Chapter 19 • Rendering and Presentation 844 Creating a Solar Study A solar study, put simply, is a shaded 3D view that provides a time-elapsed visual image of how the building will cast shadows over the course of either a day or multiple days. The objective of this procedure is to create a single-day solar study by specify- ing the geographical location of your building: 1. Go to the view {3D} in the Project Browser. 2. Right-click and choose Duplicate View ➢ Duplicate With Detailing. 3. Rename the new 3D view to One Day Solar Study. 4. On the View Control toolbar, click the Sun Path button, and choose Sun Settings. 5. In the Sun Settings dialog, click the Single Day radio button, as shown in Figure 19.23. 6. Click the Duplicate button. 7. Call the new configuration Single day Syracuse, NY. 8. Make sure Place is set to Syracuse, NY (or wherever you find yourself these days). 9. Change Date to 05/10/2009. 10. Set Time Interval to One Hour (see Figure 19.23). FIGURE 19.23 Setting up the solar study Creating a Solar Study 845 11. Click OK. 12. On the View Control bar, click the Shadows button, then select Preview Solar Study, as shown in Figure 19.24. 13. On the Options bar, click the Play button, as shown in Figure 19.25. FIGURE 19.24 Previewing the solar study FIGURE 19.25 Clicking Play to start the solar study NOTE Unfortunately, you need to have a high-performance machine to perform this study. If you do not, this one-day solar study could take one full day to complete. It will be in real time. Creating animations such as solar studies and walkthroughs are a couple of the unique features of Revit that aid you in capturing work. Keep these features in mind next time you are working up a proposal and a presentation. Chapter 19 • Rendering and Presentation 846 Are You Experienced? Now You Can… create an exterior rendering by specifying a day lighting scene based on your geographic location create an exterior rendering scene at dusk using lighting create an interior rendering using a mixture of day lighting and artifi- cial lighting create a walkthrough and export it to an AVI create a solar study that allows you to visualize the shadowing effect CHAPTER 20 Importing and Coordinating Revit Models It is amazing that we are up to Chapter 20, and I’m sure many readers are still unclear about how BIM fits in here. Yes, most of the previous chapters showed you how you benefit from BIM when you change an item in one place, and it changes in another, yada, yada, yada. But you were probably sold on the whole “coordinating with your consultants” thing back when you were con- sidering purchasing Revit. Well, here we are. It’s time to tackle that mystical ideology that has put our industry in a loose headlock. Linking a Revit Structure model Activating Copy Monitor Running interference detection Importing and exporting AutoCAD Chapter 20 • Importing and Coordinating Revit Models 848 Linking a Revit Structure Model The first section of this chapter will focus on the actual event of importing a Revit Structure model. As you start the process, you will see that this procedure is not unfamiliar if you have any CAD background whatsoever. If you do not have a CAD background, I think you will find these procedures to be intuitive enough to get through importing Revit models with no experience. As you proceed into design development, you must get your structural engineer on board. This consultant may be an external or an in-house resource. Either way, this individual will have a different model that you need to coordinate with. This section will focus on the procedures involved with importing a Revit Structure model. We will also cover the concept of creating a live monitoring system with the structure as well as interference detection. To get started, open the model you have been working on. If you missed the previous chapter, go to the book’s web page at www.sybex.com/go/revit2011ner. From there you can browse to Chapter 20 and find the file called NER-37.rvt. You will also need to locate the model called NER-37_STRUCTURAL.rvt. Save this file in a location where you can retrieve it. The objective of the following procedure is to import and link a Revit Structure model. 1. In the Project Browser, go to the Level 1 floor plan. 2. Delete every structural grid and column. (Keep the canopy framing intact. Do not delete the beams and columns in these two areas.) NOTE Why are you deleting these structural members you worked so hard to add? Because the structural consultant laid out their grid based on yours. You are going to copy their grid back in, and monitor any movement that may occur throughout the life of the project. As far as the columns, we are simply going to use the structural engineer’s columns for our elevations, plans, and sections from this point on. 3. On the Link panel of the Insert tab, click the Link Revit button, as shown in Figure 20.1. 4. Browse to the NER-37_STRUCTURAL.rvt file, but do not click Open just yet. 5. Select the file. 6. At the bottom of the dialog, you will get a choice of positioning. Select Auto - Origin To Origin, as shown in Figure 20.2. Linking a Revit Structure Model 849 7. Click Open. Your structural model is now linked. 