Sharing between two offices

[Beancud]

Some of the problems that we have with Revit:
My boss is worried about additional liability
The additional time spent coordinating the drawings (Read: Who pays for this extra time?)
The extra time setting up families
You can't produce a quality set of drawings. (I.E. drawings that look as nice as those in AutoCAD)
You can't make
That a Revit MEP drawing takes about 3.5 times as long to produce as with our custom LISP routines in AutoCAD (which require about 30 minutes of training)
The cost of training
The additional cost of the program (especially since you can't buy it without AutoCAD MEP)
The worksharing issues.

It is hard to see the good side of Revit when you jump straight into the deep end. You are finding out that the product out of the box is quite awful. We spent quite sometime polishing our custom families, template and skills, and now we are happy with the quality. If you can get those 3 in gear everything will come right and the drawing will look as good as AutoCAD.

If your company has very custom cad standard with unique line types, hatches, line weights..etc etc Revit MEP is not the thing.

[brightventures]

I am not sure if it applies in your case and could be adding to your frustration and something to think about as your office makes your transition. There are 4 Ts to a project: Time, Team, Type and Technology. To make a project successful, only change one of these. Revit would be the Tech component. If you are doing the first revit or for the first few projects until you have your standards and library ready, have all the other three be the same.

In otherwords, on first few revit projects, need to have reasonable time frame to complete the project, team that has worked successfully together on past projects, and a building type that is familar and might already have cad details that can be copied in to the revit model as drafting views for keeping track of referencing as mentioned as a benefit earlier.

Just as we did with transition from board to cad, it all does not have to be drafted in revit model. I have seen some beautiful drawings draftted in Revit, but that was from a office that has been using Revit for a few years.

My bet is that within a couple of years as soon as MPE gets on board there will be very few firms using 2D only. Owners will be demanding that their consultants use 3D for facility management, and reduced change orders due to conflict resolution founding issues easier and earlier in modeling before it occurs in the field.

From a marketing standpoint, the industry is screaming for MPE to get on board for utilizing the full capabilities of project management and conflict resolution between all building components.

[cwade.109269]

Some examples of the drafting issues:
Ok, how do you make all of your schedules exactly 0.25" apart and 0.25" from the title block?

How do you make sure that all of your leaders are drawn at the same angle?

How do you change the rise/drop symbol for round ductwork to the industry standard symbol (the one that looks like a ying/yang symbol)?

How do you get flex duct to actually look nice?

How do you get take offs without overlapping lines?

How do you get lines to trim exactly right?

How do you get all arcs to look like arcs?

How do you make sure that all lines that go to circles point to the center of the circles?

How do you do electrical panel schedules that show all necessary information without manually entering any of it? (That is one of the main points of Revit is that you don't have to manually enter all of this data)

How do you get the romans font to print correctly?

How can we get the 2D portions of our drawings to look exactly like they do in AutoCAD?

How do you create site plans in Revit MEP (using linked views isn't working)?

How do you make all of the views look like the architects views (again on some views using the linked views isn't working and we have used copy/monitor)?

Bottom line is our company is big on quality, our AutoCAD drawings look great.

As for the time consideration, here is an example:
We can do all of the ductwork, in double line and with insulation for an entire 3 story building in AutoCAD in about 4 hours. Can Revit ever match that speed?

Yes, we know that there are other companies that are going to use Revit and we have no choice but to keep up, but we don't like the program here. I see potential for the program, but as it stands right now I see no benefit to using it over AutoCAD. I can see the benefits for the Architects, but not for MEP firms. Because we do civil, structural and MEP in our office, we are able to coordinate on our full service projects quite well in AutoCAD, so I still see no need to draw everything in 3D in Revit.

As far as the families go, there is very little that works properly with Revit MEP and what does work doesn't look very good.

So yes, we have Revit and are Revit capable, but at the end of the day we have to be able to produce a set of drawings that can be approved by the building department and that can be used to build the buildings, so far it appears that Revit MEP is incapable of doing all of it, i.e. you can't create the site plans.

