Structural Design to Fabrication with AEC Collection—Part II

DEEPAK MAINI: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you guys are. Thanks for joining me in this Autodesk University 2021 class. This class is all about structural design to fabrication with AEC collection, part two. Let me first welcome you all to the digital AU experience. It is the second time AU has gone digital. And I'm sure you guys are having a fantastic time.

Just a quick introduction about myself. My name is Deepak Maini, as you would have seen on the first slide. I'm the National Technical manager at a company called Cadgroup Australia, a qualified mechanical engineer. I've been in the industry for almost 22 years. I'm also an Autodesk Expert Elite BIM 360 certified consultant and a trainer. I'm also really blessed I get to travel around the world and do talks at various conferences. I have won a few top speaker awards at Autodesk universities as well as Bluebeam conferences. I've written a few books as well, as you can see, the books on programs like Advance Steel, Navisworks, Bluebeam Revu, and so on. I also do a bit of teaching at various universities in Australia, so University of Technology Sydney and University of New South Wales and also a few universities overseas.

All right, normally what I prefer doing in my classes are to have fun as we learn. And my plan is at the end of this class, I'm going to give away a couple of copies of my Advance Steel 2022 books. How am I going to give away these books? I'm going to explain that in the Q&A session when we do our Q&A session. Before I start my class, I actually want to acknowledge a few people. These people work in the background, so you might not really see them. But it's because of these people that we are able to come in here, do our talks, and go home, and not worry about other things.

So people like Janice, people like Sydney, I have seen them work past midnight for so many nights just to make sure that this digital AU experience is one of the top experiences for you guys. People like Adam, Lauren, Pat, Nicholas, and also the Autodesk technical crew, I really appreciate what you guys do. This means a lot to us. And I'm sure it's because of you guys that people can come in and watch the AU classes without too many dramas. All right, so this are the learning objectives of this class. I'm sure you would have actually looked at these learning objectives when you signed up. So I won't spend too much time on this slide.

Now, I want to start with revisiting my 2020 class because this 2021 class is part two of the class that I did in 2020. Let's start with revisiting that class. So in AU 2020, I explained in my class how structure is the most critical part of the design because it ensures the safety of the occupants. But even after that, only 10% construction cost actually relates to structures. Structures need to be tested for wind loading, seismic loading, gravity, and also need to make sure that they don't deflect or vibrate too much. But even after all this, structure this is one of the most disconnected industries.

We looked at the challenges that the structural industry faces. And these are all the challenges that we discussed in detail in the 2020 class. And also we talked about the solution, which is connected BIM, all the way from design through to construction. I then showed you a live demonstration of how we can start creating a design inside Revit and even create elements up to LOD 400 where we can have all the detailed connections inside Revit. We then showed you how we can take the design into Advance Steel, which comes as part of your AEC collection and create our detailed model there and do all our documentation-- so single part drawings, assembly drawings, fabrication drawings, erection drawings, all those drawings in Advance Steel.

And parallelly, I showed you how we can take the design model from Revit into Robot Structural Analysis, apply various types of loadings, wind loading, seismic loading, and so on. And once we get the results inside Robot Structural Analysis, I showed you how we can import the result inside Revit, and then make the changes to the Revit model. Once the changes are made to the Revit model, then I showed you how we can synchronize the Advance Steel model where we have done all our detailing with the Revit model.

And once we have synchronized all the changes, how we can update all the drawings, either using a revision or by force updating them. So we discussed all of this. And then I also showed you how we can import all the connections from Advance Steel straight into Revit, in case Revit is our deliverable. So this is all we discussed in structural design to fabrication Revit and Advance Steel-- Buddies for Life class in AU 2020.

So let's now talk about taking the next step. Taking the next step is all about sharing the design and drawings with the external teams, now whether these teams are the teams in the field or the external stakeholders who need to input some information into our design. Now this has been a challenge from the start. How do we ensure that we have the right information available to the field teams or to the external stakeholders?

Did you know that this is one of the main problems that we face in the industry, unclear communication lines between the teams costs the construction industry over $15 billion in rework. So $15 billion in rework cost. 55% of this rework cost is basically the claims due to inaccurate field data. So we have not been able to provide the right information to the field executives. And this is all based on the construction institute report.

