March Tech Tip!

Punch it with Bluebeam Revu!

So . . . . I wanted to give a follow up article on a subject that I recently reviewed not too long ago in one of my webinars.  In getting to this subject in the video it leaves some information lacking and I wanted to give more detail as to how and why we needed this capability.  I’m referring to the Punch command inside the Bluebeam Revu CAD 10 program.  If you missed the webinar you may see the video here.  I want to bring to your attention to the process and reasoning behind it in a written format rather than in a video.  So let’s get started.

With a session of Bluebeam Revu Cad opened let’s open up a project that we have transferred over.  For ease I used the one I created for the webinar.  Browse to a floor level that you want to set up the punch sheets for.

Now over in the right side, where you would find the settings, measure and search functions and most likely the Sessions/Project function you will see an icon for “Spaces”.  Let’s pick on that icon and start adding spaces.  You first will want to plan out where you want to add these elements and how you would like to manage them.  I started out with one space and called it Level 2, use it as a zone.  To do this, simply pick and pan around the floor plan until you encompass the entire area.  When you’re ready to close the loop hit enter.  

Now I continue to work this way starting out with room 202.  All you need to do here is make sure you are within the outer boundaries of the Level 2 space, only selecting room 202’s boundary.  You can do this by either picking locations or click and drag a box around the room from top left corner to the bottom right corner.

Proceed to the next room and you will notice that Bluebeam automatically picks up the numbering system and enters it in the space provided.  Continue to do this process until all rooms you wish to punch are covered and showing up in the right side under the properties.  I included all spaces for an example.

Once you have all your spaces created you can then easily go back and modify their colors and opacity to make them pop out and be seen more easily.  To do this you will need to right click on the space name and select properties or select the gear icon (properties) in the top right of the panel.

Now we need to set up the pages or PDF in this case, for the punch process.  You can choose either to have a separate PDF or append this punch PDF to the original PDF file for the project.  Remember this may not be a wise decision as you may have RFI’s and other documents attached to it as well.  Setting up a hyperlink is in my opinion the best option for this type of document.  I will cover this process later.

To set up the Punch PDF Revu has included several templates for you to choose from and one of those is an 8.54x11 sheet built for that purpose.  Let’s pick that template and tell it that we need 11 pages for this PDF  because we know that there are 11 spaces on level 2’s floor plan, hit OK.  You now see a new PDF with the first page already displaying the template that we chose.  These can be made to fit your office standards through template creation and form items allowed within the program. 

Now go back to the project PDF where we have our floor plan in the display.  Right click on the space names on the right panel and select “Snapshot”.  This process does exactly what it means.  It takes a snap shot of only that space and allows you to paste it into any other PDF.

Switch to the Punch PDF; right click on the display space and paste.  Position your image on the sheet at the top left and drag the bottom corner tick to scale up the image.  We’re not worried about scale here because we only need this for punching purposes.  However, if there was a dimension on this image we could use that to calibrate the page’s scale factor and use it to place dimension markups on it if needed.

As you can see I have placed all spaces in the PDF by going to each new sheet, switching to the project PDF and following the same process as before.  Do this each time for each individual space.  Yes a little monotonous, but right now that is the process.  Maybe soon they will have the ability to populate the sheets by selecting all spaces and adding them to sheets automatically.

OK, let’s talk about the hyperlink just for a second as we need to set up on right away to help us in case of file collapse or computer crashing.  Save the file that you created for your punch, preferably in the project file somewhere, but it is up to you.  Return to the project PDF.   In the sheet that we placed the spaces I want to add a hyperlink so that I can get to the document quickly.  

I created a text box and added a description I wanted to see.  I then “Flatten” this sheet to allow the text to stay permanently and move around in case someone wanted to change it. 

After this I then either click on the “Hyperlink” icon in the top ribbon under the Markup menu or I can hold “Shift+H” on the keyboard and then select the text by highlighting it.  Once this is done you receive a pop up menu asking you to input the hyperlink’s location.  Here is where you will tell Revu where to find the new document we created.  As I may have mentioned in the webinar this can be any file you want to link to including any cad file if needed.  Under the “Open file” option browse to the location you saved the file and select “OK”.

Let’s get to punching shall we.

In the bottom right section of Revu you will see an icon that looks like a figure of a body, this is your profile icon and it displays several option that allow you to either show or hide details/icons on your screen relative to what your purpose at the time is.  Here we will choose the “Punch” profile.  This will change your display and then bring up the punching menus under your “Tool Chest” that include an array of markups that involve different disciplines of construction materials and basic notations for punching a project.  These are merely a start as you can create your own as well.

For our example today I have placed some well-known punches in room 202 and for the purpose of the article I copied and pasted them to every other room with this type of layout.  Of course I had to move some around, but you get the point.

OK, we now have level 2 punched out.  Oh by the way, did I mention that this could be done onsite with an iPad that has connectivity to the server or even access to the file that can then be uploaded later?  Of course the set up would have to take place first, then the team member would go to the site and punch, take pictures, place them in the file as a markup also.  But now we’re back in the office and managing the file.

Let’s take the file and view the markups over all.  Under the bottom panel you will see a “Summary” option that allows you to print this summary of redlines/markups to an Excel spreadsheet, XML format and PDF format as well as regular printing to a printer.  Click on the “PDF Summary” and we will add this on to the end of our punch pdf file for easy use and added functionality.

You now get a pop up window asking you to decide the range of the summary, how to include the markups or columns, the options to append to or create a new pdf document, title and how you want to view the text of the markups themselves along with a preview of the markup and the sheet size needed.  Select “OK”.  Revu runs and produces a document that now contains all the markups in a summary that can now be used to email and coordinate with those responsible for the punches reviewed in the field.  If you appended the summary to the end of the punch PDF you have the option now to click on the preview in the summary and go straight to the markup on the punch document where it was originally placed.  If you did not append that capability is not there.  In this case it would be wise to set up own hyperlink to the summary file for future accessibility. 

As you move along in the learning and use of Revu, you will find many features that can help you and your company speed up some of the processes that would normally take you weeks sometimes to accomplish.  Imagine that this was set up within a day’s time, punch was done normally and completed within a few days (depending on size of project), brought back to the office and managed for another day, and files sent out and collaborated within a couple more days’ time.  This realistically could be done within a week or two.  You now have simplified the communication process along with the documentation process and at the end of it all you have a digital document that can be used to track comments, progress of punch corrections and have a complete record of who did or said anything.

If you compare the amount of time and money spent on the traditional path versus this new process and having better resources at your disposal you will see where Bluebeam Revu has made a game change in realization of documenting a project.

If you would like more information on Bluebeam and their software offerings please contact us and we will be glad to talk to you and consult on what will fit your business needs.  Just give us a call at (480) 719-4599 and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Steve Coburn, Applications Engineer