The H-Factor

This is a blog posting of the information sent in a recent newsletter, archived here for easy access.

There are still many questions about Revit and BIM and what is required for what and by whom. What follows is a simple list of facts that may help explain it to you.

1. If a project up for bid requires that you produce Revit drawings and you are wondering if you can fulfill that requirement; the answer is yes if you have HydraCAD Version 51 and Revit MEP Suite
2. Revit is not AutoCAD. It is a separate Autodesk product that is quite different from AutoCAD
   
3. HydraCAD V51 can produce 3D piping, hangers, fittings, couplings, earthquake bracing, sprinkler heads and zones of influence
4. Architects and building owners have been sold on the usefulness of Revit when building modeling and reference information are important. This has trickled down to the rest of us
5. Revit cannot be programmed like AutoCAD can. Therefore it is not possible at this time to create an add-on to Revit like HydraCAD
6. Drawing in Revit is very slow and time-consuming. Some things cannot be drawn at all, like flanges and welded outlets. This limits it usefulness for designers
7. Because of the above, it is necessary to draw in AutoCAD or AutoCAD MEP to be productive and automatically create the Revit model from there
8. HydraCAD V51 can produce the Revit/BIM model necessary for coordination
   
9. You will need Revit MEP Suite on the same computer as HydraCAD V51 to produce this model
   
10. Nothing special needs to be done to produce a Revit model. You draw the same way you have been in V51. When you are ready, you pick the Create Revit MEP Link to produce the model
    
11. The model produced by HydraCAD contains Revit native objects
    
12. Any AutoCAD can be upgraded to Revit MEP Suite – the only Revit product supported or needed
    
13. Revit is capable of clash detection, but only with projects submitted in Revit
    
14. If a project up for bid requires that you produce drawings than can be clash-detected in Navisworks and you are wondering if you can fulfill that requirement; the answer is yes if you have HydraCAD Versions 50 or 51
    
15. Navisworks can do clash detection of drawings produced across a range of drawing packages – AutoCAD, Bentley, etc.
    
16. Navisworks comes in two flavors. The Simulate flavor will let you produce Navis files, but not do clash detection. The Manage flavor will allow you to do both. Both flavors come in stand alone and network configurations
    
17. Nothing special needs to be done to produce a Navis file. You draw the same you you have been in V50 or V51 and press the Make Solid Pipes command

We offer two hour webinars for companies that want to see how Revit works with HydraCAD. We can also show you how to produce a Revit file by using your own drawing. Contact us for cost and details.

We can We have produced a PowerPoint presentation to see how HydraCAD works with BIM and Revit. This particular presentation emphasizes our ties to Victaulic and references some of the tools that they have that are also BIM compatible: BIM/Revit/HydraCAD PowerPoint Presentation.

Autodesk has a Navisworks NWC Export Utility that lets you create Navis content directly from the HydraCAD 3D model without having Navisworks and without the need to create the Solid Pipes drawing.

Install the linked tool, elevate to 3D and then type in NWCOUT. This will create a Navisworks cache file that can be opened by those who have Navisworks for viewing and/or clash dtection purposes.

No one topic seems to cause more consternation than Object Snaps. Here is the what and why of why we do what we do:

We need to have object snaps set for a certain number of commands to ensure that the drawing is connected properly. Many users feel that we willy-nilly overwrite their osnaps, i.e. – don't put them back the way we found them. This is not true. The following rules should explain how you can keep your osnaps:

1. ALL HydraCAD commands are intended to return your default osnaps to you after you complete the command. The only exceptions are the Line and Main commands because these two commands are 'endless' commands (we don't know when they are done). If you find any exceptions, please let us know and we will lock them down.

1A. Right now, the Rapid Pipe commands will not reset your osnaps if you use the Escape key to exit these commands instead of using Enter to exit them. We are working to change this behavior.