Did you also know that as per Emerson Reliability Consulting report, 62% of the construction professionals transfer field data manually or via spreadsheet? So they go in field, and then they see a problem with something. They make a node on the sheet of paper or in a Word file or on a spreadsheet, and then they exchange the spreadsheet with the other stakeholders. And because of that, 30% of the data created during design and construction is lost by project closeout because it's really hard to keep a track of all those hundreds and hundreds of Word documents or spreadsheets, and so on.

And this is where it causes problems on projects when we don't have the right information flowing through. I reckon this one is fake. I think somebody just Photoshopped this because I don't think anybody would really be able to do this, but anyways I saw this on the internet. And I thought I'll share it with you guys.

Now all these changes now. The reason it all changes now is because AEC collection now includes access to Autodesk Docs. Now what is Autodesk Docs? Yay! What is Autodesk Docs? Autodesk Docs is the common data environment for your file repository layer that allows you to upload all your project BIM data. It gives you version control on your files. So when you upload the revised versions, it saves the previous version. So you could compare different versions, or you could even restore a previous version if required.

It gives you access to both 3D and 2D file support. So you could upload your 3D BIM data, or you could upload 2D PDF files or 2D drawing sheets or even Word documents, Excel documents, and so on. And if you've got Office 365, you could actually edit the Word and Excel documents within BIM 360 without downloading them, making changes, and uploading them back. So that's Autodesk Docs. It provides you access to the embedded data inside your structural BIM or your BIM data,

You can click on an element, you can look at the metadata associated with it, look at the properties, for structural elements, things like cut lengths, and so on. You can add markups to those elements. And most importantly, it comes with centralized issue management system. This is hands down one of my favorite features that I'm going to talk about in detail in demonstrations.

It allows you to compare documents as I mentioned earlier. So let's say I created an issue now that changes have been made in the design. But I want to compare the changes. So I can rest assured the changes that I requested have been made in the design. So in that case, I can compare documents. Again, I will explain this in detail. It also gives field executives access to the data in the field in offline mode. So we can download the mobile app on iOS or Android devices. And we can access the data in the offline mode as well, just in case you're going on site where there's no internet connectivity. How cool is that?

So let's now talk about different demonstrations. All right, so let's look at some demonstrations now. The first demo, I want to show you is how to upload data on Autodesk docs. So this is my Google Chrome window. I'm logged into this project AU 2021. And in the project files, I've got these two folders, 01 Revit and 02 PDFs. Let me now switch over to Revit.

So this is my structural BIM data inside Revit. What I've done is created a 3D view, and I've called it a shared 3D. And this 3D view is the one that I've included in my published settings because this is the only view I want to be able to or I want to be accessible on Docs, nothing else. Once I've done this, I can now go to File, Save As, and I can save this model as a cloud model. So what this does is it gives me the option to now save this model on Autodesk docs. I can go and pick the project in this case, AU 2021. And in the project files, I'm going to go into 01 Revit folder, and I can now save this folder here or save this structural BIM data in Revit format here.

So the whole idea is that this Revit file is now saved on Autodesk Docs. Now if I go and switch over to Chrome window, you can see that this Revit file is now getting published, meaning it's getting ready for viewing on Docs. This is Advance Steel now, the same model that we saw in the previous class. If I look at my detailed documentations, I've got all these drawings already generated. Now I can practically select these drawings, and I can upload these drawings on Autodesk docs straight away.

But because most companies have this workflow where they publish these as PDF files and then upload those PDF files, that's exactly what I've done. I have added them to Batch Plot, and I've created PDF files that I can show you in this folder here. And now I can simply drag and drop these PDFs files from my File Explorer straight onto the docs folder. Now we can see here that the 3D file is already published. If I go into the Revit folder, I can see that this file is now ready for viewing.

When I click on this file here under sheets and views, I can see that this is the only 3D view I've got accessible on Docs. I can now go and orbit the model. I can review the properties of these elements. So if I click on this column, I can go and say properties. And these are all the metadata associated with that column, same thing with this section here, including cut lengths, and so on. So basically we are accessing the structural BIM data in my web browser without having a need of any additional program to download.

