AutoCAD training courses “Can I put the area of a room in a table?”

 As an Application Specialist with over 25 years of training Autodesk applications, I have recently noticed there has been a growing interest from delegates attending SYMETRI’s AutoCAD training courses to advance their skills with AutoCAD Beyond the Basics and the AutoCAD Advanced courses.

Why are more learners attending more advanced course?

Over the past months, I asked my students why there has been an increased interest in more advanced AutoCAD training courses.

The most common answers, is that their company has reached a plateau, the safe known workflows are not efficient anymore, many CAD drafting staff have retired and the time has come to refresh and reskill to advance the business to the next level.

I discovered the group dynamic to be extremely exciting in the Beyond the Basics and Advanced course, as I notice long time CAD users look at new features and workflows to adapt and apply to their needs in the design office. Our follow-on courses are very much a hands-on skill building experience.

“Can I put the area of a room in a table”

During these more advanced training courses, I tend to describe features that will streamline a workflow. For example, when I trained a group of delegates from the world of space planning, where they asked: “Can I put the area of a room in a table?” The answer being “yes”, allows us to discover the workflow to achieve this goal.

 First, we looked at the boundary command.

We then picked a point inside a room using the Object type as Polyline.

This created a closed polyline bounding one of the rooms. There is an entry which shows the Area and Length in the properties under Geometry. Using that information, we can populate given cells in a table.

Over in Paper Space we created a simple table to display Room Name, Room Perimeter and Room Area. In that table, we double clicked on the data cell under Room Perimeter and selected field in the Data menu.

Select object on the left field names in the field dialogue box, and then select the polyline. You can select the polyline model line even when you are in Paper Space.

We need Length to describe our room perimeter and Decimal for format.

In Additional Format we used a conversion factor of 0.001 to convert our millimetres unit size to meters for our table entry.

This gave us a value that represented Metres in Length for the perimeter of the room or boundary that we created. This value is dynamic so if you change the boundary, it will update the table field value.

Use the same procedure to extract the area value from the polyline and put in the table.

AutoCAD Training courses

We offer a wide range of AutoCAD Training courses, please visit our website for more information: https://www.symetri.co.uk/training/autocad-training-courses

AutoCAD Essentials - This course covers the essential core topics for working with the AutoCAD software, starting with a few basic tools expanding to more advanced ones. Find out more: https://www.symetri.co.uk/training/training-courses/autocad-essentials

AutoCAD Beyond the Basics - This 2-day course will help you explore more advanced tools and techniques to help you work smarter. Explore the full course content here: https://www.symetri.co.uk/training/training-courses/autocad-beyond-the-basics

AutoCAD Advanced - Customising and managing AutoCAD to suit your design application is a great way to increase your productivity. This course teaches simple but powerful customisation techniques and advanced AutoCAD tools. Explore the full agenda here: https://www.symetri.co.uk/training/training-courses/autocad-advanced

Testimonial:

“The course has been really helpful, informative and enjoyable - often training can be boring but Geoff made it easy for us to understand and relevant to the work we are doing. I can't wait to utilize the skills I've learnt & am also looking to book the next course - only if Geoff is teaching!” Natalie W

What’s New in AutoCAD Electrical 2023

In this blog, we look at what’s new in the AutoCAD Electrical 2023 release.

Signal Arrows Update

In AutoCAD Electrical 2023, you can synchronise all source and destination arrows that use the same signal code. In previous releases, the link between the source arrows to other source or destination arrows would break when making a change to the signal code. The source and destination arrows with the same signal code in any drawing are all updated when the signal code in one of the source arrows is updated.

Copy Project

Enhancements have been made to copy project command which now includes a one-step process for copying electrical projects with the option to select “Use selected project as template project”. This option creates a copy of your specified project including all project-related files to increase productivity and efficiency compared to the previous releases of AutoCAD Electrical. The previous method is still supported within the copy project workflow. 

Electrical Bill of Materials Integration with Vault

In previous releases, only the catalog number is used as the key to generate the Electrical BOM in Vault. Using only the catalog number as the key caused issues when there are two symbols with the same catalog number but with different manufacturers, or with the same catalog number and manufacturer but with different AssemblyCodes.

Now, we have the option to include a key system CAT-MFG-ASSYCODE (Catalog + Manufacturer + AssemblyCode) for Electrical BOM’s in Vault. This resolves the issues pertaining to two symbols having the same key.

