Revit Model imported into SketchUP

[Kroke]

When you get this sorted, can you post those images in the gallery ?

Well, it's not technically a Revit project, or is it? This was a project (might recognize it with signifficant changes) that was imported into SketchUP. Nothing altered, just took screen dumps. Yet another reason to like Revit, the transition of the geometry is really good. Anyhow here it is in it's entirety:
http://home.bendcable.com/draftsman/Pronghorn_Collage.jpg

[christopher.zoog51272]

awesome! looks great kroke!

I would love to buy sketch-up. Perhaps I'll sneak it into the budget next year :)

[Henry D]

I love it! So you just took different views of the model in Revit and imported them into SketchUp and then SketchUp did the rest?

[Scott Hopkins]

Wow! Great looking drawings!

I went and checked out the SketchUp site. I really like the hand-drawn quality of the drawings it produces. Watching the SketchUp demo video I came up with about 30 items that would be great additions to the Revit wish list. Features like "real-time shadows" just make me drool. At the very least, shadows in orthographic views, and hand-sketch style plotting should be added to Revit.

Comparing SketchUp to Architectural Studio is like comparing X-box to Atari pong. AutoDesk ought to dump Arch Studio, buy SketchUp, and then incorporate the technology into Revit. They have already set this trend by purchasing Revit and phasing out Architectural Desktop.

While I have found Revit to be a useful design tool, in many ways it can be very inhibiting to the design process (design options for example). AutoDesk needs a good Sketch/Design tool as part of its suite of programs. If this program was built inside of Revit, that would be the ideal - total integration within one tool.

[Kroke]

I love it! So you just took different views of the model in Revit and imported them into SketchUp and then SketchUp did the rest?
Actually I just exported the Revit file in 3d view to .dwg, it imports perfectly into Sketchup. From there, you can orbit/rotate, etc. All I changed was the angle of the sun so that it wasn't too washed out by the shadows in each view. That's it.

It has a 'live section' tool like Revits too, it's really cool. And the recipient only has to have the viewer available on thier site, then you can email the file and they can see it just as you do, they can rotate it around, etc, they just can't edit it. Pretty slick indeed.

[J-G]

Kroke,

Really nice work! In Revit what were you using for the tappered veneer at the botm of the exterior walls (asumming it is veneer). Did you use walls with a profile, or create a family?

[mlgatzke]

it's really cool

Very nice. I agree Kroke, I've been looking at SketchUp for almost a year now and can't seem to stop visions of possibilities from swarming into my head. I too am going to try and sneak it into my budget this year.

SketchUp seems to create the "perfect" tool for client presentation. I've experienced many clients who are discouraged by "clean" renderings and I seem to get more (and better) feedback from them when I show them "sketch-style" views. I've been suggesting to Revit developers that this type of view would be greatly advantagous to Revit. Oh well, deaf ears so far.[/quote]

[Kroke]

On the front of the house just under the balcony on the left, that's an in -place family. The rest of the veneer is a wall that Phil Read made and sent to me. One thing about walls with profiles, you can't use a wall void to cut out areas such as doorways or windows that are too low. :(

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Kroke,
Very impressive stuff. I have serious case of shadow envy :oops: A great feel to the drawings and a definite improvement at the design stage for presentation to clients. (Are my 'old school' roots showing?)
As a result of your post I checked out the Sketchup site. It seems Scott has created quite a buzz with his comments
AutoDesk ought to dump Arch Studio, buy SketchUp, and then incorporate the technology into Revit
I thought of posting a reply in defense of the Revit faithful, but didn't want to speak out of turn. I can only assume that Scott's comments were rooted in admiration for what looks like a very versatile product that has a following almost as rabid and loyal as Revit's.
Check out the thread at
http://sketchup.com/forum/read.php?f=4&i=9992&t=9992

[Scott Hopkins]

Wow! - I have made quite a few new friends over at the SketchUp forum. Some guy called me a “poor misguided fool” Ouch!

