What sessions should Facilities / Operations attend at AECTechCon 2025?

Ah, another AEC conference... and I'll bet it's all geared toward Architects and GCs... or is it? 

Register for AECTechCon 2025 here. 

Spoiler alert... it is not. AECTechCon runs May 7th & 8th in St. Charles, Missouri, not too far from the STL airport. I've been to this conference many times over the years, and it just keeps getting bigger and better (Also? We were in this same venue last year and the food was EXCELLENT for all meals, way better than stale muffins, dry sandwiches, and salads in a shot glass like I've experienced at other places).

Coming from the owner's side, I know it's hard to find classes with our peers that actually apply to facilities, so I did the leg work for you and put together a list of classes that actually apply to our part of the lifecycle. Apologies for making multiple recommendations for some of the time slots, but there is a lot of good content, even for those of us who are not on the design, production, and construction side. 

There are different official tracks, but obviously the folks in operations can span such a wide variety of skills and tasks, that we would want to attend across multiple themes:

·       BIM/VDC

·       Innovation & Emerging Technologies

·       IT & Infrastructure

·       Safety

·       Workforce Development

DAY ONE

BREAKFAST – registration and food

Conference Opening – Leonard Teonjes, Alex Belkofer, and Travis Byerly

Keynote: Empowering the Next Generation of AECO - Dustin Burns

Democratizing Digital Maturity through Discovery - Eveart Foster

BREAK – Exhibit Hall Opens

The Power of Low-Code Automation – Carl Storms

OR Enhancing Construction Safety with QR codes – Joe Shyrock

BREAK

Modeling Sustainability: Embedding Data for Reduced Embodied Carbon in Architectural Design – Ryan Taube

OR Women in Construction – Kendra Brown (DFW Intl. Airport), Gwen Arenberg, Jamie Berzon, and Leticia Lago

LUNCH

Digital Twin (Design Data Management) for Operations – Melanie Stone (yes, plugging my own class, but for obvious reasons)

OR Reality Capture to BIM in Critical Environments – Aaron Johnson, Marc Cady, and Aurore Fournier

BREAK

Using Existing MEP Systems in a New Project – Ray Blowers and Geoff McCally

OR Getting Along: The Importance of Interconnectivity within your Systems – Victor Zhang and Jacob Shavel

OR The AI Advantage: Tools, Techniques, and Truths – Carl Storms

BREAK

General Session: Apps for Mental Health / Construction Safety

Closing Keynote: It’s Still Construction: Restoring Faith in Tech with the Craft Workforce – Sal D’ambrosia

HAPPY HOUR – Food, drinks, networking, and asking exhibitors questions

DAY TWO

BREAKFAST – Registration and food

Opening Keynote – Paperless Buildings: How, What, & Why of ConTech – Hamzah Shanbari

General Session: Bridging the Gap from Office to Field – Paul Hedgepath

Safety Talk with AGCMO’s – Brandon Anderson

BREAK

Enhancing Operations through Digital Delivery and Digital Twins – Mark Mergenschroer

OR Practicing AI using the fundamentals of Data & Processes in Construction – Juan Nunez and Jason Jiang

OR Building Trust and Innovation: Psychological Safety in AEC – Karen Taylor-Liggins

BREAK

Building Operations: Addressing the 95% of Wasted Construction Data – Mark Mergenschroer

LUNCH

Using Augmented Reality to Add Life to the Model – Tom Colyer and Nick Landzettel

OR Utilizing Technology to Minimize Incidents & Orchestrate a Culture of Safety, Efficiency, and Engagement – Tyfoom & VeeJay

OR Data-Driven Insights: Leveraging Dashboards for Effective Cost Analysis – Ryan Meyer

OR Leading Change: Empowering Teams for a Tech-Ready Future – Jeff Visnic

BREAK

Leading Digital Transformation Across Diverse Teams without Direct Authority – Brian Myers

Strategizing AI: From Blueprints to Algorithms – Cindy Baldwin & Scott Yates

Building Your Future: A Comprehensive Guide to BIM Career Development – Katie King and Adam Lega

BREAK

General Session: Boots on the Ground Embracing Field Tech – Jeff Montgomery & Panel

CLOSING – Alex Belkofer & Travis Byerly – Closing Remarks and Prizes 

Watch a video recap of past events: LinkedIn video

Digital Twin From the Owner's Perspective - AUGI Con 2024 Video

A few weeks ago, I was honored to be one of the few speakers chosen to present at the first ever AUGI Con 2024.

