eLearning - Upcoming Revit, ReCap and Ideate Software Classes

Join the Ideate Tech Experts for eLearning – live online classes that provide your entire organization with easy access to premium education. 

10.8::Revit 201:
Shared Parameters and Schedules in Revit MEP

10.9::Ideate Software:
Ideate BIMLink for Revit MEP Projects

10.10::Infrastructure 201:
Working with ReCap

10.14::Revit 201:
View Properties - Controlling Visibility

10.15::Ideate Software:

Revit Auditing with Ideate Explorer for Revit

10.16::Revit 201:

Phasing A-Z

Each class is designed to give you specific, improved results in a particular topic. You can interact with the instructor right from your own office, while eliminating travel time. Because the class schedule rotates, you can easily select your topics of interest and choose the day which best meets your schedule.

Click here for class descriptions, times and registration link. Questions? Contact education@ideateinc.com

Get It. Know It. Use It.

eLearning - Upcoming Revit, ReCap, Civil 3D and Ideate Software Classes

Join the Ideate Tech Experts for eLearning – live online classes that provide your entire organization with easy access to premium education. 

6.10::Ideate Software:Ideate BIMLink

Ideate BIMLink for Revit MEP Projects

6.12::Infrastructure 201:

Working with ReCap

6.13::Revit 201:

Stairs and Railings in Revit

6.19::Ideate Software:Ideate Explorer

Ideate Explorer for Revit MEP Projects

6.25::Infrastructure 201:

Data Short Cuts

Each class is designed to give you specific, improved results in a particular topic. You can interact with the instructor right from your own office, while eliminating travel time. Because the class schedule rotates, you can easily select your topics of interest and choose the day which best meets your schedule.

Click here for class descriptions, times and registration link. Questions? Contact education@ideateinc.com

Get It. Know It. Use It.

eLearning - Upcoming Revit, ReCap, and Ideate BIMLink Classes

Join the Ideate Tech Experts for eLearning – live online classes that provide your entire organization with easy access to premium education. 

6.3::Revit 201:

Getting Started with Roof Framing in Revit Structure

6.4::Revit 201:

Revit Import into 3ds Max Design

6.6::Revit 201:

Residential Construction in Revit Architecture

6.10::Ideate Software:Ideate BIMLink

Ideate BIMLink for Revit MEP Projects

6.12::Infrastructure 201:

Working with ReCap

6.13::Revit 201:

Stairs and Railings in Revit

Each class is designed to give you specific, improved results in a particular topic. You can interact with the instructor right from your own office, while eliminating travel time. Because the class schedule rotates, you can easily select your topics of interest and choose the day which best meets your schedule.

Click here for class descriptions, times and registration link. Questions? Contact education@ideateinc.com

Get It. Know It. Use It.

Navisworks 2014: Point Cloud Support - ReCap

Ideate, Inc. is pleased to show additional support for large point clouds within Navisworks 2014, which provides new opportunities for documentation of a site’s context or for comparisons between the proposed building model (BIM) and a scanned “as built.”
 
ReCap has two file formats (RCS and RCP). The file reader does not convert data to objects that reside in the model but instead makes a link to the RCS/RCP file. If you intend to share the data then the linked files have to be provided external to the scene, ideally in a folder or location that maintains the same relative position as the original files. 
ReCap files can be managed to support fast updating of the point cloud. Under the Navisworks Application menu and the Options button, there are choices that let you control the display speed for the point cloud as you navigate through the scene. You can check for clashes and include points.

Navisworks ReCap Options

ReCap files can be appended direct to Navisworks and they can be linked to Revit 2014.  

Don’t forget to look through the great features our Ideate Technical Team has found in the new 2014 releases for Revit Architecture, Revit MEP, Revit Structure, Civil 3D, AutoCAD and more: ideateinc.com/2014

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Jim Cowan
Ideate AEC Application Specialist
Jim Cowan’s extensive AEC design industry experience and Autodesk design solutions expertise have made him a sought after university curriculum developer, instructor and presenter. Jim’s areas of expertise include interoperability between solutions and overcoming barriers to the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM). Educated in Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot-Watt University and in Landscape Architecture at University of Manitoba, Jim has special focus on sustainability issues: daylight analysis, sun studies, lighting analysis, modeling buildings and conceptual energy modeling (models with shading devices). YouTube Channel: MrJimCowan

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New in 2014: Autodesk ReCap Part 2 – Key Features

In Part 1 of our ReCap posts, we discussed how this new application processes and combines laser scan files into a ReCap Project. Now we’re looking at some of the Key Features available once the projects are launched. 
 
