Monday, October 30, 2006

Inaugural Bash Success!

Thanks to the over 60 people who participated and attended our first Ontario Revit User’s Group meeting, it was a success! Here are a few highlights from the evening.

Roberta Lum from CAD MicroSolutions opened the ceremonies with an inviting welcome to participate in this forum for sharing ideas. The suggestions to improve Revit that we submit to Autodesk carry weight.
Jay Polding introduced the distinguished group of ORUG organizers (one pictured below; Richard Ziegler in white shirt). Contact info was on memory sticks and is posted to our FTP site (email jpolding@cadmicro.com for login and password)






Caesar Ruest welcomed us and took us on a cross-Canada tour of Revit use. As a special treat the Revit development team in Waltham, Mass sent us an assuring video welcome. This is posted to our FTP site (email jpolding@cadmicro.com for login and password).



John, Phil and Ramon from KPMB were interviewed by Jay regarding their Manitoba Hydro Revit project. Their challenges were discussed along with some realistic input on how to improve the software.




Phil Read from Autodesk (pictured with a bearded Paul Loreto) blew our minds! His “Design Intent” presentation was full of amazing techniques that we are sure to use! His examples are posted on our FTP site. (email jpolding@cadmicro.com for login and password)




Pierre Hoppener (standing) from Autodesk Canada generously brought some giveaways. There were some shirts, calculators, pens, all good stuff, but the meeting went quiet when we announced 3 Revit NFR’s would be given away! Those we saved until the end.

Thanks for the fast response on the input sheets. I will be compiling the input from them as they come in. Once they’re in I’ll post the results along with the winner of the next Revit NFR. Don’t forget the ORUG logo competition.

A big thanks to CAD MicroSolutions for sponsoring the evening and Alice Fazooli’s for hosting us. Also, John Peterson, Ramon Janer and Phil Marjoram from KPMB, Phil Read from Autodesk and Caesar Ruest and Pierre Hoppener from Autodesk Canada. Thank you to Tania Polding for your registration help. See you all next time!

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Ontario Revit User's Group

Here's more information on the inaugural Ontario Revit Users Group Meeting with guest speakers from KPMB Architects and Phil Read from Autodesk.

When: Wednesday, October 25th 6:30pm to 9:00pm.

Location: Alice Fazooli's, 294 Adelaide Street West, Toronto, ON


Agenda

Reception: Join us for hors d'oeuvres and drinks at 6:30.

Introduction: Meet the Ontario Revit User's Group Organizers and dedicated volunteers who are leading the Revit wave in Ontario.

Revit - Cross Country Checkup: This year has shown tremendous gains in the adoption
of Revit. Caesar Ruest from Autodesk Canada will report on who, where and how Revit is being used across Canada.

ORUG Member Presentation:
The Revit team from KPMB Architects will discuss their experience with using Revit on the Manitoba Hydro tower project.

Guest Speaker - Phil Read Speaks on Design Iteration in Revit: Phil is a Revit implementation architect with Autodesk and works directly with firms in training, project implementation, and establishing best practices. Phil holds Bachelor of Science degrees
in Communications and Architecture, as well a Master of Architecture degree from the University of North Carolina and has over 13 years combined experience in the engineering and architecture fields.

Q & A: Use this great opportunity to ask questions about your use of Revit.

Registration: Please email your interest in attending to Jay Polding at jpolding@cadmicro.com.

Friday, September 15, 2006

The Next ORUG Meeting

Revit Ontario Users Group Meeting

Plan to attend the inaugural Ontario Revit Users Group Meeting on Wednesday October 25th from 7:00PM to 9:00PM.

Location: Alice Fazooli's, 294 Adelaide Street West, Toronto, ON

Agenda: Introduction to the ORUG organizers, report on Revit usage across Canada, update on Revit development, guest speaker, Q+A, networking, food and drink.

Registration: Please email your interest in attending to Jay Polding at jpolding@cadmicro.com

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Aug.30 Revit Lunch

Thanks to all who attended the Revit lunch!

We discussed future topics and organizational matters for the group.
Christina had a question about Revit shadow colour which Jay was going to look into.
Of course Phil was a great source of hardware information nuggets as usual.
Future speakers were discussed and it was agreed that an interesting building project done in Revit would be a great topic to speak around. Of course, all of our members have done these so we should have lots of great examples.
Rendering is always a great topic.
Revit use across Canada will also be discussed at the next meeting.