There were so many great questions and discussions from the attendees. 

The recording of that presentation is now live!

AUGI Con 2024 area - Digital Twin from the Owner's Perspective video 

(EDIT: Now also available on YouTube! Though you still need to go through the Community App to access the slide deck and handout.)

You do need to be registered as a member at AUGI.com first, and then the AUGI Community (available desktop and in an app) which will be checked against your AUGI membership (there is a free membership level available, so there is no cost involved). 

I was worried about going over on time and talked pretty fast, so it's probably only about a 30 minute presentation, with about 15 minutes of Q&A. (If this presentation sounds familiar outside of AUGI, I gave a very similar talk at AECTechCon here in St. Louis the following week.)

In addition to a video recording of the session, my slide deck, as well as a 10 page course handout that provides almost as much detail as the talk itself, are also available in the mighty AUGI Community. 

First it was "BIMwashing", now it is "TWINwashing".

Before we try to sell Digital Twin services to facility operators, let's discuss how owners are using your design data today. 

Understanding what an Integrated Workplace Management System, or Computerized Maintenance Management System, is will be vital to determining what your client actually needs from your construction documentation. 

Learning how few people will actually interact directly with your models can bring perspective of how facilities/operations curates technical documentation and makes updates throughout the lifecycle of their campus.

Who is the Owner

• Who are the stakeholders?
• How will they access your data?

IWMS

• What is an Integrated Workplace Management System?
• How does my data get ingested & updated over the lifecycle?

Project Closeout

• What handover mistakes are commonly seen from the AEC side?
• What mistakes are commonly seen from the Owner’s side?

How does Digital Twin fit in?

• What real world problem would a ‘Digital Twin’ solve?

In addition to giving definitions and background data, real world examples were also provided at each step, from my 20+ years of experience working in Facilities, networking with other Owners, and being a consultant who implements and supports facilities operations and management around the world.

Thank you to my team over at R.O.I. Consulting Group for highlighting my Digital Twin for FM session to our blog readers!

Proptech at Pratt - Hybrid Event

My company, R.O.I. Consulting Group, is partnering with the Pratt Institute once again, to produce a free educational and networking event for the Property Technology community (architecture, construction, facility management, and corporate real estate). 

Proptech at Pratt 2024

March 28th

Pratt Institute - Manhattan Campus

144 West 14th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10011

2:00 - 6:00 pm Eastern Time

The schedule is packed with good content surrounding IWMS, Smart Buildings, Sustainability, Digital Twin, Costs and Carbon, Facilities Management, Virtual Construction, IoT & Sensors, Corporate Real Estate and more.

There is an option to attend virtually if you are not local to NY, which is how I will be participating. Each of these will be presented in 20 minute segments, so you can dial in for the sessions you want and work them in between your existing obligations.

If you do want to register to attend in person, please note that you'll want to scroll down on the registration page as the Happy Hour registration (afterwards, from 6-8pm) is a separate form.

And, even if you can't make the daytime sessions, you're still welcome to come to the networking portion in the evening, no worries!

Smart Museum - Digital Twin at The Wright Museum

Last year, my team at R.O.I. Consulting Group was fortunate enough to be able to work on a great project with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History as an IoT sensor partner (though I also like to think our experience with digital twin and facilities management issues and platforms came into play as well).