If you would like to find out more about AutoCAD Electrical, complete the form on this page https://www.symetri.co.uk/products/autocad-electrical  to get in touch with us.

SYMETRI also offers scheduled and private AutoCAD Electrical Essentials training. Explore the full agenda here: https://www.symetri.co.uk/training/training-courses/autocad-electrical-essentials
 

Webinar Recording | Everything you need to know about BIM | ISO 19650 Certification

Through BIM (Building Information Management), we can manage the information of a built asset through its whole life cycle, from initial design all the way through to construction, maintenance, and finally de-commissioning.

Through collaboration between engineers, owners, architects, and contractors in a common data environment, information can seamlessly flow between these disciplines and offers huge benefits when following BIM practices.

Symetri work in partnership with LRQA (formally Lloyd’s Register) in the delivery of ISO 19650-2 Certification. This webinar covers the following:

·         What is BIM and why should you consider ISO 19650 certification?

·         Industry trends

·         Introduction to our partner LRQA (formally Lloyd's Register) and meet some of their assessors

·         What is involved in the certification process?

·         Extra requirements for organisations who are already certified

·         Training and support

Watch the webinar here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EF73JwrQwg

For further information, visit our website: https://www.symetri.co.uk/buildings-infrastructure/buildings-infrastructure-consultancy/bim-advisory/bim-level-2-accreditation-certification-iso-19650-2

 

 

Autodesk Fusion 360 – What is the Product Design Extension?

Autodesk have released another extension for Fusion 360 on 18^th Jan 2022.

The extension is the start of a new set of product design tools to help automate multiple processes that tend to take longer if executed individually. This automation of events is, the beginning of how Autodesk will add automated workflows into Fusion 360.

The new features are manufacturing process aware, meaning they are material property driven allowing multiple features to be added in one command. This is similar to how sheet metal works currently in Fusion 360. These rule-based features mean that designers now have control over how they design plastic components.

The plastic commands are only the beginning of how this new extension will shape the way we automate in the application.

Autodesk currently has the following to offer,

• Assign and arrange materials
• Web
• Boss
• Snap fit
• Geometric Pattern

NOTE: Access to these tools/commands are only available when you purchase the Product Design Extension (PDE).

Plastics Rules

The following commands are at the heart of the new extension:

Assign Plastic Rule – This assigns the rule that a component will use to automatically control the properties of plastic features, physical material and thickness.

Manage Plastics Rule – This command manages the use of plastics rules in your design automatically.

Some tips to apply and manage:

• Plastic rules in your design are active to the document. Plastic rules in the library are stored in the cloud.
• Remember to assign a rule when you start your design.
• You can set a rule as default by right-clicking and choosing “set as default”.

Web

The web command is part of the out of the box Fusion 360 solution but with the Product Design Extension users can now add more to this feature automatically adding fillets and draft angles.

With all three features being controlled by material and thickness and the addition of adding fillets and a draft angle means these features are added more quickly

Boss

From a sketch with points this new feature will create a boss with a fastener that can be manipulated in terms of head and drive properties.

The preview of this can be seen with one click.

You can see how well the preview looks and how the section moves as you move around the model.

NOTE: As you start to use these additional features you will see the dialog boxes have pre-sets, if you are familiar with Autodesk Inventor Professional you will know how beneficial this pre-set can be, this is a great new addition to the dialog boxes.

As you complete the feature you will see that all elements of this command have been updated in the 3D model but there is still so much to show here, what happens when you make a change to the material which controls the thickness?

The shell is controlled with the thickness from the material rule. The component is activated, and the rule is then changed.

These changes reflect the shell, and the thickness is updated.

Now this is a very useful addition. Like we have seen in the sheet metal environment for a while in Autodesk Inventor and Fusion 360 these types of changes are crucial in our workflow to save time.

Snap Fit

The snap fit command is used to create cantilever snap fit features in your plastic components. These features allow solid bodies to have fastening design incorporated into them in a simple click.

 

Parallel and perpendicular hooks can be applied by using sketched points.

Geometric Pattern

The geometric pattern tool will give you the ability to create a pattern using size and distribution gradients. It can also be used for custom shapes.

 

I think favourite addition in this release is the additional assembly features. Keep an eye out for the next blog and video featuring other additions in the Jan 2022 release. 

Factory Design Utilities – 2D & 3D Factory Layout and Optimisation Solution

As part of the Product Design & Manufacturing Collection not only do you have access to standard tools such as AutoCAD and Inventor you also have Factory Design Utilities.