We will be making a concerted effort to invite many more people to our next meeting and expand our group. Please contact me jpolding@cadmicro.com if you wish to attend.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Revit Content Wishlist

Calling all Reviteers! Please post or send your "MOST WANTED" items for Revit content. Some examples may be specific content to Ontario like beam sizes, pipe sections, furniture, people, you name it!

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Initial Planning Meeting - 14-June-06

Thanks to all who attended the preliminary planning meeting! Here are some topics we discussed:

12:00-12:10
After quick introductions the Revit tips start flying. Here's one; Use the section tool for elevations instead of the typical elevation tool. This may help performance.
12:10-12:20
How do you get rid of imported dwgs? It was recommended to use link instead because you can purge them.
Try to keep the entire project in Revit as long as possible.
12:20-12:40
Ideas for the group; LEED topic- Ecotech was recommended. A sponsored website-Ashley Gilbert? Meetings every quarter at a downtown location. Lunch hour is good. Use email for posting to blog. (I will send the address out to all in attendance and to anyone who requests this via email.)
12:40-1:00
Speakers from Autodesk. Using the Autodesk/Alias conference room. NFR copies of software possibility. Concern for small firms access to resources was voiced.
Secret handshake not decided upon:-)

The next meeting is tentatively planned for mid-August. It will most likely be at Alice Fazooli's downtown. Please email me if you would like to attend.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Revit Builds

Revit is in ongoing development. The developers read the forums at AUGI.com and respond to bug reports etc. These builds are not advertised as thoroughly as they should be. That means that as users we should keep an eye on the Revit forum at AUGI.com because that is usually where it's posted first. The builds are coded so we know which one is the latest. You can find out what version you have by going to Help-About Autodesk Revit. Build 20060518_2300 has just come out and addresses mainly area plan calculations; there is a full discussion of this topic here

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=38578.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Rendering Survey

I just saw a link to a rendering with Revit survey on Steve Stafford's blog. http://revitoped.blogspot.com/
This will help Autodesk decide on what rendering engine people want inside Revit. It's only good for 2 more days, May 26

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Revit 9 Build

Hold off on installing Revit 9 until this Thursday. Autodesk has found a few bugs and is making a build. They said that they will be complete by sometime on Wednesday, May 3. I'll repost if this date changes.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Diary of a Revit User

We would like to welcome Paul Loreto to the Ontario Revit Users Group.
If you are a member of the Autodesk Users Group International please check out his informative feature on the augi.com website:

http://www.augi.com/publications/hotnews.asp?page=1113

Paul F. Loreto is marketing director of ANO Architects/Architectes Inc., a 30-person, full-service architectural firm with offices in London, Sudbury and Timmins, Ontario Canada. Paul has been an Autodesk Authorized Contractor since 2002 and has provided 34 Autodesk Revit training, implementation, and mentoring sessions throughout North America on behalf of Autodesk Inc. Paul taught Revit classes at Autodesk University in 2003 and 2004 and is currently providing Revit consultation through his company. You can contact him at paul.loreto@anoarchitects.com and visit his website at www.anoarchitects.com.

Friday, April 21, 2006

First Meeting Topics

There are so many to choose from! Here are a couple ideas, please add your own comments.

What's new in Revit 9 - This would be an examination of the new tools, how we'll use them. Plus we could look and see if they addressed our wish list items.

Rendering in Revit - We could share techniques and examples, since there's not much written info out there on this topic. And incidentally there are a number of awesome rendering artists in Ontario who are using Revit.

Stay tuned, we'll keep adding to this...

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Why We Exist

Deep question? No not really. The mission of this blog is to create a community of people who use Revit in Ontario. Ultimately this blog will facilitate:

-online discussions
-planning meetings and events
-networking with other users locally and around the world. (notice the link to the South Australian Revit Users Group, maybe would could do a work exchange in February!)

If anyone who has joined would like to add anything, please do so.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Welcome to the Official Ontario Revit Users Group Blog

Well that was a long title! This users group is also a long time in coming. Revit is so revolutionary and fun to use that it creates a very loyal following. The purpose of this site is to connect the Revit users in Ontario who would like to have their say. We will be discussing issues that range from general Revit use to specific topics that only affect us in this part of the world. So, let's get this party started!