SmartBIM Library

[Kevin Janik]

Have people bought the SmartBIm Library and is it good? There seems to be a deal on right now for it before the new version ships and it looks pretty nice but I was wondering if the families are actually quality and cover a wide spectrum of items. It says they have 14,000.

Thanks for the input in advance!

Kevin

[twiceroadsfool]

I downloaded the samples from the CD, but (for me personally) it didnt look like anything i would use. Some things were overmodeled, others not enough... A lot of stuff seemed Nested (which im not against) but the way it was nested wasnt logical (just my humble opinion).

All in all, we wont be purchasing it...

[jwilhelm]

The smartbim families are available to AIA members on the AIA web site I understand. I did look at the family browser in Smartbim and liked it very much, it is probably worth the price just for that.

[clog boy]

As for the Dutch market, there's DeModus and BIMslim.
If you ask me then it's all quite generic. You could learn from how everything is modeled, why it (not) works and how they're using their parameters. The best library components are designed during lunchbreaks.

[jstadler.79244]

We have had this for the past 1 1/2 years, but have not yet implemented it. It does seem that the new release will be the one we implement. We are not so much interested in the content provided, eventhough it seems pretty well developed (not perfect), but the fact that we can use it in concert with all our current content is very appealing. It is much more user friendly to browse and load content with the SBL than with Windows Explorer or the Load Family dialogs.

[William Troeak]

I would have to agree with everone here...the content can be found else where for free. But the ability to browse is good. Maybe Autodesk will build that in to a future release and we wont have to worry about it.

[Kevin Janik]

SamtBIM Library Quote:

"SmartBIM Library’s flexible interface includes guidelines describing best practices for modeling objects in Revit. These guidelines include modeling advice for each Revit category, recommended family and type name conventions, tips on modeling for ‘count ability’ and design representation...Contains Revit modeling guidelines and suggested object naming conventions"

Is there some good guidelines for production of families and are their families created with these and consistent?

Kevin

[twiceroadsfool]

LOL, call me a cynic.... But i played with some of the families for awhile, and i find the advice / planning methods / modeling strategies / naming conventions floating around AUGI to be much more sound than what i saw inside those families.

Im certainly not knocking them for trying, but...

[chodosh]

I'm with Aaron. Guess I am a cynic, too. No offense to anyone, but besides being a little too generic, I found the "quality instructions" extraneous information that didn't have much to do with what I would employ the Library Manager to do for me, I would rather see those same instructions embedded in good Family Templates that are at user's fingertips while [on their lunch breaks ;)] developing project content.

[William Troeak]

I could be wrong but dosent Autodesk have there own best practices paper?

[chodosh]

Autodesk has a Family Guide that is a download for training within Revit or as a Imperial PDF (http://revit.downloads.autodesk.com/download/RAC2009/Families_Guide/ENU/Family_Guide/PDF/ArchitectureFamiliesImpENU.pdf) or Metric (http://revit.downloads.autodesk.com/download/RAC2009/Families_Guide/ENU/Family_Guide/PDF/ArchitectureFamiliesMetENU.pdf) (or CHM's as tutorials). Warning: those two hyperlinks are 10MB each. Autodesk also provides extensive quality instructions to Manufacturers submitting content to them for SEEK for manufacturers (http://seek.autodesk.com/manufacturer.htm). FWIW, that includes REED who has supplied all their library to SEEK as of last Summer. See this PDF (http://seek.autodesk.com/AutodeskSeekMetadataStyleGuide.pdf) for the schema. And, of course who can forget (please read with dripping cynicism) that the TurboSquid Revit Marketplace has instructions to meet their "parametric BIM quality" requirements (whatever that means).

I'm still in the camp of stop force-feeding me one-size-fits-all content. I feel pretty strongly that design inherently needs balance between manufacturers' and original content. Just my $.02.

[Kevin Janik]

That Schema document is pretty detailed yet looks like it really standardizes things quite a bit if you can wade through it.

It would be neat if there was a way to hook BIMreview The Standards Manager for the Autodesk Revit Platform from Avatech into this schema somehow to create a review families created meeting this standard.

Maybe that is something someone should pass by Avatech?

Kevin