Another new version of Revit, rant time...

[scowsert]

I always look forward to this time of year. A new version of Revit is coming, get your stockings out! So excited when I fire up my RSS reader and start seeing posts about the new Revit. So sweet so awesome... So whats new whats new? Cool yeah... ok that too... awesome. Sweet!

Then I go back to doing my job and edit some General notes. Oh my goodness. Its the first 5 sheets of our drawing set. Its in the front of our set because they are that important to us. I'm assuming that every office does it this way but I really don't know. I click into the paragraph and yeah everyone knows this it isn't a secret and really a waste of time for me to actually type it but here I go. It reformats itself, yet... I didn't do anything! I'm use to it by now, its obviously a bug from at least Revit Structure version 3. Why, revit why, must you do this too me. I've never seen any software do this. Revit is so awesome at really really complex things yet so lacking is this one basic thing that happens to be the most important thing in our actual product, our paper drawings, the first thing you see in fact. So it looks like I get to dream for another year of bullets and indents and tabs and tables and oh how I wish of such a paradise it must exist somewhere. Please tell me I'm not crazy, it exists somewhere right? Right? Ok maybe I am crazy but really I'd love to be able to change fonts in mid paragraph to do roman symbols for my engineers. What they ask is so simple yet... <inhale, holds head down> so painful. Why oh why. I'll be a good boy this year. I will, I promise! Perhaps 2014 will bring it. I know it will it will surely it must! There has to be at least one person at Autodesk that feels my pain. Ok just >< much of it?

Anyhow, I'm excited to see the new version an all the new functionality yet I can't help but feel like I was wishing for Transformers and grandma bought me gobots. Its ok... once I'm through with these first few pages I'll get to doing some awesome stuff with Revit.

[Rick Moore]

Out of curiosity, why do Structural engineers feel compelled to throw piles of words on drawing sheets when there's specs? They all do it but I've never known why...

[arb]

Yeah, I can't figure out why a $6,500+/- program can't edit text properly even though AutoCAD has had better text editing features for years.

We have a lot of text on our building and life safety code analysis sheets.

- Alex

[david_peterson]

Out of curiosity, why do Structural engineers feel compelled to throw piles of words on drawing sheets when there's specs? They all do it but I've never known why...
Because no one reads the spec. Well maybe the general does, but he doesn't pass that on most of the time.
Once we specified 4000psi concrete. We actually got an RFI asking if they could use 3000psi concrete. According to the contractor, his reasoning was "Well you guys put in a 30% safety factor, and the mix design has a 30% safety factor so if I use 3000 psi, it'll cure above 4000psi anyway". True story. But the short answer is, it's for the subs. This way when you carry around the set of drawings, most of the basic stuff is laid out. Where connection details are, schedules.. Do's and Don'ts. It's also for the inspector. He doesn't have time to read the spec book either (unless you're talking about special inspection). Special inspection requires you to put it in the drawing set with an area for someone to sign off on.
But back to rant. Why they can't figure out a text editor is just silly.

[scowsert]

Just for kicks turn off your revit brain and look at your product. Forget about how you got there and ask yourself. What do you see on those sheets? They all have titleblocks, text and lots of lines. The titleblock stuff works great, the lines stuff (ok walls windows the whole system is awesome), tags work well enough but man. That text ~50% of the 'stuff' on my sheets can be miserable to work with.


Yeah, I can't figure out why a $6,500+/- program can't edit text properly even though AutoCAD has had better text editing features for years.

We have a lot of text on our building and life safety code analysis sheets.

- Alex

[Wanderer]

Yeah, I found it pretty hilarious after the AUGI Wishlist results were announced, and a lot of people were ripping on the (user-generated, user-voted) wishlist items, because having text improvements at the top of all three lists was 'stupid' or something... but, yeah, it's needed, isn't it? It's probably going to stay at the top of the list until it's done, isn't it?

~shrug~

Oh, and, Rick, as the Facilities person here... we like the notes. It's way easier to find it on the plans than digging through the non-searchable carp that passes for specs on most of our projects.

[MikeJarosz]

Out of curiosity, why do Structural engineers feel compelled to throw piles of words on drawing sheets when there's specs? They all do it but I've never known why...

It's not only engineers. Small time architectural firms do it too, albeit for different reasons. Many small firms don't write specs. They don't have anyone on staff who can do it, and the projects, clients and contractors don't want them anyway. My first job out of school was a firm that did storefronts. You don't need a 1000 page spec for a pizza joint that sells slices. BTW, the firm I worked for also didn't allow elevation drawings - a waste of time!! This was during the oil embargo in the 70's. I was lucky to have a job.