You may have heard about them from Autodesk University 2023, Operationalizing a Smart Museum: An Owner's Journey to Digital Twin. This talk was recorded and the slides and handout are available for download, and you get to learn about how they are creating the next generation Green museum.

We primarily worked with their Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), Leslie Tom, and their Exhibit Designer, Korzell Coe. They have a lot of really interesting initiatives that their model and sensors will be the base for, and a big team behind them making the vision that they expressed become reality.

I have been meaning to share their AU presentation, and unfortunately had not gotten around to that yet... but what more perfect time than today? They've been working with Autodesk on a highlight video of their project and it just went live! 

Having worked in facilities for over 20 years, it is SO important for us to hear from the Owner / Operators of these campuses directly, what they are actually doing, the problems they are solving. Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Consulting firms should not be trying to push technologies that facility engineers and space planners and energy managers do not need. It is a waste of effort on both sides and can lead to a lot of dissatisfaction of unmet expectations. So, really understanding where these owners comes from allows you as a service provider to recommend and provide something useful and wanted that solves the problems the building owner has, and brings them back to you as a trusted adviser and partner.

READ AND WATCH on the Autodesk website

You can also Watch on LinkedIn. 

This video not only shows their beautiful facility, but explains their goals and some of the documentation issues they've had in the past, and how they moved past that and recreated record drawings for their facilities management and future planning needs, as well as to connect to sensors.

The video is only 4 minutes long, so please watch, BUT also I encourage you to carve out some time to read the article beneath it, as it delves into more of their drivers, the roi, sustainability, environmental and cultural awareness, historical artifact preservation, and much more!

Another article has been published about this project:

How the Wright Museum’s Digital Transformation is Leading the Way for Sustainability in Museums

Discover how the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is leveraging smart technology to become a model of cultural and sustainable preservation.

Reality of BIM in FM - Podcast

This summer, I sat down with Angela Simoes and Jonathan Girroir from TechSoft 3D to discuss Digital Twin, and how that actually plays out in the real world.

• Apple Podcast
• SoundCloud
• YouTube

While I am currently a consultant, and have been since 2016. Most of my career was on the owner / operator side of the AECO industry. I will never try to convince our clients to use a solution I would not use in their shoes. 

In fact, one of the services that we offer here at R.O.I. Consulting Group is evaluating IWMS and IoT solutions for clients and making an informed recommendation to them, based on our knowledge of the platforms and their needs. So, my leadership and coworkers are of the same mind as me in this regard.

On a high level, we discussed:

1. What does it look like when an ideal model-based handover occurs and is ingested into the operations management system?

vs

2. What does handover actually look like and where does it go wrong?

Topics that were touched upon: 

• In this discussion, I explain why owners need a single file format for deliverables, and how those (either DWG or RVT) work with our IWMS / CAFM / CPIP systems.
• How BIM requirements are laid out in materials specs/SOWs.
• We do not get the deliverables that we spec and pay for, sometimes intentionally, sometimes due to shifting priorities.
• Collaboration between teams during design and construction is far overstated.
• There can be multiple points of failure during closeout and handover that results in clients not receiving editable documentation or consistent documentation.
• Every design team should have at least one programmer who can automate changes across a project. Don't do this manually, come on.
• Don't make assumptions on Facility Engineering requirements, ask why that spec is there.
• The IWMS is the single source of truth and touchpoint for most users, not the model.
• How databases have longevity and portability, ensuring long term maintenance.
• The model MUST to be editable, for maintenance corrections and future renovations.
• Keeping models up to date saves vast amounts of money on future projects not requiring surveying and redrawing.
• The biggest improvement in our segment of the industry is actually SaaS IWMS hosting (regular included updated) vs internal or consultant hosted (years between updates, so many customizations that upgrades are long and expensive).
• The design team needs to speak to the owner, meaning the operator... not the project manager. If you are involving the occupant, you can involve the FM team, too, include it in that process.
• See Also: Who is the Owner and how do they use your deliverables? 
• The technology is there, but the processes and coordination still have a long way to go.
• Scanning existing conditions is getting easier as devices become cheaper.
• Monitoring devices, sensors are so much cheaper and easier, you can DIY. For example, the Disruptive sensors that are plug n play. 
• Consumer level devices such as these are easier to get past Finance / IT, etc. compared to traditional BAS/BMS and hand surveying which is more complex and expensive.

