20th Time Presenting at RTC / BILT Conferences

RTC 2014 - Pump Up the Volume - Competition Entry

Last year this blog reached a milestone of 1 Million views.

This year I reached another milestone: Presenting at my 20th RTC / BILT Conference on various Revit topics.  At several of the conferences I did multiple presentations, so the actual total is more than 20.

For the record, here is a list of :
RTC & BILT conferences over the years:

RTC (Revit Technology Conference) grew out the Sydney Revit user group, started by Wesley Benn.  The first conference was organised by RUGS (Revit User Group, Sydney - the longest running Revit user group in the world).  As the conferences went from strength to strength, they were run by a company RTC Events, which has now morphed into DBEI (Digital Built Environment Institute).

RTC 2005 - Blue Mountains (West of Sydney), NSW, Australia 

The inaugural conference.

• I missed this one, sadly.

RTC 2006 - Shoal Bay (North of Sydney), NSW, Australia

• Attended as a delegate only - and learnt a huge amount about Revit.

RTC 2007 - Roadshow event held in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth (Australia) & Auckland (New Zealand)

• 1.  I presented at the Sydney event: "Documentation in Revit"

RTC 2008 - Brighton Beach, Sydney,  Australia

• 2.  Presented: "Revit Architecture - Advanced Modelling"

RTC 2009 - Albert Park, Melbourne,  Australia

• Attended as a delegate only - the first year of having to submit abstracts (which I failed to do)

RTC 2010 - Manly Beach, Sydney,  Australia

• 3.  Presented: "Locking Down Revit Drawings"

RTC 2011 (Australasia) - Broadbeach, Gold Coast, QLD,  Australia

• 4.  Presented: "Designing in Revit Using Parametric Formulas"

RTC 2011 (North America) - Huntington Beach, California, USA (NE of Sydney)

Inaugural North American conference

• 5.  Presented: "Designing in Revit Using Parametric Formulas"

RTC 2012 (Australasia) - Northbeach, Wollongong (South of Sydney), NSW,  Australia

• 6a.  Presented: "Divide and Conquer Revit v2013" - Adaptive Components & Repeaters
• 6b.  Presented: "New Stair Tools in Revit Architecture v2013"

RTC 2012 (North America) - Stone Mountain, Alanta, Georgia, USA

• 7.  Presented: "Divide and Conquer Revit v2013" - Adaptive Components & Repeaters
• Won the "Innovation" drawing competition.  Prize: Building Design Suite from Autodesk 

 

RTC 2013 (Australasia) - Auckland, New Zealand (East of Sydney)

• 8.  Presented: "Fractal Fun with Revit Repeaters & Adaptive Components"

 

RTC 2013 (North America) - Bayshore, Vancouver, Canada

•      Attended DTS (Design Technology Summit) as a delegate 
• 9.  Presented: "Fractal Fun with Revit Repeaters & Adaptive Components"

 

RTC 2013 (Europe) - Delft, The Netherlands

Inaugural European conference- one of my favourite venues/events

• 10.  Presented: "Fractal Fun with Revit Repeaters & Adaptive Components"

 

RTC 2014 (Australasia) - Albert Park, Melbourne,  Australia

• 11.  Presented: "Pump Up the Volume- With or Without Dynamo"

RTC 2014 (North America) - Schaumburg (West of Chicago), Illinois, USA

• 12.  Presented: "Pump Up the Volume- With or Without Dynamo"

RTC 2014 (Europe) - Dublin, Ireland

• First international conference I missed

RTC 2015 (Australasia) - Broadbeach, Gold Coast, QLD,  Australia

• 13.  Conducted a LAB: "Stairway to Heaven"

RTC 2015 (Asia) - Sentosa Island, Singapore

Inaugural Asian conference

• 14a.  Presented: "Best Tall Building in the World - in Revit" - a case study on One Central Park in Sydney
• 14b.  Conducted a LAB: "Stairway to Heaven"

RTC 2015 (North America) - Washington DC, USA

• Missed this one - 4 events in one year would be too much!

