Electrical-Architectural coordination

[mhartmann]

sounds like you need a better MEP consultant... the biggest problem with elec vs arch, is the fixtures themselves. i (electrical) use my own lights (and turn the archie's off), because my families are set up to circuit, tag, and display properly, and have my visibility parameters for emergency hatching, etc. built in. most of mine are plain recessed or surface boxes or cylinders. i don't show the lenses, louvers, screw threads, that come with manufacturer downloaded families, they just bog down the model (all that info is available in the light fixture schedule by type). along with the fact that none of the electrical connectors are ever set up right, nor will all the fixtures schedule properly...
the battle is also in the ceiling itself. when the arch fixture cuts a hole (2x4 or downlight circle) in the ceiling, my fixture can't host to the face anymore, because it's been cut out. so they get left orphaned in place when the ceiling height changes. the ultimate workflow would be that the architect would copy/monitor the engineers light fixtures, which by being in their model, would cut the ceiling surfaces (for gyp patterns, etc.) but for me as the engineer to be able to face host to that ceiling (without holes cut in it).
the way we see it is... you spec it, you model it. i don't want my archie telling me lighting spacings as much as they don't want my opinion of whether a wall should shift a few inches or not...
personally, i'm very ocd, as far as hosting to ceiling faces and snapping to grids, and making sure fire alarm devices, occ sensors, air terminals and such are each on their own tile.
hth,
mike

[david_peterson]

Hi Mike,
I love that idea. My problem is our ceilings are never set until after they are installed. If we still have a chance to make something better we take it. When we do that our MEP guys generally can't keep up. Plus it's not cost effective for them to move lights 1/2" when the grid shifts.
While yes, the Electrical guy is in charge of the Spec, Qty and proximity placement, Arch generally is in charge of dimensional placement. So it's kind of like a cat chasing it's tail in my opinion.
For us we've used a "Coordination Box" which is nothing more than a face based object with a masking region and a symbolic line. So we don't always cut holes in the ceilings. At least it was done that way on some projects. More often than not, we are not placing the actual fixture with clearance zones to help with the coordination process. When clashing, our light fixtures are on, and the electrical ones are off.
I would love to never place lights, switches, outlets, data ports, phone jacks....... but I've never had it work out. Fast Tracked large projects don't seem to allow for it. And with IPD, our MEP guys seem to just be doing the base line, design intent and the MEP Subs are doing the actual modeling. In which case we need to show them where we want things placed before they can place them. If the Electrical guys were just placing things where they wanted, they would have to redo a ton of work when we tell them it all needs to change.
Electrical may own the spec and the qty, the Architect still owns the design (ie placement)
Just my 2 cents.

[damon.sidel]

Thanks for the continued good discussion! This is very elucidating.

sounds like you need a better MEP consultant.

Yes, that is probably true.

i (electrical) use my own lights (and turn the archie's off), because my families are set up to circuit, tag, and display properly, and have my visibility parameters for emergency hatching, etc. built in.... along with the fact that none of the electrical connectors are ever set up right, nor will all the fixtures schedule properly.

This is definitely something I struggle with. We all know that the OOTB families are lacking. It also is wide stated that manufacturer's content in bloated. I really wish more users made packages of content available freely. For example, it sounds like you have a library of light fixtures that work really well. I bet they would work for a lot of architects, too. Imagine if the architect you were working with used your light fixtures when they did the lighting design?! Would that be great?

the ultimate workflow would be that the architect would copy/monitor the engineers light fixtures, which by being in their model, would cut the ceiling surfaces (for gyp patterns, etc.) but for me as the engineer to be able to face host to that ceiling (without holes cut in it).

I have to agree a bit with David that the Architect will own the design/placement of the light fixtures, so I think it will be just as likely that you, the electrical engineer, would copy/monitor the architect's fixtures. Again, back to my comment about everybody using the same families. Perhaps on your projects, you'd consider giving the architect a package of families for their use at the very beginning.

Electrical may own the spec and the qty, the Architect still owns the design (ie placement).

[david_peterson]

Option "B" with the copy monitor thought.
You can map the copied elements to your own families.
It's an option.

[abrang70707157]

Hi
I see some interior render or image like this (G4.jpg)that they don't use any lamp but their render is light. How do they render ??? or what lamp do they use ???
I use full of lamp in my project but it is dim and my render is very ugly. why ??? I have very problem with interior render, it's very hard.

[damon.sidel]

Hi abrang,

First, I would humbly recommend that when you ask a new question, you put it in a new post. This thread is all about electrical-architectural coordination, not rendering.

Second, I would recommend that if you want to learn about rendering, that you visit one of the many forums about rendering. Not that people don't discuss rendering here with respect to Revit, but there is so much knowledge out there about rendering and rendering techniques, I think you'll find more information elsewhere. Although Revit's rendering has improved, I would take a look at exporting to 3ds and using either the Mental Ray, V-Ray, or another render engine within 3ds. Search for a Revit-to-3ds rendering tutorial and I think you'll have more luck.

Good luck!