What they did allow was sheet after sheet of general notes. Often notes on one sheet contradicted notes on another. Everytime we made a mistake, a note was added to the master to prevent a recurrence. After a while, the general notes became a history of every mistake we made. I got out of that firm as soon as I could.

[The Lonely Shepherd]

What they ask is so simple yet... <inhale, holds head down> so painful. Why oh why.

I hear you loud and clear, as do probably 99% of all Revit users! Why is it then that Autodesk won't do anything about it? I seriously am over the window dressing that is put out every year.... just give me the ability to properly edit/display my text!!! I can't believe that it is that hard to achieve but it must be?? Surely not? Autodesk - can you at least acknowledge that you have heard what we want and that you are working on it??
I've just been through the exact same process (...again...) with our General Notes (..not 5 sheets though!!) that you mentioned and i experienced the same feelings of absolute disgust and disappointment with what is supposed to be a premium bit of software. HA! Except IT ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE AUTODESK!! What are we paying our subscription for? Do something about it OR let us know that you are at least working toward it!!$%##

[David Harrington]

AUGI Wishlist results

BTW, the wish list is open for voting. And now with the new schedule for voting, this effort is closer in time to when Autodesk could actually do something with the vote results (like provide features in the top 10).

[MikeJarosz]

Autodesk is unlikely to write a world-class word processing program like MS Word. On the other hand, I bet that most Revit users are already using Word; I know I am. So why not have Revit work out a strong link to Word, and let Word do the heavy lifting for Revit? It would mean that Carl (@AD) and Steve (@MS) would have to learn to be civil to each other, but there is a precedent. When Acad added MS VBA, it doubled the value of Acad in my opinion.

Regarding specs. I heard of a specwriter who wrote a requirement into the specs that the contractor bring sandwiches to the first job meeting. He said he did it to see if anyone at the contractor's office bothered to read the specs. It amazes me that some contractors ignore specs. I also know for sure that the lawyers read every word.

The Dormitory Authority of NY State (DASNY) has a condition in their General Conditions that states that anything required by the drawings or specs, in one but not the other, is considered equivalent to shown in both.

[jsteinhauer]

It might be my skewed way of looking at things, but I think it would be easier in Revit to do this then in AutoCad for the simple reason that you can't go backwards versions in Revit like you can in ACAD. Mike, the problem with linking in Word is going to be coordinating test layout with sheet layout. Not that it's a bad idea, I just think it would be difficult. I am struggling to get support to get Revit DB Link working in my office, so a link with Word fall upon similar issues.

Cheers,
Jeff S.

[MikeJarosz]

A link would have to be provided by the brilliant coders at AD. They possess the source code and the ability to change it. It all depends on the elegance of their coding. I think the DB example is a case where the tool isn't very intuitive, and the work to connect it to Revit is more than most end users have the time and patience for. I'm thinking along the lines of drag and drop from Word into Revit.

I wrote an ACAD Visual Basic program that read all the title blocks from a drawing set and formatted them into a Word document. Our firm had decided that the drawings list, with complete issue history, belonged in the specs, not on a title drawing. A program is better than handmade lists because it can be updated -- daily if neccessary. How many Excel drawing lists have you seen that don't match the current dwg status? True, Revit has a pretty good drawing list procedure, but our decision was not to put the drawing list on any drawing at all. The program linking Revit and Word was actually fairly easy to write.

Come to think of it, what if Autodesk decided to incorporate specs into the Revit product line? AD is notorious for buying third party developers and absorbing them into their product line. What miracles could they perform with native Revit specs?

[david_peterson]

The ability to link specs to a revit model has already been done with product codes. We have a residential group in town that spent about 2yrs to fully develop it. They then associated that with an in-place cost. So you can walk into their show room. Look at one of the 40 starting designs they have. Request some small changes (maybe you wanted different cabinets, or you wanted to push a wall out 4 more feet), they adjust the revit model, and show you your new price. They then generate a material list from the model, create the P.O.'s from some 3rd party software, and by all the materials for your house.
They've combined a revit model with specs and a price (via an estimating software).

[MikeJarosz]

It sounds phenomenal. This is the sort of application of Revit that we should see more of, but it is still a third party application. I was musing about what Autodesk, with their resources, might do with construction specs in-house.

