The Acuity Brands library of 3D models has been expanded to include the complete set of products from Gotham Lighting. Models are available as Revit family files and as generic 3D DWGs.

Downloads are available at www.AcuityBrands.com/BIM.

For those who may not be familiar with Gotham products, please visit www.GothamLighting.com for complete product and technical information. Focusing on architectural integration, optical performance, reliability and innovative manufacturing processes has made Gotham one of the most respected names in architectural lighting.

We’ve made some improvements and additions to our 3D models. The highlights:

• New web site: www.acuitybrandslighting.com/bim. The site allows you to download models and provides additional information about the building information modeling movement. 
   
• More models: We’ve added about 100 more Lithonia Lighting models. More models from more brands are in the works.
   
• Improved type catalogs now include electrical and optical data from our photometric data files. If you aren’t familiar with type catalogs, search for “Using Type Catalogs” in the Revit help file. Using type catalogs helps keep your file sizes small and allows easier data maintenance.
   
•  Better links to spec sheets and IES files. The family properties for each type include links to a product overview page, the product spec sheet and the product IES file.
   
• No password requirement. We’ve eliminated the registration and log-in requirements that were previously required to be able to download models.

As always, please let us know if you have comments or suggestions. Send feedback to BIM@AcuityBrands.com.

We now have models for Hydrel® products available for download. The starter set contains the most popular products from the Hydrel catalog of outdoor products.

Hydrel offers industry-leading products that give designers an array of tools to dramatically place light and color on architecture and its surroundings. For more information about Hydrel, visit www.hydrel.com.

Based on your feedback from the models we released last month, we’ve made a round of improvements and expanded the number of models now available. The new set is available for download on the downloads page. Improvements for August include:

1. We have added 50% more models of our most frequently ordered products. The number of models available is not nearly enough to meet all needs, but we are committed to adding models each month. Please let us know which brands and product types would be most useful to you.
    
2. We’ve changed course again on the issue of “face-based” vs. “ceiling based.” (And we think we have it right this time.) We’re going with face-based. A lot of you sent e-mail to me  (BIM@AcuityBrands.com) with a preference for face-based. And, even Kyle Berhnardt, Autodesk’s Revit MEP Product Manager, weighed in on the issue:
    
   “Face-based, or Face-Hosted as I call them, are the most flexible type of content that can be created.  Face-Hosted content can be placed on any surface in Revit, including the face of a linked element.  99% of MEP users are working on a separate model with the Architectural model linked in, so they don’t actually have the ceiling available in their models.  So what that means is the ceiling-based families, or all Element-Hosted Families, are more or less useless to 99% of Revit MEP users.”
     
3. Several of you requested that we continue to provide the additional data for different product types in the separate type catalog file, so we’re continuing with that practice.
    
4. We’ve gotten mixed messages on whether or not to include the IES files with the download. At this point, we still are not including the IES files in the download. However, we are including a URL in the family file parameters that will link you out to a photometric report and download on our web site. Let us know how well this works (or doesn’t work) for you and we’ll adjust according.

We appreciate the feedback you sent and the support you’ve expressed for this effort. As always, we look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Based on your feedback from the initial beta test of Acuity Brands Lighting’s 3D product models, we made some changes and produced a new set of models. The new set is available for download on the downloads page. Key changes includes the following:

1. We have doubled the number of models in the beta set to include more of our frequently ordered products. 
2. We are now using “ceiling-based” hosting for any luminaire that is typically attached to or recessed in a ceiling. (Our earlier hypothesis that making everything “face-based” gave you more flexibility actually disrupted your workflow.) 
3. 3D DWG files are no longer included in the download of Revit family files, but continue to be available as a separate download. 
4. We’ve improved our standards for artwork and Revit family files to make our files more consistent in both appearance and behavior.

As you use these models, please let me know what we can do to make the models more useful and productive for you. In particular, we’d like to hear any preference you have related to:

1. Type Catalogs. Should we continue to provide product type information in the separate, comma-delimited files? Or, should all types be embedded in the Revit family file? 
2. Location of IES files. Our family files include a link to the IES file. Should we include the IES files in the download? Or, does that just complicate your file-management process?

Thank you for your support, and we welcome any feedback or suggestions.

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve released version 1.0 of the ABL 3D Models. Visit the download page to select either the Revit family files or the DWG files.

The starter set contains about 50 models and covers a cross-section of our most popular products. We’ve provided the models as Revit family files and as generic 3D DWG models. Each model contains data about the product, including photometric data, links to spec sheets, and optical and electrical information.

We view this release as a beta version. Please let us know what you think of them, and how we can make our models even more useful to your efforts. We plan to regularly update this set and release additional models. To get the latest news, subscribe to our news feed.

You can leave general comments by filling out the comments form, or send comments, suggestions and improvement ideas to BIM@AcuityBrands.com.

Welcome to Acuity Brands Lighting’s BIM Blog. We’ve established this site to facilitate a conversation with architects, designers, engineers and others who are interesting in shaping how building information modeling affects the construction process.

In the beginning, our main efforts will focus on creating 3D models of Acuity Brands’ products for AEC professionals to use in their projects. We’re working on a starter set of models now and expect to release a beta version shortly.

To keep up to date, just add our feed (http://ablbim.wordpress.com/feed/) to your newsreader.

Stay tuned.