Sparkframe

While working several years in structural engineering / architecture and dealing with the crude marriage between email and Revit, I decided to finally push out a platform to provide what I see as a much better way to communicate with written words (emails / texts / chats / etc). This add-in for Revit, Sparkframe, provides a straight-forward way to continue communicating but adds some key features: in particular, live chat, direct linking to BIM elements, screenshot attachments, and simple-to-use task management.

It may sound like another personal information management system (i.e. Outlook), but because everything is directly tied to Revit elements, workflows can be more efficient, consistent, and less error-prone.

So instead of emailing a team member about "the wall between gridlines A-2 and A-5," send your comment to that person and attach the actual wall to the comment.

In the same way, instead of writing on a post-it "re-layout bathrooms," add yourself a task in Sparkframe attached to the actual bathroom.

By doing so, design intentions and decisions (DIDs) are made more clear, team members can follow along better (managers in particular), and design processes can be more easily transferred from one member to another, adding flexibility to design teams.

And what's better? It's all browser-based, meaning accessibility from mobile devices. More clarity, more flexibility, less errors. Check it out:

Sparkframe

Adam

3D Doodling

This project was announced very recently on Kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1351910088/3doodler-the-worlds-first-3d-printing-pen


While the immediate application is interesting for a design studio, I think combining it with a more rigorous digital model could open many doors to increasing the production of study models for an architectural design studio. For instance, this approach could produce the paper stencils over which a 3Doodler could produce a  quick wireframe for construction.

iPad Soft Restart

I have a music app (looking at you, Synology DS audio) that tends to freeze up on occasion. Well, actually, it doesn't freeze, but rather seems to get stuck between songs sometimes. Anyways, this prompted me to hunt down, without much hope, how to "force close" an app, to use a more Android-centric term.

To my surprise, turns out you can...

1. Hold down the Wake/Sleep button to get the red shut-down slider.
2. But instead of sliding that sucker, hold the Home button for a few seconds.

This takes you back to the home screen and seems to shut down all apps, which took care of my problem.