Tag Archives: Environmentalism

3D Model of a BIM Eco Cottage Showing PEX Routed Systems

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This video shows the current progress on the BIM (Building Information Model) Eco Cottage (Blackhawk Cottage) currently in the works here at the Open Design Project. The video specifically shows the state of the routed systems such as the gas lines, the DWV (Drain Waste Vent) system, and the PEX plumbing.

I am hoping to have the water lines completely routed by the end of the week, and then jump over to the electrical, but I have quite a few other commitments this week so things may take a bit longer.  Enjoy the video and have a great day…





A Tesla Motors’ Model S Pulling Up to its New Home in the Autodesk Gallery at One Market in San Francisco

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Tesla Motors’ Model S gets a lift into the Autodesk Gallery at One Market in San Francisco to begin its one-year exhibition.

The Autodesk Gallery at One Market has more than 20 different exhibits regularly on display that showcase the innovative work of Autodesk customers, illustrating the role technology plays in design and engineering. As the Model S combines cleantech and innovation, the exhibit helps showcase the broad base of customers that use Autodesk 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Tesla Motors’ Model S is the first premium sedan to be built from the ground up around an electric powertrain. A perfect blend of form and function, this four-door, five-seater is designed to deliver the smooth, zero-emission acceleration made famous by its predecessor, the Tesla Roadster, without sacrificing its roomy interior and cargo space.

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Creating a Routed System with Vanilla Autodesk Inventor

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For this series of articles, the Routed System of choice will be your average everyday home plumbing. The DWV (drain, waste, and vent) system to be exact.  

The DWV layout I am using as an example is for is for a little eco cottage design that has all of the mechanicals running through chases and partition walls to keep the thermal envelope as intact as possible — but the technique will work on any design equally well. Also of note is that the design has a FPSF (frost Protected Shallow Foundation) slab……which means there is only one chance to get things right.

The Penetrations

The penetration drawing is a plan view sketch that shows where the various pipes pass through the structure at whatever level is represented. It is created  as the first sketch in a part file located in the overall plumbing assembly. This is a hold-over from ship design days, but it works on houses as well.  

For this particular house, you can see that the stack and vents run up a 2” x 6” partition wall. There is a wet vent at the other end of the wall as well, but is not shown. All of these penetrations run down the center of the wall, and can be drawn on the same plane, which is where I started.

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BIM Models Via Reverse Engineering With Autodesk Inventor – Part 9

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This is it. The last of the reverse engineering of the composting toilet series. All that remains are the four knobs on the lower drawer of the humanure maker.

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The exact profile of the knobs is somewhat shady, but with a bit of educated guesswork, they’ll come out great for all intents and purposes. In the image below, you can see that I started by creating a sketch on the lower front face, then placing and centering a point on what I would call the right hand stile of the poo drawer.  The next step is to create a plane 90° to the face using the construction line that was used to center the point horizontally.

The only difference between this plane created on a line and the others in this series is that I selected the line, then instead of one of the Origin planes, I selected the face that the line sits on. The angle was left at the default 90°…   Continue reading →

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BIM Models Via Reverse Engineering With Autodesk Inventor – Part 8

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Most of the things that remain to be modeled to complete this project have been covered earlier, and are relatively easy – the four knobs on the front are the last challenge.

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I’ll run through some of the procedures that weren’t covered earlier and get the rest of the stuff modeled in this post. If there is time, I’ll move right into the knobs to finish this up, otherwise, there’ll be one more post in this series.

On the side of the unit, there is some sort of hatch that will be represented in this model as a shallow groove in the surface, and a tapped drain hole –both of which are procedures covered earlier in this series, but there are differences that should be shown. To begin, I created a plane on the furthest right horizontal edge of the model (could also have been completely off the model).   Continue reading →

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BIM Models Via Reverse Engineering With Autodesk Inventor – Part 7

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I’ll begin this post by going all the way back to the first extrusion in this model to fix an error I made way back then. It will go a long way to demonstrate the power of parametric modeling.

 

The problem was that during the first extrusion, I inadvertently included the profile of the front reinforcing ribs in the selection set, giving the entire lower front an angle that it should not have. To fix this mistake, all I did was double click on the offending extrusion, get the profile selector from the dialog, hold down the shift button on my keyboard, and select the profile I want to remove from the selection set…

Selecting a profile

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