.

The “Area per occupant” and “Areaunit” elds are shown in this example forclarication, but these elds can be hiddenif desired. Notice the list that the key gen-erated. The values in the “next to” elds were entered automatically from the key schedule based on the selected value in

the key eld. The format of the numberin the Occupant Load eld can be modi-ed in the Formatting tab of the ScheduleProperties window.

The rest of the schedule uses the samebasic principle. Use a key schedule to en-ter information that needs to be used in aselection to populate eld values.

To calculate the horizontal egress capac-ity another key schedule was necessary.Table 1005.1 from FBC2007 contains theegress multipliers required for calculat-

ing the egress width required accordingto the occupant load of the area. As shownbefore, the elds of the Multipliers key schedule are added to the area schedule inorder to use the selected values for com-

putation. For this example the value “Institutional: 1-2" was as-signed to each of the areas to getthe correct multipliers.

At this point we need to createcalculated parameters that willmultiply the occupant load valueby the key generated multiplier values in order to compute the

required stair and horizontal exit widths. The value from the Oc-cupant Load eld is multipliedby the key generated multiplierfor horizontal exits, resulting inthe required horizontal width forthat area or compartment. Theformula reads: Occupant Load *Multp HzExit wSprinker where

Multp HzExit wSprinkler is the parametername for the horizontal exit multiplier fora structure with sprinklers. The formula

needed to calculate the required stair width needs a little more thought.According to the Code, there is a mini-

mum stair width required for I-2 classstructures. Therefore, a decision state-

ment had to be added to the formula todetermine if the resulting value of the cal-culation was less than the width requiredby code. The formula reads:

if((Occupant Load * Multp Stair wSprinkler) < 44, 44, (Occupant Load *Multp Stair wSprinkler) where Multp Stair

wSprinkler is the parameter name for thestair width multiplier for a structure withsprinklers. This means that if the resultof the calculation of the two parametersis less than 44 inches, then the value forthe cell will be 44; otherwise use the re-sulting value from the calculation of thetwo parameters. A similar formula wouldbe needed to compute the required stairdoor width.

To calculate the provided horizontal exit width, there are a few things that need tobe done if we want to extract that informa-

tion from the model. You may elect to justadd up the clear widths of all egress doorsand enter them in a schedule eld.

On the other hand, if you want the mod-el to provide this information, you would

need to add a shared parameter to eachdoor family to hold the clear width for thatdoor type. The formulas for some doorfamilies are somewhat different depend-ing on whether the door is single or dou-ble, double egress, sliding, and so on. Forexample, for a single ush door the clear width calculation is: ((Width - (Thickness+ Stop Width)) / 1' * 12) - 0.49. In the for-

mula the result from the parameter arith-metic is divided by 1’ to convert from unitsof length to numbers and multiplied by 12to get the value in inches. Then 0.49 wassubtracted to round off to the lower inch.

Next, two additional parameters areneeded in the door schedule (which canbe hidden later)—a text eld to associateeach door with the corresponding buildingcompartment (by typing the compartmentname or number as the eld value), anda yes/no eld to classify whether the door

is an egress. That way you can isolate theegress doors in a separate door schedulethat totals all the door widths for each of the compartments.

Once you have those totals, you can en-ter them in the area scheduleto compute the provided stairand horizontal exit capac-ity. The provided stair capac-ity, the horizontal exit capac-ity, and the total exit capacity elds are all calculated valuesthat will be added to the area

schedule:• Stair Capacity: Stair Width Provided * Multp Stair wSprinkler• Horizontal Exit Ca-

pacity: HzExit Provided / MultpHzExit wSprinker

• Total Exit Capacity: HzCapacity Provided + VrCapacity Provided

where HzCapacity Provided is the totalhorizontal exit capacity and VrCapacity Provided is the total stair width capacity.

The solution shown in this article forcalculating loads and egress may not solveevery building scenario—particularly on very complex buildings—but it will give you a rough idea of what the life safety re-quirements are at a very early stage in yourdesign process.

Felix M. Gonzalez is the

CAD Manager and Medi-

cal Equipment Planner for

HuntonBrady Architects,

PA. in Orlando, Florida.

He has a bachelor’s degreein computer program-

ming and has been working with Autodesk

products for 20 years. Felix can be contacted

at [email protected].

Figure 4: Formula using parameters.

Figure 5: Schedule with key.





M a r / A p r 2010 2 9







AutoCAD Civil 3D

30 w w w . A U G I . c o m

At the onset of my training and consult-ing career, a good friend once said, “Peo-ple use the application in ways you neverenvisioned.” Since then, I have alwaysbeen aware of the fact that people acrossthe globe approach things differently dueto culture and environmental limitations.So I nd it important to ask people aboutthe arena in which they work, and howthey use their design application.