RTC 2015 (Europe) - Budapest, Hungary

• 15a.  Presented a case study: "Best Tall Building in the World - in Revit"
• 15b.  Conducted a LAB: "Stairway to Heaven"

RTC 2016 (Australasia) - Hunter Valley (North of Sydney), NSW,  Australia

• Attended as a one-day delegate (taking a break due to presenter burn-out)

RTC 2016 (North America) - Kierland Resort and Spa, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA

• 16a.  Presented: "Computational Design - Power to the People" - Global Parameters in Revit
• 16b.  Presented: "Making Component Stairs Work for You"

 

RTC 2016 (Europe) - Porto, Portugal

• Missed this one

 

RTC to BILT

In 2017, the name RTC was changed to BILT - as the conferences were no longer restricted to Revit

BILT 2017 (Asia) - Singapore

• Missed this one

BILT ANZ 2017 - Adelaide, SA (West of Sydney),  Australia

• 17.  Presented: "Power to the People - Global Parameters New Revit Feature"

BILT 2017 (North America) - Harbour Castle, Toronto, Canada

• 18.  Presented: "Create Good Looking Organic Nurby Revit Content" - Massing in Revit

BILT 2017 (Europe) - Aarhus, Denmark

• Missed this one

BILT 2018 (Asia) - Singapore

• Missed this one

BILT ANZ 2018 - Fortitude Valley, Brisbane (North of Sydney),  Australia

• 19.  Presented: "Create Good Looking Organic Nurby Revit Content" - Massing in Revit

BILT 2018 (North America) -St Louis, Missouri, USA

• Missed this one

BILT 2018 (Europe) - Ljubljana, Slovenia, Denmark

• Missed this one

BILT ANZ 2019 - South Bank, Melbourne, Vic (South of Sydney), Australia

• 20.  Presented: "Choosing Standards from 50 Ways to Do That in Revit"

 Anyone notice a theme in the locations?  Beaches, parks, islands, bays, valleys . . . .

*NB. This list does not include the various ancillary events such as 'Data Days', DTS, BCS etc

Revit Nurby Forms at BILT ANZ 2018 in Brisbane

I am looking forward to the next BILT ANZ Conference in Brisbane on 24 - 26 May 2018, where I will be presenting a session on creating 'Nurby Forms in Revit' - ie. creating complex forms with NURBS surfaces (double-curved), which are notoriously difficult in the Revit Conceptual Massing Environment.

In this session I will start by looking at using the Conceptual Massing Environment to create the equivalent traditional Revit 3D forms (Extrusion, Revolve, Sweep, Blend, Swept Blend), and examining the subtleties of different methods.  This will inform the next stage of creating sinuous forms in Revit, and the workarounds you'll need to overcome some of Revit's limitations.  Then I will demonstrate some techniques for creating parametric NURBS forms that you would not expect Revit to be able to handle.  Finally I will look at how to make these forms look better, as Revit is not good at displaying NURBS.  All this will be done without using any API, Dynamo or Add-ins of any kind.

Hope to see you at BILT in Brisbane for my session:  #1.3 'Create Good Looking Organic Nurby Revit Content' at 1.45 on Thursday 24th May 2018.

RTC Europe 2015 - Revit goes to Budapest

Danube from Pest Castle

RTC Europe is over for another year. The 'Revit Technology Conference' concept is broadening its horizons - it is now all about BIM, not exclusively Revit. This year the event was held in Budapest - the home of Archicad.  Graphisoft were very much in evidence at the event, what with sponsorship and organising tours and competitions.  I think this is a very healthy thing for the industry.  Autodesk and Revit need some effective competition otherwise they will stagnate.

As always, I learned a few more tricks about Revit - in fact quite a few more than normal this time, so this was a very fruitful conference.  We also saw a number of interesting new products on show, such as Enscape, Fuzor and Avail, along with established ones like the Ideate Revit add-ins and CAD Learning - the latter were doing a wonderful job of organising free Revit certification at the conference.

Corinthia Hotel, Budapest

What a spectacular venue for a conference:

Corinthia Hotel Atrium

Stairway to RTC, Corinthia Hotel

Grand ballroom, Corinthia Hotel - main RTC venue

Site Visit to Graphisoft Park

The day before the conference started, a few people went on a tour of Graphisoft Park, outside the centre of Budapest.  We had a guided tour around the technology park set up by the owners of Graphisoft in order to create a good working environment for the Archicad programmers (amongst others).  The park was created on the site of old gasworks, and some of the old buildings were refurbished.

