Revit MEP Afterthoughts

[mjdanowski]

I have had a few people send me e-mails asking me about how I have been handling using Revit MEP on an actual project. I just finished CDs on a project of about 26,000 SF using Revit for the HVAC and Electrical floorplans. (schedules were in CAD, along with plumbing) To make things easier, I have decided to just create a thread here to share my observations with anyone who might be considering it.

To sum up everything in a general statement all at once, I start with this:

Revit is not presentable.

At the end of the day, the goal that we engineers have is to create a complete set of coordinated and well designed documents which conforms to the standards of the industry and standards of each individual firm. Revit has some really cool features that have the possibility to shave lots of time off the design process, but the general problem we have had is that if we want to utilize these features, we have to go heavily out of our way to get them to work the way we want to.
For example; one of the biggest features that we were all excited about going into Revit was that the panel schedules would be linked to the floor plan home runs so we would not have to coordinate between them. This is a great idea, and would be a shining point in Revit if it wasn't for the fact that the panel schedules look like absolute ****, and aren't considered schedules but actually "reports" which aren't dynamic after they are created. The Revit panel schedules take up about half a 30"x42" sheet when initially created, and since there is no template on how they look, it takes about 10-15 minutes to adjust each panel schedule to a reasonable size. Even at this point though it is still very oddly laid out and needs a lot of work before we would put it on any of our plans. And also, since the panel schedules are a report instead of a dynamic schedule, there is little point in even messing with these things.
Another major example of the lack of presentation quality comes with the different discipline views, and the consequences of using them. Again, a great idea with the disciplines with features that will cut wires automatically, draw hidden lines for ducts, and halftone the arch background to a single lineweight. However, as with the panel schedules , to get this you need to pay a price. There is only one lineweight for non-MEP elements in these view disciplines. The halftone that is set is far to light to even see if your vision isn't perfect (which usually isn't the case with engineers). There are ways around this of course, but usually that brings new problems of its own.
Another problem with the disciplines is that when you have "drafting lines" in one of these views, those lines will go halftone too. This one essentially makes the features of the discipline views useless as the majority of our plans has something that needs to be drawn in by hand, whether it be a duct bank, grounding system, or even a "dot" to signify a connection.
These are just two of the major issues with presentation, but there are a lot of minor ones, which may be acceptable to an extent, but they add up. These things include:
- Annotation text in families only going up or left (for a junction box I only want the "J" to be upright, no matter what it is hosted on).
- Symbolic lines within families being but by any other line in a mechanical discipline view.
- No loop arrowhead (have to use non-filled dot, which works but doesn't look good)
- Cannot set custom tick marks
- Cannot change the home run arrow (way to small)

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Most of these things are little odd things that chip away at a CAD standard because Revit forces you to draw something it's way instead of your way.

I have other gripes, but the presentation issues are what has kept me busy, and has really irked my co-engineers, especially while being checked by the senior staff. Since the panel schedules in Revit were unacceptable, we had to do them in CAD, which was a coordination nightmare as it is so easy to change circuits in Revit. I also spent about 9-10 hours of dealing with presentation issues the day the project was due.
If I had one thing to say to the MEP development team it would be that if they focus on Revit as a drafting tool, then people would start using it more. The analysis is nice, however it is not required (and I didn't even use 90% of it). The beauty in Revit is the ease of coordination, people are usually bound to the analysis software they already have.

However, there are good things about the current build of Revit (I wont keep this entirely a rant):
Although the panel schedules were really funky, it was VERY nice to be able to shift around panel schedules and circuits whenever I felt like it within design. Although at the end coordinating AutoCAD with it was a nightmare, during the rest of the project it was real simple to circuit thing up and get it ready for said debacle.
Wires are a great tool electrically, and helps a lot when you are moving positions slightly with receptacles or something. If you move a receptacle the wire will actually follow it to wherever you are moving, saving some drafting time.
3D view is awesome, even if you don't use it that much. I think I used 3D view mainly with coordination with ducts and a few architectural questions, however I know the mechanical engineer working on the job used it almost the entire time. I am sure she will chime in later.
Special notes are pretty well done. Using a note block you can save a lot of trouble with the whole "not used" problems, and Revit's handling of leaders was a lot easier to draft with.
The way Revit handles callouts and sheet views is one of its best features. They are smart and link back to each other taking a lot of problems with false detail references out of the picture.

These are just the most noticeable things that came to my head, but there are a lot of other things which you miss when you go back to AutoCAD.

