Projects that use Visa Lighting Files

[gjackson]

Hello all,
Looking for projects that have used Visa Lighting families. I am developing a feature for the Visa Lighting website to show renderings along with the corresponding application shots.
All work will be credited and will appear with live links directed to your website. Projects will also be submitted to a national lighting design trade magazine.

Equally important, I am looking for feedback for a pitch regarding the importance of developing products in BIM formats and that providing manufacturer's content is a valuable asset to the specifying community. Feel free to email me directly at: gjackson@visalighting.com

Thank you for your time!
Georgia Jackson
Visa Lighting

[luigi]

I just inserted some Visa light fixtures ( "CV2030 ceiling fixture-CV2030-2F50(277V)" and a "CV1646 FM flush mounted wall sconce-CV1646-1FS80" )

I couldn't just place them and render......

For starter, since they are imported CAD 3D geometry, the materials are associated to the Render XXX-XXX-XXX materials.

Now Light fixtures always have solid, and translucent(or transparent) materials.....these light fixtures are all 1 material....

Since the light source is at the ceiling, the material of the light fixture needs to be transparent or translucent to actually shine in a rendering scene......

So what happens is that first of all, the material defaults to a solid opaque material....so they won't render...
If you edit the family, or find the proper Render material (in these cases they are Render 255-255-255) you will need to set the material to a transparent/translucent material.....BUT this makes the WHOLE light fixture this material

So whoever inserted the 3D cad object for all these families, didn't really prep the Cad file properly....the cad file should have had a seperate material for each object.....now I am pretty sure not all fixtures have only 2 materials....some fixtures may have 3 or more...

Once I set the material that will at least let light through...the light fixture is improperly set to "point" instead of linear, or rectangular....so the light source is showing up wrong ( it is showing up incorrectly...but possibly for another reason...I have my doubts that the proper ies file is being used....as I define it to the proper ies file in the proper location....the folder directory defailts to another location....will need to read up on how Revit find the ies file.........when I first check the family...the ies file is empty, but once I locate the IES, that is when I am testing the renderings).

Would love to use them...but really can't without spending time to correct them as I need them in a project...

As I discover more things I will post here...

[DoTheBIM]

I remember seeing a big announcement about Visa Lighting and that their stuff was BIM'ized <--- I made that up, doesn't seem to roll off the tongue very well though. Anyway I never took the time to check it out as we don't offer Visa's products. Based on luigi's comments...I can't help but wonder if Visa contracted someone that claimed to "know" what BIM was all about or did they just build the content in house and took the shortcut just to say, here it is come and get it.

A bit off the subject... but luigi comments point out exactly why it will be a long time before we see the benefits of what all the hoopla over this BIM buzzword will provide. Manufactures don't always understand (or see the point for that matter) the needs of BIM and having their content built in a quality way and how it will benefit them. I see a lot of so called manufacture content that is just CAD geometry inserted into an family so that they can say we have our content in BIM format. This is very short sited in my opinion. There are efforts being pursued that are pushing manufactures to engage a third party that more understands the needs of BIM to develop content for them. Kudos to those that are in this line of work... may you have lots of patience and luck.

[gjackson]

"Would love to use them...but really can't without spending time to correct them as I need them in a project..."

"Manufactures don't always understand (or see the point for that matter) the needs of BIM and having their content built in a quality way and how it will benefit them."

Thank you for your comments. A year ago we developed our files because we do understand the benefits of BIM and want to provide revelant tools for our customers. Heeding the advice of several consultants, we incorporating asics from our solidworks models We were the first lighting manufacturer to take on BIM, and in hindsight we followed some questionable suggestions.

Discussing the first statement - spending time to correct them, how do we correct them? We have hired "experts" on several occasions with several renderings to show for it - but not the quality that we know is available. We aren't getting good advice.

We haven't updated our files to 2009 yet because of problems Send me links, suggestions, ideas - I am totally open to any suggestion.

[patricks]

We haven't updated our files to 2009 yet because of problems Send me links, suggestions, ideas - I am totally open to any suggestion.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this makes the families pretty much unusable from a rendering standpoint in 2009. I haven't fully read up on the issues of the lighting families in 2009 and how it relates to the incorporation of the new rendering engine, but I think I remember reading that pre-2009 lighting families will not render correctly in the latest version.

So far I have only had experience with one interior rendering in 2009, and that is simply a render of the master bedroom of my house. Going through some design ideas with the wife. ;) But with proper lighting families of real fixtures from real manufacturers that work in 2009, I would love to try them out.

[cliff collins]

gjackson,

The light fixtures need to be created from scratch as Revit 2009 Families, using the Light Fixture template.

Whoever is creating the BIM light fixtures must have Revit 2009 software, and a pretty good grasp at creating lighting fixtures with it, including IES data, correct lamp types, wattage, lumens, etc. Take a look at a typical light fixture family that comes "out of the box" with Revit 2009.

The problem is, you can't easily just push a "convert from software X to Revit" button.

The light fixtures will need to be re-created in Revit Families. This will take a great deal of time and effort by a fairly advanced Revit user.