Gasworks Towers at Graphisoft Park

Graphisoft Park, Budapest

Graphisoft Headquarters, Budapest

Original specs on first Mac used for Archicad

Pecha Kucha

This sounds like a Hungarian invention but was actually started in Japan - it is a presentation competition.  Each competitor has 20 Powerpoint slides and 20 seconds to speak on each one.  The inaugural Pecha Kucha event at RTC, sponsored by Graphisoft, was won by Joe Banks of Brisbane, Australia - that means free attendance for him at the next European RTC in Porto, Portugal in October 2016.

Shopping in Budapest

Knockdown sale on Vasari?

Retro mobile phone shop

RTC Asia 2015 wrapup

Presentation on Best Tall Building - Documented in Revit

I arrived home a week ago after attending the inaugural Asian Revit Technology Conference (RTC) in Singapore - another great success from the RTC Events team.  Attended by over 200 people from 23 countries - many from Singapore.  The conference was held in the Equarius Hotel on Sentosa Island, which has been turned into a giant resort island - a big change from when I last visited. Then it was a remote jungly part of Singapore only accessible by cable-car.  Singapore was very hazy - shrouded in smoke drifting across from forest fires in Sumatra (probably deliberately lit to clear land for palm oil plantations).  It made outdoor photography difficult, but it didn't hold the conference proceedings back, as the typically over-cooled air-conditioning took care of that.  I attended several very interesting sessions, and as always I learnt new things about Revit.

The Friday evening function was held at Tanjong beach, and inevitably a number of RTC committee members ended up in the swimming pool by the end of the evening.
The gala dinner was held at the Park Royal Hotel, designed by WOHA - a very interesting 'open' design that incorporates a large amount of greenery at various levels of the building (more than the site area).

The pods suspended out from the swimming pool create interesting private spaces as well as adding some drama

There was a fabulous spiral stair leading from the lobby up to the function areas - 50 steps in one run, without a single landing.  Not sure how they were allowed to do that? 

But at least they had handrails, unlike one spiral stair I saw in Sri Lanka the previous week - perhaps they were so frustrated by trying to model Revit railings they just left them off?  Not much fun if you are scared of heights!

Near Ahungalla, Sri Lanka

Perfect Stair Railing Transitions at Half Landings

I am currently in Sri Lanka en route to the inaugural Asian Revit Technology Conference in Singapore - RTC Asia 2015 at the Singapore  from 10 - 12 September 2015.  If you can possibly get to RTC in Singapore next week you really should do so - you will certainly learn a lot about Revit and/or BIM, regardless of your skill levels.  Your investment in the conference will pay for itself many times over.

The reason for my current detour is to do some research for the conference - to learn from one of the great masters of architectural detailing, renowned Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa.  He has designed many beautiful buildings by perfectly managing spaces, repeating patterns and a great attention to detail - all with an elegant simplicity.

At the conference I will be presenting a lab session on stairs and railings (afternoon on day one), so I have been paying close attention to handrail details.  Some of Bawa's details are very chunky, as per the style of the time - but they still look good several decades later.

Sometimes Bawa's details are less elegant than whimsical - in fact can be downright scary, but those examples are few and far between: 

5-headed cobra handrail termination

Now that would be a challenge for Revit to model as a handrail termination!

Railing Transitions

Handrail transitions at half landings have always been a problem for Revit to achieve neatly, but with the changes to railings in v2013 the situation actually got worse - if you try to use the new Top Rail or Handrail features.  Revit seems to require lots of extra horizontal space to make the turns - as documented previously - Top Rail Transitions and Top Rail Offsets. 

Geoffrey Bawa detailed his handrails to transition perfectly where they turned a corner without the extra horizontal lengths that Revit insists on, as seen below:

Revit Transitions

Bawa Transitions

If Bawa and his craftsmen could do it perfectly, why can't Revit?  Revit should learn from a great master.