Many of you have asked "should I mess with MEP" and I guess the answer to this question really isn't a definite one. To answer I would definitely consider the following questions:
- Is your architect using Revit? If not I wouldn't mess with it.
- How big is your project? To big and I could see this being a problem
- How willing are you to deviate from your CAD standard? You will need to make some sacrifices.
- Are you looking to make this a regular thing? If you just want to "mess around" I hope you have a lot of free time, because learning the kinks of the software takes a while. Once you learn it though it becomes a lot easier to think like it does.


If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

[dmb.100468]

I wholeheartedly agree with the comments about the panel schedules and the halftone linework.

We are pressing on in hopes that more flexibility will be provided in future releases, but it is an extremely hard sell to convince my engineers of the benefits of being tied to the model when the end result (panel schedule) looks as bad as it does. Really, really bad.

I understand how the "little things" can add up. We have worked some of them out and built a template to avoid re-inventing the wheel. We were able to customize the tick marks to meet our needs, and built content that displays as required.

At this point I cannot stress enough the importance of having a well developed, well thought out project template prior to beginning a project. So if you are considering using Revit MEP on a project, my advice would be (along with the other considerations posted in this thread) do not start without a well developed template!

[Scott Davis]

If you were to create a set of CD's and just not worry about creating a set of drawings that looks exactly like your AutoCAD drawings, would it be possible?

So what if the panel schedule is a little bigger than you are used to. Who cares if your linewieghts are a little different....aroows and tick marks may be different than you are used to. I could go on but you get the idea.

Would the project be buildable? Is the GC going to send you an RFI because 'the panel schedule fills up half the sheet" ?

I'm not saying you need to throw standards out the window.....but you also must begin to be flexible...to re-think what a set of CD's is. I know where you are coming from. I'm from the Architectural side of things, and architects can be the most anal-retentive people when it comes to the "artwork" that is a set of CD's.

I suggest not fighting Revit so much. Just let it happen and start to re-examine what your "standards" are.

[Mottiqua]

Originally Posted by Scott Davis

If you were to create a set of CD's and just not worry about creating a set of drawings that looks exactly like your AutoCAD drawings, would it be possible?

So what if the panel schedule is a little bigger than you are used to. Who cares if your linewieghts are a little different....aroows and tick marks may be different than you are used to. I could go on but you get the idea.

Would the project be buildable? Is the GC going to send you an RFI because 'the panel schedule fills up half the sheet" ?

I'm not saying you need to throw standards out the window.....but you also must begin to be flexible...to re-think what a set of CD's is. I know where you are coming from. I'm from the Architectural side of things, and architects can be the most anal-retentive people when it comes to the "artwork" that is a set of CD's.

I suggest not fighting Revit so much. Just let it happen and start to re-examine what your "standards" are.

When you're trying to convince engineers of something that hasn't changed in the last 20 years, they want it to work just as it had in the past. Or else they'll want to fall back on their crutch: 2-D cad. Unfortunately, it seems architects are a little more open to change....engineers aren't. (Try telling your engineer 3 days before the job goes out that you decided to flip the 3rd floor......same idea)
The panel schedule is a huge deal, no the GC may not send an RFI, but it's rediculous to have 30 sheets of panel schedules, when we used to get away with having 3. Contractors will complain on the number of sheets, and may end up losing sheets.
The biggest hurdle is getting engineers to accept change. No, revit does not look the way we've done it for the last 20 years....

[Mottiqua]

okay i'm off my soapbox
There will be gripes and sorepoints, but there will also be revelations and praise....I think in the long run, this will be a pretty awesome setup....
It's a brand new system (on version 3), and we're entering that new phase of engineering. It's just different from what we're used to, and its very hard trying to get people to change and adapt.
Learning that workflow will take some time for us to get up to speed, and for the folks at Autodesk to get up to speed with us as well....

[dmb.100468]

Believe it or not, we DO get RFI's on stuff like that. And some even more trivial than that. It's not just us who are trying to hold to standards, it is our clients who have placed a set of standards on us. We MUST do what they ask or we won't be in business for too long.

Who cares? The guy that signs the paychecks cares. The guy who knows that sheet real estate = $$. The schedule is not "a little bigger". I can get 17 schedules on one sheet using Excel. With Revit I can get 4.

I understand and agree with your point about buildability, but there is also the fact that we take pride in our work and for something to come out of our office, with our name on it, it has to reflect the quality of work that we are holding to.

The notion that we should "just let it happen" shows a lack of connection to what is happening in the day-to-day of the AE industry.

[mjdanowski]

Originally Posted by Scott Davis

If you were to create a set of CD's and just not worry about creating a set of drawings that looks exactly like your AutoCAD drawings, would it be possible?

So what if the panel schedule is a little bigger than you are used to. Who cares if your linewieghts are a little different....aroows and tick marks may be different than you are used to. I could go on but you get the idea.

Would the project be buildable? Is the GC going to send you an RFI because 'the panel schedule fills up half the sheet" ?

