Now, you may be asking yourself, “why is Scott ranting like this?”  For too long now technology has been an after thought.  It has been thought about and budgeted for way past when it should be and you end up backing yourself into a corner.  Then you either buy too much, or even too little, of what you need.  But Scott, you say, why is anything you’re saying new?  Hasn’t it been important to plan for technology all along?  Of course it has, but these days the change in technology is not simply an upgrade in software or a better graphics card.  With the introduction of the Cloud and new found abilities to move design and construction data between different analysis applications to improve outcomes, we are once again finding ourselves both having to adjust our processes AS WELL AS investigate new process that can make our work more efficient and more effective.

I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: the transition to BIM is not as simple as uninstalling AutoCAD and installing Revit. BIM is an overhaul which requires huge changes including schedule, staffing and fee shifts, time for training and a learning curve (which will be a different lengths for each sector of the AEC industry) and the time to develop resources so we can reach our potential. These resources can include content, standards, data/information exchange and process development (i.e. how to we use BIM to determine environmental impact? How to we perform the test fitting task to understand which space is the right one for our client? How to input and then extract the right types of object data in order to perform highly accurate cost estimations?).

Understand what your work environment will look like when BIM is implemented, whichever sector of the AEC industry you work in, and then develop a plan to get to that place in the most efficient way possible.

• The project phases of a traditional project on the architecture side of things are schematic design, design development, construction documentation and construction administration.  Additionally, these phases generally last for the same lengths of time.  When a project uses BIM, phases can be consolidated into design, documentation and bid/build.  The design phase lasts longer while the documentation phase is shorter.  It’s worth mentioning, however, that the design phase does include conceptual design, schematic design and design development.  The point, though, is that design becomes more important to the project process than documentation.
• In the construction industry, estimates tend to be manual.  Finishes, door hardware, and windows, for example, all tend to be manually counted, measured and quantified using a spreadsheet (i.e. Excel).  There is no link back to the design or the construction documents.  Changes made to the design need to be filtered through to the CDs to the estimates.  When costs are found to be too expensive in an estimate, that needs to be communicated back, considered in the design (which in turn gets updated in the CDs and on and on…).  With a project done in BIM, there is a conversation being continually had by all parties (technologically, or model to model, not verbally).  Therefore, estimates are derived directly from the model.  The oft used phrase is, a change anywhere is a change everywhere.  This is exactly what makes the BIM process more efficient.

As I write this, and think about it, we really are applying a destructive process, it’s just hard to see it because it takes a long time.  If there are 10 steps to your traditional project process, a year from now those steps might be unrecognizable.  The point is, an analysis of your current project process will allow you, and your BIM Advisor, to see what the most essential, immediate and easily changeable steps of your project process are.  After that, you can devise a plan on how to integrate them.

I’ve also been saying a lot that BIM is not Revit, and that Revit is just one piece of software under the BIM umbrella.  Your question to me, then, should be, How and where does Revit fit in? Revit starts and facilitates the project process.  Revit is where design and documentation initially happens.  It is where your building information model is born.  As the design and documentation phases proceed, it is where your building information model grows.  But, (ignoring home schooling) just like children, they cannot learn, adapt and mature only within your home.  They need to explore, and be explored, in other applications to see how it reacts to other models (i.e. MEP or structure), how it effects, and is effected by, the environment.  Once these lessons are learned, the information gathered, can be applied back to the model in Revit, in the form of design changes (I didn’t want to take the children metaphor further because it would be something like the child comes back and lives with his parents).  Eventually, the model can, although doesn’t have to, leave the Revit realm as it’s given to the builders who might want to run it through cost estimation and construction scheduling applications.  The point is, Revit acts as, more or less, the main software application within the BIM process.

• You can make a change in one place and it makes that change everywhere!
• Everything is in 3D!
• You can create automatic schedules!
• Need a section drawing?  Put in a section line!
• Construction documents are done for you!
• You never have to draw again!
• There will be zero change orders!

