Skip to main content
Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2010
After I switched to Revit in 2006, I discovered the Sybex Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture (MARA) series. I am one of those who has to have a Revit reference book to refer to from time to time. Whenever I come across a Revit problem, I reach out for my latest MARA edition to find the solution.
New to the MARA 2011 edition is the addition of two new authors, Phil Read and James Vandezande. I am a big fan of Phil Read. He writes blogs at [...] and teaches at Autodesk University. Go to his website and you'll see the stuff he writes about. He approaches Revit in a totally different way. He comes up with methods and techniques which you would never have thought of. Up to now, his AU session on "Insanely Great Stairs and Railings with Autodesk Revit" is still fresh on my mind.
But let's get back to the Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture (MARA) 2011 book. It was one of my joyful moments when I received my copy of MARA 2011 from Amazon. My method in digesting an instructional book is to initially read it from cover to cover. This gives me a chance to find out what the book is all about. Then I come back and read certain chapters again (as needed) to absorb the information being given. In my second pass of reading MARA 2011, I tried out some methods and procedures on my computer. I was pleasantly surprised at a lot of new and useful information included in the book. Aside from the usual Revit topics you would expect from this Sybex series, Part 6 (Construction and beyond) included the following chapters:
_Chapter 22: Revit in Construction with Laura Handler, Josh Lowe, and Mike Whaley
_Chapter 23: Revit in the Classroom with Adam Thomas and Jerome Smith
_Chapter 24: Under the Hood with Revit with Dan Rudder
_Chapter 25: Direct to Fabrication with Jeffrey McGrew
_Chapter 26: Revit for Film and Stage with Bryan Sutton
_Chapter 27: Revit in the Cloud with Chris France
Then you get these gems from the Appendices:
_Appendix A: The Bottom Line
_Appendix B: Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting
_Appendix C: The Autodesk Certification Exams
The information on the new additions alone are worth more than the price of the book! I found the chapters on massing and advanced modeling techniques very useful. There are samples of formula-driven families approached in a different way (using geometry to drive geometry). There are lessons in intuitive massing and formula driven massing. There is a topic on how to approach stairs and railings. Examples are shown and explained. I could go on but it's up to you to discover them.
Conclusion:
I found out 3 weeks before the AU 2010 that the certification exams will be given for free. Since I live in Las Vegas and bought my Revit license from Holman's of Nevada (local Autodesk reseller), they gave me a free one-day pass to the annual AU convention. The MARA 2011 edition is listed as the Autodesk Official Training Guide for Revit Architecture. The book is a couple of inches thick. With a short amount of time left to prepare, I knew it was going to be daunting to go over each and every topic. However, the topics for the exams are listed on Appendix C of the book and so that helped. I reread the book again and concentrated on the exam topics as well as the areas I'm weak at.
I'm happy to say I passed both the Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 Associate and Professional exams. Get the book!
New to the MARA 2011 edition is the addition of two new authors, Phil Read and James Vandezande. I am a big fan of Phil Read. He writes blogs at [...] and teaches at Autodesk University. Go to his website and you'll see the stuff he writes about. He approaches Revit in a totally different way. He comes up with methods and techniques which you would never have thought of. Up to now, his AU session on "Insanely Great Stairs and Railings with Autodesk Revit" is still fresh on my mind.
But let's get back to the Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture (MARA) 2011 book. It was one of my joyful moments when I received my copy of MARA 2011 from Amazon. My method in digesting an instructional book is to initially read it from cover to cover. This gives me a chance to find out what the book is all about. Then I come back and read certain chapters again (as needed) to absorb the information being given. In my second pass of reading MARA 2011, I tried out some methods and procedures on my computer. I was pleasantly surprised at a lot of new and useful information included in the book. Aside from the usual Revit topics you would expect from this Sybex series, Part 6 (Construction and beyond) included the following chapters:
_Chapter 22: Revit in Construction with Laura Handler, Josh Lowe, and Mike Whaley
_Chapter 23: Revit in the Classroom with Adam Thomas and Jerome Smith
_Chapter 24: Under the Hood with Revit with Dan Rudder
_Chapter 25: Direct to Fabrication with Jeffrey McGrew
_Chapter 26: Revit for Film and Stage with Bryan Sutton
_Chapter 27: Revit in the Cloud with Chris France
Then you get these gems from the Appendices:
_Appendix A: The Bottom Line
_Appendix B: Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting
_Appendix C: The Autodesk Certification Exams
The information on the new additions alone are worth more than the price of the book! I found the chapters on massing and advanced modeling techniques very useful. There are samples of formula-driven families approached in a different way (using geometry to drive geometry). There are lessons in intuitive massing and formula driven massing. There is a topic on how to approach stairs and railings. Examples are shown and explained. I could go on but it's up to you to discover them.
Conclusion:
I found out 3 weeks before the AU 2010 that the certification exams will be given for free. Since I live in Las Vegas and bought my Revit license from Holman's of Nevada (local Autodesk reseller), they gave me a free one-day pass to the annual AU convention. The MARA 2011 edition is listed as the Autodesk Official Training Guide for Revit Architecture. The book is a couple of inches thick. With a short amount of time left to prepare, I knew it was going to be daunting to go over each and every topic. However, the topics for the exams are listed on Appendix C of the book and so that helped. I reread the book again and concentrated on the exam topics as well as the areas I'm weak at.
I'm happy to say I passed both the Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 Associate and Professional exams. Get the book!
