National Park Service project, Revit and their Cad Standards

[jsmith.136814]

We are working on a project for the National Park Service and have gotten comments at the DD level that our drawings don't conform to their Cad Standards so I'm looking for other people's experience with them and Revit. I'm sure we could eventually create new families based on the .dwg's they provide of all the graphical elements such as section cut, elevations, etc. and generate .dwg's that were at least very close to their standards, but it's going to take quite a bit of effort to do so. Has anyone else done that? Do you have any helpful tips or advice?

We'd be willing to pay a reasonable price for copies of all the family files if we have to go that route.

Is their any way to automate creation of families from their .dwg files?

Please let me know if you have recent experience with projects for them done in Revit.

Thanks,

Jim Smith

[jsteinhauer]

Jim,

What format was submitted to them for DD? Did you send them Exported Revit to CAD? PDF'S? Was there additional comments from them as to what doesn't meet their CAD Standards? We had one of our best guys working on covering Revit to CAD for almost two months for a state of Wisconsin project. One of the biggest hurdles to the export is text & labels to Attributes.

Best of luck to you,
Jeff S.

[david_peterson]

Hi Jim,
Depending on what level of 'Standard" they have, you might be looking at a ton of work. You can create a layer map to map objects to the correct layers (unless they come in as block, which many things do). You can write a script to force everything to be "By Layer" (Which might help, but will remove any graphic overrides you have on any visible objects if I remember right). In 2013 you'll get lucky enough to be able to map text to an autocad font. You can map linestypes to autocad line types. As for block information, you're out of luck. There is NO WAY to get Title block info or drawing block info into a Attribute block via the export. This is kind of a big deal depending on your clients requirements.
I guess I would say that if you're client says "Hey I need this drawing to be to this standard so I can print it later"; tell them that's what the PDF is for. If they need it to a standard for a drawing management system, you might be up a river.
Good luck and I find room for at least a 6-pack or a Bottle of Jameo somewhere near by; you'll need it. :beer:

[jsmith.136814]

For DD, we submitted PDF's. Most of the comments were about specifics of items needing to be added to the cover sheet, using graphical bar scales instead of text, text size, adding a date stamp on the left margin of the sheets, etc. The reviewer added a note to submit .dwg files in the next submission (which I hope to be the CD submission) to verify compliance with the cad standards and in particular that "Drawings must be prepared in compliance with the Pen/Color Configuration as shown in DSC CAD Standards, page 4-3." and "Files must be printed using the required "NPS_HP _Grayscale.ctb" file (available for downloading from the website listed above). Sheets Files must be saved to default to the "NPS_HP _Grayscale.ctb" file when printing. Do not change the name or edit the .ctb file."

[jsmith.136814]

Sounds like we might need several cases! The good news is that it's a fairly small job with a limited number of sheets. The bad news is the fee is correspondingly small for creating families for all their standard symbology.

[patricks]

Ouch. Got any CAD seats and CAD operators in your office? It might be more cost effective to just do it in CAD, or maybe export the Revit model out to CAD (OMG did I just say that?!?!?) unless you foresee other future projects with the Park Service.

[jsteinhauer]

Jim,

I agree with Patrick. Just because Revit can provide benefits to the project, above & beyond CAD, doesn't mean it is the right choice for this project. Until the export functions can tie in better with AutoCad, or clients are willing to accept a Revit model, you're better off doing this one in CAD. You'll probably burn the rest of your fee and then some on getting the Exported files to pass their standards.

Sorry for the bad news.
Jeff S.

[rbcameron1]

Jim -

I must admit, I've only briefly read all the questions and responses, but in regards to doing the project in Revit and exporting in CAD. Is it possible to go to the "modify DWG/DXF export" setup and create a custom export category that shifts all the out of the box Revit to your National Park Standards? (Revit logo - export - CAD dwg - Select Export Setup [...] box) and import the standards the national parks already have...hoping you can get it from them as opposed to manually changing each layer.
As far as abbreviations/tags/titles.....those work, some of the time.

good luck

[LP Design]

You'll probably burn the rest of your fee and then some on getting the Exported files to pass their standards.
Sorry for the bad news.

I agree as well. My firm is 95% Revit, and the only reason it is not 100% is because of exactly these kind of issues. We have done work for NPS before and just abandoned Revit entirely. We also do work for Intel who has very demanding CAD standards. Those projects go CAD as well.

Don't give up hope entirely though. You may be able to negotiate exactly what your CAD deliverables will be. Yes, it is a lot of work to re-hash a Revit export, but if you only have to do that once then it becomes much less of a drain on the project. See if you can get them to agree that only the record drawings will perfectly match their standards. It might also be worth bringing up that those interim CAD submittals will hardly ever be used anyway. The record drawings are the important part since they will be used for future projects. If they agree to that then the interim submittals will be much easier on you.

It might take a serious meeting that includes the BIM managers for the architect AND engineers, the Owner's rep, their CAD people, and the Principal in charge. You would have to explain the benefits of a Revit project for all stakeholders in lieu of an extensive series of CAD submittals.

Good luck in whatever path you choose.
-LP

[matthew.w.muir708069]

Hi Cameron,

I am a little new to the site so I apologize if this is bad form; but I wondered if you have ever saved out your configurations in the DWG/DXF Export for USFS or NPS and if so would you be willing to share the file with me? I have been working hard to bring our office to Revit however this appears to be the greatest road-block and apprehension. Thank you either way. Its nice to know I am not alone in the struggle. Perhaps someday NPS will come into the 21st century. :)

Cheers-
Matt

[MikeJarosz]

If I understand correctly, you are doing this project in Revit, but the client wants the files in dwg format. You are relying on Revit to translate into dwg format, which it can do. However, I have been using Revit since 2003, and Acad for 12 years before that. If the client wants the dwg files in order to continue working on the project, you may have a problem. Although Revit does indeed translate, the content of the dwg file will never be the same as a native dwg project done by an experienced Acad professional. The few times in the past when we gave an owner translated dwg files to do serious work, the translations left much to be desired from the Acad point of view. Most of the time the translations are really just to enable the owner to print documents when they do not know how to do it in native Revit. It's sort of like translating Shakespeare into French. Or Dante into Russian.

Then there is the rage factor. A lot of Acad users are angry that Revit is taking over the industry (if it already hasn't). They learned Acad when Acad had a monopoly on the industry, and they judge all CAD by how well it conforms to ACAD standard practices. They love to criticize anything produced by Revit. BTW: you used the term "symbology", a term associated with Microstation. Are you using more than one program?

[jsteinhauer]

BTW: you used the term "symbology", a term associated with Microstation. Are you using more than one program?

I've never used Microstation, and I use "symbology" all the time when talking about Revit content. Just recently I was showing a product Manufacturer our content library, and why we rely heavily on 'symbology'. When comparing their accurately modeled content to ours, their content looked like big black blobs (B^3) on the screen in plan. When looking at our content, they could clearly see the extents of the geometry, without depleting the world supply of toner. My firm is going to have different symbology standards than the one down the road. So, if clients are going to stick to symbolic standards, they might need to start providing them to the designers and contractors working on their projects. Otherwise, just except content on a project by project basis.

Cheers,
Jeff S.