As for the time frame, that is set by our clients, not us, so we are restricted to what they say about it. The team, we keep it the same, because it is a strong team and one that truly can understand the technology changes.

Unless Revit MEP becomes useable, I would say within two years it will start to go away and within 5 years it will disappear completely.

In addition the additional time spent coordinating the drawings needs to be paid for by someone, so the question is who should be responsible for paying for it?

As for the statement, it doe not all have to be drafted in Revit, unfortunately due to the contract that we have, it all must be drafted in Revit (except the site plan, as I explained to them that Revit MEP has no site tools).

Again, I know we have to learn the program and know how to use it in order to remain in the game, but so far no one here likes it. When I first saw it, I saw a lot of potential, but there is a lot of potential for liability as well.

Back to the original question, how do you share work amongst multiple offices? In AutoCAD this is easy, in Revit this is near impossible, yet another reason that Revit has major issues.

[BIMTom]

If you treat Revit like a drafting program, you'll be disappointed every time. It's only when you measure sets of tasks (like drawing a plan, elevation, section, and schedule) that you see the benefits.

As you've noticed, Revit MEP is the one that's behind, especially in the "generating documentation from the model" area. Still, most of your questions are pretty elementary and should be covered in the basic training classes. Did your trainer not cover these topics?

There are several thread throughout AUGI addressing working across offices, so I won't go further into that one.

[cwade.109269]

My point is that all of those questions have no answer, at least not that AutoDesk, the Trainers or tech support from our dealers have been able to provide. Now we can make it look similar to our AutoCAD drawings, but the quality is only about 50% of the way to what AutoCAD can provide.

Some more items to add to that list:
How do you generate riser diagrams without manually drawing them?
How do you create single line diagrams without manually drawing them?


Bottom line is Revit is a poorly designed product from everything that I have seen.

I really don't care about what the model looks like, what I care about is what the end product looks like. The end product is Paper drawings that are sent to Plan Check and that the contractor uses to build the buildings with. Contractors are not going to be using Revit to see how to build their buildings or systems, they are going to have a paper set of drawings that they are building with. The clearer and easier to read the set of drawings are, the fewer RFIs that we get, I can almost guarantee that Revit projects will have more RFIs due to the illegibility of the drawings.

I have heard it said that Revit is a design tool, well this opens up a lot more liability issues if that is the case.

Bottom line is at the end of the day what can we deliver to the client? For MEP, the client isn't likely to ever ask for 3-D drawings, nor would they do a lot of good.

What the client will receive will be the same set of drawings that the contractor receives, so ultimately what purpose has Revit served?

So, here are the negatives that come to mind:
Increased RFIs, due to the drawings not being legible.

Increased design time.

Increased drafting time.

Increased liability (These are supposed to be coordinated drawings, as a result who is liable if they aren't fully coordinated? For example, lets say the software missed something in the interference check between Architectural, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing and let's say that Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing are all being done by different companies. Let's say that there is a light that is on top of a diffuser that goes right where a water pipe is and there is a column there and the architect decides that it would look nice to have a water fountain right there. Now let's say that Revit messed up and didn't detect any of these overlaps (program malfunction or a bug in it prevented it), who is responsible for the change orders that will come out of this? Keep in mind that each company only gets that Architectural Revit Model, not the models from each of the other sub-disciplines, not matter how many times they ask for them. Is the Architect responsible, after all they are supposed to coordinate all of the models? Is it the Structural Engineer, he's supposed to look at everything and make sure it works? How about the Mechanical engineer, shouldn't he have looked at the other disciplines? How about the)

Clients requiring the Revit Models, which may contain proprietary families, schedules and other items that took quite some time to create with no way to protect them. (90% of the time clients do not require AutoCAD files and if they do, we can at least explode all blocks and tables, if we think this will be an issue).

Poorer quality drawings.

Drawings take longer to complete.

Creating custom duct connections can be difficult, if not impossible depending on the connection.



Ok, can you give me a list of the positives? Really, I just don't see them at this point. The idea of revising the drawings instantly is a good one, but it just doesn't actually work at this point in time.

