Model Transformation: Revit, Google Earth and 3D Printing

Today’s guest blog is from Dolly L. Haardt, LEED AP, Architectural BIM Specialist, Microsol Resources, New York City.  Microsol is an Authorized Reseller for Z Corporation. 

It’s amazing what you can do with a Revit project, from publishing it into Google Earth to printing a 3D model, the capabilities seem endless. Some of the most powerful aspects of Revit are the Add-Ins, which essentially are plug-ins to the software to expand its functionality. I’m going to walk you through the Globe Link and STL Add-In tools, so that you can familiarize yourself with how to publish a Revit mass into Google Earth and how to export an STL file to print a 3D model.

First let’s talk about Revit and Google Earth. For those of you that understand the basics of Revit, you know that Project Location is extremely important and can cause havoc down the road if ignored. The beauty of linking your model to Google Earth is that you can import the latitude and longitude of a particular location into your Revit Project. To start you need to make sure that you have the Globe Link Add-In tool; it can be downloaded at subscription.autodesk.com. This is a free tool if you are an Autodesk subscription customer. Once you download and install the Add-In, you will see the commands listed under the External Tools Menu. Then, locate your project in Google Earth and simply ‘Acquire’ the location in your Revit Site view. Once you mass out your design, confirm that you are in a 3D view and ‘Publish’ your model to Google Earth via the Add-In menu. It’s basically that simple. Here is a link to a video I created showing you the process.

Now let’s discuss Revit and 3D Printing. There is a free Add-In tool that you can get at labs.autodesk.com called STL Exporter for Revit Platform. This gives you the ability to take any Revit model and export it out to an STL format. The 2011 Autodesk tool has new features that the 2010 tool did not include, so it is well worth the upgrade. Similar to the Google Earth process, you will want to make sure that a 3D view is active before exporting. I do want to clarify one important point, similar to the process for photorealistic rendering, for 3D printing there is pre-processing work that needs to be done. Your model needs to conform to standards depending on the final output. For example, let’s say you want to bring this model into ZPrint, which is software provided by Z Corporation for printing on their various 3D printers, you will need to adhere to certain guidelines: a water tight model, no inverted surface normals, and minimum element thickness. Once you have gone through this process, you can bring the STL file into ZPrint and then check it in ZEdit Pro for any issues that may need repair. Once you get the ‘Congratulations’ dialog box you are ready to print. Here is a link to a video I created showing you the process.

Both the Globe Link and the STL Export tools are quick to install and master. With a little bit of guidance from my videos, I hope you have the opportunity to test out these latest features. I have found that showing clients their project in Google Earth and printing out 3D massing models helps communicate design concepts most successfully. Keep in mind that these are just a couple of the latest tools out there to enhance your workflow.

http://www.zcorp.com

Tools to Prepare Google SketchUp Designs for 3D Printing

Over the past few years of monitoring architectural practices, we are seeing more and more interest in 3D printing from Google SketchUp designs. We hear architects tell us that SketchUp is easy to use, especially in the early design stages where multiple iterations are needed to move a project forward.

This is good news and bad news for 3D printing. The good news is that 3D printing adds the most value to a design process by enabling the physical visualization of multiple concepts as early as possible. The bad news is that SketchUp behaves more like a rendering tool, not like a solid modeling system. With a rendering tool, designers must take more care in preparing their model for 3D printing to ensure a water-tight model. To be fair, we have seen enhancements in Google SketchUp v8 which begin to address the solid modeling issue.

In the meantime, a few experienced vendors have stepped in with tools to assist with preparing models for 3D printing. One supplier, LGM Model, has created a SketchUp plug-in called CADspan -  CADspan will resurface your SketchUp design and essentially shrink-wrap it to create a single water-tight model for 3D printing.

Another well-known vendor, Materialise, has formed a business unit called iMaterialise. They offer an i.materialise service which will 3D print your model. They also developed a Google SketchUp plugin to assists in the creation and 3D printing of architectural scale models. iMaterialise recently sponsored a design contest using this SketchUp plug-in module. You’ll find pictures of the winning designs here: http://picasaweb.google.com/i.materialise/IMaterialiseSketchUpContent#.

