SCRUG Sponsors

Colleagues,

Last week I met with our sponsors – Kelar Pacific, Microdesk, ProGroup and U.S. CAD – to discuss their continuing support of the South Coast Revit Users Group.

Among the ideas mentioned in this consensus building session were these:

• The SCRUG is a valuable resource to the local professional community.
• The primary purpose of SCRUG meetings is networking, it is a place where BIM practitioners at all levels can meet and learn from each other.
• Every user who attends is already someone’s customer. The etiquette that governs in any business also applies to SCRUG.
• The goal of transition from CAD to BIM is vigorously supported by SCRUG. Sponsors are encouraged to invite their customers who are in transition to SCRUG meetings and events.
• Sponsors will support SCRUG’s growth by promoting membership to their customers.
• Sponsors may assist and support their customer’s presentations to the group.
• Sponsors may participate with technical presentations to the group.
• All four sponsors will continue support the group by providing food for meetings in a regular rotation. Microdesk is the February sponsor for food. Beverages and ice will continue on a voluntary basis.
• KTGY will continue to host the meeting until the seating capacity is exceeded. LPA has agreed to resume as the group’s host whenever necessary. Other meeting locations will be considered. The overwhelming preference is that meetings should be hosted by users rather than vendors.
• I am personally committed to the advancement of BIM in the single and multi-family housing industry. In the coming months I intend to convene a BIM in Housing round-table event, bringing together architects, owners and builders to discuss the benefits of implementing Building Information Modeling.

South Coast Revit Users Group - February

Colleagues,

The next SCRUG meeting will be held on Thursday, February 28th. All of our presenters are long term members of the group.

Luis Ashelford is a self-trained Revit aficionado who transitioned from a successful career in business to pursue his passion for architecture. He is an expert on the work of famed Southern California architect John Lautner. He is also an amateur astronomer. Luis will display examples of his work and talk about the process of self-training.

Dan R. Richardson is a senior architectural professional with more than twenty-five years of experience. Primarily a self-trained Revit user, Dan’s work exhibits a very high level of expertise and his understanding of the role of BIM in the entire architectural process.

Ryan Ghere is a BIM visionary with a variety of experience in the architecture and construction industries. He is currently a BIM consultant for ASSA ABLOY, a global provider of doors and security solutions. Ryan will present the ASSA ABLOY Openings Studio™ information portal designed exclusively for architects, contractors, distribution, and end user facility owners working in a 3D Building Information Model (BIM) environment.

The ASSA ABLOY "openings" suite of software tools are used for creating, visualizing, extracting, modifying, and exporting door, frame and hardware 3D models and product data for use throughout the design, construction, and facility management processes.  These data rich objects include pricing and specifications, as well as link-outs to other supplemental information such as catalog and technical sheets, installation and maintenance instructions, and LEED and life cycle performance documents.

Web-based, the Openings Studio software application integrates seamlessly with Autodesk Revit® Architecture. The cutting edge configuration tool can be used to analyze and import existing architectural door models and create revised versions containing detailed door, frame, and hardware parameters and data.  These "complete openings" can then be exported back into the BIM project model at various levels of detail at the discretion of the user. Openings Studio users are able to build custom "door family" libraries for use in Pre-Design or Pre-Construction that can be individually tailored to the specific needs of a firm or client.

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Sincere thanks to our sponsors Microdesk, ProGroup, U.S. CAD, and Kelar Pacific, and to our host firm KTGY Group, Inc.

RSVP for the February SCRUG Meeting

Deafening Silence

Colleagues,

So far I've received one response to my request for volunteers, from Victor Alvarez-Duran of Danielian Associates. I am posting it here, along with my response.

Hi Jay,

The reason you mentioned is what prompted me and my colleagues to start our own group OCRevitUsersGroup several years ago. Because of the holidays, we haven't met since December. Some of our activities have been organizing training sessions which have been on weekends that focused on fundamentals, intermediate and advanced. Our regular bi-weekly meetings have been set as Q&A and 1 hour training sessions to review modeling solutions based on member feedback. Our member list is comprised of about 45 people from different firms which you have listed below. Attendance may only be a handful, but the response and correspondence among up helps stay ahead of the game.

Victor,

We used  to do training and Revit fundamentals back when the group was small and most users were on the same level. For Q&A we have had “Stump the Chump” sessions where users cold get specific questions answered.

Now, with a more diverse membership and various skill levels, that is more difficult. Beginners are challenged by advanced topics; advanced users are bored by basic skills training. Also, I personally believe that structured training per se should be handled by the resellers and other sources that are available. There are classes available at OCC, Saddleback, and elsewhere.

~AJH

Once again, the re-launch of the SCRUG will only succeed if we have participation by our members.