CAD Midwest Technology Expo

Explore the latest design automation tools, trends, and challenges affecting the CAD industry today with over 30 sessions to advance your knowledge including: hands-on-labs, software demonstrations, user best practices and tips & tricks presented by Autodesk and Mid-West CAD technical staff and including national speakers.

Conference Sessions

Create A Parametric Ionic Column Revit FamilyClick to Open

Level: Advanced

preAre you tired of boring box families? Ever heard anyone say: “You can’t do that in Revit®?” Well in this lab, we are going to model a complete Ionic column capital from start to finish. We’ll look at planning the family and breaking it down into its constituent parts and pieces. We will then create the profiles required for the volutes and scrolls. These will become sweeps and swept blends defining the overall forms. But we won’t stop with just modeling these forms. This will be a fully parametric family that is scalable and leverages coarse, medium and fine levels of detail. I like the challenge of building most of this geometry in the traditional family editor, but we will also discuss some ways to incorporate the completed family into adaptive components to leverage unique features like divide and repeat. If you want to kick your family editor modeling skills to the next level and break out of the basic box, come join us for this hands-on session! (You should have familiarity with Revit® essentials).

Is That New? New Stuff in The Revit Family Editor And Some Stuff You Maybe Just Forgot…Click to Open

Level: Intermediate

If you create Revit family content, there has been a slow trickle of new features that have crept into the family editor in recent releases. They just have not received much fanfare, so let’s play a little game of: “Is that new?” We’ll look at new features like: room aware location points, new family templates and let’s not forget reordering parameters! We’ll explore 3-point adaptive arcs and the newest new feature: “load into project and close”. But we won’t just focus on new stuff. Using some slightly obscure techniques we can make a parameter hidden in the project environment so you can use it to drive formulas without users inadvertently modifying it (because they won’t even know it’s there). We will explore using family types parameters to build drop-down lists and play some tricks with categories and shared vs. nonshared families. If you create family content even occasionally, there’s bound to be a topic in this session that will have you asking: “Is that new?”

Revit Timeline: Understanding Revit PhasingClick to Open

Level: Basic

Revit has a pretty ingenious way of dealing with project phasing. You do not manually configure each object as new, existing or demo. Rather, phases in Revit are like points in time. You develop a timeline of your project’s life-cycle and then each object is plotted along this timeline. You can view any point in the past, present or if you are clever, the future as well by creating phase views. “Existing” happened before the project began. Any number of “new construction” phases can be configured after this point. Demolition however is not a phase. Instead it is the point in time where an object’s “life” ends. Sound intriguing? In this session we’ll learn how to set up phases, configure views and display demolition, existing and new construction in appropriate ways. As if that weren’t enough, we’ll even explore a little work-around to overcome Revit’s inability to display future work. Intrigued now? Then join us for this walk along the Revit timeline!

Revit For Interiors: Essential SkillsClick to Open

Level: Basic

Are you an interior designer thinking about using Revit? If so, wait no longer. Revit is a terrific tool for interior design. In this session, we’ll explore some of the essential skills you will need to begin. We’ll look at creating Revit models and setting up grids. We’ll add walls, doors and FFE. Place rooms and load them up with useful data and then use that data to help build schedules, create color fill plans, finish plans and quickly place room tags. And of course we’ll talk about importing CAD files too. Wrap it up with some export options and when you leave here you will be ready to begin your first Revit interiors project. If you are already using Revit for interiors, there will be some tips for you too, but this class is aimed at those just getting started. Wait no more! See for yourself what Revit has to offer.

CONFERENCE ARCHIVES