No matter where users are from, they

will usually nd that AutoCAD Civil 3D:• makes design data easier to establish• enables faster changes and revisions• produces more accurate results in a ex-

ible manner• interacts with other platforms that are of

a focused interestOh, and there’s this item, inspired by

the Civil Diva: “I use Civil 3D because it’ssexy!” This hasn’t come up in any conversa-tions yet, but I’m still hoping it will.

I started asking “How do you use Civil3D” at Autodesk University (AU) and have

posted requests for insight from aroundthe world. This led to some interestingconversations and a few new friendships.Here’s a sample of what I found.

The big picture – who isusing Civil 3D?

It should be no surprise that it’s 80-20(and, yes, we have an 80-20 ratio for ev-erything). It seems that 80 percent of thepeople use the application for residential,commercial, and industrial site design.

The remaining 20 percent include thoseperforming geotechnical, geological, infra-structure, mining, research, general-pur-pose, and others tasks that don’t make alot of noise. Energy, geospatial, and green

development arenas are starting to make

a greater impact, and we get to hear moreand more from those companies involved.Take, for example, Chris Thorn of Scott Wilson Group, who uses Civil 3D to pre-pare sites for wind farming in Wales. Thescope of wind engineering moves beyondthe site development into research andanalysis. Mark Peterson works for CPP Wind where employees use the applica-tion for creating physical models of terrainfor analysis in wind tunnels. (That one tookme by surprise.)

While at AU, I got some detailed infor-

mation on 3D modeling in the mining in-dustry. David Sledd of SleddCad Servicesin Colorado, explained how Civil 3D wascurrently used to coordinate mining. He was at AU trying to get some perspective

on new ways to make better use of the ap-

plication’s power in that industry.

A look inside What may not be obvious is that 20 per-

cent are consistently more productive withthe application. Those are the users thatsee the tools inside as just that: tools. They are always pushing forward with new ideasand trying techniques that might seem oddto most. “This program can do almost any-thing you can imagine,” says Andy Whaley of Frederick Ward Associates in Maryland.“I try to tell the users in our company that

the imagination is the only limitation of this software.”

The majority of the industry centersits application on Corridors. The robustnature and capability of the Corridor cre-

Civil 3D –How DoYou Use It?





M a r / A p r 2010 3 1

ates a springboard from which numerousthings such as FG surfaces drive or guidethe remainder of the design.

The dened intent for the use of the cor-ridor tool has blurred tremendously. Lever-aging its power and exibility has becomequite popular. I don’t remember who de-cided to use corridors to replace unstablegradings initially, but that guy (or gal) de-serves a raise.

Here at GCT, we have used them ex-tensively to model the edge of bermed upparking areas and non-linear cut and llregions that feature lines and gradings justcan’t handle. They perform awlessly in thiscapacity. The same alignments are beingused to design geo-grid walls. That is a slickidea. I love this job.

Material calculations are a big concerneverywhere. Chris Thorn develops borrowpits and Crane hardstands for windmillinstallation using Corridors. Using elevat-ed feature lines to create alignment and

proles, the corridor is created, and theresulting FG surface is netted against theEG surface. The material quantities thereare then referenced to the quarry for excavation, using yet another corridor.

Matt Anderson of JAS Engineering inIllinois is a veteran Civil 3D user workingin the site preparation arena like most of us. Using Cross Sections to develop mate-rial calculations is at the top of his tool list.“Cross-sections are an easily overlooked,but extremely powerful tool to document you earthwork, material, or oodplain

quantities. What I love about cross-section is being able to model a complexoodplain, analyze it, and present cross-sections with material tabulations with Civ-il 3D very early on in the design process.

This provides me as engineer, near instant

feedback on the impact to the oodplainduring design,” he says.

Tunnels are not something that comesup often, but I perk up when I hear aboutthem. Let’s face it, it’s a cool topic. SeanTwomey of New Zealand has providedsome good reads on Corridors used fortunnels. Speaking of New Zealand, there was a rumor that 30 percent of the peopleat AU were from the Australia/New Zea-land region. I believe it because 30 percentof the people I spoke with had really coolaccents!

Long-time Civil3DReminders blog-ger and Californian Christopher Fugitt isa programmer with a focus on surfaces.“While corridors are one of the leadingfactors shaping a design, we use surfaces

leading into and exiting the corridors. While we don’t all see them as a drivingforce, they are the most common objectinteraction in Civil 3D.”

