Just for the new header image….

AEC, this is for you.

Please think about this each day. You will be rewarded.

Julien

Reinforcement again: it goes forth

Again, I’d like to share here some recent progress made about placing Reinforcement on irregular shapes, like a slanted double curved wall here. I managed to put some Structural framing to act like rebars, as a Design intended model only for now. No shop drawings yet.

The good point with SF families is that one can apply offset in Y and Z direction, which is just fine in this case to act like a cover setting. Select all, apply setting, done.

Another good one is that you can schedule those “acting-like” rebars, and eventually make some QTO and cost estimating. I need that feature, that’s why I want to stay in the project environment.

Let´s see in detail some nodes I use for this and how I get it work. You will discover with Dynamo that succes comes if you’re good at playing stacking games.

My point is that you add things and you don’t stop until it falls down. Then you start again….and if you have some success, it looks weird. See above picture.

First part of the dyn file is about getting points from a UV grid that are NOT on the borders:

Thanks to the packages, you have the ability to reuse some cool nodes made by others, here by Andreas Dieckmann. Here you select the face, number of rebars in both directions, and you get UVs.

Then you have to sort those points so that the borders of the surface are not hosting points anymore. Was a stacking game. And I can’t really remember how I get there, but it works.

In this last part, once you have the points, you use them to get curve and apply Structural framing on. Be careful, getting the Up direction is not as easy as it looks. Give a try.

I must admit it’s a bit slow to refresh, but I guess that my way of dealing with lists and sorting elements should be improved to react faster. Maybe some enhancement from the Dynamo development team for performance improvement could help too.

Dyn file can be found here.

Next steps:

1. allow 2 faces selection
2. manage spacing in each direction, not only by number of rebars but with a distance
3. find a way to mock-up stirrups at the edges of the shape
4. deal with triangular surfaces

See you soon, with a video to show how it works.

Julien

Blue dots for #Dynamo: a step forward

A short one about my steps to achieve reinforcement with Dynamo. It may not make sense to you, but trust me I happy with that for know. I managed to take out borders from my grid. YES!

Now that I have the dots, I still need to connect them, offset them, check distance between each. Some fun in progress…

Footprints

What I’ve done in my life, captured with Google’s eyes.

You can see some projects I’ve been involved in, as I was a site worker or site foreman. They are all milestones in my career and in my life. Here are the buildings I’ve made, with my own hands, with my guts sometime, as some where tough enough to make you doubt about the job you’re doing. Those pieces are on Earth, can be seen from satellites, protect people, configure the cities.

Working on site is a hard labor, it’s cold, it’s hot, it’s windy, it’s wet. At the end of the day your body is broken. We always have to remember, we as technicians, that what we design will be handled by hands and arms in the end. Some progress are made, but….still manual tasks. Each time I work on documentation for construction teams, I remember I had to do this once. And for that I try to make documentation better, clearer, more complete, more detailed. Technology, as Revit software and others, helps us to put what we deal with in a context, geometrical context. For clash detection. Human versus concrete clash detection in my previous job. Context is a key point. And no matter your purpose in the act of building, context is essential, crucial. For workers, it’s a safety reason. I hope I can help here. I wish I do.

I’d like to dedicate this post to all the crazy guys I’ve worked with, who taught me how to play with concrete and rebars and formworks and cranes.

Thanks guys, be proud of what you’re doing, there’s gold in your hands.

Julien

RTC Europe 2013: Delft

I must put words on my thoughts. I came back from Delft with more ideas and thoughts than effective Revit knowledge. Not because the content of the classes weren’t good enough, but because people were just extraordinary delegates. Getting feedback from attendees after your class is a fantastic experience, and those moments will remain engraved in my memory for a long time. Also, I finally met some of the guys I was in touch with through the web. Or how virtual leads to reality.
I was impressed by sharing with others. And finding people facing same issues, same sad faces at work, etc…than me. This makes me feel confident for the future, as I believe the AEC industry is moving forward today faster than before, mainly because it start to use powerful and smart tools, used by smart and passionate people. Many of them were at RTC Europe. And I’m sure there are many other all over the Europe. Fingers crossed for Dublin, let’s catch up there guys. Discussion only started, we have more to share.

Julien

PS: some phone pictures of Delft.

Architeks Park

I was in Delft at RTC Europe inaugural event last week. I was very lucky to be a speaker there, first time class in English outside my company. My shirt was not really glad I did….

I will probably expend more later on this event, but my point here is a strange feeling I have about architects in our time: are they endangered species?

Many people I know in France from various companies or positions made the same observation, and it was many times confirmed in Delft: architects are reluctant to embrace BIM workflows, or at least invest time and money on software able to take part in a BIM workflow.

I don’t judge here, even if I have my opinion. We have a problem in France with the number: too many architects for so few jobs, and many students graduating each year………….. to sell Big Macs (it’s a just a “funny” guess but I know there’s really a high unemployment rate). But it is absolutly not the only reason.

Many Delegates in Delft were structural engineers from Northern countries, some were from construction companies from a wide sample of European countries. I spoke with many, and they all told me that architects in there area were the last discipline not in movement to adopt isolate BIM or like. I even heard that some projects were BIM is mandatory could start without even a real architect, by a lack of candidate.
History will tell, but a day may happen where architects will be replaced by another trade, just like a useless thing that turned useless because it didn’t evolve.

Julien