Issue #737
As a naive North American, the only things I knew about Wollongong was that the town is an hour south of Sydney airport, and that is has a lighthouse. Upon my arrival following 24 hours travel, I made myself a cup of tea (I appreciated that the hotel had a hot water kettle instead of a bad coffee maker, Australia being a nation of tea drinkers historically), I sat down on a chair on the enormous balcony, put up my feet, and looked past the palm-looking trees to the surf rolling in on sun-drenched beaches. I imagined I was in Hawaii; this, then, was my impression of Wollongong. (See figure 1.)
Figure 1: Sandy beaches? Check. Surf'n sun? Check. Lighthouse? Yup.
Imagine my surprise when I heard RTC conference organizer Wesley Benn admit that he hadn't taken into account the image residents of Sydney have of this former steel mill (and still coal exporting) town, who know it only for its black skies. They didn't know that "I Love The Gong" has revitalized the beachfront and offers free a bus route. Nevertheless, 398 Aussies and others registered for Revit Technology Conference Australasia 2012, a nice number that organizers have no intention of wanting to get any larger.
RTC 2012
In brief, RTC is a three-day conference by Revit users for Revit users. It's now in its eighth year, expanding last year from the Australia/Asia region to North America, and then next year to Europe. Think of an intimate Autodesk University or SolidWorks World, but with 400 attendees dedicated to Revit, at a resort location that isn't Las Vegas or Orlando.
When I registered, I could choose from three days of four tracks of sessions on using Revit, two tracks of labs, and/or a one-day Principals' track meant for owners of firms. Topics ranged from "BIM and Gaming Engines" to "Revit for Quantity Surveys" and "BIM's Seven Deadly Sins." For details on the sessions I sat in on, browse the reports I posed live on WorldCAD Access:
- Welcome to Wollongong, Australia!
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/welcome-to-wollongong-australia.html - Live blogging day 1 of the Revit Technology Conference
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/live-blogging-day-1-of-the-revit-technology-conference.html
- Keynote address by Lee Crockett of the 21st Century Fluency Project - RTC 2012: Principal's Stream
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/rtc-2012-principals-stream.html
- BIM Management: A Strategic Approach
- BIM's Seven Deadly Sins - RTC Day 1, afternoon sessions
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/rtc-day-1-afternoon-sessions.html
- Shaping Change
- BIM Excellence: A Unique Approach to Performance Assessment and Certification - RTC day 2
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/rtc-day-2.html
- Next generation BIM: deeper collaboration + greater trust = better results
- BIM: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow - RTC day 3, the final day
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/rtc-day-3-the-final-day.html
- Coding for Revit
- BIM: It's more about information and people, and less about 3D modeling
- Let's Explore Mobile Apps - Revit Technology Conference 2012 is over for Australasia
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/revit-technology-conference-2012-is-over-for-australiasia.html
- Closing Ceremony - Photos from Wollongong Beach
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/in-2013-revit-technology-conference-spreads-its-wings.html
The port of Wollongong was built by prisoners in 1834 because of the coal deposits discovered in the hills behind the city. Problem was that the coal was of low quality, and so interest in the area died down until the coking process was figured out; six coking ovens have been uncovered adjacent to the port. In the late 1890s, a series of large artillery guns were installed along the waterfront to guard the coast against invasion by Russians. Within 20 years, they were abandoned, because their 1-mile range was no defense against stronger ship-mounted canons. In 2008, the city embarked on "The Green Mile" to revitalize one mile of waterfront, and I deem it a success.
Highlights of the Week
Upon my arrival in Australia, waiting for me on the other side of Australian immigration was R. Paul Waddington, a fellow CAD user with whom I have emailed over the years. He and his son generously got up at 5am that morning to get to the airport for my 6:15am arrival, and then take me along the ocean-side road to Wollongong. (See figure 2.) They work together in a computer consulting business, with the dad handling software and the son the hardware.
Figure 2: The new Grand Pacific Drive leads from Sydney's Royal National Park south to Wollongong (seen in the distance) along the eastern shore of the Pacific Ocean.
"Each time someone says 'bim model', a fluffy kitten gets killed," explained Mr Benn during the opening keynote. Attendees tracked which speaker said the equivalent of "building information model model" most often, and then the winner was awarded a spoonful of cod liver oil to swallow during the closing ceremony.
The highlight of the closing ceremony was "Glorious Gadgets," in which RTC staff demonstrate kewl new hardware live, like typing with Celluon's laser-generated virtual keyboard, and flying a camera-equipped quadracopter (four bladed, remote control helicopter; by Parrot?) over our heads. Begun last year, this has become a regular exclamation point to the show's end.
On the final evening, the Gala Dinner proved to be a formal sit-down event with a technology-aware comedian. And that's what I really liked about RTC: it was all-inclusive, including chartered busses taking us to the airport, all meals, and free *high-speed* wireless Internet.
Most interesting statement I heard from a presenter: "Architects prefer to work in 2D. I think that the popularity of [2D] AutoCAD lead to a delay in 3D [Revit] being adopted by architectural firms."
