How did it all start?

[Roger Evans]

So how did it all start? What was the spark?

Question for those in the know ..

What I am wondering is what sequence of events / circumstances / coincidences / meetings / technology / thoughts / motivations / collaborations etc etc that coincided to give rise to the birth of Revit?

I know the light bulb needed changing .. but how did you find the light switch in the first place?

[Wes Macaulay]

Roger, I interviewed Irwin Jungreis (one of the founders) last fall and started writing a brief history of Revit which I've been meaning to finish. I have to send it around to them for them to finish and flesh out.

You're right - it's a story that deserves telling!

[SCShell]

Hey there,

I remember asking David Conant (one of the original designers) if he still had the original, very first working build of Revit. His answer surprised me in the fact that the "first build" was not what I was expecting at all. (I don't want to let the cat out of the bag.)

The entire story would be great to hear!!
Let' hear it.
Steve

[irwin]

Hey there,

I remember asking David Conant (one of the original designers) if he still had the original, very first working build of Revit. His answer surprised me in the fact that the "first build" was not what I was expecting at all. (I don't want to let the cat out of the bag.)

The entire story would be great to hear!!
Let' hear it.
Steve
Here's a screen shot from a few weeks after we started programming.

[jbalding48677]

I still have all the CD's from pre-release 1.0, 2.0 and release 1.0 up to 8.0. I installed 1.0 on an old laptop last April 1st for a "preview" at a SCRUG meeting. Let me tell you, they have come a LONG way since then, right Mr. Davis???

[bowlingbrad]

Hey Jim,
How about a screen shot of the 1.0 interface?

[David Conant]

Here is something else that few have seen. CRS, its 5 year mission was to seek out ...

[aaronrumple]

Now what we need is T-Shirts with that logo.

[jbalding48677]

Hey Jim,
How about a screen shot of the 1.0 interface?
I will have to reinstall on a machine, but I could do that some time.

[Scott Hopkins]

Here is something else that few have seen. CRS, its 5 year mission was to seek out ...
Its good to see that you spent your early seed money on programing not on graphic design! ;-)

[JamesVan]

For those interested in CAD history, this is some great reading on the history of Autodesk and Autocad from one of the original founders, John Walker:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/autofile.html

[Scott D Davis]

Let me tell you, they have come a LONG way since then, right Mr. Davis???Oh my GAWD! Yes! I remember the days playing with 1.0....I was soo impressed with it back then, and it didn't do nearly anything besides walls, windows, doors, roofs and floors, and simple stairs and railings. What really got me, was the instant sections and elevations, and the drawing coordination where detail bubbles automatically filled in! It's really cool to think back to 1.0, and see the foundation that Revit is built on. It was all about the drawing coordination....and still is!

For those of you who don't know, JB is my "Reason for Revit." I called JB way back when.....he had been interviewed about ADT 2.0 for Archtiectural Record. I called to ask how his firm was using ADT, as we were about to jump in. Revit was in Beta testing, and JB was an "Early Adopter" bascially testing the software. On the phone, he couldn't even mention the word "Revit" as he was under NDA....but he insisted we NOT buy ADT, as something "Much better and more powerful is coming along." I asked about the ADT article, and he said "Yeah, they interviewed me MONTHS ago about that, and finally printed it.....everything has changed now!" By the end of the conversation, he said "When I can say something I will" He called a few weeks later, I downloaded Revit 1.0 a day or so after it was released! And the rest is history.

[jbalding48677]

Hey Jim,
How about a screen shot of the 1.0 interface?
It is nothing compared to Irwin's, but here you go...

[Roger Evans]

This is starting to get on the right track but I really would prefer to read the whole story from before the beginning ... a marketable little item if there ever was one

I wouldn't mind if it started with a precis of Part One

[Scott D Davis]

It is nothing compared to Irwin's, but here you go...
awwwww! It's like when you introduced your mom to a new girlfriend, and she busted out the baby albums!