And this is the Revit file we were looking at. Similarly, if I go into 02 PDFs folder, some of these PDF files have also been uploaded. So I can now go and click on one of these files here. And when I click on this file, that's the PDF file now available on Docs. So again, no need of any additional environment or additional program to access the data. This could be in the field, or this could be in the office of the external stakeholders. So we talked about how to upload the data onto Autodesk Docs .

Now let's talk about the next step. The next step is all right, we've got the data sitting on Docs. But I want to share all this data with the external teams. And this is where it's amazing now with Autodesk docs getting included in your AEC collection subscription. So project members can use our desktops from AEC collection subscription without me being worried about their licensing and so on. So they can use their own Docs subscription, which is what we call as buy or bring your own subscription, BYOS, bring your own subscription.

All right, so in my case, I've got two CSV files, PDF review and Revit review. These are the members that need to review my designs. If I open the Rivet review document, I've got these 24 members that I want to give access to the Revit file. For that, I can go to 01 Revit folder, and I can go under permissions. And I can give them permissions here. But again, I don't want to sit here and type in those 24 email addresses one by one. This is where I'm going to use this PowerShell script. This PowerShell script lets me select a CSV file that I can then use to bulk add members to my project.

I'm going to go OK, and now I'm going to pick the CSV file, which is sitting under this folder. That's the CSV file here. Now as soon as I do that, it says you've got 5 seconds after you click OK to click in the field and enter email addresses. I'll go OK, and click in this field here. And now the program starts to type in those email addresses from the CSV file straight into this field here. How cool is this?

So I don't have to worry about wasting time typing in the email addresses. The script, the PowerShell script is doing this for me. This PowerShell script was written by John Ayre, who actually is our managing director as well. Now, once this is done, I can define the permission level. In this case, I'm only going to give view only permission because that's my work in progress model. With the view only permission, the stakeholders can still add issues and markups and so on. So as you could see, these are all the members added to the 01 Revit folder.

I can now do the exact same thing with 02 PDFs folder as well, where I could go permissions. And I can then go and use the same PowerShell script and then use the PDF reviewer's CSV file to add all those members to this folder. Again, I'll give them view only permission because these are all my work in progress files. How cool is that? So basically what we have done in this case is given access to all the stakeholders to the Rivet file as well as the PDF files. And in both cases, we are going to give them view only permissions. So they can't download, or they can't edit my work in progress files.

Now once we have done that, let's start talk about accessing and reviewing. So we need to now access this data and review the data in the field. And again, all this is included inside AEC collection. There is nothing extra that you need to pay for in any of the workflow that I'm showing. So let's now start with the first demonstration in this case where I want to access the data and create issues in the field using the BIM 360 mobile app. So in this case, I'm going to use BIM 360 mobile app.

This is the BIM 360 mobile app that I've logged on to AU 2021 project. And if I show you this as a member, I'm logged in as field engineer in this case. Now I've got access to both 01 Rivet and 02 PDFs folder because this user was given access to both these folders. So inside the Revit folder, I've got the Revit file. And inside the PDFs folder, I've got all the PDFs file. But again I've got access to these files only as read only. I can still add markups and issues, which is what I want to do with Revit files.

So let's open the Revit file. This is now the Revit structural BIM data open inside my iPad app. So I can spin the model. I can Zoom pan and so on. But if I tap on this icon on the top right, I can go and look at various markups or issues added to the model. In this case, I want to start with going to levels. There are four levels in this project. So if I tap on level 0, that's level 0. Mezzanine level, level 1, and so on. Let's in my case, I'll go to mezzanine level. And now I need to look at some metadata associated with some of these elements.

So within my BIM 360 app, I can tap on the element. I can go properties, and I can look at all the associated metadata, including my cut lens, my weight information, and so on, all the information accessible in the field as well. Similarly, I want to start measuring some items. So I'm going to tap on this measure tool here.

And now I can go and pick two points. Let's-- I'm going to pick my first point on this column here. I can now spin the model, and I can say second point is on this column. As soon as I do that, I'm given the shortest distance as well as the delta x and delta y values. Similarly, if I go and tap on a point on, let's say, a beam somewhere here, and then the second point is a corner point here, again I'm given the shortest distance as well as the delta x, delta y, delta z values. How cool is this?