I'm not saying you need to throw standards out the window.....but you also must begin to be flexible...to re-think what a set of CD's is. I know where you are coming from. I'm from the Architectural side of things, and architects can be the most anal-retentive people when it comes to the "artwork" that is a set of CD's.

I suggest not fighting Revit so much. Just let it happen and start to re-examine what your "standards" are.

I uploaded a comparison of one default panel schedule vs. a 30"x42" sheet, the red representing stuff I don't want/need on the schedules. But another note with the schedules is that they do not update (they are a report), which kind of makes the whole point moot.

As far as changing our standard goes, we have a lot. However there is a difference between changing the orientation of the "J" on a junction box and making the architectural background almost invisible on our plans.

After the completion of this project I can also say that the majority of the "easy coordination issues" that were resolved and saved us time via Revit were overshadowed by the stupid little problems that accompanied them. Thats what I am kind of trying to say; Revit has a lot of potential to do a lot of very useful things, but right now there is too much baggage associated with these things to get them presentable.

Ultimately too, people will originally try this out as an attempt to see if it works to get their drawings made. If this is not possible or causes too much problems, they will not use it. The design industry is all about the bottom line: what your drawings look like in the end, thats what we do.

[mike.weigle]

Originally Posted by Scott Davis

If you were to create a set of CD's and just not worry about creating a set of drawings that looks exactly like your AutoCAD drawings, would it be possible?

So what if the panel schedule is a little bigger than you are used to. Who cares if your linewieghts are a little different....aroows and tick marks may be different than you are used to. I could go on but you get the idea.

Would the project be buildable? Is the GC going to send you an RFI because 'the panel schedule fills up half the sheet" ?

I'm not saying you need to throw standards out the window.....but you also must begin to be flexible...to re-think what a set of CD's is. I know where you are coming from. I'm from the Architectural side of things, and architects can be the most anal-retentive people when it comes to the "artwork" that is a set of CD's.

I suggest not fighting Revit so much. Just let it happen and start to re-examine what your "standards" are.

To answer your first question I have to say no. It is not possible to put out a complete set of drawings. Complete is the key word. We are sending out our first project a week from today and the drawings are no where near as complete as a set of drawings coming from our CAD setup.

Who cares? Thats a little on the rough side. We care, the end user, the people buying your software, our shareholders care and our clients care. Why should we accept 2 panel schedules per sheet when in our CAD setup we can put upwards of 15-20 schedules per sheet. The amount of paper that already goes thru my office would blow your mind. Let alone if we start adding an extra 10-40 (who knows exactly how many) sheets to each project just because the developers tell us "who cares".

We have built our business on CAD standards that have been modified and tweaked over a 20+ year period. To throw that out the window is very painful. BUT...our users have accepted that (even if they don't agree with it). We have explained that our drawings are going to look different and that is just something we all will have to deal with. After a lot of explaining they are "ok" with it.

Its pretty hard to accept "...not fighting Revit so much. Just let it happen..."

Revit cost us a ton of $$$. The money we have spent on content development, internal training and implementation would sink most ships. We have accepted the expenses and realize the future is in BIM. BUT...we need to the support and effort from Autodesk for this to be a successful adventure.

I think Autodesk really needs to staff up and consider, at a minimum, 6 month upgrades instead of 1 upgrade per year. Right now if we suggest changes or additional functionality, we will not see those changes until version 2010. That is almost 2 years away. When I told my PIC this...he almost flipped his lid.

[Scott Davis]

I'd be inclined to rethink the set. Why do panel schedules need to go on a 30x42 sheet? What if each schedule was printed on its own 8.5x11 and made part of the project manual, or maybe they are bound into a "Schedule book". (I'm just thinking out loud here.) Its much cheaper to reproduce 8.5x11 than it is 30x42.

Just because we have done something the same way for 20 years does not make it the right way to do things today. Everything is changing and evolving around us. Technology is changing, and IMO we are not that far away from abandoning the "roll of paper construction drawings" in favor of delivering the model in electronic format.

Believe me, I understand what you all are saying (except that I've never seen an RFI about "too many sheets" ) but we must all start to think differently about this process. Architecture/engineering is so incredibly far behind any other "similar" process. Why? Because we can't get away from the idea that we must continue to do things like we did them 20 years ago.

[mike.weigle]

We took the approach of doing panel schedules on 8.5x11's and including it in our delivered spec's and that was shot down quicker than you can imagine.

We were told our company does panel schedules on drawings for a reason and we will not go back to putting them on 8.5x11's...they are and will be a part of the drawing set...PERIOD.

I agree...someday we will deliver an electronic copy of the model to the owner/contractor. But not anytime in the near future. So until that happens...paper = $$$.