"Look at little Revit...it was soooo cute!"

[trent59822]

It is nothing compared to Irwin's, but here you go...

I only adopted during 3.1. What's the C line? Center line maybe?

[rodneyf]

I am not 100% sure but I believe that stood for construction lines, this was pre-reference planes that we know and love now. Maybe one of the Revit founders can verfiy or deny my answer.

[jbalding48677]

I only adopted during 3.1. What's the C line? Center line maybe?
That was just a line it was a vertical and C then the word line.

[marty_rozmanith]

Love that new streamlined interface....

Surely, somebody has a screenshot of the beta before the designbars were put in. JB - I thought you said you had first beta ;-)

-M

[jbalding48677]

Love that new streamlined interface....

Surely, somebody has a screenshot of the beta before the designbars were put in. JB - I thought you said you had first beta ;-)

-M
I have "Pre-Release Build - Win NT only", "Pre-Release 1.0 - Win 98 & NT" and "Pre-Release Build 2 - Win NT only"

Shall I install the first one and see what we get?

[jbalding48677]

Now this brings back memories...

[GuyR]

It's amazing how little the overall design has changed.

Shows you how the fundamental design and development work was so good from day one.

Guy

[Scott D Davis]

Funny how the "Section" tool icon shows a stepped section...I remember that in version 1.0, you could 'jog' the section line, but it didn't give a real stepped section view!

We didn't get the real stepped section tool until 7.0!

[jbalding48677]

yeah it was easy to install, no licensing and quite similar to work with. The only down side is that I could not open the file I created in 8.0 :-?

The pulldowns were pretty fun to go through. Settings|Options was hardware acceleration on/off and accurender library locations and that was it.

[irwin]

So how did it all start? What was the spark?

Question for those in the know ..

What I am wondering is what sequence of events / circumstances / coincidences / meetings / technology / thoughts / motivations / collaborations etc etc that coincided to give rise to the birth of Revit?

I know the light bulb needed changing .. but how did you find the light switch in the first place?

In partial answer, here are the remarks I made at the Revit launch event, April 2000.


Irwin Jungreis, Revit launch, April 2000:

I’ve been looking forward to tonight since two and a half years ago. At that time, I decided to investigate whether there was an opportunity for a new company in the AEC market. It turned out that Leonid had independently decided to start a company to work on the same problem, so we decided to get together.

I have a friend who is an architect and former CAD manager. The first thing I did was spend a week with her looking at the software that architects used and getting an initial understanding of what they needed. I couldn’t believe how far the software was from what it could be.

I’m someone who likes to fix things, and when I saw the state of software for the AEC industry, I knew I had a mission, to build the software that would let architects do their jobs more easily and productively. To let them focus on design, while the software took care of the rest.

The first thing that Leonid and I did was talk to dozens of building design professionals to learn more about their needs and ideas. Some of those people are in this room now, and I can’t thank you enough for the help and encouragement you gave us. I hope that what we are building can live up to the vision that you articulated.

We realized that the fundamental problem was change propagation. A large building and its documentation have hundreds of thousands or even millions of components and annotations, with many complex interrelationships between them. We knew that we would need an engine for propagating changes between elements that could handle that level of complexity.

We looked first to existing solutions. In the Mechanical CAD industry, people had found two ways of dealing with constraints, Variational and history-based parametric. Variational solvers solved all constraints in the whole model simultaneously. That could never work for a building of any size. History-based parametric solvers remember the order in which things were created, and replay the whole sequence with new parameters any time a change is made. That would mean that even the smallest change would require regenerating the whole building. In the AEC industry, for the most part the software had very little change propagation at all; certainly nothing general enough to handle all of the changes that come up in real architectural work.

What we came up with was a new approach that we call Context-driven Parametrics. The idea is that, unlike history-based solvers, the way things solve does not depend on the order in which they were created. Instead depending on what change you are making, the solver dynamically constructs the minimal sequence of steps needed to propagate that change. The time it takes to make a change depends on the size of the change, not on the size of the model. Furthermore, the effects of the change don’t depend on how the model was created, so they are easier to understand by other members of the design team.