Otherwise they will not work with Revit 2009, and especially the Mental Ray rendering engine inside Revit and also 3dsMax Design 2009. So--for true BIM light fixtures to work with Revit--they have to be "real" Revit families--not some other cad software "exported" and then "imported" into a Revit family.

Good luck--and I bet ALL Revit and 3dsMax 2009 users would LOVE to have real light fixtures from Visa and lots of other manufacturers.

Cheers.....

[luigi]

I have to step in here and make sure the wrong information isn't floating around.

I am the first to state how It would be awesome to see a Revit Family not having an imported geometry.....BUT

Imported geometry render just fine. As a user, it isn't the friendliest, but still manageable.

An imported CAD 3D geometry comes in with materials.....but these materials aren't Revit friendly, but do behave properly when rendering....(a CAD import brings in the materials with a name "Render xxx-xxx-xxx" This material is a normal Revit material (including the rendering Appearance)

The problem is that the families I saw had only 1 material for the whole fixture....and since the lighting source is inside the fixture....the whole fixture needs to be transparent/translucent to be able to see the light....or else, the opaque material will block all the light.

I don't except perfection from manufacturer's products....it is definately a financial/business decision on how much money to spend.....so I can live with imported geometry....but they must be represented with the proper material.....if not the correct rendering appearance, at least seperated as a revit material, so I can control the rendering material.......(ultimately, it would be better to have Visa define the proper material to match their product.....but you can't blame them, even if they tried, all those rendering materials would of been thrownout - sortof- as Mental Ray was introduced.

Overall, these files are not 100% poorly put together...I mean, photometrics are accurate, they definately have the "I" of BIM included in them, they include the MEP connectors with proper voltage, etc.......
all those families were really only missing the "seperation of materials" of the imported Geometry......and possibly a "renaming" of the revit material to match something a human may be familar with ("Stainless Steel" and "Transparent Lense", vs. Render 255-255-255)

yes, it would be nice, and friendlier to Revit if they were created from scratch....but all it truly is missing is having a material assignment for each material of the light fixture.

Other than that, these families are great!

PS to salvage the work put in this families, somebody needs to find a way to re-import the imported geometry with the proper material assignment, and rename the materials in Revit to match what they really should be

PSs
oooh....one thing...and this one will hurt a bit....the families really should be "FACE" based, not ceiling or wall based....this is an ugly truth, because there isn't a clean way to convert a non face base to a face base family.....(unless the factory has been keeping the secret utility to do such a thing)

As far as MEP goes, these light fixtures aren't really usable because ceilings and walls don't reside in the MEP model (but from the architectural link) so MEP won't be able to attach these fixtures in their model

[DoTheBIM]

We were the first lighting manufacturer to take on BIM, and in hindsight we followed some questionable suggestions. Kudos to you for being the first, it should pay you back well in the long run. There are lots of questionable sources and that's one of the pitfalls of being first. The mere fact that your here now, tells me that Visa lighting families should be much improved in the near future.
Send me links, suggestions, ideas - I am totally open to any suggestion. You are at the premier place for all of that. AUGI has a gold mine of knowledge and users to help. Familiarize yourself with search capabilities and go to town, when you've had your fill of searching, post a question and/or file a support request with Autodesk. Even if your not on subscription...Autodesk themselves might be willing to offer you a bit of help/advice as well;) seeing as how your heading in the direction the industry seems to be pushing anyway. Best answer though is get out there and talk to people using the content and see what they want/need... just as cliff as touched on.

Best of luck though... as I doubt I can offer any real help other than modeling techniques and experience as I'm not in touch with the general needs from users of lighting families.

I can offer one piece of advice should you set out to model using Revit tools rather than imports. I've heard of some manufactures wanting (even requiring) every little detail represented in their revit families. Be very conscience of the level of detail that you put into a model. Revit will bog with too much detail. For example... you might not want to model every crystal in a chandelier as that may make the family practically useless due to limited computer resources. And then users will not want to spec your fixtures as it slows down the model so much that they look for other fixtures to place in their models.

[gjackson]

You guys rock! I will definitely scour the resources here, and call upon you for your feedback.

Kyle with Autodesk has been extremely helpful - and we should have something for you to look at in the very near future.

We did get hammered by the hosted v face files and did redo the majority of our catalog as face based files (everything but half the pendants are done). These are available on product pages. Unfortunately again, these are not 2009 compatiable.

Thank you again, and I will be in touch...

[trythefly]

We did get hammered by the hosted v face files and did redo the majority of our catalog as face based files (everything but half the pendants are done). These are available on product pages. Unfortunately again, these are not 2009 compatiable.


I am found one that is still wall based and will not place in my RMEP project using a linked arch background.

Pinoir CB5044

[tracy.nguyen]

I don't see how you apply a material to an imported symbol. I can't add a materials and finishes parameter to the symbol. Are you assigning the parameter to the symbol or the family?

[luigi]

Imports come with a material...usually "Render ###,###,###" name...if you can identify which material in the material editor is associated with the imported solid (change each render ###,###,### material to a specific color...you'll be able to see which material the imported solid is associated with... then just modify the property of that specific material.

I don't see how you apply a material to an imported symbol. I can't add a materials and finishes parameter to the symbol. Are you assigning the parameter to the symbol or the family?