I was speaking kind of tongue in cheek when I suggested that AutoDesk ought to buy SketchUp. I had no idea my comments would ruffle so many feathers. Those SketchUp users obviously like their program just the way it is. Such an enthusiastic and rabidly loyal user base definitely makes me want to look into the program further. I plan to download the free trial version this afternoon. I’ll report my findings to the Supreme Overlord Committee at AutoDesk’s Department of World Domination.

[Steve_Stafford]

Call it deja vu...Scott, similar refrains could be heard from Revit users before and after the "ACT". I don't see many folks getting CD's from it...I realize my comment is missing the point, or is it? Revit isn't far from giving us similar simplicity plus CD level documentation. OTOH, as Kroke deftly demonstrated, the combination of Revit and SketchUp is quite "unbeatable"!

[Cathy Hadley]

first of all... Kroke these are so kewl... My dream to create this look .. (lets just say my sketching skills aren't where most are...) probably why I took to the computer in the first place...

So I'm playing with sketchup... after just a couple of minutes, here is my first result... my question however has to do with the revit model and how it exports...

See where my wall ends show through? don't like that... its in the dwg as well... so how do you prevent when exporting?

[Kroke]

Hey, I like the roof timbers popping out, cool look.
I'd say it has to do with your Revit project. Do they look correct in Revit? If not try to use the trim tool on those corners? Basically what you see is what you get from Revit into SketchUP, if it's correct there it *should* be correct in SU. Lets see some more angles of that project :!:

PS Thanks Steve for the compliment.

[christopher.zoog51272]

Cathy,

Try editing the wall joins at those corners, choose "miter". That should fix it. Cool house by the way!

Z.

[Cathy Hadley]

Thats the ticket... you guys are the best ~!

Its a 5 acre site with home, guest house, pool, horse corrals the whole 9 yards... so far Revit is doing great... the next challange is rendering... it seems not to want to render it at all, just stops, doesn't freeze the machine... if I unload the the site topo w/ trees its fine... I'm learning about section boxes, etc.. but for this go around I think the sketchup loosey look will do...

thanks for the support it really is invaluable...

[beegee]

Cathy,

Sometimes when rendering, Revit appears to be doing nothing, when it is all going on behind the scenes. As you say, it hasn't frozen, its just deep in thought.

Give it some time.

[Cathy Hadley]

I saw that advice before, so I gave it 6 hours and still nothing... it doesn't even give me the scroll bar at the bottom... I did get one out of it when playing with section boxes... I think this is the problem... seems like once I can't get a view to work, it will never work... I need to start over.. new view, new scene ... then its a **** shot as to whether it will do anything..

I can tell when its going to work, cause I get the voxel thangie .. when its going to hose... nothing... no matter how small a region I pick ... I'm sure its my newbie-ness...

Am also going to try a different machine with a different video card... just in case...

[PeterJ]

Try using a section box and then rendering within that

[Vincent Valentijn]

wow!! that's just too perfect! :shock:
When I get out of this CAD business and back to designing I will definately get myself some Sketchup on my fries :lol:

[mlgatzke]

I'm attaching a design I'm working on for my family (I think it's attached). It's my first attempt with taking a Revit model into SketchUp - for that matter - t's my first attempt in SketchUp.

Does anyone know how to get an ashlar stone looking texture on a surface?

[Scott Hopkins]

Mlgatzke,

Those SketchUp drawings look pretty nice. I am thinking about purchasing the program. I noticed however that the anti-aliasing on a lot of the diagonal lines is really not that hot. This is always a dead give a way that it is a computer drawing. Is this a function of the PDF file or SketchUp? Is there a setting in SketchUp that can be adjusted to alleviate this problem? Are you finding that SketchUp is worth the price?

[mlgatzke]

Scott,

I think the anti-alias problem is a function of the jpg I used to put in the pdf. I had to turn the quality way down (I think they're a 5 - out of 10). The original SketchUp image looks GREAT. I just wish there was a way to adjust (turn up or down) the relative lineweight - it can sometimes get too heavy. I guess I'm getting spoiled by Revit's control.