Along with standard navigational tools like pan, zoom, orbit, look, and fly-through, ReCap also has the capability of editing point cloud data; something that has not been a part of Autodesk software in the past.

Selection Tools

Annotation Tools

The bottom-center of the screen includes annotation tools for notes, distances, angles and faces, as well as selection tools for editing. Window and Fence tools can be used to easily crop or delete selected sections of the point cloud, quickly removing unwanted data and reducing file size.

Display Tools

The upper-left of the screen includes display options to control how the point cloud data appears in the application. The Project Navigator, Limit Box and Display Settings allow users to control which files from the dataset are displayed, how much of the data is displayed, point color, point size, background data, and lighting and shading effects.
 
With functionality similar to point cloud review and processing tools from Trimble and Leica, Autodesk customers now have access to a program that can process and edit point cloud data prior to being used in Autodesk design software like AutoCAD, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Revit, Navisworks and Autodesk InfraWorks. Best of all, it’s included in the 2014 Autodesk Design Suites and available now on Subscription Center.

For a video of Autodesk ReCap in action and other great features our Ideate Technical Team has found in the new Autodesk 2014 releases, visit: ideateinc.com/2014  
Ideate Note: If you are experiencing a Fatal Error issue when trying to launch a ReCap project this is most likely based on system hardware rather than an issue with the application. For more information about this issue and Ideate’s solution, read our recent blog post titled: Help! Autodesk ReCap is Crashing.

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Matt Miyamoto, P.E.
Ideate AEC Application Specialist
Matt is a licensed Civil Engineer in the state of Hawaii. Matt obtained a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and has 7 years of private sector design experience which he applies in his role as an application specialist with Ideate, Inc. His project experience includes residential and commercial site development, private and public sewer, water and drainage systems, harbors improvements, and roadway improvements. While in Hawaii, Matt was involved in multidisciplinary projects for City and County agencies, State Departments, the Army COE and private developers. @MattM_PE

Get it. Know it. Use it.

New in 2014: Autodesk ReCap Point Cloud Review and Processing (Part 1)

Here at Ideate, we try to take advantage of all opportunities to test and work with any new Autodesk product that might be useful to our customers. This year, Autodesk released a new point cloud processing application called Autodesk ReCap. 
 
With functionality similar to point cloud review and processing tools from Trimble and Leica, Autodesk customers now have access to a program that can process and edit point cloud data prior to being used in Autodesk design software like AutoCad, AutoCad Civil 3D, Revit and Autodesk InfraWorks. And best of all, it’s included in the 2014 Autodesk Design Suites.
 
This is a great opportunity for end users to now review and process large lidar datasets in an application made specifically for that task, without having to purchase additional software. Additionally, Autodesk ReCap (.RCP) projects and (.RCS) files can be directly imported into 2014 Autodesk applications.
 
Autodesk ReCap includes a processing engine that allows users to select multiple data files at once, and produces a single (.RCP) Project file that links back to the processed data. Each original data file becomes a (.RCS) file that is part of the project. Process time is dependent on the size and amount of files selected, and during our testing a 1.5 GB dataset with eight original files took about an hour to complete. A convenient timer also provides an estimate on how long each file and the entire project will take to process.
 
Once processed, the ReCap project can be launched directly, and the composite point cloud appears in the application. Here’s a screenshot of the completed point cloud in ReCap (file provided by Surface and Edge 3D Laser Scanning).

For a video of Autodesk ReCap in action and other great features our Ideate Technical Team has found in the new Autodesk 2014 releases, visit: ideateinc.com/2014  
Ideate Note: If you are experiencing a Fatal Error issue when trying to launch a ReCap project this is most likely based on system hardware rather than an issue with the application. For more information about this issue and Ideate’s solution, read our recent blog post titled: Help! Autodesk ReCap is Crashing.

