So I have this good friend who was displaced from an architectural job, in this downturned economy, so I told him about MEP firms looking for people who know how to implement Revit MEP, and how manufacturers are looking to create BIM content for their MEP clients. I also told him about Autodesk's Assistance Program website where you can download free softawre if you're a displaced worker, student, or veteran. He downloaded several products, incluiding Revit MEP and Inventor, and told me this weekend he has an open offer from a reputable MEP firm that's starting down the Revit MEP road. Since he'll be starting there as a BIM manager to help implement, yesterday, to help him start off as best he can, I put together for him a list of the best of the best resources I have stumbled onto over the past 3+ years with Autodesk.
I have been trying for weeks now to break loose and free up some time to cut some videos and revive the vitality here, but I have been on the road since... I can't remember how long!!I So I thought I would share the list with you guys - the rest of the world. So here they are - the juciest resources I know of on Revit MEP & BIM. These will certainly be useful if you are about to implement Revit MEP, but even if you've been doing Revit MEP for some time already, if you see something new on the list below, have a look and you probably won't be disappointed. None of the firms I have shared these resources so far with has been anything less than thrilled to have these. Note that to access some of these resources, you will have to be on Subscription and have those login credentials.
Revit MEP 2010 template file – zip file from David Butts’ AU 2009 class: MP314-1 – Autodesk® Revit® MEP 2010: Powerful Tips and Tricks.* This is the Revit MEP template file, already replete with all sorts of content typical to an MEP project.
Inside the System – Blog with great videos and blog postings about all the latest on Revit MEP, all from the Revit MEP team at Autodesk.
Revit Family Jewels – Blog on how to create Revit families (you're on it here :) )
Revit MEP Families Guide – How to make families (picks & clicks)
Revit® Model Content Style Guide – How to make your families consistent and standardized, industry wide. Ask a room full of people to write down what you call the relief mechanism on a water heater. You’ll get “relief valve, pressure relief valve, PRV, T&P, TPR, etc.” That’s just what you’ll get when people make water heater families too, and you’ll wind up with schedules that have five separate categories for the same item because each instance of that item in the project file has a different name.
Metadata Style Guide – The purpose of the Autodesk Seek Metadata Style Guide is to define style and formatting rules that manufacturers, content service organizations and other content publishers can reference to assist in the creation of high quality content for Autodesk Seek. Providing rich content and following the rules of the Style Guide will ensure the end user‟s experience in finding data is seamless and efficient. This document is directly related to the Product Workbook Excel template. It defines how the fields in the Product Workbook should be populated.
AU 2008 ME500-1 – From Contract to Construction Documents with Revit® MEP* – has one of the best videos I have ever seen on how to go from “Okay, we’re an MEP firm who just got our first Revit Architecture background – what do we do now??” – to – “Here are your CD’s, ready to go out to bid.” This video is three hours long, so bring your note pad and a bag of popcorn, and be prepared to come back to it a few times.
Model Performance Technical Note (pdf - 1225Kb) – When you leave your desk for lunch, and leave work at the end of the day, did you know you’re supposed to delete your local Revit file each time? If you keep working in the local file day after day rather than creating a new local copy twice a day, you are going to realize a huge performance hit, and cause memory errors. Delete the local copy twice daily, and make sure it’s deleted in Windows Explorer. This is just one reason you’ll want to read the Model Performance Technical Note before you implement Revit or a BIM workflow. The Model Performance Technical Note was written by all three Revit platform PM’s and herein they’ve identified all the weakest links in the process of deploying Revit that companies typically run into, so you can avoid them.
E202 (LOD) - 2008 – Level of (model) Development now being required of some firms. The complete set of documents is available on the AIA wbesite. For an excellent treatment of the subject, see James Van’s blog post about it on his All Things BIM blog. In contrast, see the Autodesk BIM Communication Specification, ff.
Autodesk BIM Communication Specification – The BIM Comm Spec outlines practices and provides a framework for using building information modeling (BIM) technology and practices to deliver projects faster and more cost-effectively. Here is the BimForum thread regarding electronic communications protocols. In the BimForum thread, the author is clearly of the opinion that Autodesk’s Comm Spec is the more “excellent and thorough” document.
Revit Server – If you need to more easily collaborate on projects with geographically dispersed teams, this is an application service you’ll want to implement that will help keep teams coordinated as they work on a single project from separate locations. As of this writing, the Revit Server application is available only via the MEP Subscription Advantage Pack on Subscription Center.* See also the Revit Server Administration Guide, and the Revit Server Installation Guide before you implement this app.
*Must be a Subscription customer to access and download this resource from AU Online.
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