Surfaces are used not only for leveragingother tools and displaying contours, butfor watershed delineation as well. Send-ing the watershed analysis over to Parcelsis something I picked up at Autodesk Uni-

versity a few years ago. Combine this withmap functionality and you have a powerfulplatform from which to design. Map over-lays with watersheds and Parcels allow forrapidly performed drainage studies. “Notonly did I analyze the drainage area, allthe area calculations left me with a draftedDA map,“ comments Andy Whaley about a250-acre drainage study. “I did it so quick,I took the afternoon off.”

Map functionality is popular worldwideand bridges the gap between the geospa-

tial and civil crowds. GIS object interac-tion is quite powerful and anyone who hastaken the time to use the tools undoubted-ly runs to them when a suitable need aris-es. I remember being asked to develop animpact study for the access road of a very large residential development. Map que-

ries overlayingthe GIS parcelsonto the Corri-dor daylighting.Custom toolsembedded the

map data to theimpact regions,and collectedthe data to as p r e a d s h e e tthat the permitd e p a r t m e n tused to per-form its mail

out notications that included the OwnerName, Address, Parcel identication, andhow much area was proposed to be im-pacted.

Since writing the BIM article recently,I have had a few discussions with variouspeople that were quite interested in Civil3D and its Revit object interaction. I forone am looking forward to how this may affect workow throughout the world.

We could use someimprovement

Globally, our separate cultures createboundaries and make for completely dif-ferent ways of life. While these differences

often divide us, there are some commonissues that bind us together. For example,men’s and women’s struggle to commu-nicate and those particular Civil 3D toolsthat we really wish would be cleaned up.



32 w w w . A U G I . c o m

While Parcels are being used in differ-ent ways, there are some reservations totheir employment. “…Parcels don’t lendthemselves to a good work ow,” com-ments Mark Spatz, civil engineer at HRG.“You tend to have a layering issue/night-mare since all the parcels are one objecttype and are placed on the same object lay-er by default.” I agree in some cases. Theparcel labeling is wonderful, but you haveto really be on task to effectively deal withparcel layers. You have to own them, or

they will own you. It’s a bittersweet issue.But their organizational capability keepsme coming back for more.

Gradings are on the list. No shocked fac-es in this crowd. These are really awesometools, but they are designed to be dynamicand autonomous. Once in place, you aresupposed to be able to forget them. Un-fortunately, if something gives out duringa design change, the gradings are suspectrst. They just can’t handle any complexcongurations.

Ron Couillard at CadSoft talked aboutsome methodology to manage the complex-ity issues and get better control and stability with these, but they are still somewhat frag-ile. Most users will either use the resultingdaylight and discard the grading object, oravoid them all together.

Some other areas cited for improvement were pipe networks, in which several usersnoted the need for more development, andthe hydrology tools’ interface. The lack of visualization tools was mentioned, but re-cent tools acquired by Autodesk might

help x that.

How far o the beaten pathdo you go?

I asked everyone to post some out-

of-the-ordinary uses and ways to apply AutoCAD Civil 3D. While I’d like to say Iappreciate one over another, I decided tolet you all do that for yourselves.

When I say off the beaten path,one cat really took it seriously. SteveBoon wrote about 40km of ice roadacross the tundra with some unusualdesign requirements.

“This road would have to be built andthen used over a single winter, and noconstruction equipment or vehicle using

the road could ever disturb the surfaceof the ground. All of the road would haveto be built from compacted snow and ice“mined” from the surface of frozen lakes.No excavation meant that there would beno gravel or sand available for traction sothe client required a maximum prolegrade of 2 percent. The whole region is amaze of lakes and creeks which could notbe crossed due to the weight of the loadsbeing moved so we had to chase the ex-isting ground contours all over the region

searching for a route that could be con-structed using ll only.”Any time you can mix Civil 3D

and CNC, you have my attention. MarkPeterson piques my interest with his of-fering: “Creating a TIN surface for anentire Hawaiian island, then exportingit to a CNC Router to manufacture aphysical model.”

Matt Anderson wrote about a quantity dispute between owner and excavator:

“… They wanted the cut and lls vol-umes gridded into a small grid. In a short

amount of time, I took Civil 3D, did thecomparison surfaces, parceled out the fewhundred little parcels, and created a multi-ple parcel output volume report to Excel. Iadded some color and dazzled both owner

and contractor.”HRG’s Mark Spatz utilizes corridor

modeling, pipe networks, and gradingfunctionality for site construction of newbuildings, roads, and utilities.