Has anybody heard of similar SketchUp tools? Please share your experiences.

http://www.zcorp.com

Timber House

Today's guest post is by Mark Cook, Z Corp. VP of Research and Development.

One of the things I love about working here at Z Corp. is when I am able to help someone discover the unique capabilities of 3D printing, specifically how ZPrinting can help solve real problems.

A few weeks back I ran into an old friend, during a wine tasting event at a local vineyard, who I had not seen in many years. As is often the case during these chance meetings, we both talked at length about what we had been up to over the past few years. The last time I saw him I must have just recently started my career at Z Corp. because he seemed to remember me telling him something about models. My friend is a local architect specializing in high-end custom homes.

Like many individual or small firm architects that have been around for a while, this guy hand draws most of his concepts and many of his detail drawings. His early design decision process involves sketching concepts, reviewing them with the customer, and re-sketching until they both agree on what is to be built. This is time consuming and at the end to the day there is always a risk that the sketch did not accurately represent the final building. How close the end product is to what is expected depends upon the quality of the sketches, as well as the customers’ ability to interpret them or to visualize the final building from the sketches.

Recently some of the younger architects working with my friend started using 3D software to turn early concepts into more realistic renderings in an effort to better communicate and make decisions at this early design stage. As luck would have it, they were in the midst of a project with a client where the husband was in the building profession and, because of his experience, could easily interpret drawings. The husband and wife were in disagreement about a particular detail - whether an entire wall in their new great room should be made of stone or just the section above the fireplace. The architect had rendered the room and shown them the renderings on the computer screen, but a decision had yet to be made.

I offered to take the 3D data from their software and print a model for their next client meeting on the following Thursday. I was able to export the 3D data, including texture map images for the wood, stone and other surfaces. I delivered the completed ¼” scale model in full color on Wednesday afternoon. My friend was amazed, his client was amazed, and I was very happy to help. The husband was finally convinced that his wife was right. Through a chance meeting at a local vineyard, I was able to help a friend solve a real issue by improving communication using Z Corp. 3D printing technology.

Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page to see a sampling of ZPrinted architectural models.

“Britain’s best architect”

I came across this article in Building Design recently “Gove waxes lyrical over Amanda Levete” by Elizabeth Hopkirk. The article describes how Britain’s Education Secretary, Michael Gove, called Amanda Levete “Britain’s best architect” during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Globe Academy in South London, which the firm designed. Gove went on to say, “So much care and attention and the work of Britain’s best architect has gone into providing you with the best possible building in which to spend the next few years.” He said everyone involved in the design had “shaped a building which is impressive on the outside and beautiful on the inside.”

Why did this article catch my attention? Amanda Levete Architects is a Z Corp. customer. They use a ZPrinter 450, multicolor 3D printer. 

It’s gratifying to know that Z Corp. technology is being used by the best architectural firms to quickly and cost effectively create the most innovative designs in an iterative manner, and then have those designs validated by such a prestigious, independent third party. But it also makes me wonder why some architectural firms have not yet adopted 3D printing. If physical modeling is used to complement digital modeling in design practice (as most architects do), then firms without 3D printing in their competitive arsenal are at a distinct disadvantage.

From the Levete company Website profile page…"The ethos of the office is rooted in design research and a commitment to exploring the transformative potential of space. Developments in digital fabrication have allowed the office to challenge conventional notions of form and space alongside the continued value placed on hand-drawings and hand-crafted models. The team's collaborative approach to the design process extends clients' ambitions for their projects and produces groundbreaking work."

The best AEC firms combine laser cutting, CNC, and hand-crafting with modern 3D prototyping technology to create visualization models for their design team, clients, and regulatory agencies. I’d like to hear from you. If you have not yet adopted 3D printing into your architectural firm, why? Are you considering it?

http://www.zcorp.com

Bentley 2010 Design Competition Winners

Today’s guest blog was contributed by Fran Rabuck, Director of Technology Research for Bentley Systems. Fran is responsible for the lab, and he works with RFID, Sensors, Visualization tools, Next Generation Input devices, mobile and wireless gadgets, and 3D Printing technologies.