[David Harrington]

Well, take heart, the #1 wish for Revit Architecture at this moment is http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?123426-I-wish-Revit-had-a-more-advanced-text-editor.

[david_peterson]

Well, take heart, the #1 wish for Revit Architecture at this moment is http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?123426-I-wish-Revit-had-a-more-advanced-text-editor.
I just hope the factory is paying attention on this one. I spent time on their communispace board, and all I heard was Cloud, Cloud, Cloud. Nothing about what they plan to do to actually fix anything, just add more "features" that in my opinion don't always work and are only there to try to lure more people in to try and use it.

[Wanderer]

Regarding specs. I heard of a specwriter who wrote a requirement into the specs that the contractor bring sandwiches to the first job meeting. He said he did it to see if anyone at the contractor's office bothered to read the specs. It amazes me that some contractors ignore specs. I also know for sure that the lawyers read every word.
Heh, yeah, over the years, I slipped a couple of goofy things into my portion of our project specs, too...
Of course, the only people who call you about them are the ones that don't really need my quality control guidelines anyway, so, I gave up on my games, and just cry quietly into my coffee every time project closeout rolls around. :-)

[david_peterson]

Heh, yeah, over the years, I slipped a couple of goofy things into my portion of our project specs, too...
Of course, the only people who call you about them are the ones that don't really need my quality control guidelines anyway, so, I gave up on my games, and just cry quietly into my coffee every time project closeout rolls around. :-)
Now I know you would never do anything like this, but I've been on several projects now, where our client didn't give us any standards to go by, and then expected everything to match a new standard that they just came up with about 3yrs after we started the project and construction was nearing completion. Of course the other one is clients that required you to use Revit, but then require you're record documents to be completed in Autocad to their specific standard.
First question I ask on every project "What standard are we using." The sad response is "Don't worry about that, we'll just get some intern to convert all the drawings later on" or "Well to export from Revit you just need to push a button and you're done!" Couldn't be further from the truth.

[Wanderer]

Now I know you would never do anything like this, but I've been on several projects now, where our client didn't give us any standards to go by, and then expected everything to match a new standard that they just came up with about 3yrs after we started the project and construction was nearing completion. Of course the other one is clients that required you to use Revit, but then require you're record documents to be completed in Autocad to their specific standard.
First question I ask on every project "What standard are we using." The sad response is "Don't worry about that, we'll just get some intern to convert all the drawings later on" or "Well to export from Revit you just need to push a button and you're done!" Couldn't be further from the truth.Wow, that sounds like some people who have worked on our project management staff... :-/

The materials and other deliverable specs produced by my department (facilities and engineering) only tend to change about every 5 years, and they're clearly dated. We do have projects finishing up now that are started before some of our last round went into effect, and that's what we accept.

Though, personally, while our standards say that any new projects over 5,000sq ft in size need to be rvt, I will accept dwg files so long as they're according to the old dwg standards. And, if they've got a project under that size and still want to use Revit, though they're not required to... I'll take that, too, and happily.

What irritates me is when our contractors have another customer that doesn't know what they're talking about, or doesn't use what they're given, etc and they just write off EVERY client as being that stupid or careless... it makes my job harder than it needs to be.

[David Harrington]

I just hope the factory is paying attention on this one. I spent time on their communispace board, and all I heard was Cloud, Cloud, Cloud. Nothing about what they plan to do to actually fix anything, just add more "features" that in my opinion don't always work and are only there to try to lure more people in to try and use it.

They certainly are aware of the request for text editing improvements/overhaul. But it is also key that we keep the pressure up. Get people to rank the wishes in the WLS, vote on the top 30, and prove to them that these are features crucial to users' needs. If 100 people say they want a new text editor, okay sure. But 1,000 or 10,000 say that? They pay much more attention.

[The Curtain Skileef]

The double click-edit family thing stinks... way to slow us down. Click pause click, click one one-thousand click. hope it can be disabled soon.

[DaveP]

The irony of the double-click Family Edit is that the "feature" was added because of user requests.

[antman]

The irony of the double-click Family Edit is that the "feature" was added because of AutoCAD turned Revit user requests.

FTFY? .-)

[amacleod]

Out of curiosity, why do Structural engineers feel compelled to throw piles of words on drawing sheets when there's specs? They all do it but I've never known why...


Because the building code requires basic design information to be placed directly on the drawings. Have you ever gone to the owners or government archives? If you are lucky, you will find the drawings, but you will never find the specifications.