boora
A Second Life
One of our clients uses Second Life for training and some instruction. Why they chose to do so is beyond me, but it is not my place to question the intentions of the client, only to heed the client.
This client wishes to import of the larger classrooms into their Second Life world. I've spent a day and a half fighting with various pieces of software, trying to get the exported Collada model to cooperate with their Second Life importer. Most frustrating is the difficulty in checking the import, as instead of running the import utility on one of Boora's machines, we've instead been sending the .dae file to the client to test. They've been sending back the error logs from the imports, which are usually filled with nicely undocumented error messages. This process takes a good half-hour, so I can't proceed with my theories until I hear back about the last batch. Sketchup has cooperated the most, exporting a few compatible .dae files. However, exports from Revit to .dwgs which I then import to Sketchup and export to .daes usually fail.
As part of the process of debugging this issue, I've created a number of files directly in Sketchup to check my theories. I created a very simple file containing a cube and an abstract shape, which successfully imported. This model didn't contain anything very detailed, but it was nonetheless a good first step. I also created a simple file that contained intersecting faces and very precisely squashed shapes that may screw up the importer--shapes that are very common in the exported Revit files. If these fail to import, we may scrap the project as resolving thousands of intersecting faces by splitting the faces at their mutual intersections will likely be too technically difficult or time consuming if done manually. Still waiting to hear back about the last batch.
Photo gallery:
An Introduction to Architecture
I've never formally studied architecture, at least, not in any comprehensive way. I took an "elective" at my previous school, which consisted of an hour each week, and focused on the basics of Sketchup, but that hardly prepares for any rigorous architectural endeavors.
Needless to say, as I embarked on my first day of my Senior Project at Boora Architects, I was pretty lost. I spent my first two days in and out of meetings and slogging through project material, helpfully organized and numbered by a tree of categories. The sheer quantity of documents for the project I was to help with astounded me. In total, about 80 GB of data spread across twenty-nine thousand files. About half of that was presentations and images.
As per my expectations, they used far more advanced software for architectural design, including a handy tool known as Revit. Autodesk Revit Architecture represents the pinnacle of current architectural software because, in addition to being remarkably complex, it links the two-dimensional drawings to three-dimensional models. Where in the past one would have to go through each two-dimensional drawing to effect a change, now changes are automatically propagated thanks to the linkage. That said, the learning curve is rather steep, and I spent a day acclimating myself to the interface and a very small subset of tools. In addition to Revit, I found myself using Autodesk AutoCAD and Microsoft OneNote.
On Thursday, I received a pile of architectural drawings with countless corrections. My task? Make the appropriate changes to the central Revit file for the project. As it turned out, the practice worked wonders for my understanding, and I progressed through the drawings, mastering shortcut keys and assigning my own as I saw fit. One of the more daunting revisions I needed to complete involved combining two sheets into one. One sheet contained the mezzanine drawings for Sector A, the other sheet contained mezzanine drawings for Sector B. Much of the drawing, however, contained regions labeled "Open to Below," indicating that the region did not actually exist on the mezzanine level, but rather the level below. I could therefore shrink the plans by cropping out the empty regions and merging the sheets. Easier said than done, as there is no "crop" tool. Still, I finished by lunch, and synchronized my changes with the central file.
Friday brought more work in Revit, this time color-coding floor plans by space usage, and displaying an entire building in an axonometric projection. The result was rather beautiful, swaths of color decorating each floor, and each floor stacked on another. Some of these projections were for buildings not designed by Boora, and the architecture firms thoughtfully provided pdf exports of the drawings, rather than the original files. I used AutoCAD--well, I looked on while a co-worker used AutoCAD--to create a model from the pdfs, then link the model into Revit. I colored.
My Friday ended early when nobody could think of something for me to do, so I departed for the day.
I feel that this week has been a fair portrayal of some of the work an architect would do, and while the meetings were somewhat difficult to follow, I enjoyed my first week at Boora.
Confidentiality Status Update
I am still trying to push my first blog entry through HR and my project lead at Boora for confidentiality reasons, I hope to have it up by tomorrow.
Boora Architects OSU Classroom Design
I will be working at Boora Architects, designing a new classroom building for the Oregon State Campus in Corvallis.