Revit - Future Project Archiving

[chigrboy]

Hi,
For many years now I've done IT work for the AEC industry as well as some minor CAD/REVIT support.

I have some concerns regarding projects which are done in Revit, mostly due to how often the product is released and the non-existent backward compatibility that's inherent to the software.

About once a year or so, I'll get a request to dig deep into the tape archives to pull up drawings, sometimes as far back as the late 80's. This is a headache for sure but I've been pretty successful and whatever version of AutoCAD we happen to be on currently, the DWG's have always opened without problems.

Revit has been around a while now but didn't really take off until Autodesk purchased it and I still sort of consider it somewhat of a new product, I guess relative to how long CAD has been around. My concern is with archived models, in 25 years, will projects that were done in Revit be able to be opened by the latest version of the software (if the software even exists?).

Are people archiving projects and when a new releases of Revit is available, is someone going through the archives and opening the model to upgrade it to the latest version? Can't be done on tape obviously but we have an archive server these days as well as tape.

Or are firms just exporting the sheets to DWG/PDF?

Is there something that I'm unaware of or missing?

Anyone have any thoughts?

How are you archiving projects that are complete and were done in Revit?

[renogreen]

Been using Revit since 2004 and have archived quite a few projects over that time period. We've always archived a paper copy and a pdf copy of the project. The Revit file gets archived also. No, we don't go back and open old Revit projects and save them when new releases of Revit come out. I have, on several occasions, had to go back and open an old Revit project from several releases back. I've never had a problem with opening the older Revit projects.

Realistically, if 10 years from now, a remodel was going to occur on a building drawn in Revit from 10 years previous, assuming Revit is still around, I would not expect to have any serious issues with the older Revit file.

I really don't think it's anything to lose sleep over.

[Valkin]

I totally agree that digital archiving of Revit files really isn't something to lose any sleep over.

I've opened the first revit model I ever worked on and had absolution no problem opening it. Now some of the old Acad files that I have from the early 80's that is another story. Autodesk has learned from ACAD in many ways and this upgrading old project files is one of them. With Revit the file format really doesn't change it is more that there is more object data that didn't exist in the previous versions, so upgrading the information hasn't been a problem. If you are really worried about archiving I would suggest you export the model to a PDF and a IFC file since these file formats have been accepted by international standards.

[SCShell]

Hey there,

Put me down for "no problem" so far. Been using/archiving since early 2004 and have never had a problem.
I will add however, certain Projects which I do a lot of work on or in (open ended contracts for Interior T.I. work) keep getting upgraded every year or 2 years...
But, I have upgraded some of my earliest projects and have not had a problem.

Good Luck
Steve

[BrenDillon-IHA]

We export to .pdf and archive the .pdfs and final model redundantly (at least two copies) as well as any paper copies.

During undergrad I was the archivist for a large landscape archtiecture firm and we had a lot of trouble opening old CAD files. whether it's .dwgs or .rvts digital archiving is problematic, especially if there isn't a codified, organized method to it (and redundancies).

[Baldwin_4-6-0]

We have been Archiving Revit since 2003. Our plan is; if need need to retrieve an older file, we will upgrade to the latest version.

In a 50 year plan; maybe the versions of Revit will be too different to upgrade, we also save the Program DVD's to install on computers in case we need to do incremental upgrades from Revit 9.1 then upgrade to Revit 2008 then to 2010 and on up to Revit version 2050 (if we need to).

But that doesn't take into account if operating systems will remain the same over all those years, so the question is: Do we keep a Windows XP, a Windows 7, a Windows 8, and a Windows "Infinity" computer system operational over those 50 years? Only time will tell.

We also PDF every submission and archive it too.

[BrenDillon-IHA]

John,
You raise a great point. When I and others have upgraded projects from say 2009 to 2011, there have been data loss problems. I can only imagine the issues for upgrading over a longer stretch of time. I wouldn't be surprised though to see Autodesk develop a tool in the future specifically for upgrading such archived files. I'm sure it will only be $2000/seat...

[SCShell]

Hey there,
You all bring up good points and I have never had problems; however, I wanted to test this.
I upgraded a 5.0 project to 2011 without any problems. Even transferred Project Standards without a hick up.
So far, so good.
Steve