Factory is Autodesk terminology to determine if Autodesk software can assist in a global change in the design environment as opposed to adopting an individual one into designs and processes.

Do you design in 2D and model in AutoCAD 3D or Autodesk Inventor?

Many companies have the Manufacturing collection but don’t know they have the Factory suite which enables them to round trip their 2D design from AutoCAD to Inventor or Vice-versa.

With factory Design Utilities, your Design Engineer can create 3D assets in Inventor, take them into AutoCAD and manipulate them in 2D.

If your contractors need to collaborate their Revit Models or Navisworks documents with your 2D/3D models they can do this in Factory Design Utilities as part of the Design & Manufacture Collection.

Factory Design Utilities can assist in not only designing factories, but also Design Co-ordination, Playground Design, Petrol Stations, Process Analysis and many more.

Watch our on-demand webinar to learn more about and Factory Design Utilities.

For more information or to discuss your requirements further please contact Symetri.

Symetri and Applied Software announce partnership to enable BIM 360 and Autodesk Construction Cloud users to easily synchronise data & documents with other solutions using 360 Sync

Working together to help users of BIM 360 and Autodesk Construction Cloud increase efficiencies with document & data management workflows

Symetri, Europe’s leading provider of software and services for design and engineering activities, recently announced an exclusive partnership with Applied Software, provider of products, workflows and customisations for Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC), Mechanical, Engineering and Plumbing (MEP) and Manufacturing software.

 

The partnership with Applied Software brings 360 Sync into the Symetri portfolio. 360 Sync is a migration and synchronisation tool designed by and for the AEC industry, to automatically sync and organise project files to and from your Common Data Environment (CDE), your server, and every other platform you use. These include Autodesk Construction Cloud, Autodesk Vault, BIM 360, Bluebeam, PlanGrid and Panzura to name a few.

 

This means that users of BIM 360 and Autodesk Construction Cloud can share project data between multiple data management platforms, port projects from existing BIM 360 hubs to new BIM 360 hubs as the requirement or project ownership changes, move projects from BIM 360 to Autodesk Construction Cloud or any other CDE of their choice, and more.

Richard Brayshaw, Business Area Director for the UK Construction team at Symetri states “‘Our customers are constantly faced with data management challenges. Whether it’s simply gaining access to data or getting it into the right format and platform, we have partnered with Applied Software to provide their 360 Sync solution to help our customers overcome some of these challenges. By moving valuable project data into accessible platforms that are best suited for each user to do their job, we allow them to be more effective and their organisation to be more efficient.”

Richard Burroughs IV, Vice President of Customer Engagement at Applied Software says, “We recognised Europe’s need for better data & document management solutions and Symetri’s world-class ability to improve the day to day operations of AEC firms through consultative engagements and practical software solutions. We are excited to partner with Symetri to bring better data & document management workflows to Europe with 360 Sync."

Related Links:

Product Page: https://www.symetri.co.uk/products/360-sync

 

Support Revit Homeworking & Business Continuity with BIM 360

With the country in the process of returning to normal and social distancing rules still in place, businesses have had to make some changes to their working spaces, with a number still allowing their employees to work from home. It is understandable that businesses are concerned about their employee's wellbeing and their own continuity as the globe adjusts to this new way of life, it is natural to expect business-as-usual will look somewhat different as the COVID-19 pandemic dust settles.

Over the last few months, we have seen unprecedented levels of calls from customers seeking advice to support businesses continuity, and solutions that will enable their teams to work from home and continue to deliver against their ongoing commitments. 

Here are some options they considered:

Revit Users& Anyone Else Accessing or Working with CAD / Drawing Formats

It’s Time to Embrace Construction Enabled Cloud Solutions

There is a real win/win opportunity here for businesses and employees alike. If it’s not already, this is a must have a topic for any C-Suite agenda. 

Here is why…BIM 360 has the potential to make it easier for designers, and anyone working with drawings for that matter, to do their jobs more effectively and for businesses to realise enormous productivity gains, whilst enabling working from home, or anywhere, anytime, with absolute confidence.  

Autodesk’s Construction Centric Cloud platform offers businesses and people in the AEC space a real opportunity to work smarter and, given the current climate keep people safe in the process.BIM 360 will help form a solid foundation to support design-lead businesses effectively hereafter.