Recognition from Verdantix

When I worked on the Owner's side, I remember reading a few Verdantix reports in my day. So, it has been pretty exciting this year, being able to play a small part in my company being included with the impressive service providers listed in their "Green Quadrant: Workplace Systems Integrators 2023" report.

Press release: R.O.I. Consulting Group

Going to the source, I was happy to see the Green Building Quadrant I'm familiar with. Please click through and read for more insights and perspective from Verdantix.

https://www.verdantix.com/insights/blogs/verdantix-green-quadrant-reveals-leading-workplace-systems-integrators-in-a-growing-market-

Green Quadrant - Workplace Systems Integrators 2023: Verdantix

Congratulations to all of my colleagues at R.O.I.! They are an amazingly talented group of people, providing implementation and support services for multiple IWMS / CAFM / CMMS / CPIP platforms, as well as helping building owners evaluate and select what platform is right for them.

Among those platforms we actively support:

• MRI - Manhattan CenterStone
• Planon
• Serraview
• Tango
• Archibus
• Tandem

And we also partner with a few IoT easy-to-use sensor vendors, including: 

• Disruptive
• Freespace
• Vergesense

Digital Twin Webinar October 19th - IFMA

I was fortunate enough this year to be asked to help prepare a survey on Digital Twin with Autodesk and the IFMA Information Technology Community. This will be an annual survey, so please keep an eye on our social medias when we announce the survey run again next spring.

It is a panel discussion, which I will be moderating. We will hear from a variety of viewpoints, because digital twin (much like IWMS) is going to vary based on the needs of each use case and user.

During the Webinar, I'll briefly review some highlights of the 2022 IFMA Survey on Digital Twin, then we have some major topics we will cover. There will also be time at the end for Q&A from the attendees.

The whitepaper detailing the entirety of the survey and key takeaways will be published at a later time, I will share when it becomes available for download.

• Melanie Stone - Representing Facility Owners and Operators
• Mark Mergenschroer - Representing Design Software (but a past Owner himself)
• Erik Jaspers - Representing IWMS Software
• Chris Lorrain - Representing the Civil Industry and Laser Scanning
• Brett Spindler - Representing IT/OT (or IoT)

IT/OT convergence is the integration of information technology (IT) systems with operational technology (OT) systems. IT systems are used for data-centric computing; OT systems monitor events, processes and devices, and make adjustments in enterprise and industrial operations.

Register for the Webinar here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-smRy_GpSRaCC_GWZFUTIw

Thank you to IFMA ITC, Autodesk, and R.O.I. Consulting for sponsoring this survey and webinar!

What a Facility Owner wants you to know

    I cannot count how many times I have spoken to the AEC industry on a perspective from the Owner's side. It is so important to have our voice heard, for design teams to learn from us as we learn from them and we meet together to create a sustainable lifecycle for our buildings and data.

    But with the last team who approached me, I was not sure what to present on, and the organizer, Karen Kensak, suggested something like Digital Twins. I was like, UGH not another shiny technology, when people do not even deliver what they are contracted for most of the time. 

    So... that became the topic of my conversation. They do not record their presentations, so I decided to record my own and post it, because it is a really important discussion. 

    Behind every technical analysis I have responded with over the years, is a disappointment that most design teams are not consistently meeting contracted requirements. 

    Yes, I lay plenty of blame on the Owner's side, from the PMs not understanding or caring to Finance closing out books and sending out final payments before requirements have been met... but just because someone lets you get away with something, does not mean you should.

