WHEN REVIT GROWS UP...

[rookwood]

When Revit grows up, what will it be?

I am now into my 4th month after converting from ADT and must admit to, even with my inexperience, opening ADT only for references to past projects. I have found that Revit has been extremely successful for me due to it's intuitive nature.

Having said this, I must admit some confusion in that I don't really know what Revit is. It seems to me that a truly 'PARAMETRIC BIM' package would not have you 'jury rigging' the project. In residential construction in my area, trusses are used for the roof structure, not rafters. As most of you know, this creates real issues when dealing with building sections, elevation sweeps, etc. I fully understand the work arounds and maybe that's my point.

It is more than a 2D package, or even ADT. I find myself having to 'cover up' certain items in a section view with filled regions and drafting what I really want to show with the line tool. Lines are what I did in ADT. Although the finished product visually represents my intentions, I feel in the end it is a patchwork of cover ups and bandages.

I originally converted to Revit for two reasons. One is the ease of making revisions and having to modify in one view only. The other is the ability ro render the finished product.

As a rendering tool, Accurender is the first I have used but found my experience with Photoshop to be an asset. Photoshop, as related to Revit, should be used for special effects, not as an enhancement to achieve photorealism. Is this the intention of Revit? In reading the posts on this and other forums, I don't seem to be alone. Why are we wanting a plug in for Maxwell Render? I am quite certain, and well aware, that much is due to my inexperience.

It is late in the evening, or early in the morning, and I just finished a project and am just sitting here reflecting on the decision I made a few months back. I am truly excited about Revit and believe, in the end, it will make my world a whole lot easier. It already has.

But just wondering what Revit will be when it grows up!

[Kroke]

I luff Revit too. All around a way better package than ADT.

I wish we had 'truss' option for roofs as well. Maybe it's something the factory could impliment.

One thing for sure, it is always 'growing up'. Still in it's youth a very great package imo.

[Martin P]

When Revit grows up, what will it be?

I find myself having to 'cover up' certain items in a section view with filled regions and drafting what I really want to show with the line tool. Lines are what I did in ADT. Although the finished product visually represents my intentions, I feel in the end it is a patchwork of cover ups and bandages.



This really used to bother me too, it seemed to me (used to) that the sections could come apart at the seams at any moment. But, I have found it a very efficient way to work and it has never presented me with problems in all the time I have used it. It just seems too simple, which is probably why it works so well - its simple! (detail groups have made this even better) - I now really like the simplicity of this method and wouldnt change it.
- I think you have struck the nail on the head by saying "the finished product visually represents my intentions" - With Revit you really have to remind yourself sometimes that that is the purpose - the drawings. The model could be the most amazing parametric thing with all sorts of clever relationships between all the objects, and you could spend hours setting all of this up - and all that anybody really wants to see is a set of drawings and some schedules, then you may not have to make any changes to bring your clever parametric relationships into play - and you have wasted hours.So often the overlaying detail method just speed things up and gives you the same results.


I just do detail components for the trusses and rafters, more just to make the sections look complete in my case than actually be of any use. A dedicated tool would be nice - some family work could probably get you there fairly easily though...

[hand471037]

When Revit grows up, what will it be?

It's not just Revit, but BIM in general IMHO.

Revit has really kick-started BIM being a real thing accessible to the Majority of the Designers and Architects out there. Sure, you *could* do it before with ADT or ArchiCAD, but it just didn't have legs because it was too hard to leverage. Now, we Architects & Designers can leverage the great benefits of BIM via Revit with much less pain and therefor gain much from using it.

However, with that said, there's some very large missing gaps in the whole BIM picture. As was said on another thread, until I can hand someone my Revit Model, and have them use that to then Price, Plan, and Build the Project we're not really BIM- I am, but no one else in the picture is. We're still just trading drawings. Or until I can have my model 'talk' with the consultant's models and/or software packages. At that point, we'll really all be BIM. But that's still quite a ways away.

Revit isn't perfect. Revit is still growing. However, Revit WORKS. It works NOW. It doesn't take years of roll-out, years of training, and a consistent hope that 'some day' you'll use all those features you paid a lot for. You don't have to 'drop out' and go back to 2D and abandon the model at some point. I think this counts for a lot, and in time, Revit and a 'ecosystem' of products will grow up around Revit, interact with Revit, and run within Revit to make a full BIM picture in the future.

For example, the Maxwell plug-in you mention, well, Accurender works pretty well for a lot of folks, it's easy and quick to do an decent (but not great) rendering. A Maxwell plug-in would allow you to make Great renderings, but at the cost of making it harder to produce those renderings (Maxwell's a LOT more complex than Accurender) and require more expensive computers and software (even when Maxwell gets up to speed it's still going to take a bit of horsepower to make those Renderings you're going to want out of the system). So now the 'picture' of BIM has gotten bigger, for the lone designer or small shop or quick study can use Accurender, the bigger shops can use Maxwell, and the Visualization/rendering consultants or department can use Maxwell, Viz, whatever. But we're all working from the same Datamodels, which is a huge part of what BIM's about.

And the desire is there to widen this picture. I just left my Architecture job to go to work for a Company looking at creating these very tools I talk about; things that will interact with the Product Manufacturers, the cost estimators, the project managers, the consultants. Things that make the whole BIM picture possible and more accessible to non-Revit user and Revit user alike. And I know we're not the only company looking to do things like this.

[Kevin Janik]

Jeffrey,

What kinds of specific tools are they creating or thinking about creating? It sounds very interesting.

Kevin