Vis.Day
RTC isn't content to just spread its conference to other continents; this year, it launched its first conference on a second topic, visualization. And so the day before RTC started, I enjoyed Vis.Day, consisting of a day's worth of speakers showing what is possible with rendering software, such as V-Ray (from Chaos Group) and mental ray (from nVidia). Here's my coverage of Vis.Day in WorldCAD Access:
- RTC Day -1: Vis.Day
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/rtc-day-1-vizday.html - Vis.Day Q&A
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/visday-qa.html
The Next Three RTCs
Sunday morning, as we were getting ready to leave, Mr Benn asked me in his newly gravelly voice for my opinion of RTC -- as a veteran of dozens of years of attending software conferences. I liked the deliberately small format, the many choices in topics, and the location. On the down side, I recommended that he talk less, so that he wouldn't start losing his voice!
The next RTC is taking place in just four weeks, at a resort center in Stone Mountain, Georgia USA. Thursday through Saturday, June 28 - 30. You can still sign up at http://www.revitconference.com.au/rtc2012us/
For 2013, RTC Australasia leaves its home country of Australia, and will be held in Auckland, New Zealand at the end of May.
Also in 2013, the first RTC Europe will be held, taking place in late September in Delft, Holland. The reason for the multiplying conferences is that organizers want to keep each one to 400-450. Any larger, and the networking crucial to making connections breaks down.
[Disclosure: RTC provided me with airfare, ground transportation, accommodation, and meals.]
Out of the Inbox
PrintAudit's done the research and found that recipes are the #1 printed item from Web pages. Also, 10% of all printing now takes place from Web browsers. Even though Internet Explorer's market share has fallen to #2 behind Google Chrome, Print Audit finds 95% of printing is from IE. My guess is that it is oft-used due to its integration into Windows. http://www.printaudit.com
Sunglass.io says its going to disrupt the $10B CAD industry for the first time in 30 years. We have an interview with the ceo lined up for this week, and hope to learn how his HTML5/WebGL-based CAD editor is any different from other HTML5/WebGL-based CAD editors, like To3D. http://sunglass.io/
OrthoGraph Architect is going 3D on iPad, as well as new PDF export that outputs room books. http://orthograph.net
Also updated on iPad is Graphisoft's BIMx 1.2.455 with support for quadruple-resolution "Retina" display, resulting in crisper images and stunning virtual reality. http://www.graphisoft.com
And if you didn't get enough BIM already, then get ready to read National BIM Standard-United States from the National Institute of Building Sciences / buildingSMART alliance. They're calling it the "first-ever consensus-based standard governing building information modeling," and tells you how to plan, design, construct, operate and sustain with BIM software. No-charge PDF from http://www.buildingsmartalliance.org.
Letters to the Editor
"Oh no, not another endeavor tied to converting napkin sketches in to 3D models. My brief take on the subject:
"Napkin sketches, like thumbnail sketches, like legos, are meant to use a single tool (you can't even use an eraser on a napkin) to turn a notion into an idea in a form that's easy to abstract and internalize. It uses assumptions, memory, and rough estimation, and isn't bogged down by geometric precision or proportion or even realism. The benefit is not what's on the napkin, but what you internalize.
"After the creative moment passes, the best a napkin sketch can do is jog your memory and maybe give a little spark to your creativity. If you don't have the idea when you sit down at the CAD GUI, trying to replicate what's on that napkin isn't going to help at all. Similarly, the process of developing a CAD model involves several critical phases of evaluation and re-evaluation of your premises, which are not conducive to spontaneity. The reason napkin sketching hasn't caught on in 3D CAD is that it's pretty close to perfect already. If you want to be breezy with 3D, buy a bucket of Legos or a seat of Z-brush (darn, I just contradicted myself.)"
- John Burrill (comment on WorldCAD Access, http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/designing-mcad-software-in-the-2010s.html )
"First, thank you for the contributions you make to the CAD world. I enjoy reading your blog and eZine. But I'm somewhat bemused by something. It seems to me that your adoption of the eZine mode, your newsletter, and all of your other endeavors into the forefront of communication technology is in someway falling behind. I don't mean that in a critical way, just that I have not found you on the social media sites such as Twitter or Google+ (I don't do FaceBook). Wouldn't these devices allow you to increase your voice and expand your audience in a big way? I know these types of activities are time consuming and I'm certain you have a very busy schedule, but am I missing you somewhere?"
- Patrick Hughes
The editor replies: "I used to be on Twitter, but dropped it a few months ago, because...
... it takes up time, especially in reducing the length to 140 characters.
... reading it is irritating, due to the many abbreviations
... after a year or two, I had only 630 followers on Twitter; in contrast, I have 8,000 following my blog.
"But worst of all, I recognized that Twitter, Facebook, et al create the need in users for frequent hits of dopamine."
Spin Doctor of the Moment
"We have worked to make it easier for customers to know what edition will work best for them when they purchase a new Windows 8 PC or upgrade their existing PC."
- Brandon LeBlanc, ," communications manager, Microsoft, explains why it took so many years to reduce the number of Windows editions to 3.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/17/windows_8_package_confusion/
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