    If you do not care to watch an entire video, and prefer podcasts instead, I did touch on some of the same topics (although a little less forthrightly) on an episode of BIMThoughts last year. After hearing the playback of that interview, I felt I should make a presentation addressing how I always dance around the real issue for us owners, but did not get around to it... until today.

    We have such passion and energy in our industry, among those of us who share knowledge. But not everyone is like us. They do not understand or do not care or have too many time pressures, whatever the issue is, if we close the loop, it will benefit all of us.

if you do not see a video embedded here, try switching your browser to "View Web Version" or click directly on this YouTube link. 

    Not only will it make the next renovation easier, faster, and cheaper for all parties involved, it should help our economy as a whole. As I refer back to (yet again) the NIST study that shows that there are billions of dollars of lost information in our industry every year, most of which is borne by the capital facilities portion, aka, our clients.

    I also mentioned in my talk, the article I wrote about the 'alphabet soup' of acronyms for FM, so here is the link: TLA/FLAs for FIM/IWMS

Facilities Management Q&A forum: https://www.augi.com/forums/forumdisp... Salary Survey 2021 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2021AUGIsurvey Are you looking for a new job? https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2021JobSearch

BIMThoughts episode on BIM in FM (and Data)

The crew over at BIMThoughts invited me to speak to facilities management issues for their listeners. I swear, it was a lot more fun than FM sounds. 

Podcast on YouTube

We spoke about everything from contracts to project management, reality capture, ground penetrating radar, CAFM, IWMS, CMMS, BAS or smart buildings, key control, security, data silos, asset management, lease management, hot-desking, occupancy planning and projection, densification and de-densification due to the pandemic, pivoting workspaces from in person meetings to virtual meetings, paper to CAD, CAD to BIM, paperless offices, digital twins, data exchange, energy management, waste management, consumer level existing conditions assessment tools, The Incredibles and the Three Amigos.

It kind of makes my head spin. But, we facilities folks are the crux of our buildings... the starting and ending point of renovations and expansions. I'm pretty proud of all that we touch and the data that we receive, supply and look after with such care.

The FM SME who receives the construction documents at the end of a project has the vital charge of curating their components for all of the other stakeholders on the owner's side. 

Show Notes

• Episode Hashtag: #MoreThanJustHVAC
• Here is where you can find Melanie on the World Wide Web:
  • Website: Mistress of the Dorkness
  • LinkedIn: Melanie Stone
  • Twitter: @MistresDorkness
• A great post from Melanie’s Blog
  • What does an Owner want with BIM?
• Looking for a job in occupancy planning?
  • Company looking to fill a lot of occupancy planning & related roles

This is a sketch of the episode done by Jisell Howe, it’s awesome! You should also check out her blog.

Methods of polylining and Boundary/BPOLY

So, as a Facilities person using AutoCAD (although Revit can sometimes be finicky about 'bounding' properties and having to manually add/adjust bounding lines, too), polylining is a must for all of us.

I still occasionally run across users who are not familiar with the Boundary command (or BPoly).

I use this command to create polylines from enclosed areas, but, you can also create Regions with it. 

Obviously, in this process, you have to be aware of the polylining standards being used. Whether it is BOMA or some client-specific method. 

If you're plining an area with a predictable pattern (such as a cube farm), setting up construction lines (CONSTRUCTION LINE or RAY) at the midpoint of the walls can be a way to provide yourself with enclosed areas to use the Boundary (BOUNDARY or BPOLY) command on. 
Make sure you have a distinct layer set as Current, so that you can isolate it (LAYISO). 

Annoyingly, in Autocad 2021, it appears that the default LAYISO behavior is to lock layers, rather than the prior default of turning them off, so you'll have to LAYISO > S to change the settings to O. 

If they are the same size, I tend to just draw a rectangle and copy or array as appropriate.

If you have less regular areas, such as an office suite or cafeteria, you will most likely  manually polyline the smaller spaces, then use Boundary on the remaining open space (lobby or seating). 

