Bilingual Revit model? es possible?

[ACE001]

We have a job that is requiring a bilingual Revit model~actually bilingual documentation. We have a consultant who works in Autocad who's job it is to translate the documents for each of the 6+/- submissions... We are thinking of using DWF's to send to the consultant to put their translations on and then link them into the model and leave them as part of the document...

Schedules would be exported, translated and saved as dwg's which would be imported into the sheets, fitting back into a blank space left next to the english schedule. Or is it possible for them to add a translated schedule into a DWF, and then link that in?

What other methods are there of doing this with least effort on our part?
Thanks for the help!

[truevis]

Your inquiry got me thinking that perhaps one could just translate the words in the DWF. If you change the DWF extension to ZIP, you can unzip it and read the files.

I thought that I could change some of the text and re-zip and rename the file. I tried changing tags where it said 'Room' to 'Kamar' and text that said 'Three rooms' to 'Tiga Kamar'

Edited code from inside the DWF:

...(Node 33 'Room Tag [133851][133850][133853][133855][133850][133853][133855]')p≤ùp±Ç¿     .≡» ë╨         ╥P w/≡     {   s

}0 
╙∩3 x╤ìä U$ 'Kamar'{   s

}0  ₧/2 x
 e|ú '1'(Node 34 'Room Tag [133854][133850][133853][133855][133850][133853][133855]')pd≡)Fu8     .≡» ë╨         ╥P w/≡     {   s

}0 
╙∩3 x╤ìä U$ 'Kamar'{   s

}0  ₧/2 x
 e|ú '2'(Node 35 'Room Tag [133856][133850][133853][133855][133850][133853][133855]')p¿╞QFu8     .≡» ë╨         ╥P w/≡     {   s

}0 
╙∩3 x╨ìä U$ 'Kamar'{   s

}0  ₧/2 x  e|ú '3'(Node 36 'Linear Dimension Style [133861][133850][133853][133855][133850][133853][133855]')lk}¬■│≥BTöε    ▓├ p■⌡ ⌡ ⁿδ  ⁿδ  ⁿδ  ⁿδ ∙÷ p⌡ í9w     S╩£     ∩ l7π^··ß dÄ╨    ▓├ p⌡ ⌡ ⁿδ  ⁿδ  ⁿδ  ⁿδ ∙÷ p⌠ í9w     S╩£     ∩ lH▌@··ß Töε    ▓├ p⌠ ⌡ ⁿδ  ⁿδ  ⁿδ  ⁿδ ∙÷ p⌡ í9w     S╩£     ∩ ▓├ pÅuC²■⌡  ⁿδ  ⁿδ  ⁿδ  ⁿδ ∙÷ p⌡ í9w     S╩£     ∩     Fp`┌3
ë¡° tKc         ┴«, î┤£     {   s
 }      °e$ x    p▄ '9\' - 0"'    peÄ╨╧?≈ tKc         ┴«, î┤£     {   s
 }    x    p▄ '9\' - 0"'    pdÄ╨╧?≈ tKc         ┴«, î┤£     {   s
 }    x    p▄ '9\' - 0"'(Node 37 'Text [133878][133850][133853][133855][133850][133853][133855]')    pádⁿ±≈P√kaè        X'w ò₧u²    {   s
 }      5Vi x    .á 'Tiga Kamar'(EndOfDWF)

However, I re-zipped but Design Review could not read the new vesion. Maybe I could try a different editor or zipper.

If it worked, what about parsing out the text and running it through Google Translate??? I could do it from AutoCAD pretty easily.

[Liz437]

Truevis -

Thanks for the attempt!! [Craig + I work together, + he posted this question for me.] That is a pretty interesting work-around; we will definitely have to look into the idea of having the dwf take a 'first crack' at translation.

I think, however, that although we'd love to have the text translated automatically, it really will be best if we have an actual person do it; some things simply do not translate directly & we want to make sure the translation comes out in the proper fashion/terminology, especially when it comes to CDs. I have a feeling this will come down to either training our consultant in Revit [possibly helping a bit by using bi-lingual parameters/keynotes for tagging/scheduling etc.] or having them simply overlay their translations in a dwf & try to leave enough wiggle room so their text & ours do not overlap. [I'd prefer training our consultants for several obvious reasons - better workflow, easier coordination, not to mention the possibility of flying down to Panama to train them..... ]

Thanks again!

[truevis]

Of course, real human translation is the only way to translate something properly. However, if you can start with the machine translation, perhaps it would speed up the process.

Another way (in AutoHotKey pseudo-code):

Select text in Revit (in Text or schedule field)
Hit hotkey
Put text from Revit onto clipboard
Paste into Google Translate dialog and submit
Copy new foreign text to clipboard
Paste back into Revit (or paste into Design Review markup, or type both the English and the foreign text into a spreadsheet for further review).

[Liz437]

I have been thinking that it would be nice to get a 'jump start' on the translation, & I did think about this method. My problem with it is you'd have to do this for every text field, & then each one would need to be checked by the translator both in English & in Spanish to ensure proper translation. I feel that it would be almost doubling the work, & that it would be cleaner/easier for the person translating to translate the text properly once, instead of someone trying the Google translate & then someone else checking each instance of text & possibly/probably changing a good portion of the auto-translated text.

Thanks for the suggestion though!!

[mileto2000]

I would like to follow up on this and see how you have resolved this issue. We have done projects in Italy for years, documenting with AutoCAD, and our italian partner would create a layer for the italian translations. Now we are doing our first bilingual proyect in Revit and we are discussing how to do it. The consultant will not switch to Revit for now so we are thinking about eliminating completely the loose text from our model (this means creating key schedules for general notes, keynotes, etc) so that all the information can be put in schedules and sent to them in excel format with a column for their translation. Then when we receive the excel we can plug the information back into the model. Any feedback is appreciated, thanks.

[Alfredo Medina]

If anybody is interested in translating a project from English into Spanish or vice versa, please be advised that I provide this service. Once your project is ready for a submission, you would need to e-mail me all the sheets as individual .dwg files. I will e-mail you a new set of sheets in .dwf or .dwg format, translated into the other language.

[Craig_L]

Just as a warning, google translate, and babelfish etc, are all terrible at translating.
There are also certain expressions, and ways of translating in that the way you say something in english just gets lost in direct translation.
I would suggest not using these if at all avoidable.

[Alfredo Medina]

Just as a warning, google translate, and babelfish etc, are all terrible at translating.
There are also certain expressions, and ways of translating in that the way you say something in english just gets lost in direct translation.
I would suggest not using these if at all avoidable.

I absolutely agree. That is why this job has to be done by a 'human' translator with experience in construction documents, not just by a software. This Google and Babelfish should not even be mentioned here as an alternative, specially considering that we are talking about technical drawings.

[twiceroadsfool]

We did a job recently that had to have both languages in the documentation. We ended up using Keynotes for it, so that our translator only had to work in one text file, and the project team could just keep truckin. it went perfectly.

Its in my Revit Blog below.