At the Bentley 2010 BE Conference, Bentley hosted a competition for three teams, each consisting of two end users paired with a Bentley employee Microstation expert. This Iron Chef-like bake-off challenged each team to design and build a new Philly related iconic-like item that would represent some unique part of Philadelphia. All of their work would be projected onto a large screen live. Talk about pressure! First, the teams needed to choose what they would design, and then they had about an hour to model it. When the teams started their design, there was no mention of 3D printing of their work. Below you can see the results of the teams who designed: 1) The New Liberty Bell, 2) The Cheese Steak Trophy and 3) The Love Shack. The first two, most people are familiar with the association with Philadelphia. The Love Shack is a reference to the famous LOVE statue in Love Park across from City Hall. It’s a reference to the City being known as the “City of Brotherly Love.”

Now, even with the Microstation tools and help of experts, it can be a real challenge to design anything in an hour. The surprising result was all three models were loaded into ZPrint/ZEdit Pro and required very little preparation. Of course, these models were relative simple in structure and that might be expected. But so often, I hear that models need to be “designed from the start with 3D Printing in mind.” I’m not sure this is always true. Recognizing that more complex Digital Terrain Models (DTM), Building Structures and even Digital Plants can be very complex for 3D printing, there are several commands added to Microstation to aid in the preparation of a model for 3D printing.

For example a Civil DTM may include a set of unrelated triangles. These can be converted to meshes using the tool “Stitch into Mesh” or “Construct Mesh from Contours.” Or a B-Spline surface can be converted to meshes using the tool “Mesh from element” using a selection set. Solids can be created from a curved object using the “Solid by Extrude Along” tool. Surface objects can be fixed with the “Solid by Thicken surface” tool and the “Mesh from Element” tool. Sizing problems of Solid Objects can be handled with the “Remove Entity by Size” tool to remove small, print-challenged scaled objects. There are many other tools now in Microstation v8i like: “Add Thickness by Vortex offset”, “Add Flat Base”, “Mesh – Unite, Intersection and Subtract” and “Decimate and Cleanup Mesh” and more.

The last step, of course, is export to a 3D format acceptable by Z Corp. or other 3D printers. STL is the base standard and has been an option in Microstation for years. For color – VRML output can be used. But the lesson here is that exporting or saving models to STL or other formats should be the last step of the process for 3D printing. Don’t let any software vendors or 3D printer services lead you to believe that 3D printing is simply a single push-button solution.

http://www.zcorp.com

Frame Models

Today’s guest blog was submitted by David Munson of Munson3D. David has worked with a variety of clients to model frame structures in Revit, AutoCAD, and 3dsMax Design. The following examples show a variety of interesting architectural designs printed on Z Corp ZPrinters. You can see more of David’s work on http://www.munson3d.com/

Subject: Proton Accelerator

Client: Tsoi/Kobus & Associates

Software: Revit and 3dsMax Design

ZPrinter: model Spectrum Z510

Subject: Radar Dish

Client: a Massachusetts research lab

Software: 3dsMax Design

ZPrinter: model Spectrum Z510

Subject: BMW Automotive Show Room

Client: Autodesk

Software: AutoCAD and 3dsMax Design

ZPrinter: model ZPrinter 650

Subject: Park Canopy

Client: Sasaki Associates, Inc.

Software: AutoCAD and 3ds Max Design

ZPrinter: model Spectrum Z510

http://www.zcorp.com

STL Exporter for Revit Family 2010

Recently, Autodesk announced that the Revit STL Exporter has been retired from Autodesk Labs - http://labs.blogs.com/its_alive_in_the_lab/2010/08/stl-exporter-for-revit-famil-2010-retired.html

This means that enough users have downloaded the utility over the past two years to give Autodesk enough confidence to ‘graduate’ the technology preview. The STL Exporter for Revit Family 2010 is now available on the Autodesk Labs Graduates web page - http://labs.autodesk.com/graduates/

I would love to hear from those Revit users out there who have downloaded the STL Exporter and used it for 3D Printing. Have you been successful? Or, do you prefer other data paths such as exporting a DWG Solid file and pushing that geometry through 3ds Max Design for ultimate export as a 3DS or VRML file for 3D Printing? Or maybe you are exporting FBX files? What’s working best out there?

http://www.zcorp.com