Construction Modeling

[kmarquis]

I was playing around with Construction Modeling in Revit 2012 and I'm confused. I created parts of a wall in 3D and added shape handles to the outside layer of the gyp, dragged the gyp to only cover one part of the wall and the change wasn't reflected in the plan. What is this about and what do people use Construction modeling for?

[cdatechguy]

To see changes to a wall in plan you have change the view properties to show parts too...

[kmarquis]

Okay that's a little better I guess. It's strange though...It seems in 3D, the wall as a whole is being represented as well as all the parts. It seems a little combersome to me.

Can anyone give me some great examples of applications for this tool? I'm not liking it. Maybe it's better in 2013

[sbrown]

In the view properties you can set it to display parts, no parts or both original and parts.

[Mike Sealander]

Parts comes in handy for a common problem in residential construction. Let's say you have an exterior wall made of studs, plywood and some sheathing. Then you add an addition outside of that exterior wall. Using parts, you can demolish the sheathing that would be otherwise inside the new addition space. Prior to parts, you could accomplish the demolition by creating a "just sheathing" wall, placing it in the same volume of space occupied by the existing sheathing, joining the two sheathings, and then demolishing the placed sheathing. It was a little cumbersome. The parts method makes it a little better, although I'm not completely happy with parts.

[patricks]

I have not understood the whole Parts thing either. I don't see why you can't just demolish part of a wall (as in Mike's example above, which is pretty common). Why do you have to be given different display options for the wall/parts in every view? Seems kind of contradictory to what Revit is all about. If there's parts, there's parts. You shouldn't be able to display it different ways in different views. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you use Parts to demolish a piece of a wall layer, yet you have another view set to show the wall and not the parts, then the demolished piece will not be reflected in that view. Is that right?

[cliff collins]

Parts are indeed improved in 2013. You can Schedule them independently, which is great for QTOs. We are looking at using Parts for developing Interior Finish "Layers" as well, for example in a complex Floor Tile or Wall Pattern. You Create Parts, then Divide Parts, sketch your pattern, change Materials and Schedule. Pretty slick. Be warned, certain individuals on some other Revit Forums will tell you not to use Parts. I'd suggest trying it for yourself and then draw your own conclusions.

[Overconstrained]

I used parts successfully on a project where we had existing brick veneer walls that were to be plastered over as part of the new works. I created the entire wall assembly (including the plaster finish) then applied "parts" to those walls. Because you can apply different phasing to individual parts it made the existing and new elevations a breeze. Would've been a nightmare to do without them.

[kmarquis]

I was watching some YouTube videos this weekend and I concluded that Construction Modeling is mostly for Shop Drawings. I'm sure you could creatively find other uses for it but I believe this was the intention.

[MikeJarosz]

I'm pretty sure I heard someone at the NYC Revit user group claim that parts were added for LOD 400 (LOD = level of development). In other words, shop drawings. This begins to bring the contractor into the IPD. (IPD = integrated project delivery)