It’s not to say that a lot of these points aren’t correct but (or almost correct), but odds are, you’ll respond to me in the same way, I swear, someone did recently, “Scott, I’m going to stop you right there because I don’t know what the f*#k you’re talking about.”  I actually was hysterically laughing after that was said, but it was a good point.  Since then, I’ve insisted to those I was advising that they tell me as much as possible about the way they work and what they’re looking to achieve.   So, the first question is, what kind of company are you?  Architecture firm?  Engineering firm?  Construction company?  The answer to this will determine the extent to which you actually need to use BIM.  It’s most important to get your current practices in a BIM environment and then, once they are comfortably integrated, explore what else you could be doing.  There are, however, some questions to consider that are independent of which of the three industries you’re in.  That being said, the answers could be quite different for each industry.  These questions include, but are not limited to, the following:

• What types of projects do you do?
  • This is especially important because, initially, we need to figure out which software applications you need. Additionally, it’ll allow us to begin to determine which aspects of those applications we need to focus on developing processes for. For example, Revit might not, by default, have a single button that will simultaneously create quantity takeoffs and apply costs to them.  That being said, if it’s a process that you consistently go through, an automated set of tasks can be set up to do just that.
• How many people in your office will be working in Revit?
  • This will tell us how many licenses of Revit you need to purchase and, if there will be many people, whether you need to buy standalone copies or a network license.  Additionally, and this will come up in the next question, how many people do you need to purchase computer hardware for?
• Do you have the computer hardware capable of handling Revit?
  • Revit is a fairly intensive program that requires somewhat powerful hardware.  Additionally, the latest version of Revit, 2011 (soon to be 2012) requires Windows 7 (preferably the 64-bit version).  Do your computers have it?  Do the have enough RAM and are their processors and graphics cards powerful enough.  You don’t want to spend a lot of money on copies of Revit and find that your hardware can’t handle it.
• Do you have a person, internally or externally, who can act as technical support?
  • Depending on the skill level of project team members that you either have or are planning on hiring, it is usually a good idea to have a go-to-person who you can rely on for installation and upgrade issues, quick teaching tasks, technical support and any other advice that will help you make more informed decisions about how best to proceed with BIM.
• Will people need to be trained?
  • If people will need to be trained, which is likely, you’ll need to decide how you would like this training to be done.  Do you want to bring someone into your office?  If so, you’ll need to have space and both the software and hardware set up and working.  Do you want to rent a space?  If so, you’ll pretty much need the same things.  Do you want to hire a service?  If so, you’ll need to locate one and arrange a time for everyone to attend.  Additionally, no mater which way you choose to go, you’ll have to be prepared for these people to be out of service, and therefore non-billable, for the entire time.  I’ve often seen people step out of training for phone calls or emails and they tend to miss valuable lessons.
• Do you have an existing set of graphical (and/or more specifically CAD) standards?
  • Just as with CAD, a set of standards is important to be able to create a template in Revit which will ensure that all of your deliverables (ie. drawing sheets) look as you expect them to look both architecturally as well as graphically.  The creation of template can be an extensive process depending on the extent with which you will be using Revit.
• What types of deliverables do you create at the various submittal milestones?
  • The types of products that you produce for various recipients will help to assess which best practices need to be determined.  For example, if you tend to issue drawing sheets, you’ll need to consider, for example, sheet size and title blocks.  If you issue schedules (or spreadsheets), you’ll need to have them set up to extract the type of data you want, quantify and calculate it based on your normal processes, and then display it as you normally would.
• What are the typical objects that you use (or draw) in your drawings from project to project (i.e. curtain walls, furniture, structural beams, HVAC ducts, etc.)?
  • Computers in general increase the speed in which we doing things by giving us a library of predefined options to choose from.  For example, which type in a word processing program, the list of available fonts is a library of choices.  With Revit, it is very helpful to have a library, or kit of parts, that you can use over and over for the typical work you do.  If you use a specific manufacturers furniture, having a library of all of their furniture, modeled in three dimensions for Revit, make it very easy to drag and drop them into your space and then schedule their properties based on data that has been built into them.
• What are the typical calculations you perform while producing drawing and/or estimations on projects?
  • As previously mentioned, to keep you from having to set up schedules which will perform your commonly used calculations and estimations, we can set them up to automatically extract the necessary information and quantify them as you normally would.  That being said, it is helpful to both know and understand how and why those calculations are done.
• What three-dimensional work are you currently doing for both production as well as design purposes?
  • This question can have two possible outcomes depending on your answers.  If you’re doing 3D work currently, we can recreate and enhance the way that you’re doing it by using the model that you’re already building.  If you’re not doing any 3D work, it is important to learn how you can use the tool for both production as well as design purposes.  Most likely, you’re familiar with the fact that you can create 3D, wireframe models, renderings, etc. for printing and presenting to people.  It’s important to understand that by designing and modeling in both two dimensions and three dimensions simultaneously, you can ensure that your drawings, calculations, cost estimations and analyses are more accurate.