“Corridor Modeling is my favorite,”he says. “Modeling forcemain, water-line, stream restoration, and pond berms with the Corridor tools. Changing sew-

er line sizes for an entire system in 10minutes and having it update all theplan view, prole linework, labels, notes,and tables automatically—all in sepa-rate drawings.” Mark adds, “I think I ini-tially learned of the concept at AU. Wehave used this technique for about sixmonths now.”

While many would argue that pipe networks are designed for this purpose, pipes won’t model a Forcemain through a verti-cal curve.

Final commentsAutoCAD Civil 3D is one ne lady.

A super-powerful, “sexy” platform thattakes patience, understanding, and a planthat works well within certain boundaries.Some of the limitations we all just have togure out the hard way.

As we search for ways to use energy more efciently and to pursue the nextchallenge, I look forward to more interac-tion among people from around the world.It’s not that I feel we should all be “glob-

ally minded.” Rather, it’s that being intro-duced to diverse ways of thinking providesinsights into solutions that were not appar-ent before.

I look forward to receiving more of youruses of AutoCAD Civil 3D and its tools.Feel free to email me with yours. Whoknows? It may end up as the topic of my next article.

John Evans is an Autodesk

Civil 3D and Inventor Cer-

tied Professional. John

works as a CAD manager for a Civil Engineering

rm in the Florida pan-

handle and has been in-

volved in Civil Engineering since he started

in the eld in 1992. A troubleshooting con-

sultant for Civil 3D and Inventor with a large

background in Civil Engineering, aviation,

and manufacturing, he writes solution arti-

cles on the blog “From Civil to inventor.”

John is a contributing author on Web-based

training and courseware development at

Tekni Consulting LLC. A new book, CreativeDesign with Autodesk Inventor , is current-

ly in production for late fall 2009 delivery.

He can be reached by email at:

[email protected]





M a r / A p r 2010 3 5

Use dimensions to constrain the refer-ence planes as shown in Figure 4. The out-side box is 6"x6" and the inside box is 1"x4".

Next, label the dimensions so they canbe used as parameters. Do this by select-ing a dimension and using the Label tool

on the options bar and pick <Add param-eter…>. See Figure 5.

This will open the Parameter Propertiesdialog. Since this dimension will not be

needed in a schedule, use a family param-eter type. Give the parameter a name that will identify it well and not conict withother parameter names in the family. Thegroup option identies where this param-eter will show in the element propertiesdialog. In this example, (Figure 6) groupthem under Constraints. Finally, makethem instance type parameters so they canbe changed on the y without effectingother instances in the model.

Label the remainder of the dimensionsas shown in Figure 7. The half-dimensionsare used to keep the reference plane boxescentered on the origin dening planes.

Use the Types tool on the Ribbon toopen the Family Types dialog. Here, theHalf dimensions can be constrained withformulas as shown in Figure 8. Parametersare case sensitive, so care should be taken when using them in formulas.

Now it is time to add solids for the 3Delements. On the Create tab of the Rib-

bon, pick the Solid tool and then pick Ex-trusion (see Figure 9).

Use the linestool and follow thereference planesset up for the boxand lock themto the planes by clicking on thepadlock symbolsthat appear (Fig-ure 10).

The offset determines how thick the ex-trusion will be; set it to 1/4". This will pro-duce a box that barely comes off the wall. When done, click the Finish Extrusiontool found near the end of the Ribbon. Re-peat this process to make the raised lightportion. This time set the offset to 1 ¼".The result should look like the image inFigure 11.

To add a bit of realism, model text canbe added to the front face of the box. To

do this, go to a 3D view, use the Set tool onthe Create tab of the Ribbon to select thefront face of the box as the current workplane, then select the Model Text tool onthe same tab to add the word “Fire.” Usethe element properties of the model text tocontrol its size and depth to t as needed(see Figure 12).

An electrical connector should be add-ed to allow Revit to connect the deviceto a re alarm system. Use the ElectricalConnector tool on the Create tab of the

Ribbon. Change the system type to FireAlarm using the pull down on the optionsbar and place the connector on the workplane face of the box (Figure 13).

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 7

Figure 11

Figure 12

Figure 12

Figure 8

Figure 9

Figure 10

Figure 6



36 w w w . A U G I . c o m

Create annotation symbolsfor each family type

This family will contain a FA Strobe, aFA Wall Speaker, and a combination FASpeaker/Strobe. 2D symbology for each of these will be created as annotation symbols.

Revit annotation symbols can be cre-ated by picking New from the application

browser and then Annotation Symbol, andnally selecting an appropriate template.For this example, select Generic Annota-tion.rft. In this template is a note tellingthe user to select the correct family cat-egory before use. The category is already set to generic annotation, so the note cansimply be deleted. Use the Line tool tocreate the FA Speaker symbol shown inFigure 14.

