Will Revit interface with Archibus?

[campscot]

We are currently using Archibus as our maintenance management system and autocad as our drafting software. Is it possible to replace autocad with revit and use the BIM information in Archibus, hopefully saving some time.

[hand471037]

Short answer is no.

We looked at doing this when I was at an old firm back with Revit 3.1. We actually just wound up using Revit to do both tasks, for we didn't own Archibus (were looking at different FM systems to buy). But this we could get away with, for all our data was just in AutoCAD and Excel, we had no existing database, and all we were tracking was Leasing information (for which Revit worked really, really well- even back then!).

Additionally, Revit exports to ODBC, but an external Database can't be read or linked or drive Revit, so the data is a one-way path out of Revit.

But with the recent announcement of an API for Revit, I bet you'll probably have something in a year or two that will work with Revit and Archibus (the demand is there, and it would be a no-brainier considering that Revit tracks a lot of the same level of data). However, if you're not using Archibus heavily, and don't care about it's lack of external-database linking ability, Revit might just be able to track all your data right now, with the added advantage of not having to manage two systems anymore. At least that's what we found, we didn't need a database setup & admin overhead on top of AutoCAD...

[campscot]

Thats is what I expected. We are using Archibus as our maintenance management tool with work orders and preventative maintenance schedules. We are struggling to use archibus as a space management tool because we use AutoCAD and the interface is labor intensive. If Revit can export ODBC complient files, then I think we will continue our investigation and see if we can find a BIM and FM solution. Thanks


Short answer is no.

We looked at doing this when I was at an old firm back with Revit 3.1. We actually just wound up using Revit to do both tasks, for we didn't own Archibus (were looking at different FM systems to buy). But this we could get away with, for all our data was just in AutoCAD and Excel, we had no existing database, and all we were tracking was Leasing information (for which Revit worked really, really well- even back then!).

Additionally, Revit exports to ODBC, but an external Database can't be read or linked or drive Revit, so the data is a one-way path out of Revit.

But with the recent announcement of an API for Revit, I bet you'll probably have something in a year or two that will work with Revit and Archibus (the demand is there, and it would be a no-brainier considering that Revit tracks a lot of the same level of data). However, if you're not using Archibus heavily, and don't care about it's lack of external-database linking ability, Revit might just be able to track all your data right now, with the added advantage of not having to manage two systems anymore. At least that's what we found, we didn't need a database setup & admin overhead on top of AutoCAD...