These questions, and their answers, should get you to a point where your firm is producing similar products that you were with your old, most likely CAD, system, and you are beginning to see increased productivity and reduced costs.  As time goes on, personnel will become more facile with the software, they’ll strategize better and work will get done even faster.  At that point, you can begin asking the next set of questions which will allow you to start doing what you didn’t, or couldn’t, do before.  The following questions are the second half of the sentence, “Can the work your firm does benefit from…”:

• …advanced three-dimensional coordination of building information models from various consultants (i.e. structural, MEP, lighting, etc.)?
• …three-dimensional detailing?
• …automated cost estimating and quantity take-offs?
• …energy modeling?
• …sustainability analysis?
• …life safety simulation?
• …facilities management?

Needless to say, there are many other things that BIM can do, but these questions, and their answers, will allow you to make better decisions when a project starts.  This early strategizing informs the BIM process helping you to create what is know as a purpose-built model.  That is to say, a model built for the purpose of…(see the previous list).   Understand what integrating BIM into your office really means.  Understand that it’s more than installing Revit.  Furthermore, understand that the use of BIM, and or Revit, is not simply a technology issue.  If anything, it is important that everyone understand (each up to an appropriate point) what you’re getting yourself into and how it will change everything from the software you’re using, the submittals you’re generating, the way you staff projects, assemble fees and create project schedules.  Most importantly, get someone to help you.  Revit is not the 2025 version of AutoCAD, and having someone who has been through it before can help you prepare for it, avoid pitfalls and help you deal with the inevitable issues that will arise.

• Understand the differences between BIM and Revit – What is BIM?  What is Revit?  I tried to explain this by saying BIM is to CAD as Revit is to AutoCAD.  I really thought that would have cleared it up but, alas, it didn’t.  So, first I’ll say that BIM, or Building Information Modeling, is the overall process of creating a three dimensional database, in the form of a model of information that pertains to the design of a building.  Notice a few things in that definition: first, I used the words that make up the BIM acronym.  Here’s the sentence again: BIM is the overall process of creating a three dimensional database, in the form of a model of information that pertains to the design of a building.  Second, notice that I never used the word Revit.  Under this BIM umbrella, there are many software applications that lead to an efficient design of space.  While Revit just so happens to be one of them, it is just that, one of them.  Revit can certainly be considered the main application under the BIM umbrella, but other applications are designed to perform certain functions which Revit either has minimal functionality to do, or, cannot do at all.  For example, other BIM applications include Ecotect and Green Building Studio which are designed to test the efficiency of a design with regards to the environments impact on it and it’s impact on the environment.  Navisworks, another BIM application, brings building information models from various disciplines together in a single environment to see how the physically interact allowing designers to make necessary adjustments before construction begins.  And there are more but, for the moment, see the image below to understand it a bit better.

I just thought this was very impressive.  It’s all about the little things!

I have the following scene which has no lights, no Daylight System, no mr physical sky in the Environment Map, no Exposure Control Set, all mental ray settings are low and FG Bounces is set to 0:

1. In 3ds Max 2011, the Command Panel can auto hide and I currently have that setting turned on.  Therefore, I hover my mouse over the Command Panel toolbar so it expands.
2. Switch to the Top view and, on the Create tab, click the Systems icon: .
3. Click the Daylight button and, when the Daylight System Creation dialog box appears asking if you want to turn on mr Photographic Exposure Control, click Yes.
4. Click in the center of your structure and drag to out a bit to create the compass (in the past, I had placed the compass off to the side, but these tutorials suggested putting in the middle, so I did).
5. When you let go of the mouse, a mental ray Sky dialog box will appear asking if you want to put the mr Physical Sky in the environment map.  Click Yes.
6. Move your mouse a bit so the actual daylight system (which is made up of both the sun and sky objects) and then left-click to place it.  If you look on the Command Panel, the value of Orbital Scale was changing as you moved your mouse.  While this value needs to be a positive value, in the courseware I use in my class, it says that the value needs to be higher than your highest (or tallest) object.  Therefore, make sure it is.  I’ll set mine to 200 feet.
7. Also, I’ll set the North Direction to 62 degrees.
8. In step 5 the mr Physical Sky was put in the Environment Map.  We’re going to want to change that.  Therefore, open the new Slate Material Editor.  Since only a map can be place in the Environment Map, we can’t create a new material.  Within the center area, currently called View1, right-click, move your mouse over Maps, then mental ray, and then select Environment/Background Switcher:

