Reinforcing using Revit Tools or Drafting Tools?

[johk]

Hi,
I am only on my second project on RST, even though I have been "playing around" a bit before. At the moment I am doing a 4 story apartment block.
What I am curious about is what is the preferable method of creating reinforcement plans and sections. The way I see it is a few different options of doing this:
Using the Revit tools to create and annotate the slab/beam reo. The problem is if you use the new Place Rebar tool - reo is not called up with an extension line when you tag the reo.

Using the Drafting tools and do it old autocad way with drawing lines on plans and section and "manually" call up the reo on the plans.

For beams are you using the Beam reo tool in the Revit Extensions? If so are you "exporting" the beam elevation to Autocad (creating a Reinforcement drawing via the extensions) and then re-imported it to a drafting view in Revit? Or are simply taking a section through the beam to call up the reo? If you have a custom beam family with a set down the set down is not taken in to account when you use the Extensions - are there any work around for that?

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks

Jonas

[benmay]

Jonas,

I think there are a few things to consider here. Modelling your rebar in 3D and having that schedule and link to all views is the ultimate goal. But with 2008 at least in Australia, (I notice your reference to Brisbane) that isnt a real possibility without a huge amount of workarounds and flexibility with your documentation. I will ignore 2009 for the moment as I haven't started using that yet, but from what I hear and read rebar is much improved.

At this stage I think your best bet is to either use the 3D rebar for simple structure such as flat slabs, and just draft your more complicated rebar in plans\sections or do it all as 2D

To explain a little where I have come stuck, even simple shapes like step bars are not OOTB with revit 2008, your can model beam reinforcement with extensions for Revit but unless you are prepared to be flexible with your drawing standards to match the output it isn't worth the effort

Where you can make things more efficient though, is by creating some smart 2D detail components for rebar, so you would have simple to use stretchable annotations for different standard situations. I find with a bit of work here you can really speed up your detailing. Same goes for you section detailing, some simple detail components taking into account cover, and toggles for cranks or bar ends will really speed things up

See attached for a few examples using detail components