DaleSmith
2011-12-02, 11:24 AM
Hi everyone,
Wasn't sure if this was the right forum to be posting it on, but thought it was worth a check anyway.
We've been using Revit in our office for aproximately 18 months now, and we're finally getting to the point where we've stopped people diving into AutoCAD at every opportunity they can. The big exception to this is in regard RC detailing, with everyone I've consulted stating that Revit simply isn't ready to produce clear, well presented RC drawings to a high standard, with the possible exception of small and very simple jobs. The people who sold us the software suggested that we stick to our usual approach of exporting to Autocad and reinforcing using our preffered software (in our case Cads RC for some, and simple line work for the majority).
When I heard this news I thought it couldn't be true, and decided to play around with the RC tools for myself. It wasn't by any means straight forward or easy, but in time I started figuring how the process worked, and how to get the rebar in place. However, getting revit to creat RC drawing and schedules that show exactly what we needed in any kind of sensible way (at least in regards UK detailing standards) was a nightmare, and pretty much completely unworkable. At least within any sort of reasonable timeframe.
However, I've seen a few presentations and heard a few good things about Autocad Structural Detailing, suggecting that this may be worth a look. Unfortunately, the presentations I've seen, while quite impressive, focused entirely on the wrong things when it comes to the type of RC detailing we produce. The people doing the presentation made a big show of features like "Hey, we simply select this column (exported from Revit), go through this handy wizzard tool, and oooo look, it's automatically reinforced the whole thing for us, great!", and then followed it up, with a nice isolated beam, doing the exact same thing.
In the real word though, we don't have nice isolated beams, we have complex rebated one, with other beams adjoining them at strange angles, and they're built into floor slabs, with walls springing from it. Ok, it's fairly uncommon we have ALL these things happening at the same time, but very common to have a couple of them at least. They also often have areas where reinforcement is by no means consistent from one meter run to next, due to openings is walls etc, and in these places the idea of a program trying to apply these rules automatically seems laughable.
What I'm wondering though is would using Structral Detailing be a realistic, workable and efficient way of RC detailing complex structures, or is it really only of use for it's automated features?
My gut feeling that it's not, is due the lack of tutorial information available on the internet (at least as far as I can find). My worry is that, if it was a well used and quality program, the internet would be full of questions, queries and tutorials all geared up to help people use it. The seeming ominous lack of these things gets me worried most people have simply tried it, decided "No, it's just not good enough for what we need" and moved on to other more efficient programs.
Can anyone adivse me either way if it's worth pursuing? Are people using Revit's built-in Rebar tools effienctly even, and have we been advised dubiously in terms of ignoring it? Have I simply missed a great tutorial site for Strucutral Detailing, that will provide use with a foot in the door?
Hope that all made sense.
Thanks,
Wasn't sure if this was the right forum to be posting it on, but thought it was worth a check anyway.
We've been using Revit in our office for aproximately 18 months now, and we're finally getting to the point where we've stopped people diving into AutoCAD at every opportunity they can. The big exception to this is in regard RC detailing, with everyone I've consulted stating that Revit simply isn't ready to produce clear, well presented RC drawings to a high standard, with the possible exception of small and very simple jobs. The people who sold us the software suggested that we stick to our usual approach of exporting to Autocad and reinforcing using our preffered software (in our case Cads RC for some, and simple line work for the majority).
When I heard this news I thought it couldn't be true, and decided to play around with the RC tools for myself. It wasn't by any means straight forward or easy, but in time I started figuring how the process worked, and how to get the rebar in place. However, getting revit to creat RC drawing and schedules that show exactly what we needed in any kind of sensible way (at least in regards UK detailing standards) was a nightmare, and pretty much completely unworkable. At least within any sort of reasonable timeframe.
However, I've seen a few presentations and heard a few good things about Autocad Structural Detailing, suggecting that this may be worth a look. Unfortunately, the presentations I've seen, while quite impressive, focused entirely on the wrong things when it comes to the type of RC detailing we produce. The people doing the presentation made a big show of features like "Hey, we simply select this column (exported from Revit), go through this handy wizzard tool, and oooo look, it's automatically reinforced the whole thing for us, great!", and then followed it up, with a nice isolated beam, doing the exact same thing.
In the real word though, we don't have nice isolated beams, we have complex rebated one, with other beams adjoining them at strange angles, and they're built into floor slabs, with walls springing from it. Ok, it's fairly uncommon we have ALL these things happening at the same time, but very common to have a couple of them at least. They also often have areas where reinforcement is by no means consistent from one meter run to next, due to openings is walls etc, and in these places the idea of a program trying to apply these rules automatically seems laughable.
What I'm wondering though is would using Structral Detailing be a realistic, workable and efficient way of RC detailing complex structures, or is it really only of use for it's automated features?
My gut feeling that it's not, is due the lack of tutorial information available on the internet (at least as far as I can find). My worry is that, if it was a well used and quality program, the internet would be full of questions, queries and tutorials all geared up to help people use it. The seeming ominous lack of these things gets me worried most people have simply tried it, decided "No, it's just not good enough for what we need" and moved on to other more efficient programs.
Can anyone adivse me either way if it's worth pursuing? Are people using Revit's built-in Rebar tools effienctly even, and have we been advised dubiously in terms of ignoring it? Have I simply missed a great tutorial site for Strucutral Detailing, that will provide use with a foot in the door?
Hope that all made sense.
Thanks,