1. In the left column, the Material/Map Browser, click the group name Materials to collapse it.  Then, within the Maps group, scroll down and left-click and hold on Environment/Background Camera Map (I haven’t been able to find a simple explanation of what this map does so, if there’s anyone out there who can explain it, please email me).
2. Drag and drop it on the gray circle to the left of Background (it will turn green):

1. Scroll back up, left-click and hold on Bitmap and drag and drop it onto the gray circle next to the word Map of the new node:

1. The Select Bitmap Image File dialog box will appear.  Find the background image you want and click Open.
2. Click the Rendering pull-down menu and click Environment.
3. Within the Common Parameters group, left-click and hold on the Environment Map (currently mr Physical Sky) and drag and drop it on the small gray circle (within the Slate Material Editor) next to Environment/Reflections on the first map (or node) you made.
4. When the Instance (Copy) Map dialog box appears, click Copy and then OK.
5. Back within the Environment and Effects dialog box, right-click the mr Physical Sky button and click Clear.
6. Within the Material Editor, left-click and hold on the gray circle to the right of the original map (or node) you made and drag and drop it onto the None button, below Environment Map, within the Environment and Effects dialog box.
7. When the Instance (Copy) Map dialog box appears, select Instance and click OK.
8. We’ll need to adjust some settings on the background bitmap so, back within the Material Editor, double-click the Bitmap node to see it’s settings off to the right.
9. Within the Coordinates group, select Eviron.  This sets the image as an environment map (ie. puts it in the background).  Since the image that we’re using is flat, as in, not a 360 degree image (usually hdri format), we’ll set the Mapping pull-down menu to Screen
10. Since this image is very high resolution, in the Tile column, set both U and V to 1.75.
11. If I were to render this now, you would see the edge of the background image and, therefore, see the image repeated.  To fix this, in the Offset column, set both U and V to .112 (I got to this value through trial, error and rendering).

If I were to render this right now, this is result:

1. There’s light coming in from the exterior, but the Environment Map that we’ve create (ie. the background image), appears to be totally black.  The reason for this is that the Exposure Control settings is reducing the light that the image is supposed to be giving off.  Therefore, within the Exposure Control dialog box, with mr Photographic Exposure Control set, within the Physical Scale group, select Unitless and set the value to 100000.
2. I’m also going to set the Exposure Value (EV) to 14.  This will lighten the image even more.

Now if I render, this is the result:

1. At the bottom of the rendered frame window (or within the Render Setup dialog box), set the FG Bounces to 12 (again, I got to this value through trial, error and rendering).

Now if I render, this is the result:

The light still isn’t flowing far enough into the room.  We’ll use an mr Sky Portal which gathers sunlight towards it and aims it in whatever direction you choose.

1. Switch to a Perspective view looking at the windows from the outside:

1. Expand the Command Panel again and, on the Create tab, click the Lights symbol, , and select mr Sky Portal.
2. Just above it, select the AutoGrid option.  This will let us place the sky portal right on top of the window.
3. Left-click just outside the top-left of the window and drag down just outside the bottom-right of it.
4. Once done, move the new mr Sky Portal slightly to the outside of the window.
5. It’s important to note that the mr Sky Portal will also be effected by Exposure Control.  Therefore, on the Command Panel, set the Multiplier to 5 (this is yet another value I reached through trial, error and rendering.  You can also leave off the From “Outdoors” option which is used to have objects from behind the Sky Portal cast shadows.  This is the case for this model only because I know I don’t have anything modeled behind the Sky Portal).

If I were to render now, I’d get this:

Once I increase the following settings from below the Rendered Frame Window (the Global Quality Control Knobs), set the time of day to 5pm, the time of year to 4/30/2010, as well as increase the resolution to 2231 x 1275, I get the final rendered image below.

• Image Precision (Antialiasing) – Medium: Min 1/4, Max 4
• Soft Shadows Precision – 0.5X – Medium
• Final Gather Precision – Medium
• Glossy Reflections Precision – 0.75X – Medium
• Glossy Refractions Precision – 0.75X – Medium

This process definitely took some time to research and a lot of trial and error (and rendering) so I’d like to thank the various resources that I found on the Internet.  Let me know if you have any questions.

In the following file I have a simple box with a wood material assigned.  The material has an image of Red Birch assigned to it:

1. Click the Application button (the big M at the top-left).
2. Hover over the Save As button and then click Archive.
3. Set a location and file name and then click Save.

The ZIP file created has the MAX file, the image file and a text file with notes about the archive: