Most of us can work our way through the 3D modeling of a detention pond in Civil 3D but when it comes to sizing that pond to hold specific amounts of water, or even figure out how much water we can hold in the initial design, we get lost. I still see engineers working with manual average-end-area section cuts and multiplying out the distances between to get the volumes at each contour level. That’s a ton of work and wasted time when, once you have a basin modeled, Civil 3D can generate a Stage Storage Report for you. It can even export a Stage Storage Table that you can import to tools like S ..read more

Creating families in Revit does not have to be complicated. Sure, there are some impressive Revit families out there that people have spent hours to create. However the secret to great Revit families lies with the basic framework – reference planes, reference lines and parameters. The geometry is just the icing on the cake! To begin a new Revit family, select the appropriate family template (*.rft). The Generic Model family template is the cleanest template. It is possible to change the family type after starting a Generic Model. Other family templates have preset reference planes and paramet ..read more

Over the last few years, I’ve seen a marked change in the way that Developers, Site Owners, and even General Contractors are handling their construction management process. Traditionally, these have always been in-house, full-time, employees whose job was to oversee daily operations of all active construction jobs. The in-house construction manager might have a small staff for estimating and on-site construction supervision, but most of the load fell back on the CM, to make sure everything was done. The support staff to handle estimating, scheduling, BIM coordination, pre-construction reviews ..read more

Signing and endorsing documents can be a pain, especially with PDFs. In today’s digital age, most forms and documents are endorsed electronically, which usually takes some extra steps. However, there are still many organizations that refuse to get with the times and require handwritten signatures. But, how can you produce a handwritten signature on a digital document? Luckily, Bluebeam Revu has a solution for both problems. Digital signatures are very easy in Bluebeam. To sign a document digitally, you first need to create a digital ID. Under the Tools drop-down, select Signature > Sign D ..read more

The system family of stairs in Revit can be complex. Individual family components make up each part of the stair. Once we have an understanding of the parts, creating stairs in Revit becomes much easier. In more recent versions of Revit, the Stair by Component method is the only option for creating stairs from the start. In previous versions, it was possible to start a stair by using “Stair by Sketch”. Now we simply create a Stair (assumed to be “By Component”). Those looking for the Sketch tool can find it as an option on the contextual tab of the Stair tool. The Stair button is located on t ..read more

A lot of clients we work with use the Civil 3D Parcel tools for layout, particularly their subdivision tools. The dynamic Parcel Creation tools are amazing for 2D layout, and we highly recommend them but there’s another side to the Parcel tools in AutoCAD Civil 3D that most overlook - they can be used as grading design controls as well. Parcel segments can be assigned elevations using the Edit Elevation > Elevation Editor button on the Parcel Editing Ribbon. You can begin by adding specific elevations to each vertex of the parcel segment, or you can drape the parcel segment onto an existi ..read more

In this vlog, we'll show you how to customize stamps so you can add your own "rubber stamp" comment on drawings ..read more

BricsCAD’s direct modeling capabilities bring a lot of power to the CAD world. However, there are still engineers, drafters, and designers who are hesitant to make the change to BricsCAD due to the perceived difficulty of direct modeling. It can be quite a challenge to learn how to use these tools and techniques, when most of your experience comes from strictly parametric modeling tools, such as Autodesk Inventor or SolidWorks. Here are some tips to help get you started. Despite to the fear you may have towards retraining yourself, BricsCAD direct modeling is very easy, and requires a much sh ..read more

Revit Levels and Grids are really the skeleton of building projects. Typically Levels in Revit are used to indicate the locations of floors, foundations, and the roof of a building in section and elevation views. More recent versions of Revit include Levels in 3D views. Grids are used to host columns and walls. Both Levels and Grids interact in a way that can cause some confusion if not set correctly. While in a 3D view, clicking on a Level highlights the extents of that level as a horizontal plane. Grips on the four edges of the Level plane allow the user to resize the Level independently of ..read more

Alignments – we all use them for road layout but we’re not all comfortable, or even familiar with, the Design Criteria tools that go along with an Alignment. Design Criteria let you set basic controls on an Alignment for items like road speed, min/max slopes, passing sight, and other roadway design controls. These will help ensure that your road meets all the requirements of the governing agency, whether that’s AASHTO or the local municipality. There are three (3) basic components to Alignment Design, all of which can be accessed on the Design Criteria tab of the Create Alignment tools or via ..read more