Straighten Out Your Ribbon!

So you figured out that you can ‘tear off’ parts of the Revit 2010 ribbon interface, and place them where you want, did ya? In fact, you’re lucky enough to have 2 monster sized displays and you put some of your favorite and most often used panels on one screen while your model is on the other? Sweet!

You also figured out how to customize your QAT, or Quick Access Toolbar (from one of our great YouTube videos, of course). But now for some reason, your interface has gone a bit crazy. You want to go back to square one. How can you just restore the interface back to the factory settings? Easy! Just download this nifty script:

Autodesk Revit Architecture UI Reset.vbs (vbs – 6Kb)

This little nugget will set your Ribbon, QAT, and Project Browser back to Autodesk factory settings, and you’re ready to start tweaking again.
Be aware that this script removes a Windows Registry key and may delete a file on your computer. Use at your own risk! On the plus side, we’ve used it several times with no side effects. Nice!

BIM In Action: Different Approaches for Different Projects

Today is BIM Training day for the Alliance for Construction Excellence (ACE), an organization that is promoting the smart use and growth of BIM in the construction industry. CADsoft is presenting a panel demonstration showing how different members of the team share information and can work on a project. So far, though, we’ve seen some great presentations by several different contracting firms and architects that demonstrate a common theme: when it comes to BIM, there is no 1 sure-fire method. Different strokes for different folks seems to be the case, though different methods certainly have some key advantages.

There are different approaches to modeling in Revit that work better for one group or another. For example: The designer creates a column that goes from ground to top floor — the GC wants to break that up by pour and floor. Same goes for slabs: GC wants them broken up by pour, designer doesn’t care.

Different contracts can allow for more integrated approaches and allow the GC to have more input in the modeling process that the designer uses. A design-build situation changes the game significantly.

Glendale Courthouse
One of the ACE presentations was by Quintin Smith of DL Withers Construction, Darrin Orndorff, Aaron Goodmanson, and Michelle Rutkowski of Dick & Fritsche Design Group, and Mike Rivera and Cory Yeager of Midstate Mechanical and focused on the Glendale Courthouse Project. I was thrilled to hear that they took an approach very similar to what we push for.

Dick & Fritsche modeled the building accurately in Revit, meeting the tolerances already set out for the project in initial meetings with other team members. Did they model every little detail? Of course not — each team decides ahead of time what they are responsible for and each team also owns their own model that includes their information. DL Withers has their own Revit specialists who adjust the architect’s model to suit their needs.

On this project, Midstate Mechanical was using a non-Revit based application, since they use the 3d MP&E models for fabrication in their shop. However, these 3d models translate very easily into a format that Navisworks can utilize, allowing for accurate visualization and clash detection.

On the courthouse project, Dick & Fritsche was advanced enough in their own Revit expertise that the model they were providing was ideal for DL Withers to use and augment as needed.