This free 30-minute webinar on June 10th will be about designing heavy timber structures in Revit. Using our Wood Framing OAK software, it’s just a matter of figuring out a workflow and creating the required families to design your own custom structures because the tool automates the framing and documentation process for even the most complex and unique designs. And in this webinar, we'll show some new sample families that have been made to complement the tool.

The result you'll see is a project of massive timbers framed automatically in Revit. With this framing technology, all structural framing elements for walls, floors, and roofs will be distributed, as will structural connections for creating common cuts for oak frames. Shop drawings and cut lists will be auto-generated, including all required views wherein elements are dimensioned, sorted, tagged, and scheduled and mass calculated.

Architects, engineers, BIM managers, drafters, builders, manufacturers – we invite you to sign up for this webinar to see how to bring your post-&-beam design process to the next level of automation. The webinar will be held twice, so please register for the session that's more convenient for you.

Session	Most convenient for:	WEDNESDAY, June 10th, 2020
1	Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania	10:00-10:30 AM Central European	REGISTER
2	Americas, Europe	10:00-10:30 AM US Central	REGISTER

Parking garages can be built from a variety of materials – cast-in-place, precast concrete, steel framing with concrete, even wood. Perhaps most often seen as stand-alone buildings, they are frequently incorporated into a larger structure, concealed below ground level or several floors above ground. Architecturally speaking they can range from simple to highly unique, boasting tailor-made façades. Functionally most are quite plain though they may be outfitted with complex automatic parking systems.

At any rate, we need them. A lot. That’s why they're being built all over the place. Here in Vilnius, Lithuania, car parks are gradually relieving the lack of parking spaces, an all-too-common problem affecting cities worldwide. Underground ones are ideal in the city center here for preserving views of the city’s splendid architecture. Although every situation is different, precast concrete is probably the best choice for your typical, economical, functional parking structure due to its relatively simple design and fast construction timetable that's less affected by weather conditions. Plus architectural ideas can easily be implemented in façade wall panels.

The AEC industry has been undergoing the transition from 2D digital drafting to 3D informational modeling, data management, sharing, linking between people and software platforms. In four words, building information modelling/management. In a word, BIM.

Image courtesy of CKR Engineers

If we look at the case of an independent, standalone parking garage building, most of it is structural. A typical one has simple architecture, and there’s hardly any MEP or other parts of the project to deal with. So in this article, I want to review the design workflow and available tools that make the process efficient in structural BIM models, particularly as regards modeling and documentation.

We've been diligently testing our Tools4BIM DOCK* against Revit 2021 to ensure complete compatibility of all the BIM Solutions and Tools4Revit Add-ins therein. Thanks for your patience, those of you who've been awaiting the pronouncement. We're glad to say our tools are ready to use with Revit 2021!

*The Dock is an interactive window in Autodesk® Revit® that allows you to access and manage all software products developed by AGACAD to help you get more out of Revit. Read more about the Tools4BIM Dock.

Here's how to get our tools running on Revit 2021.

For current users of our software

To companies/individuals who have an active license maintenance/subscription of at least one of our tools, we've sent an email containing software activation codes and a link to download our 2021 Tools4BIM Dock. (If you can't find it in your inbox, please check your spam folder.)

NB: If you're with a company, please ask your BIM manager or IT coordinator for these codes.

What you need to do:

Designing roofs in Revit can pose certain difficulties particularly for users less familiar with roof modeling tools. Creating exact roof geometry and size for a new build or modeling an existing roof to given dimensions is not always straightforward. If we follow some key principles, however, we can model quite a few roofs simply by using Revit's ‘Roof by Footprint’ tool. For more complex roof profile shapes, ‘Roof by Extrusion’ is typically used, which we will cover in future articles. Other ways of creating roofs are 3D massing using the ‘Roof by Face’ tool, which allows you to come up with a greater variety of complex roof designs, and In-Place Massing or Mass Families, which allows you to design irregular roofs and tensile roof structures.

For now, we’ll focus on some of the more common roof types used for small-scale residential, commercial, and industrial projects.

To create a simple hip roof with the ‘Roof by Footprint’ tool, follow the steps below.

1. Have your perimeter walls and levels ready
2. In Architecture tab select Roof – Roof by Footprint tool and choose desired roof type
3. Choose a relevant level for a bottom face of the roof
4. Use Pick Walls tools and hover over a wall – press tab to select all joined perimeter walls
5. Define roof parameters like overhangs, slopes, offset from level, rafter cut
6. Finish the roof by exiting roof editor

This free 30-minute webinar on June 3rd will be an advanced tutorial on how to design and generate roofs in Revit® using our Wood/Metal Framing Roof BIM Solutions. Traditional roof framing (i.e. built on site) and prefabricated roofs (built off site) will both be covered. We will also look into trussed roofs and their types as well as touch base on key topics relevant to designers working on small- and large-scale buildings where various timber and metal roof systems are used.

Starting from a simple Revit roof, the results you'll see are fully framed multi-layered roof panels, trusses, and rafter roof structures; roofs split into panels for prefabrication; auto-sorting of all roof panels and structural members; and production of shop drawings.

All AEC industry professionals who design or manufacture timber or steel roofs are welcome. Architects, engineers, drafters, and builders – we invite you to sign up! The webinar will be held twice, so please register for the session that's more convenient for you.