The following table presents a brief snapshot of how BIM 360 could be leveraged to address core business challenges supporting remote working. 

Challenge	Solution
Any Project Participant Not using Revit
Work from anywhere any time	Once you have been set up, you can sign into BIM 360 using an internet browser or mobile device.
Access all project models and files for which you have permissions	Access to projects, folders, files is controlled so you will only be able to access content that has beenshared with you
View more than 60 2D and 3D CAD formats	BIM 360 Docs supports the viewing of 60 different CAD and other formats from a web browser. This means users can share and view CAD files, models and documents in their native format without having to revert to creating and sharing PDF's.
Revit 2018.3 and Later (You will need a PC at home that can run Revit)
Revit Version 2018.3 or later	Best practice is to use Revit 2018.3 and later for work-sharing as all information contained here relates to the current version of BIM 360 Design.
Work from anywhere any time	Once you have been set up. You can sign into BIM 360 Design using your work email address.
Access all project models and files for which you have permissions	Access to projects, folders, files is controlled so you will only be able to access content that has been shared with you. You will need to have a PC able to run Revit. One option is to take your work computer home with you. Another is to install and activate Revit on your personal PC. Autodesk user’s policy enables a Revit licence to be activated on your home computer under a home use clause.
Revit work-sharing fully enabled	BIM 360 Design is engineered to support Revit collaboration from Revit version 2018.3 and later. This makes it more effective even than hosting the Revit model on your local server.
No lengthy sync with central times	When a Revit project is opened for the first time the file will need to download and cache to your local PC. Thereafter, every time you sync with central only the changes are synced making this typically much faster by comparison.
No sync with central issues that prevent other users from working	Unlike Revit Server, when you sync a model in BIM 360 Design, this process does not affect any other user connected to or working on the model.
Version Control & Backups	All documents uploaded to BIM 360 are automatically versioned and backed up. This means that only the very latest version is visible but previous version can be viewed, made current, and visually compared with the previous version to detect changes. Potentially a great security blanket that is not possible when saving your Revit model to the local server.
Collaboration Sets	Not sure what these are? Consider when you create a copy of your Revit model each week and then spend ages cleaning it up so it only contains the elements (3D views, Sheet, Schedules, etc) that you want to share and then you package this up to share with others. Well, you can stop doing that now.  Using BIM 360 Just create a collaboration sets for each discipline, state, level, phase, etc in your Revit model and simply add the elements you want to share to these sets as you work. When you are ready to share, just publish the set to the relevant shared folder on BIM 360.
All updates fully auditable	This is more for the company’s point of view but when using BIM 360 Design incremental updates by each designer are tracked automatically. All interactions are tracked, and a log of activities can be accessed.
No need to waste time producing pdf’s	BIM 360 supports the viewing of 60 different CAD formats. This means you can share files in their native format without having to waste time dumbing them down and creating PDF's. To share a Revit model or sheet with people who don’t have Revit, just share the Revit model or sheet.See below for raising and tracking issues and marking up drawings.
Security
Full user, role and company permissions control	Only people with rights can access what they have been given permission to access.
Control access at project or folder level	Share projects or folders with internal design teams and/or external parties. You can create a shared environment where external parties can upload data to their own folder - completely eradicating the need for WeTransfer, Dropbox, Zip files etc. - and in a native file format (see viewing below) saving even more time.
Full permissions	Upload, view, edit, download, etc. by name, role, company.
BIM 360 Security Protocols	We’ve created a presentation that answers all your security questions.
Design Review
View more than 60 2D and 3D CAD formats	BIM 360 supports the viewing of 60 different CAD formats from a web browser. This means users can share and view models and files in their native format without having to revert to creating and sharing PDF's.
Raising & Tracking Issues	BIM 360 has built-in Issue Management where stakeholders can raise and assign issues on 2D drawings or 3D models on the fly, from a browser or mobile device.
Centralise the logging and tracking; respond to issues in a single place	Get a complete view of all issues raised with valuable insights such as: issues raised by or assigned to you, total issues raised by project, outstanding issues, time to resolve, issues by theme.
Marking up drawings	Add mark-ups to CAD files and models with tools dedicated to the task.
Backups & Version Control
Backups	All Documents uploaded to BIM 360 are automatically backed up and versioned.
Version Control	All documents uploaded are automatically versioned – this means that only the very latest version is visible but previous version can be viewed, made current, and visually compared with the previous version to detect changes.
Revit Project Management
Project Timeline	BIM 360 Design includes a complete project timeline which reflects when project data was shared and consumed by all parties. This makes it very easy to keep track of all interactions between project design stakeholders.
User updates	During the WIP stages, every time a team member updates the central Revit project, their activity is tracked on the project timeline.
Automated linked project models from other disciplines on approval	When collaborating with other parties or disciplines using BIM 360, shared project models are automatically updated when they are consumed via the project timeline immediately updating the linked Revit file with no effort required by the designers.
IT
No VPN required	Connecting via a VPN does tend to be slow when working with Revit models and other large model formats, but especially slow with Revit work-sharing. This is mostly due to the extremely long lag times in uploading (often much slower speed than downloading) files back to the server when users save or the settings are set to autosave files (which can be set to every 5 minutes for some companies).
Revit work-sharing fully enabled	Unlike a VPN, BIM 360 Design is engineered to support Revit collaboration and work-sharing from Revit version 2018.3 and later. Opening a project for the first time will be like a VPN, however thereafter only changes are synced making it more effective even than hosting the Revit model on your local server.
No lengthy sync with central times	When a Revit project is opened for the first time the file will need to download and cache to your local PC. Thereafter, every time you sync with central only the changes are synced making this typically much faster by comparison to a VPN.
No sync with central issues that prevent other users from working	Unlike a VPN or Revit Server, when you sync a model in BIM 360 Design, this process does not affect any other user connected to or working on the model.
No IT infrastructure required	Nothing to download or install. Just sign in and you are good to go.
No IT admin overhead	No administration to local servers, virus protocols, networks etc.
Unlimited Storage	With BIM 360 there is no storage limit making it possible to store any and all project files and models
BIM 360 Security Protocols	We’ve created a separate presentation to answer your questions on security.
Change Management
Change visualisation	How long does it take to compare changes when you receive a new Revit model? Minutes? Hours?With BIM 360 it can take seconds.  Model elements are coloured green for new, red for deleted and yellow for modified - even if it’s just parameter. Not sure how long that would take to do otherwise.
Compare changes in 2D drawings, pdfs, sheets	Raster and vector PDF's can be compared with changes highlighted in red.
Compare changes in Revit and IFC models	Not only can you view and visually compare Revit models, in a browser, you can also compare changes to an IFC file.

