Revit Tool Guide And Office Wide Learning

[whatisrice]

I'm getting better and better at Revit, and I feel like I have a good handle on things as I contintue to learn every day.

But I am constantly thinking and worried about how other people in my office learn, and am constantly thinking of ways of making that experience better. I'm a bit of a computer nerd, but I know most folks aren't and may not have my point of view, and therefore struggle. Several years ago, I worked for a firm that used PowerCADD. I had always used AutoCAD and the swtich was painful. But one thing that made the process easier was a website that you could go to instantly and look up any tool or command, and see a walk thru of all the options. That made learning the program much easier.

I thought of this, because I just discovered a quick little option here in Revit, and realized that if a website, or other guide existed that broke down the program by-tool, it might make the learning process in my office move along much smoother and faster.

Anyone know of any by-tool guide?

Thanks

[still.james]

www.dgcad.com is a very good site with a lot of free content (a subscription is needed for complete access)

[Rick Houle]

We have found much success with an internal intranet forum (once we had a handful of pros), and this AUGI forum. We also have internal user groups... which seem to help a bit.

As far as knowing the commands, use the tutorials, purchase the AOTC Courseware... hit the F1 key..!

But, in my opinion, the only thing that works is rolling up the sleeves and start USING THE SOFTWARE. You need projects to BIM up.

Get them in the tool, into real production, have expectations and deadlines...
We bill our production training 50-50...

[whatisrice]

That's generally our approach. Just dig in and learn. One of our biggest issues now, is the varying range of skill levels. Unlike AutoCAD, in Revit is something is modeled badly, it is harder to modify; and in many cases must be remodeled. That is a hard pill to swallow with deadlines looming.

It was really a random thought, to be honest. We have an interoffice tip post on our intranet... but who reads that, really? So in remembering my PowerCADD experience [which is a horrible program by-the-way], I thought a tool-by-tool cheat sheet would be awesome for taking people from the beginner, to the intermediate level.

[twiceroadsfool]

I (personally) find the wide varying of skill levels is much harder to deal with in Revit than in autoCAD. In AutoCAD, you could draw a polyline, or i could draw 4 lines the pline them together. Drawing 4 lines could be done a whole bunch of different ways as well, but (within some limits, of course) as long as you got the same result at the end, you were (by and large) okay.

With Revit, i find the implications of the methodologies is far reaching, and its pretty hard to get an entire office on the same page about THAT. One whole facade in one project here, got built as a family (complete with extrusions and sweeps were walls, ceilings, and windows wouldve been used) and like you mentioned, the effects last for the lifetime of that decision. Thats got a 16 meg family to keep editing and reloading, editing and reloading, that wont respond to proper lineweights, and its a huge pain in the *** cuz it likes to not reload properly without crashing.

But, (even though its faster) you mention the words "do it over" and people get in a tizzy. Welcome to the game!

[whatisrice]

We're finding that team organization is much more important. I.E. "You are in charge of this, and if someone needs it modified, they come to you and only you."

Our first couple projects we followed the old approach, in that you could move team members all around the project, even off the project entirely... when someone else came in being the first person, it was disaster.

The office group-think learning curve is as important, if not more so, than the indivudual users learning curve.



I may go be a shepard in Argentina.

[twiceroadsfool]

You learn quickly that the *work island* method of *this is my sheet and ill focus on it* doesnt work like it used to...

But its all in good fun