Session	Most convenient for:	WEDNESDAY, June 3rd, 2020
1	Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania	10:00-10:30 AM Central European	REGISTER
2	Americas, Europe	10:00-10:30 AM US Central	REGISTER

This free 30-minute webinar on June 4th will be about designing detailed, multi-story ventilated facade systems in Autodesk® Revit. What you'll see is a BIM-to-Field workflow using our Ventilated Facades BIM software to efficiently design highly-detailed elements. See how to batch-insert hundreds of details throughout a Revit model and generate fabrication information (shop drawings and cut lists) with the necessary views, schedules, and drawings.

AEC industry professionals involved in the design or prefabrication of facades: engineers, designers, BIM coordinators, and managers at companies that design or manufacture facades for commercial, residential, or industrial (mainly residential) buildings – we invite you to sign up below to see how you might bring your facade design process to the next level of automation. The webinar will be held twice, so please register for the session that's more convenient for you.

Session	Most convenient for:	THURSDAY, June 4th, 2020
1	Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania	10:00-10:30 AM Central European	REGISTER
2	Americas, Europe	10:00-10:30 AM US Central	REGISTER

Want to create layouts of precast concrete slabs efficiently in Revit? Our Precast Concrete design software has two tools to do that: Floor Panel Layout (for Floor system families) and the new Floor+C tool (for Structural Framing families).

While both Floor Panel Layout and Floor+C let you create solid, hollow core, double tee, and other types of slabs, in some cases one tool is better than the other. It also depends on user habits and project type. An example where you might want to use Floor+C is if you have warped double tee slabs, as are commonly used in parking garages in North America. Another situation is if your Structural Framing family has camber. And there are probably other cases our users will find.

Floor+C distributes Structural Framing families based on reference floor boundaries. This tool replaces a similar tool (Floor+M) that used to be part of our Precast Concrete toolbox. The reason for the replacement is that Floor+M had default steel families and some settings that were not related to precast. Floor+C should make it clearer since it comes with solid, hollow core, and double tee slab families and sample configurations for precast.

To use Floor+C, follow these steps:

By Povilas Sindriūnas, AGACAD Architectural Engineer & BIM Application Engineer

In previous articles we have discussed how to create an In-Place Mass and Mass family and shown how to efficiently generate Revit elements upon massing. Now we’re going to take it one step further and demonstrate how to begin with a project concept and finish off with fully framed elements and drawings in less than 30 minutes using AGACAD’s Wood Framing Wall and Metal Framing Wall BIM Solutions.

At the outset, it’s important to set out your massing accordingly. The more details you have, the better. Sizing and number of levels is a good place to start sculpting volumes. Generally, volumetric massing is widely accepted as a primary means of early stage building design. Using mass blocks to define a building’s future shape, size, space quality, and design features is a standard method of tackling a new project at the conceptual design stage. Revit has a great tool for massing at a detailed level, i.e. a fixing (fastener) or a detail that is part of a larger assembly. It also works great with large-scale massing, i.e. clusters of buildings or an entire masterplan.

Ok, let’s do it. From concept to framing to drawings in under 30 minutes.

This free 30-minute webinar on June 2nd will be an advanced tutorial about creating and controlling a Revit family library by utilizing our Smart Browser BIM Solution. Keeping track of and controlling families to be used in projects and checking, verifying, creating, and batch-modifying parameters of multiple families and their types will all be shown, so this webinar is especially relevant to BIM managers. But it's also intended for BIM team leads and members, as tailored software modules of Smart Browser give each Revit user the functionality and library access needed to do the job according to his or her role on the BIM team.

The result you'll see is a family library wherein selected families will be modified to fit a certain standard set by the presenter. All data will be saved in a shared location for use in current and future projects. Following that, changes will be made in the family library and applied to an existing project containing unmodified families to show that implementation of this tool can be done at any step of the process.

Whether you're an architect, structural engineer, or MEP engineer, a BIM team member, lead, or manager, this tool will help keep your virtual workplace tidy and consistent. It's a boon for BIM managers who need to make sure the whole team is on the same page as far as what BIM content is to be used, updating libraries, maintaining a consistent database, who can edit what, etc. The webinar will be held twice, so please register for the session that's more convenient for you. We hope you'll sign up!

Session	Most convenient for:	TUESDAY, June 2nd, 2020
1	Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania	10:00-10:30 AM Central European	REGISTER
2	Americas, Europe	10:00-10:30 AM US Central	REGISTER

Want to export light-gauge steel wall, floor, truss, or roof panel frames from Autodesk® Revit® to a CNC machine?

AGACAD's got you covered. (We've also got CNC Exporters for timber frames.)

Our CNC Exporter for Steel Frames automatically assembles all framing members per user definitions and send all necessary data and geometry to the machine or production line you're running for efficient prefabrication of metal structures. We have a CNC Exporter that's compatible with machines manufactured by Metroll, Royal C.N.C., Howick, and Scottsdale.

The exporter can easily be adapted to other CNC machines that read the same file extension and is customizable to fit users’ needs. We'll work one-on-one with you to make sure the final product performs seamlessly and accurately. Exactly the way you need.

Our CNC Metal Exporter must be used in tandem with our Metal Framing BIM software that's made for framing floors, walls, trusses, and rafter roofs in Revit. We've also got specialized solutions for framing Curtain Walls & Panels, Ventilated Facades, and Framed Partitions.

Advanced automation and built-in best practices help BIM professionals move fast, make optimal choices (particularly early in the design process), and avoid errors at every stage – from design and documentation to fabrication and construction. Our CNC Metal Exporter converts the framed model with all the information data and geometry inside the Revit project into a format readable by your CNC machine.

Below is more information on our CNC Metal Exporter as it pertains to each machine manufacturer.