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More Project Efficiency Through Technology

Listen to our own Tim Douglas, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Autodesk Collaboration Project Management solutions, talk about Building Information Modeling (BIM) in construction.

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How to calculate roof pitches in 3D from 2D drawings

I was asked again today how to do a takeoff of a 2d roof drawing so that the measurement you get is accurate in the 3D roof.

It's a simple mathematical table, and you can download and print it out here.

Download roof_pitch_factors.pdf

Update: Chris from Southern Store Fixtures has requested a clarification.

The image belows shows a roof in two parts (one part is the first floor and one part is the second floor.) Let's measure the second floor part.

Now the blue area (bottom drawing - click to enlarge) shows a flat square footage of 981.8 square feet. But this is in 2 dimensions. Since we know the slope of the roof (6:12), we look it up on the table and find 1.12. Multiply 981.8 * 1.12 to get 1099.6 square feet, which is the true 3D area of this roof.

Interestingly, it doesn't matter how many ways the roof slopes, or how complex it is - if all planes slope at the same pitch, you can apply the same factor to all of them. If the roof has multiple different pitches, just measure each part separately and apply the appropriate factor. (And one other note - roofs are usually measured in squares - 1 square is 100 square feet, so divide by 100!) Hope that helps!

"Yes, but how did it taste?"

Apparently 30 years ago this month, a bread truck was converted to create the first mobile wireless Internet connection in history.

When it wasn't making delicious golden cupcakes, that is. Below, a guy shows a young gal from CNET how to make bread.

Nominate Yourself for an Award!

Please see Nicholas Johnson's post about the CETI awards:

 

Or nominate a respected colleague.  There are only a few days left to submit nominations for FIATECH’s Annual CETI Awards.

FIATECH established the CETI Awards in 2006 to Celebrate Engineering and Technology Innovations to showcase such accomplishments. The award recognizes and honors achievements in the following 12 categories.  Collaborative Project Management teams might be particularly interested in Category 6.

New & Emerging Technology Implementations

1.       Scenario-based Project Planning (e.g. decision support, project definition and approach)

2.       Automated Design (e.g. design automation, modeling & simulation)

3.       Integrated, Automated Procurement & Supply Network (e.g. material tracking, supply chain management)

4.       Intelligent & Automated Construction Job Site (e.g. mobile IT,RFID, location tracking and GPS)

5.       Intelligent Self-Maintaining & Repairing Operational Facility (e.g. wireless sensors, real time experienced-based maintenance planning systems)

6.       Real-time Project & Facility Management, Coordination & Control (e.g. collaboration tools, estimating, scheduling, cost management)

7.       New Materials, Methods, Products & Equipment (e.g. energy efficient materials, composites)

8.       Technology- & Knowledge-enabled Workforce (e.g. educational tools, programs, training)

9.       Life Cycle Data Management & Information Integration (e.g. ISO 15925, BIM)

New & Emerging Technology Research & Development

10.   Outstanding Student Researcher (undergrad and graduate students as well as doctoral candidates who received their degree less than one year from submitting application)

11.   Outstanding Early Career Researcher (researcher who has only 1-10 years in their career)

12.   Outstanding Researcher (researcher with more than 10 years in career)

For more information go to http://www.fiatech.org/ 

Video Post for AU

Mike and I just got back from a week in Las Vegas at Autodesk University.  Check out this video we put together highlighting the show.

Watch Video

Make money, have fun, do good, refer a friend!

Did you know that Autodesk will give you a $500 American Express gift card if you refer someone who becomes a subscriber to either Buzzsaw or Constructware?

That would sure help out with the buying of the Wii for the kids for Christmas, now wouldn't it?! Come on, you have to know somebody who could use some help with all the emailing and faxing and Excel spreadsheeting of the project managing, right? Let us know who they are - we'll take care of the rest.