When nished, save the family and usethe Load Into Project tool on the Create tabof the Ribbon to load it into E-Fa Device Wall.rfa. Next save as to create the sym-bology for the FA Strobe and FA Speaker/ Strobe annotation symbols (Figure 15).

Add annotation types tothe RFA family

1. Open E-Fa Device Wall.rfa.2. Use the Symbol tool to place each

of the three annotation symbols

just created.3. Use the Family Types tool in the

Design bar to invoke the Family

Types dialog.4. Select the New button shown be-low and name three new types;Strobe, Speaker, and Speaker/ Strobe.

5. A parameter must be created foreach family type. Invoke the Pa-rameter Properties dialog by se-lecting the Add button in the Fam-ily Types dialog.

6. Create the Strobe parameter asshown in Figure 19. Repeat forSpeaker and Speaker/Strobe. En-sure the parameters are groupedunder Graphics and Yes/No andType parameters are selected.

Associate annotationgraphics with parameters

1. Select one of the annotation sym-bols in E-Fa Device wall.rfa usingthe tab key if necessary and openits properties.

2. Click on the tiny blankbutton to the right of the Vis-ible instance parameter (seeFigure 20).3. This will invoke theAssociate Family Parameterdialog. Select the appropri-ate parameter and pick OK,then repeat for each anno-

tation symbol for each fam-ily type. This process connects the visibility of the annotation symbol with the correct family type.

Save and load into a new project to exthe family.

Adding shared parametersIn AutoCAD, attributes are used to at-

tach information to blocks. Revit uses pa-rameters for tagging and scheduling. These

parameters come in two types—family pa-rameters and shared parameters. Family parameters will not show in schedules ortags. A family parameter has been used todictate what type of FA device is shown inthis example. A shared parameter can be

used in schedules and tagsand will be required to tagthis family with mountingheight or strobe candelainformation. Follow thestep below to add sharedparameters.

Open E-Fa Device Wall.rfa.1. Select Family Types onthe Ribbon. The Family Types dialog appears.2. Pick the ADD buttonunder Parameters. TheParameter Properties dia-log appears.3. Select Shared param-eter then pick the ‘Select’button.4. In the Shared Param-eters dialog select Edit.5. Create a new group by

clicking on Edit in the Edit Sharedparameters dialog.

6. Name the new group Fire Alarm.7. Pick New under the Parameters

group to create a new parametergrouped under Fire Alarm.

Figure 15

Figure 14

Figure 16

Figure 17

Figure 18

Figure 19

Figure 20





M a r / A p r 2010 3 7

8. Add a text type param-eter for Mounting Height in theCommon discipline.

9. Repeat for Strobe Candela. SelectOK.

10. Switch the parameter group to FireAlarm. In the Shared Parametersdialog pick Mounting Height. Pick

OK to add the Mounting Heightparameter to this family.11. Ensure that Instance is selected

in the Parameter Prop-erties dialog. This willenable each instanceof this family to havea different MountingHeight.

12. Repeat for Strobe Can-dela. Select OK to closethe dialog.

Create a TagThe tag for this re alarm device needs

to display one or both of the two parame-ters created above. The steps to create thistag are shown below.

1. Click New then Family from theapplication browser and then An-notation Symbol. The New dialogopens; select the Fire Alarm De- vice Tag.rft template to open the

Family Editor. You must usethis template to associatethis tag to re alarm devices.2. Select the Label tool

on the Create tab of the Rib-bon, and click in the draw-ing area. The Select Param-eter dialog opens.

3. Click Add to open the Parameter

Properties dialog.4. Click the Select button to open theShared Parameters dialog.

5. Select Mounting Height and selectOK three (3) times to exit each dia-log.

6. Repeat steps 2-5 for the Strobecandela parameter.

7. Add these parameters to the label with the green add button, shownbelow.

8. Tags can be added to projects by selecting the Tags button on theOptions bar when the Tag by Cat-egory tool is in use.

The information in this article takes you through family concepts to model-ing, adding connectors, annotation sym-bols, shared parameters, and tagging. Thisroadmap can be used to produce the RevitMEP families that most rms need to takefull advantage of Autodesk Revit MEP.

Todd Shackelford is an ap-

plications engineer work-

ing for Avatech Solutions.

Todd is an ADT Certied

Expert who has provided

support for MEP and structural consultants for

11 years. You can contact him at todd.shack-

[email protected].

Figure 21



http://drop.io/home/augi



http://careers.augi.com/