Last fall, Eddy, James and I were really fortunate after the release of Mastering Revit 2011. Sybex (taking the human form of our editor, Willem) asked the three of us about doing an intro book for Revit.
An intro book? PuuullleeeezzzzZZzzZzzzzzZZZzzz...... ;)
But after a few days, the idea of writing an introduction to Revit became
really interesting. In some ways it's easy to pick through Revit and focus on the "hard" stuff; the hard stuff stands out. But there are still a lot of people out there that want to get up to speed on Revit and learn the ropes. Yet they see all these complicated Revit projects and geometry and techniques and as you can imagine it can seem
really intimidating. Where should someone start with Revit - an application that's been available for over 10 years?
Imagine you're given 3-4 days to get a co-worker up to speed using Revit. Ask yourself: What would you focus on if someone you knew needed be comfortable, confident and productive using Revit? Surprisingly, it's a pretty tough thing to do! Where do you start? Suppose you've been using Revit for more than a few years...and now you need to back up and explain the basics. It's not an easy task! You wouldn't want to get caught up in too much minutia - but you would want to cover enough detail to be relevant and interesting.
Well, you'd just want to cover the "essense" of Revit.
From the very beginning, Eddy, James and I spent
a lot time trying to figure out what to leave
out of this book. And even after those chapters were written (and, ahem...
perfected), found out that page counts for quite a few chapters were still to high! - by a couple hundred pages - What do you take out? What is the essense of Revit?
Consider the Pebble, Grasshopper.
In other words, help someone understand the basics of Revit within the context of productive workflow - but without being overly prescriptive. Help someone understand some really useful techniques - but don't make it too complicated. And at the end of each lesson - give this co-worker an indication of how to take their use of Revit to the next level.
Inspire someone, taking care that you don't intimidate them.And that's what we really believe we've done:
Revit Essentials. Or something like that...we're not exactly sure about the exact title. But along with the new MARA book, it's our current project. Apparently it's even going to have a cover!
And this is where you all can help us out...again! :)
If you'd like to see your Revit efforts on the cover of
Revit Essentials please email your submissions to
masteringrevit@architecture-tech.com for consideration. Once again, there are two really important points:
- Don't send high-res images suitable for publication (yet). Just send medium-res PNGs and JPGs for now for review (and ppplease don't email bandwidth choking BMP files).
- If accepted, you (or someone with the appropriate authority) will need to sign a waver allowing the image to be published. Then we'll resolve where to send/upload the high-res image.
And once again - if one of the shiny new renderings you submit is selected for the cover - you should expect some really cool piece of hardware, software, something to show up on your doorstep about the time our book hits the shelves (exactly what is to be determined...but we've got a few really great ideas). Consider it a sign of our appreciation. Oh yeah - and to top it off you'll be able to show lesser mortals your work on the cover of a really cool book...forever!!!