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Matt Miyamoto, P.E.
Ideate AEC Application Specialist
Matt is a licensed Civil Engineer in the state of Hawaii. Matt obtained a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and has 7 years of private sector design experience which he applies in his role as an application specialist with Ideate, Inc. His project experience includes residential and commercial site development, private and public sewer, water and drainage systems, harbors improvements, and roadway improvements. While in Hawaii, Matt was involved in multidisciplinary projects for City and County agencies, State Departments, the Army COE and private developers. @MattM_PE

Get it. Know it. Use it.

Help! Autodesk ReCap is Crashing

Here at Ideate, we try to take advantage of all opportunities to test and work with any new Autodesk product that might be useful to our customers. This year, Autodesk released a new point cloud processing application called Autodesk ReCap. For those of you who have had a chance to install this product, I hope you’ve been able to try it out and see what it can do. 
 
If you’re like me and some of the other techs here at Ideate, you may be running into a Fatal Error issue when trying to launch a ReCap project. Before I go into the details, let me first say that this doesn’t happen on all systems, and from what we’ve been able to find, it is actually based on system hardware rather than an issue with the application.
 
So here’s the issue: Autodesk ReCap has successfully been installed, registered, and launches successfully on your computer. A new project is created, and lidar data files are selected for processing (so far all is well). The point files complete processing successfully, and an option to “Launch” the ReCap project appears. However, once you click on “Launch Project,” ReCap crashes and an error report appears on screen. Quite frustrating, seeing as everything up to this point has been successful and has gone as expected.
 
The technical staff here at Ideate is running Lenovo W530 laptops with 64-bit Windows 7, quad core processors, 16 GB of RAM, and NVidia K2000M graphics cards. This is by far a sufficient system for running Autodesk ReCap. Additionally, an old test machine that we have is a Dell M6300 with Windows 7, 8 GB of RAM and an older NVidia Quadro FX graphics card (below recommendation). The issue above occurred on the Lenovo system rather than the Dell system. On all Lenovo’s that we tested, the application consistently crashed upon launch of the project. With the Dell system, everything ran smoothly.
 
After some digging, and after reviewing the system .NFO file for the Lenovo, we noticed that it actually comes with two graphics processors; the high-performance NVidia card that we ordered with the system, and an integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 processor that comes with the laptop by default. Apparently, the crash is being caused by the system defaulting to the Intel card rather than the high-performance NVidia card. 
 
That led us to the solution for the issue, which requires some manual changes to the graphics settings on the laptop. By accessing the NVidia Control Panel, we were able to override the default settings that were pointing the application and the 3D OpenGL preset to the Intel card instead of the NVidia card. Once those were changed, everything was up and running without any fatal errors.
 
To fix the problem, right click on your desktop and access the NVidia Control Panel. There are TWO settings that need to be adjusted. On the left under 3D Settings, click on Manage 3D Settings. From there, the main window will display two tabs.  

On the Global Settings tab, select 3D OpenGL Stereo from the list of Global Presets, and change the Preferred Graphics Processor to High-Performance NVIDIA Processor.

Then switch to the Program Settings tab. In the Select a Program to Customize area, select Autodesk AutoCAD. Under Select the Preferred Graphics Processor for this Program, select High-Performance NVIDIA Processor.
 
Click APPLY, and exit the NVidia Control Panel. As far as we can tell, both of these need to be changed. If either of the two is not set, the program continued to crash.
 
Here’s a Video of the process: http://screencast.com/t/S0KrIhb3Zl

To recap the issue, the fatal error only occurred on our Lenovo systems, so it may not happen to you. However, if your workstation also has dual graphics processors and ReCap is crashing, give that a try.

For a video of Autodesk ReCap in action and other great features our Ideate Technical Team has found in the new Autodesk 2014 releases, visit: ideateinc.com/2014

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Matt Miyamoto, P.E.
Ideate AEC Application Specialist
Matt is a licensed Civil Engineer in the state of Hawaii. Matt obtained a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and has 7 years of private sector design experience which he applies in his role as an application specialist with Ideate, Inc. His project experience includes residential and commercial site development, private and public sewer, water and drainage systems, harbors improvements, and roadway improvements. While in Hawaii, Matt was involved in multidisciplinary projects for City and County agencies, State Departments, the Army COE and private developers. @MattM_PE

Get it. Know it. Use it.