Boy, I'll tell you what, I teach at an area Community College and we're in our semester where the students are learning ADT. Boy, everytime I have to get back on ADT and teach it, that piece of *#it seems more and more archaic. I'm LOVING my life with Revit.

I've also created some models in SketchUp for my students to look at (using their free browser viewer) to demonstrate construction assemblies of different key areas like trusses, windows and doors, and I'm working on one for the foundation/floor/wall area too. Boy, it's fun to work in.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Kroke,
If you are still peeking at this thread a couple of questions for you about the images you posted. As a result of what you posted I downloaded the demo for Sketchup and have been mucking with it. Pretty impressive and very easy to use. I tried importing a couple of Revit files and ran into some issues. When you exported your house model to .dwg was it striclty the worksets used for the exterior of the house? The files I've imported seem extremly slow because I think it's calculating for all objects in the model. Even simple models seem bogged down in Sketchup. add the shadow factor in and it gets unbearable.
Is what you posted modelled as simple solids in Revit or are the walls actually walls? Sketchup seems to treat each Revit wall as an independant solid i.e. a six sided object. Even if the model is fairly basic it would seem to me that this approach would require a great deal of crunching power to deal with shadows. Just wondering if you ran into the same problems or if I am missing something.
Thanks

[Cathy Hadley]

I noticed the same thing. But curiously I found that SketchUp works dramatically different on different machines.. I believe its Video Card and not power... Cause it works great on our *backup* machine but freezes dead on my Dell...

nvidea V. ATI and the whole 100% OpenGL biz...

Doing a presentation tonight and will let you know if I learn any tid bits.

Cathy

[Kroke]

HCSL,
Yes, it was directly exported from Revit 5.1 to DWG, it did take a long time to import it into Sketchup. I'm using a P4 2.4gh, 512 ram, Radeon 9000 pro 64mb vid card on my laptop. It is sluggish when you have the shadows on. It's sluggish when you orbit, but it goes into some second stage 'box wireframe' view if you rotate it a ways, easing up the cpu. All in all, for complex stuff, it's boggy.

[Vincent Valentijn]

Kroke, I've got myself a trial on Sketchup now.. tried importing a project I've designed last year (for an art academy). I have it in 3DMAX (looking gooood) and the 3ds file is about 30Mb.. I did a 3dsin in Autocad to get it from solid model into faces (as instructed in Sketchup)
After importing the dwg into Sketchup (slow..slow.. because of the big file) I get my model as being almost completely black.. I suspect the detail is too high so the black edge-lines are clouding the model? do you know how to control the linethickness.. I haven't been able to find that in the help-files.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Vincent,
Try View/Preferences/Render and uncheck the Show Edges and Show Profiles boxes. This should work. After my trial version expired I ended up buying a copy of SketchUp. Brilliant, I must say. You might want to check out the Sketchup forums (sketchup.com) and see just what incredible stuff people are producing with this package. It's quick easy to learn and fills the one void I think Revit has at the prelim stages of project development; the ability to do a quick and loose scribble with shadow studies. The Revit development team would do well to take a look at Sketchup and try to implement the same type of shadow without full blown render feature. I'm confident that I can use one package to compliment the other and have a really well rounded tool box at my disposal.

[gregcashen]

My favorite feature of SketchUp is the price!

[Nickdp]

To Greg and HCSL: they're exactly the 3 things why we use SU;
1) quick'n'dirty "sketchy-looking" massing studies
2) real-time shadows to convey the concepts to the clients/authorities, and
3) cheap price.

oh, and one more:
4) able to export EPIX files to Piranesi for some more "hand-drawn" rendering work to really woo the client.

Plans are still in Revit, with massing studies and bird's eye view renderings in SU/Piranesi. When all signed-off, the model is then fully committed in Revit for all CD's and one or two final renderings again in Revit for the contractor and the title-sheet.

[martin_t]

A tip that might improve the performance in Sketchup: whenever you have a lot of tubular railings in the Revit model replace them with square or rectangualar profiles before exporting. The size of meshes derived from cylundrical bodies can be quite massive.