We held a webinar back in March to help our customers further understand how BIM 360 can support homeworking. You can access our webinar recording here: Enable Home Working and Support Business Continuity with BIM 360

Other Options to Consider

Option 1: Office 365 / One Drive

Microsoft Office 365 seems to be somewhat underrated as a collaboration platform. If you run Office 365 then each of your staff has access to 1Tb OneDrive storage essentially allowing employees to access their work from anywhere and collaborate with other employees in real-time. 

Here’s what’s important to understand if you have Office 365:

• Using your work email address, you can sign into your online 365 account where you can access your One Drive https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-gb/signin/

• Each user has One Drive (or can enable One Drive) folder on your local PC

• Files copied or saved to your One Drive on your PC are automatically synced to the cloud. This means all your data is automatically backed up

• Office files stored on your local PC’s One Drive can be easily shared and accessed by others 

• You can share folders and files with others by hitting the Share button on the top right of the menu bar or right clicking on the file/folder and selecting Share

• Documents can be shared using a link to the file (less secure) or by adding a specific email address for secure sharing

• You can also set the permission level for greater control

• Importantly, any number of people can work on the same file at the same time with changes reflected instantly (real-time) for other participants - making it an effective collaboration platform worth considering.

There are tons of articles online explaining the benefits of using Office 365 & One Drive for Business.

Option 2: VPN and Remote Access. 

One option is to enable staff to access data, or remotely control their PCs, from home. Whilst this does need some consideration due to logistics and cost, it is worth considering. Our IT team compiled a quick outline of considerations you can explore here: [Read Blog Here]

People need to ensure they continue to work, not just for their own sanity, but to ensure the company they work for maintains its ability to keep them employed.  Hopefully this blog has given you some additional ideas of how this can be enabled.

Useful Links

For guidance on working from home with your current licensing deployment, please read our blog "Autodesk Licensing and Working from Home." 

For guidance on the impact of remote working on your critical IT infrastructure, please read our blog "Ensuring your Business Continuity during the Current Coronavirus (COVI19) Outbreak."

If you would like further information on BIM 360, please contact us on 01992 807 444 or email marketing@excitech.co.uk