8. Open the 3D view East Entry From Corridor. FIGURE 20.1 The Link Revit button on the Link panel of the Insert tab FIGURE 20.2 Pay attention to the choices provided before you click Open. You can now see the wood framing the structural engineer added to support the cantilevered slab, as shown in Figure 20.3. Already we are seeing the benefits of a collaborative model, and we have done nothing more than insert one model into another. This is not new technology, and we are certainly not doing anything profound here. The real benefit comes from how we can now keep track of what the structural model is doing under- neath our model. We can actually copy items from the structural model, and then monitor any changes made from the linked model. This is the definition of BIM. Chapter 20 • Importing and Coordinating Revit Models 850 FIGURE 20.3 The supporting framing under the cantilevered slab at the east link Activating Copy Monitor You can almost sum BIM up in one command: Copy Monitor. I hate to break down the most import acronym in our industry since CAD into such simple terms, but building information modeling is the process of monitoring and tracking change, and that process starts right here! The objective of the following procedure is to copy the structural grids and apply a monitoring system that will alert you when the grids have moved. Although this book will focus solely on copying and monitoring the grids, your takeaway will be the experience required to recognize the procedure and the importance of this function. To create a copying and monitoring system, follow this procedure: 1. Go to the Level 1 floor plan. 2. On the Coordinate panel of the Collaborate tab, click the Copy/Monitor button. On the fly-out, click Select Link, as shown in Figure 20.4. 3. Hover your pointer over one of the grids. You will see an outline of the Revit Structure model that you have linked in. When you see the out- line, pick the grid (see Figure 20.5). Activating Copy Monitor 851 FIGURE 20.4 The Copy/Monitor button on the Coordinate panel of the Collaborate tab FIGURE 20.5 Selecting the link to Copy/Monitor 4. On the Copy/Monitor tab, click the Copy button, as shown in Figure 20.6. 5. On the Options bar, check the Multiple option. 6. While pressing the Ctrl key, select all of the grids in the linked model. 7. When you are finished, click Finish on the Options bar, as shown in Figure 20.7. Chapter 20 • Importing and Coordinating Revit Models 852 FIGURE 20.6 Clicking the Copy button 8. You will get a warning saying that “The following types already exist but are different.” Just click OK. Your grids should look like Figure 20.8. 9. Close out of any warnings stating that new items have been renamed. This is inconsequential information. FIGURE 20.7 The Finish button on the Options bar It is often over- looked, but you must click Finish on the Options bar or the copying and moni- toring process will not take effect. Now that the grids are being monitored, it is time to take a look at what we can copy and monitor from our consultant’s models by configuring the Copy/ Monitor settings. Adjusting the Copy/Monitor Options By copying the grids into the architectural model, we are actually proceeding with the most common, and by far the safest, function of this command. If you do choose to copy and monitor items such as foundations and columns, you can automatically replace the items being copied with an alternate component. For example, you could use Copy/Monitor on a foundation wall that is 12 ″ thick but automatically replace it with a foundation wall that is 10 ″ thick. I am using this example to emphasize something you would not want to do. Be careful while replacing components you are getting from the structural model. The objective of the next procedure is to look at the Copy/Monitor settings. 1. On the Copy/Monitor tab, click the Options button on the Tools panel, as shown in Figure 20.9. Activating Copy Monitor 853 FIGURE 20.8 The copied grids! 2. Notice that Revit will replace any column indiscriminately with a 24 ″-square concrete column. Click into the first column category and replace the entry with Copy Original Type (see Figure 20.10). 3. Change the rest of the columns to Copy Original Type and click OK. 4. On the Copy/Monitor panel of the Copy/Monitor tab, click Finish, as shown in Figure 20.11. 5. Save the model. FIGURE 20.9 The Options button on the Tools panel of the Copy/Monitor tab . have done nothing more than insert one model into another. This is not new technology, and we are certainly not doing anything profound here. The real benefit comes from how we can now keep track. CAD background, I think you will find these procedures to be intuitive enough to get through importing Revit models with no experience. As you proceed into design development, you must get your. page at www.sybex.com/go /revit2 011ner. From there you can browse to Chapter 20 and find the file called NER-37.rvt. You will also need to locate the model called NER-37_STRUCTURAL.rvt. Save