Just remember handy tools like the M2P OSNAP, where you can click two points and your pline will snap to the midpoint between them, so you can use RECTANG instead of PL to make your bounding lines, where appropriate. 

I actually set up an M2P shortcut on my tool palette, just so I can keep clicking along. 

When working in a busy drawing, I tend to keep my running osnaps to a minimum so I don't snap to the wrong thing, and just select more specific snaps from my TP when they are required. 

So, once you have your surrounding spaces polylined to make an enclosed space, then you can use BPOLY. 

Here the cyan line is my exterior gross, the magenta represents the interior gross line, the blue is for the room boundaries and the yellow is a pair of break lines that prevents islands (Tririga would show an island space as a Child space, but, I believe ARCHIBUS and FM:Systems would freak out about it, islands are a no-no. And, though I am currently a Tririga user, we still avoid islands and do not utilize child spaces with our client.). I feel pretty safe with with an 1/8" gap (.1 if you want to save on the keyboard input). 

A tip for generating the exterior gross line is by using the AREA command. 

My next step would be to select the interior gross line, a room boundary and one of the yellow breaklines and type LAYISO, so all of the other layers are turned OFF. Run the boundary command, select a point inside of the area, and your polyline is generated. 

Confused about the difference between freezing a layer and turning it off?
http://mistressofthedorkness.blogspot.com/2019/09/turning-off-or-freezing-layer-in.html

Now, I did have a reader tell me awhile back that he created a VBA program that would isolate to the desired layers and start the boundary command. I have done a bit of VBA in the past and even had the honor of assisting Lee Ambrosius in his programming labs at AU for years, but, I haven't quite gotten around to making my own program. 
But, even if you're not comfortable with programming, you could also speed things up by isolating these layers and use the Layer States dropdown on the expanded Layers panel on the home tab of the ribbon to create a new layer state and while in the Layer States Manager, Export that setting to import into other drawings. 
Because, of course, if you're using CAFM/IWMS, you are using the exact same layer names every time.

Happy Polylining, folks! 

RetroCAD video on ARCHIBUS FIMS

One of my colleagues has been posting these awesome videos, setting up really old hardware and operating systems, and running old CAD programs.
His channel is called RetroCAD, and he announces his new videos on Twitter.

So, Robert pinged me and asked if I had or knew of anyone who had an older version of ARCHIBUS.
Now, y'all know I spent most of my illustrious career working in the Facilities Engineering department of one of our nation's top 10 hospitals. Each time we moved our offices (Milton has nothing on us lol), we were put into smaller and smaller spaces and had to purge things. So, I was allowed to bring home a few things that might have otherwise ended up in the dumpster.
Some old digitizer tablets and pucks, some middle-aged Autocad versions & advertisements AND one really old binder of ARCHIBUS F.I.M.S., with a shipping date of 1993.
I'm thrilled that my Shaan Hurley-esque hoarding of arcane architectural artifacts has not been for naught.

Facilities Management is sort of the step-child of the AEC industry, and CAFM (computer-aided facilities management) software does not get a lot of air-time compared to design software, so this is exciting for me.

So, you know how much our industry LOVES acronyms.

BUT, I have a new favorite!

ROVER
Random Online Videodisk Emulation Retrieval
Awesome. lol. Fetch that data!

I hope you enjoy his videos as much as I did. And that, like me, you can appreciate how far user interfaces and relational data has come in the past 20-30 years.

TLA/FLAs for FIM/IWMS

(last updated in 2026)

It seems like every time I see someone write, or hear someone speak, about my line of work, they will say something to the effect of "This could better be described by [INSERT TOTALLY NEW AND COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY ACRONYM HERE]".

If you have ever found yourself typing or uttering those words, or something similar, just stop yourself. Please.

Alright. Having grown up in the engineering industry, in the age of CAD, and a burgeoning data management movement, and the expansion of BIM, I am surrounded constantly by acronyms. 

The icing on the cake was that the facility I worked longest in was a medical center, so I had to be familiar with many of those as well.