Once we figured out the context-driven parametric solver, we knew that the technical challenges of building Revit were manageable and we turned our attention to team building. We have been extremely fortunate in the quality of people who has joined our team. You’ve gotten to meet Dave and Alex. I feel very lucky that we were able to attract such talented people to our effort. The development team that has been bringing this effort to fruition is, I am certain, the most talented group of developers the CAD industry has ever seen. I would really like to thank everyone in the company for an almost miraculous achievement of building this company and product.

[sbrown]

Thanks for sharing that and thank you for looking at the Building industry's needs.

[Batman]

Yeh, thanks to all from a noob. It all gives very relevant background as to why Revit is just so special.

[Steve_Stafford]

Yes..echo...Thanks!

Is it true that you or Leonid were building a home at the time and that process served as motivation or at least exposure? True or urban legend? :)

[cosmickingpin]

and the question we all want to ask but are a little afraid to, "So how rich are you guys now?" Not looking for numbers, really vague descriptions will do, you know like "super-loaded" "nicely priced" or "buy some more seats you all! damn it!, I can't even get my yacht washed..."


Yes..echo...Thanks!

Is it true that you or Leonid were building a home at the time and that process served as motivation or at least exposure? True or urban legend? :)

[Paul P.]

It's been said many time before but its true that Revit has made working (for myself) more enjoyable, thanks.

Regards, Paul.

[LRaiz]

Is it true that you or Leonid were building a home at the time and that process served as motivation or at least exposure? True or urban legend? :)
In reality I build my house 3 years prior to starting Revit. The experience let me observe the inefficiencies of architectural design and documentation. After Revit was already formed I told someone about my observations. Somehow sales and marketing guys transformed the story into an inspirational legend and I did not object.

[Roger Evans]

Thanks Irwin Thanks Leonid
Yes very appreciated & I was really after the root of it so I would guess the housebuilding was more influential than you think ~ not the real spark but very pertinent.
I am also certain there is a very interesting storyline here worth the telling & it should at least be set down for posterity. Pioneer's experiences are always fascinating.

Many Thanks
Roger

[jbalding48677]

and the question we all want to ask but are a little afraid to, "So how rich are you guys now?" Not looking for numbers, really vague descriptions will do, you know like "super-loaded" "nicely priced" or "buy some more seats you all! damn it!, I can't even get my yacht washed..."Who cares how much $ these guys have. They set out to solve a problem and did a FANTASTIC job doing so. Let's put this in perspective, if their product allows me to make $100 more a day (very conservative) and I have to pay $5.31 a day to run the software, I am only too happy to pay for it. (5 year amortization)

[Roger Evans]

Part of the story is .. why are they still here? What's the commitment / motivation / compulsion / drive ?

[aaronrumple]

Let's put this in perspective, if their product allows me to make $100 more a day (very conservative) and I have to pay $5.31 a day to run the software, I am only too happy to pay for it. (5 year amortization)No matter how quick I am, that $100/day never seems to show up in my pocket.

[cosmickingpin]

Sorry guys, I guess I should have asked my question a little more explicitly. Raiz and company, How pleased are you with Revit's penetration into the AEC software market? I imagine the acquisition by autodesk was not necessarily apart of the original plan, but has that truly been an asset to Revit popularity? Autodesk is sitting at ground zero of a AEC software revolution, and they seem content just to passively cash those ADT checks, but really have not pushed Revit to capture the attention of the AEC profession, domestically or foreign. Or do you feel Autodesk has truly stepped up to the plate with Revit?


Who cares how much $ these guys have. They set out to solve a problem and did a FANTASTIC job doing so. Let's put this in perspective, if their product allows me to make $100 more a day (very conservative) and I have to pay $5.31 a day to run the software, I am only too happy to pay for it. (5 year amortization)