[Craig_L]

Back to the original question, how do you share work amongst multiple offices? In AutoCAD this is easy, in Revit this is near impossible, yet another reason that Revit has major issues.

Try this thread. They are using "Riverbed" servers. Could be worth looking into for you.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.ph...d=1#post921611

I would agree that alot of your other questions should have been covered in your basic training. If they weren't take that list with you to your trainer and ask for another session, he should be able to cover most of your concerns.

Good luck!

[cwade.109269]

The problem with Reiverbed is its expensive, the estimate that I have seen is about $50,000 per office, there is no way that I will be able to get that approved.

As for my concerns, the trainer cannot address them, I have asked time and time again, not even AutoDesk has been able to address them.

[truevis]

Remote Desktop or similar as the only real way of sharing this at this time. All the Revit files stay on one LAN. Works great within USA over the Internet, but may be too clunky all the way to PI.

[Beancud]

Some examples of the drafting issues:
Ok, how do you make all of your schedules exactly 0.25" apart and 0.25" from the title block?

How do you make sure that all of your leaders are drawn at the same angle?

Do peopel actually care if a leader is 1 degrees off?? Revit has a regular defult angle snap.

How do you change the rise/drop symbol for round ductwork to the industry standard symbol (the one that looks like a ying/yang symbol)?

Make a detailed family, and insert it in as a detail! than scale it, rest is filled region.

How do you get flex duct to actually look nice?

How do you get take offs without overlapping lines?

How do you get lines to trim exactly right?

How do you get all arcs to look like arcs?

How do you make sure that all lines that go to circles point to the center of the circles?

How do you do electrical panel schedules that show all necessary information without manually entering any of it? (That is one of the main points of Revit is that you don't have to manually enter all of this data)

How do you get the romans font to print correctly?

How can we get the 2D portions of our drawings to look exactly like they do in AutoCAD?

How do you create site plans in Revit MEP (using linked views isn't working)?

How do you make all of the views look like the architects views (again on some views using the linked views isn't working and we have used copy/monitor)?

All this questions have been answered before, and thats all in the Revit MEP forum!

Bottom line is our company is big on quality, our AutoCAD drawings look great.

As for the time consideration, here is an example:
We can do all of the ductwork, in double line and with insulation for an entire 3 story building in AutoCAD in about 4 hours. Can Revit ever match that speed?

Yes it can, but its comparing apples and organes. Companies who are too fixated to AutoCAD only with very very specific custom style will hate Revit. It is also about stop thinking like AutoCAD and start thinking Revit. Its like learning another language, stop looking for the line types, blocks, lisps, layers, ltscale and start looking at families.

Yes, we know that there are other companies that are going to use Revit and we have no choice but to keep up, but we don't like the program here. I see potential for the program, but as it stands right now I see no benefit to using it over AutoCAD. I can see the benefits for the Architects, but not for MEP firms. Because we do civil, structural and MEP in our office, we are able to coordinate on our full service projects quite well in AutoCAD, so I still see no need to draw everything in 3D in Revit.

As far as the families go, there is very little that works properly with Revit MEP and what does work doesn't look very good.

You sound like you have no idea how to work around Revit MEP.... I don't know where to start 0_o
We are one of the biggest MEP consultant in the world and loving Revit MEP. Customization + Skill + Experience = Efficiency & Pretty drawing.

Unless Revit MEP becomes useable, I would say within two years it will start to go away and within 5 years it will disappear completely.

This is a big statement, and I hope you stick to it. In 5 years time if your not using Revit in the buildings industry you will be out of job.

[Andrew Dobson]

If the two offices are not actually working on the same model at the same time, cant you just do this:

Work from the central file on your local server in the USA.
At the end of the working day, copy this file to the Philippines
At the beginning of the Philippines day, make the copied file into a new central file and work from it locally.
At the end of the Philippines working day, copy this file back to the USA.
At the beginning of the USA day, make the copied file into a new central file and work from it locally.
Back to the beginning.