The title of my post is Three Letter Acronyms / Four Letter Acronyms for Facilities Information Management and Integrated Workplace Management Systems. 

So, yes, it IS nicer to be able to say that in far fewer letters. The only problem is, which letters to use?

Enough ranting and meme-sharing, though. I have collected a series of these acronyms for reference, which I come across often in my work. 

Please feel free to comment any others which you see or use regularly.

CAFM - Computer Aided Facilities Management

CMMS - Computerized Maintenance Management System

IWMS - Integrated Workplace Management System

FAM - Facilities Asset Management

FIM - Facilities Information Management

AM - Asset Management

AIM - Asset Information Modeling

CRE - Corporate Real Estate / Commercial Real Estate

EAM - Enterprise Asset Management

EIM - Enterprise Information Management

CPIP - Connected Portfolio Intelligence Platform

FCA - Facilities Condition Assessment

HRIS - Human Resources Information Systems

ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning

BAS - Building Automation System

BMS - Building Management System

IAQ - Indoor Air Quality

IEQ - Indoor Environmental Quality (air quality, light, acoustics, temperature)

DCIM - Data Center Infrastructure Management (datacenter & facilities; energy, equipment, and space are efficient)

CAD - Computer Aided Design/Drafting

GIS - Geographic Information System

BIM - Building Information Modeling

IPD - Integrated Project Delivery

COBie - Construction Operations Building Information Exchange

IFC - Industry Foundation Classes (not Insulating Concrete Form, dyslexics of the world untie!)

BEP/PxP/BxP - BIM Execution Plan / Project Execution Plan / BIM Execution Plan

DTEP / D-TEP - Digital Twin Execution Plan

PIM - Project Information Model

LoD - Level of Detail

NCS/NBIMS - National CAD Standard / National BIM Standard US

AEC - Architecture, Engineering, and Construction

AEC/FM - AEC & Facilities Management

AECO - AEC & Operations

BOMA - Building Owners and Managers Association

IFMA - International Facilities Management Association

AIM - Asset Information Management

AIM - Asset Information Model

AIP - Asset Investment Planning

CDE - Common Data Environment

UDF - User Defined Field (~shudders delicately~)

EBS - Essential Business Services

OT - Operational Technology

FormIt360 + Dynamo: A Win-Win for Designers!

Today I am delighted to host another guest post from Ryan Cameron! If you missed his popular tutorial article: "Revit + 3dsMax: Utilizing Render Techniques - A Winning Combination", I suggest you take a second to check it out. A great tutorial, with plenty of tips and tricks.

FormIt360 + Dynamo: A Win-Win for Designers!

Article by Ryan Baker Cameron, AIA, LEED AP, EDAC, NCARB

      @rbcameron1            ryan@ryanbakercameron.com           LinkedIN

Tell me if you’ve heard this scenario before... You have your design team cranking away on some concept models in Sketchup. They model the heck out of it and it looks awesome! You get client approval and final sign-off because they love it too! Congrats, go buy yourself something nice! 
Then BANG, at some point it has to be real. Model conversion happens and starts to break down the files and the dreaded omissions start to happen because you’re viewing a model you have no direct connection to. You’re spending hours remodeling areas in Revit, dreaming of a better way. 
Yet another hole in the BIM process.

Around 2012 Autodesk FormIt360 came on the scene. Without hesitation, I downloaded it on my Nvidia tablet because I was looking for a way to model-on-the-go myself by developing Android Apps. From a practical standpoint it was a winning situation.  

Traveling a lot, I found I could save them to the cloud when I had WiFi, then get on a plane and continue. The second “win” came when it was clear to me that all that work wasn’t wasted because it could be transferred directly to a Revit model using massing families. This meant that my efforts in the Revit process were much more accurate depictions of the model, not a comparison between two screens. One step better, I could apply my “real” Revit walls to the face of the massing geometry.

