Input for a Non-Revit User

[RodneyLester]

Hello,

The reason for my post is to get an objective opinion as to whether my company could productively use Revit.

I am the Cad Manager (among other things) at my company. My company manufactures "Custom Aluminum Curtainwall Systems" for various size and shape buildings ranging from 3 story office buildings to 30 story hotels.

We are currently using Autocad 2002 for our drawings. We take the architectural/structural drawings and produce our own set of completely detailed drawings in order for us to manufacture the curtainwall. These drawings are also used by our customer to install the curtainwall in the field. All of our projects are a very large jigsaw puzzle of pieces that are fabricated to the 32nd of an Inch.

I have attached a few .dwf files showing some of our drawings. I would appreciate any opinions the true Revit users of this group would share with me.

What I am interested in hearing is whether Revit would suit my purposes seeing that my drawings are so detailed.

Thanks for your imput.

Rodney D. Lester
Systems Manager
GMS, Inc.

[gregcashen]

This seems like a great candidate for the Revit Series. You will probably want to continue to use your existing Autocad details (or you could turn them into Revit detail components and insert them into a Revit Template to drag and drop into new projects.) I see no reason why you would not be able to get this level of detail with Revit. I would suggest downloading and using the 30-day demo and trying to reproduce a simple project. That will give you some training as well as tell you if Revit is for you. And of course, if you need any tips, check in here.

[Kirky]

I would imagine the greatest gain would be for your clients, in better understanding of where to put what. i.e. Revit manages these links extremely well, with output of these links retained in a DWF format or reflected in the building model. Combine this with bar-coding of actual components and you would have a very robust system of documentation.

[tatlin]

Hi Rodney,

I just took a look at the dwfs you posted and did not see anything that Revit could not handle. Although Revit will not 'magically' create all your drawings (yet ), there are actually many advantages to using Revit for the type of work you mention. In fact, there are other construction firms that use revit today in a fashion very similar to what you would like to do. They basically take a set of documents from the architect and instead of estimating by hand, they build a revit model.

Building the model does a few things for them:
- Allows them to double-check the architects work (ever get a set of CDs where a dimension or two was fudged?)
- Helps them figure out how to actually build the building and identify problems early.
- Allows them to pump out accurate quantities, areas and volumes for estimation (from a schedule or though ODBC).
- Allows them to pump out coordinated, accurate shop drawings like the ones you posted.

So if you built the model, you'd get quantities, lengths and areas for all your different glass panels, spandrel panels and mullions.

And from the dwfs you posted, the plans, sections, elevations and details would be coordinated. You can also reuse your standard mullion and connection details by importing the dwgs or by creating detail components or model families.

Any other questions, please PM or email me. I can also hook you up with our resident construction guru, Ken Stowe for a webcast similar to what I outlined above.

thanks,