This is a little scary

[overzeetop414874]

I'm considering moving to Revit - well, building design suite, which I presume is revit wrapped in an all-disciplines (AutoDesk seems cagey on this point). I've been using an AutoCAD-2000 based workflow, with some minor 2004-based updates, for the past decade, but things are breaking and I can't find ways to fix them with the newest ACAD versions (I'm using 2013, 2014 is sitting quietly in it's USB flashdrive on my desk).

Is anyone actually using Revit structure, and is it really as difficult to do simple operations as seems to be implied by the nine (nine?) threads here? I mean, beam reactions and rev clouds seem so simple that to have them as problems scares the !@#$% out of me.

For those of you who have transitioned recently, what was your process and what resources did you use to convert the thousands of hours of standards you, no doubt, had lying around the office into the Revit-based workflow?

*I should say - I'm a one-engineer office turning out ~100+ small design projects a year, plus about 100-120 consulting reports. Jobs are mostly small, with only 1-2 larger than 10,000SF in a typical year.

[Steve_Stafford]

There are threads here dating back to 2005 when Revit structure was first released and Revit has had the most overlap with structural features (structural components) of any discipline since it was introduced in 2000. To see them you have to adjust the forum filters. AUGI has posts dating back to 2003 related to Revit, it merged the database of an early Revit focused bulletin board forum into its own in 2004.

There are many firms using Revit Structure, I will leave it to others to share their experience.

It takes time and determination. You can go it alone and learn as you go or take advantage of training resources. Best bet is a mix. If you are thinking of changing because you can't get AutoCAD to work "right" that may not be the reason to change though.

Building Design Suite is a bundle of software which means you get AutoCAD and Revit based software and you can chose to install and use as much or as little as you want, but you get it "all" for one price and subscription rate. I believe you have to get the Premium suite to get Revit though.

Where are you located? There might be a great resource for support nearby in the form of a user group that can help you get a closer look with out a sales pitch.

[david_peterson]

My suggestion is to start slow. Use revit for what it's really good for. And use a mix. The first several projects I did I used revit for plan, elevations and overall large sections. All details and schedules I did in Cad (mostly due to the large volume of detail we already had done). It's not a bad approach. You'll find, as most of us have, revit dose something really well. And some things it's still not really great at. For example, I've been converted to modeling rebar to for concrete details. It's actually almost quicker, Unless your design is still changing. All of my steel details are 2d lines, not cut from the model. Revit does a really good job for the most part modeling steel, concrete structural it's still not that great. Foundations have gotten much better.
We had a new employee start here a few months back. And here's my 2 cent opinion on Revit. It's great at modeling steel, but it's not good for detailing it. It sucks at modeling CIP structures, but it's easier to detail them (assuming they don't change).
For work flow, I've gone with the get the model correct first. At the end of DD's your model should be just about complete. In the CD phase all you should have left to do is create details. It's much different that the normal Structural approach of detailing as you go along. Using this thought process, you can save yourself alot of rework with your details. For concrete I cut the details from the model, place them on a sheet and get them all set up for annotating. Once I have some confidence that everything is designed, I'll start dropping in rebar and adding annotation. For steel I model it, and I can draw details from the start because I'm not cutting from the model.
It's going to take some time to set up and learn how the program really works. It's not a super easy process. You'll get the hang of modeling stuff quickly, but the finer points of display control, plotting, sheet set-up, use of detail components, linking in other models and the finer points of what not to do will take a lot of time.
From what it sounds like, for you, I'd be trying the "hybrid" approach. Use autocad for what it's good for, drawing 2d details. Use revit for what it's good for, modeling objects.
Hope this helps.

[jcharpentier]

Is anyone actually using Revit structure, and is it really as difficult to do simple operations as seems to be implied by the nine (nine?) threads here?

Check your forum display filters- the default is to only show those updated in the last month, which, as I write this, is 8. Look at the bottom and change it to "Show Threads fromthe... Beginning".

There's lots more information here, as well as over at RevitForums.org: http://www.revitforum.org/structure-general-questions/

Joe