Three Laws - Family Content

This is repost of a post that I wrote in September 2008. I thought of it as I was working through some content tasks.

Not to be confused with Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics", I first heard of the so called "three laws or rules" of software development from my father who spent many years working at IBM. These so called laws simply represented a philosophy about how to get something accomplished as efficiently as possible for the least cost (not always in terms of cash either). When I read Code Complete by Steve McConnell he mentioned the "Buy-vs-Build Decision" that developers should consider as they design/develop an application. It might seem radical to buy a solution when you are focused on making something yourself.

I've personally kept these in mind when thinking about content for Revit and even AutoCAD/ADT/Microstation before that.

Law One - Borrow
Law Two - Buy
Law Three - Build

Law One - Borrow
I can hear the cynic saying, "you mean steal". I'm sure that has happened too often. However the idea of borrowing what has been shared made the early adopters of Revit very special to me. Their willingness to make something that took them several, many hours in some cases, and make it available to others was and remains refreshing, altruistic. Guys like Chris Yearick (Yman), Scott Brown (sbrown) and Chris Zoog (czoog) to name just a few, their AUGI usernames in ().

Have you used the "All Windows" families found at Revit City? Chris Yearick (Living Places part of The Pilari Group) made those many years ago now and posted them freely at RUGIE (no longer in existence) and they found their way into the Revit City content as well as AUGI's Exchange and other places I'm sure.

Scott Brown (now with Beck Group) shared his office template as well as many standard office/product detail components and views which short circuited the time someone need to spend on their office template substantially.

Chris Zoog (now with HOK) started Zoogdesign and created a vibrant community resource for Revit discussion. It eventually merged into the Revit community forum at AUGI.

More recently an AUGI member known as CadKiller has made an ftp site available to share templates in the same spirit.

Law Two - Buy
There is something to be said for the education of making something yourself but if you can't perform billable work during that time it may not make economic sense to do it yourself. It may not make sense to have anyone in your employ do it either for the same reason. Worse yet all too often I find that a firm's different offices have made the same content themselves without realizing that someone in their own organization already made it or bought it. So communicating what is available is pretty important too...and another topic entirely.

Law Three - Make it yourself
Like I wrote above there is nothing quite like making something yourself for both satisfaction and reaching a fuller understanding of the Family Editor. At times this is the best solution or perhaps the only "affordable" way to get precisely what you want. Just be prepared to apply these same "laws" to how you acquire any knowledge you lack, maybe in a different order?

Here's to being "Law" Abiding!

Edit: Realized that the people mentioned are with new firms now, revised.

Connecting Parameters

You've just downloaded some content from a manufacturer's site and realize that none (or many) of its most interesting parameters are not going to show up in your schedule. This is due to the lack of a common shared dictionary of parameters that we can all rely on. Revit's "system" parameters like Width and Height for some components (like Doors or Windows) just work automatically. Just starting out with a door template means that at least a couple parameters will work without any extra effort. Not true for enough others though.

The Autodesk Family Style Guide (AFSG) while primarily focused on the needs of Autodesk's Seek site also provides a set of shared parameters we can all use (check out ANZRS too). It's weakness is relevance and timeliness. It has a lot of MEP related parameters but doesn't delve into other disciplines seriously and it's really late to the table. Most of the firms that have been using Revit seriously have already dug into their own shared parameters by now. Redoing their library to be in line with Seek and the AFSG doesn't actually begin to help them unless they really start using a lot of Seek content, which is another can of worms.

Rather than continuing to lament the situation this post is intended to provide one solution to getting "foreign" content to work within your existing project(s) and template(s). Assuming you've already mapped out your own shared parameter strategy you just need to connect the dots between the parameters the family is using and those that you wish it was referring to, your own.

It's rather simple really. Add your own Shared Parameter versions of the critical parameters in the family you are working on. For each, in the formula column enter the name of their equivalent parameter. This maps (connects the dots) their parameter value to yours.

Now you can schedule their component along side your own, even tag if necessary. It's a lot simpler than trying to remap all their parameters to your own by replacing them.

It is a little risky in that people will have two places that the values could be touched, their parameter and yours. I usually just segregate them in a separate Group. Just let your teams know how you are dealing with content obtained from other sources and it's not mysterious anymore.

Content via Revit Furniture

Revit Furniture is another venture focused on making Revit content. They recently wrote to me offering some tips to getting quality renderings. One of the tips involves using higher quality entourage and furniture...surprised? Nah, I didn't think so. Here's the tips:

• Camera location – You will notice that in professional design magazines most interior shots are taken at an angle from one corner of the room to the other corner. This makes the space look grand and shows as much of the room as possible.

• Lighting – Photographers call the first and last four hours of the sunlight the golden hours. This is because light is softer (more diffuse), warmer in hue, and casts longer shadows. Be sure to adjust your sunlight to the appropriate time in order to make your images shine.

• Entourage - Renderings with boring, unrealistic or minimal furniture/entourage can come across as unprofessional, plain, and uninspiring. Use entourage to tell a story and liven up your image. High quality furniture and entourage can instantly add value to your space, and make the rendering look more realistic, attractive, and inspiring.

• Photoshop – After exporting your image bring the file into Photoshop for some final adjustments. Play with individual adjustment to find the best setting. Sometimes the default setting is the best. The adjustment you need to tweak with are: Brightness/Contrast, Auto Contrast, Auto Levels, and Curves. Play with each one of these located under Image > Adjustments to fit to your liking and aesthetic. Another hint – ALWAYS Photoshop people into your renderings!

Someone once told me that all good renderings are taken from about knee level looking up. Agree? I'm not sure any such claim as "all anything" is reliable. I do know that a fair number of compelling images I've seen since do seem to be from lower than eye level. As for the Entourage focus, a sure give away that a image is a rendering is the lack of messiness. The telephone cord, a pen and note pad on the counter, a garbage can...the stuff of life. If your rendering includes such subtle things it will be much more believable, convincing. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder though.

Revit Furniture's approach is dedicated to providing consistent high quality Revit families at a low price of $.99 that they say will never change. Their priorities are content creation and rendering. They currently offer a variety of chairs, sofas, couches, tables, beds, fans, lights, dining-ware, vases, wall accessories and a dynamic flexible outdoor pergola.

They've been offering this free Barcelona chair on their site.

They are offering readers of this blog (in exchange for me writing about them) an extra free family. At $0.99 it might not seem too intimidating to download something anyway? If you are interested in this modern table and magazine family, EMAIL me and I can send you the link and code.