Let me now exit out of this. Now as I'm reviewing this design in the field, I realize that there's a little problem. And to inform the other stakeholders about that problem, I'm going to use this method called issues. The reason I use issues is because it comes with the notification system. I'm going to tap on this connection here. And I'll say issues. It says place the issue pin. I'm going to orbit the model. And I'm going to place the issue pin here. And now I can add the details here.

So title description, let's say we want to replace this haunch joint with the standard moment and plate joint, if I could spell it right. And now I can go and say Assign to. I'll go and pick the member that I want to assign this to. And now I can also go and define location if I have any. But due date is really important. So this needs to be fixed within a week and a half. Root cause, I'm a big fan of root cause. I'll go and pick root cause here as well. So this is a design deficiency root cause. Now I can tap on the camera icon. And if I had any camera photo I can use that. In this case, I've already taken the photo, which was sitting in my library. So I'm to use that. Now as soon as I tap create, the member who I assign this issue to straightaway gets an email notification that there is an issue for them to look at.

Let me now disable this level. So this way, I can also go and create additional issues. I can add markups. I can measure distances, all of this happening in my BIM 360 mobile app that I can access in the field. And again, I could have accessed this data in the offline mode as well. Similarly, we can go and create additional issues if required. How cool is this? I get so excited about all these cool features that are all part of our AEC collection that we don't have to do anything extra or didn't pay anything extra for.

In the next demonstration, I want to show you the same process. But this time, I'm going to use the web browser. So let's say I'm in another stakeholder's office. I'm not in the field. I can do the same thing in the web browser as well. In this case, I'm logged in on Firefox using the same project. I'm logged in as field engineer. And from 01 Revit folder, I'll open the Revit file. And again, as you could see, I've got this file open.

Now there are two issues created. This is the one that we just created on the iPad app. And in between, someone has gone in and added another issue there as well. So if I tap on or click on this issue, I can look at this issue here as well. Again, a really cool thing about these issues is I can also click on the attachments of these issues. Even though the attachments were added in the field, I can still click on them anywhere. And I can access those attachments as well.

So in my case, I want to add another issue. Let's say somewhere here. So I'm going to click on this beam, and I want to add a new issue. So place the issue pin. I'll add a title. Let's say add beam. I'll assign it to the project member that needs to fix it and the due date. I'll also make sure that I define the root cause. And now I can add the description here at the beam by setting the perimeter beams with the same end connections.

I'll click Create. And now there is a new issue added. And again, I could go and also add attachments. So if the description wasn't enough, I can go and add an image that explains the issue a bit better. And once the attachment is added, I can actually click on it and look at what the details are. So again, all this accessible in the field as well as in the office using the web browser. How cool is this? I'm sorry, I keep saying how cool is this because it's such an exciting feature that we've got and all included in the AEC collection.

All right, so now that we have added these issues, let's talk about how do we fix these issues. And this is where the issue management processes absolutely sensational inside BIM 360 and AEC collection where we can now download these issues that we added in the field or using the web browser. The only thing that you need to be mindful of is that the issue plugin needs to be downloaded and installed separately. It is available for Revit 2022, 21, and 20. It is available for all the existing subscription customers. You can install it using the desktop app because it shows up there. Or you can download and install it from your Autodesk account.

So let's now look at the demonstration of how we can download and action these issues inside Revit. I'm currently in Revit 2022. Using the Home screen, I clicked on Autodesk Docs. And now I can access this file from the project and the folder. I'll go and open this file, which as you could see is the cloud model that we saved earlier. When I click on this file, it opens it. I can now directly go to the Issues tab because I've downloaded and installed the plugin. And as soon as I click on Manage issues, it displays this issue's window where I can go and look at all these issues.

In this case, let's start with issue number 2 because that's a issue to the baseplate connection. I can now look at the description. So this needs to be changed to 1 inch ABs with normal washer and nut. I can also look at the attached image if need be. So let's now start making changes to this connection. I'm going to go and say edit type. In this case, I'm going to duplicate it because I don't want to modify the connections added to the straight columns, only to the incline columns.