Since those days, FormIt360 has come a long way. Animations, layers, materials and even Dynamo integration. 

So let’s talk about that for a moment. The ability to write code and run a script to help evaluate your model isn’t just a neat trick, it is becoming a requirement. Coding is the new sketching. 

Let me explain. Let’s say you have a zoning ordinance that requires setbacks and has height restrictions. It isn’t always evident to your design team, as we want them to have the freedom to be creative within the boundaries of the site. What if you could create a simple script that turned the model red, or warned your design team in some way, should they go outside those legal parameters?

Perhaps a script that auto-adjusted a parking garage by typing in simple numbers for Stall Count or Floor-to-Floor height? https://dynamo.autodesk.com/customize-5793c57a1cea5a924f4682fb

Feel free to login and download this Dynamo Studio file to experiment with. Maybe you could be the one to make it even better? That’s the beauty of open-source, take it and make it better.

So where’s the beef? Why would you want to migrate from Sketchup, since you have all of those models in your library? 
Well for starters, FormIt360 has a plugin for Revit that converts *.rfa and also *.skp file types into *.axm files for use in Formit360. Secondly, you’re going to start to see more websites with free content available for download as FormIt360 becomes more popular like this from Turbosquid: http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Artists/3d-medical-equipment?keyword=axm

Twitter link: https://twitter.com/rbcameron1/status/446347949195272192LinkedIN links: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/coding-new-sketching-ryan-b-cameron-aia?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publishNvidia link: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2015/02/12/architects-directstylus/Free models: http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Artists/3d-medical-equipment?keyword=&include_artist=3D+Medical+Equipment&sort_column=A5&sort_order=ascRevit/Sketchup Converter: http://formit360.autodesk.com/page/formit-360-revit

In this demonstration I will use the 2017-UR2 version of Dynamo Studio. Do not let the thought of having to learn scripting become overwhelming. We will be tip-toeing around Dynamo’s most basic nodes and publishing them to the cloud using its upload manager to Google Chrome. Plus, you’ve already downloaded the script from the dynamoreach link I posted, right?

Remember when I said we’ll be using the most basic nodes? Of course you do, it was in the previous paragraph. Do you notice all the black dots with reference planes attached to them in the image below? That is the Curves.DivideCurve node in the Lunchbox package created by a college classmate of mine, Nate Miller of Proving Ground. The web version can’t recognize it (for now) so we’re going to detach it from the lines of code. 

That way you don’t get an error like this:

So your screen will look like this then once all the black dots are gone. In fact, this is what you should have downloaded already.

Step 1: 

Know your nodes! We will only be using: Point.ByCoordinates List.Create Polygon.ByPoints Surface.ByPatch Integer Slider Custom Code Block

 Step 2: 

Right-click in the canvas to bring up the search menu. Type in the names of the nodes above and place them on the canvas. To create a Custom Code Block, just double click the canvas.

Step 3: 

I hope you’re Italian, because its spaghetti time! Connect up your Point.ByCoordinates node X to the Integer Slider. Now slide that toggle bar left and right! You are officially a coder!  

Step 4: 

Duplicate the rest of the code from the file you downloaded to get a feel for what it’s like to string these nodes together. It’s the best way to get comfortable, a simple set of shape-generating nodes together to reverse engineer what someone else has put together. Especially when the answers are right in front of you. Just like how you made it through college, right?

Here are a few hints: Holding the Esc key will temporarily shift you from code mode to model mode. 
Ctrl+B will do the same. Just like most things in computer programs, you can CTRL+C and CTRL+V your nodes so you aren’t constantly right-clicking and searching for nodes to place. Trust me, it’s faster.

Step 5: 

Upload to web! This is the easiest step of them all! File & Save to Web & Name it and hit Publish! Amazing right? And you can just copy the link and share it!

Just like learning to drive, I can tell you all about the engine, the types of tires and when to shift, but the only real way to experience it is to get behind the wheel and go.

Enjoy the ride everyone!