2. You can turn off the HydraCAD object snaps and use your own for most of the important commands by picking the Options submenu from the HydraTools pulldown menu. then, pick Use Your Own Object Snaps

3. The Sprinkler, Piping and Hanger toolbars contain their own osnap buttons to be used for the commands found in those toolbars. These effectively give you a second set of osnaps, preserving your basic AutoCAD osnap for when those commands are done. These only need to be set once per drawing.

4. We have been steadily reducing the number of default osnap settings for non-critical commands. These will be entirely up to you to set.

5. We have added two buttons to help make using your default osnaps easier. On the HydraCAD Utilities toolbar there are two commands: Save Osnap (OSS) and Restore Osnap (OSR). These allow you to set a default osnap and bring it back whenever you want.

I realize this is a sensitive topic for some of you but we do need to set some sort of base osnaps so that users (new ones, especially) can 'just draw' and have a reasonable chance of getting a calc or list out without all kinds of drawing errors. Believe me, we've tried it the other way and it hasn't worked.

Thanks to John Hulett of Western States Fire Protection for handing over this tip.

Many times background drawings have large blocks contained of many elements, and those elements may have many different colors. How to get them all to be the same color you might ask. Or linetypes

1. Pick the Change to ByLayer command from the AutoCAD Modify pulldown menu

-or-

2. Pick the Set to ByLayer button on the Home tab/Modify panel from the ribbon menu

-or-

3. Type in SETBYLAYER

From a Customer: "Is there a way to set multiple floor elevations in 3D so the elevation tags and ceiling hts will be set correct from each floor elevation?"

Yes (you didn't expect me to say no, did you?). Using the Structure Elevations (TOS) command from the Steel toolbar (or Elevate ribbon panel) use the Floor Elevation button to specify this. You can even use it to compensate for those structures where the top of steel elevation is adjusted + or – for the joists

I'll get right to the point  – AutoCAD does not support dual or multi-core processors. So, if you go out and buy a machine with eight-cores, you will be going as fast as a single-core machine for the most part.

If the software is not written to take advantage of multiple cores, then it does not matter how many of them you have. From Autodesk's website on the matter: Support for multi-core processors with AutoCAD:

Solution

AutoCAD only supports multi-core technology in a couple of very specific areas of the product, including:

• 2D regeneration
• MentalRay rendering

In order to fully benefit from multi-core processors, you need to use multi-threaded software and AutoCAD is predominatley a single-threaded application.

A CPU-intensive operation that uses 100% of the resources of a single-core processor will only use a maximum of 50% of the CPU for that same operation on a dual-core computer, and only 6% of each CPU on a 16-core computer. This is shown in the following image:

Due to the lack of multi-threading, AutoCAD is not capable of using more than 50% of the CPU on a dual-core computer, so there is no significant performance gain over a single CPU computer except for the areas noted above."

These instructions assume that the drawing in question already has sprinklers defined and/or piping drawn.

1. Start new drawing using one of our templates
2. Insert the background drawing
3. Define one HydraCAD sprinkler for each sprinkler in the background drawing
4. Insert one of each of these heads some on the drawing that is easy to get to
5. Use Change Block (CHB) to replace existing sprinklers with HydraCAD sprinklers, one for one. Use the Change Circle option if that is how the heads are drawn. Otherwise, use Change Block. The current version of HydraCAD (V50/51.7 Rev 4 will match the scale of the existing heads
6. If the background piping is constructed of Polylines, exlpode them to turn them into lines
7. Isolate the piping layer and put the branch lines in SPRKDAT2 and the mains in SPRKDAT1. Underground goes into SPRKDAT3. Use Match Properties if you find that handy
8. If the mains do not end at each line intersection, use Automain (AUM) to break them up. No gaps can be left between pipes
9. Connect the sprinkler heads to the branch lines using grips, if necessary. No gaps can be left between pipes or between heads and pipes
10. Add elevations
11. Run Checkups from the Calculations toolbar (HCH) to look for and correct drawing errors
12. Go to 3D and look for errors

If you are on the support plan, we can often help you figure out what to do with a background that you would like to convert. Just let us know.