I can edit the parameters. So the first thing I want to do is change the anchor bolts to 1 inch. We need to make sure that these are headed anchors. And if I zoom in here, you could see this here. And I also need to add washer plates. So these are the washer plates added to the connection. I'm going to go and say OK. So that's the new type created which has been assigned to this column. I'll make sure that I assign it to the other inclined column as well. So that's the nut and washer and nut connection.

It doesn't affect the rest of the connections. And now from within Revit, I can change the status of this issue. So change is made and will be reflected in the next publish. So although the issue was originally created in the field or using the web browser, but I'm able to change the status of it within Revit. I can now do the same thing with this issue as well. But to keep it simple in this demonstration, I'm going to leave it as is. I'll just modify one of these issues. I'm now going to save my cloud model again. So make sure that I update the cloud model. I'll also make sure that I publish a new SMLX file.

So I can synchronize Advance Steel model, which is our detailed model with the changes here. And lastly I'll make sure that I refresh the home screen. And I publish the latest version. Now publishing is really important because this way, when I go and publish this model, it then updates the model sitting on Autodesk docs. And that's where we'll be able to see the revised version, and we'll be able to compare the changes between the different versions. So what we did in this case was we downloaded the issues inside Revit. We made the required changes. We then exported a new SMLX file, so we can synchronize the Advance Steel model. And then we published the latest version on Docs.

In the next demonstration, let's actually now go and synchronize the Advance Steel model. Now once we have synchronized the Advance Steel model, we are then going to create new PDF files. And we are going to upload the revised PDF files in the 02 PDFs folder. But this time, I'll show you how we can use Desktop Connector. Desktop Connector basically let me connect the BIM 360 or Autodesk Docs project. It could be on the Autodesk Construction Cloud as well. So Autodesk docs project with my desktop, meaning I can simply use the File Explorer to drag and drop files to the Docs project.

So let's take a look at that workflow. This is Advance Steel. And if I go into the Document Manager, I can see all the files here are up to date. So my single part files, my general arrangement, my assembly drawings, everything are up to date. I'm now going to go into export and import tab. I'll go into synchronize. I'll load the SMLX file that I just created from Revit. In this case, I'm only interested in synchronizing connections. So I'm going to go into connections that are modified, Apply Filter. So the program says these are all the connections that are modified. I'm going to pick the status and apply all of these connections.

The main one that we are interested in are these connections to the inclined columns. I'll click on Apply all actions. And now all the connections are modified. And if I navigate to the A1 grid intersection point, I can see that this connection now shows the changes that we made in Revit. How cool is this synchronized workflow with Revit and Advance Steel? I'm not going to rerun the numbering because we created new anchor bolts.

And now if I go into Document Manager, I can see that these are the drawings that need to be updated. So the column assembly drawing, the general arrangement drawing, and the column part drawing. I can decide to force update them or update them with a revision. In this case, I'm going to force update them to keep it simple. So let's just click on force update. So this now force updates these drawings. I can now go and select the drawings that changed. And I can create new PDF files using those drawings.

Again, if I would have uploaded the DWG files on Docs, I would not have to perform this step. But the only reason I'm doing this is because a lot of companies still prefer uploading the PDF files rather than uploading the actual DWG files. So now that these PDFs files have been created, let me close out of this. In the File Explorer, I'll go and first select these files. And I'll make sure that I move them to the right folder. And I'll overwrite the existing files because I've already made copies of those.

And now I'm going to use Desktop Connector, which lets me connect Autodesk docs from within my desktop. So as you can see inside File Explorer, I'm going to access my project and go to the 02 PDFs folder. And I can now simply drag and drop the files from this window to the Docs project using the File Explorer. And I'm going to go and say copy all. So it replaces all these files. Excuse me.

Again, in this case, I used Desktop Connector that lets me connect the Docs project to my desktop. So I can simply use the File Explorer windows to drag and drop files. This again, is a really cool workflow, just in case, you don't have your web browser window open. If you had your web browser window open, you could have simply drag and drop in the web browser as well, like we did with the PDF files originally.

All right, so in the last demonstration, I want to show you how we can now go back to Docs in web browser. And we can compare the models to make sure all the requested changes were made. And then we can close the issues associated with them. So in here, I'm back to my Chrome window. I'm back into my project. Let's quickly first look at the PDFs folder. And we can see that the revised version files are uploaded here. We can see them as version 2. So this is one of the main features of docs. It creates version control.

Now let me go to the Issues tab here. Now when I go to the Issues tab, I will be able to-- there we go. So I can see that issue number two is already changed to answered. I'll click on this, and I can now go and look at the activities. I can see that this was originally created by this user. Then this user changed the status from open to answered. And they also added some description here. Now if I go back to Details, I can click on the linked document. Now the Rivet file is opened in the web browser. And I'm taken straight to the element on which the issue pin was placed. It even selects that element.

I can see that this connection was changed yes, but to be 100% sure, I'm going to actually perform comparison. I'm going to compare version 3 of this model against version 2. Now as soon as I click compare, the program now compares the two versions of the model. And in the changes window, it shows me anything that is added, removed, or modified. If I click on this baseplate connection modified, it now shows me that this is the element that is modified. And this is how it looks like in version 3. And if I click on version 2, it says this is how it looked like in version 2. How cool is this?

So version 3, and it also shows me the type name change from baseplate to baseplate with nut and washer and nut. I can also display this in side by side view. So in side by side view, I've got version 2 sitting in the left side screen and version 3 sitting in the right side screen. It's a synchronized view. So if I navigate in one window, it navigates in the other as well. I can now straightaway see that yes, the changes were made. Let's look at the other connection as well. And this connection was modified as well.

So this changes window is so cool. I can straightaway see in version 3, they have made the changes that I requested. So I'm happy with this. I can now change the status of this issue from answered to closed. I can add a comment here. And as soon as I do that, the user who changed the status from open to answered straightaway gets an email notification that this issue has now been closed, I can see the status here. And I also see the change in the color.

So this fantastic closed loop issue management system that comes as part of Autodesk Docs and AEC collection where you can create issues in the field using the BIM 360 mobile app or from the browser, you can then access the issue from any of these platforms. Those issues can then be downloaded inside Revit or even programs like Navisworks where you can take action to fix those issues, which is what we did in Rivet.

We can then change the status of the issue from within Rivet. And then as soon as we do that, the user who created the issue gets a notification that the status has been changed. They can then access the issue in the web browser, compare the models, rest assured that they have been-- all the changes have been made as per their request. And that's when they can close the issue. So the whole closed loop process that is included in this issues workflow.

So now taking the next step is really possible with Autodesk Docs. It is 100% secure. You can access the data in the field using the BIM 360 mobile app or using the web browser. And most importantly, this workflow comes with a fantastic design review and issue management feature built in. So if I talk about three takeaways from this class, the first one is AEC collection now gives you access to Autodesk Docs, which comes with bring your own subscription license model, meaning I can use my own subscription to access projects that are hosted on your account.

Autodesk Docs is the common data environment that can be used to share the data in the field and external stakeholders. And lastly, it comes with a fantastic closed loop end to end issue management system that's supported by the notification functionality, meaning as soon as I create the issue and I assign it to a user, they get notified. As they change the status of the issue, I get notified, and so on. So we can create issues. We can access issues in the web browser or the field using the BIM 360 app. We can make changes inside Rivet, and we can close the issue, so the whole closed loop issue management system.

And that's all I have in this class. As I said, this class was all about taking the design and sharing it with the field. I am really excited about this workflow. I hope you enjoyed this class. I'm going to talk to you about more details in the Q&A section as well. So if you have any questions, please feel free to add in the comments box on this AU class page. I would be more than happy to regularly look at that and answer any questions that you have or any comments that you have.

But most importantly, I'm happy to share with you the PowerShell script that I used in this project to add members, bulkhead members. So if you want access to the PowerShell script, please mention that in the comments field. I'm going to mention-- I'm going to pick all the names who are interested in that PowerShell script, and then I'm going to share that script with you guys. With this, that's all I have in this class. I hope you enjoyed this class. And I also wish you all the best. And I'm sure you are going to enjoy the rest of Autodesk University digital experience. Cheers.