Modelling versus Documentation

[barathd]

I have doggedly achieved a reasonable decent skill level as far as "modelling" in Revit is concerned. I get very satisfactory results in good time. However - when it comes time to document my drawings I'm finding Revit is still pretty impish.

I realize the term "documentation" has a broad range of meaning to a lot of different people. To me it is the ability to communicate the design intent in a clear, precise and thorough manner to the contractor (without error or exclusion).

Seems to me - a considerable number of people on the forum are only concerned about Revit's modeling capabilities. Documentation to me is just as vital. How do others feel about this?

Obviously any improvements to text, tables, importing excel and word docs, dimension formating, etc. would greatly benefit Revits documentation capability. Perhaps a very, very robust keynoting and scheduling capability would achieve the same. For sure at this present things are very limp.

Regards

Dick Barath

[patricks]

I'm not sure why you feel that way. Perhaps your opinion of Revit's documenting capabilities will change as you gain more experience using it for that purpose.

I started using Revit when I joined my firm back in May 2004, fresh out of college. I had very little AutoCAD knowledge (stumbled my way through it to document my thesis project), and picked up on Revit quickly.

Ever since my firm started using Revit back before I was even working here, we have always done 100% construction drawings in Revit. I completely cringe at the thought of having to modify a drawing in AutoCAD/ADT. What I can do in 10 minutes in Revit would probably take me an hour in ADT, just because things like dimensions, text, etc. is so completely intuitive in Revit, and completely NOT in ADT.

I couldn't even begin to imagine the effort that would be required for me to model in Revit and then document in ADT or any other program. Coordination would be a nightmare. Revit does most of the coordination for you if your documents are in the same file with the model. That takes a HUGE load off of our shoulders when it comes down to the end of the project and it's time to issue sealed drawings.

Last year my firm did a new middle school project over in a neighboring county. I put a TON of effort into that project and took the model MUCH farther than I had ever taken it before. Because the model was, in my opinion, so much better than before, my details and other documentation were also better than before. More than one contractor bidding on the job said it was the best set of CD's they had seen, and when the bids came in, the lowest 4 bidders were all within $100,000 of each other, on a $6 million job. The bids actually all came in about $1M under the original estimated budget. Not so good for our fee, but certainly good for the owner!

To me, that says a LOT about Revit's documentation capabilities.

[barathd]

Patrick:

I have been using Revit since Release 2 (pre A...) - this is got nothing to do with practice. I just feel cramped and inhibited by the lack of proper functions. No problem doing complete working documents - I have done my share of large projects in Revit.

For instance I use tables to convey an awful lot of structural info in my drawings. Schedules sometimes are just not appropiate - i.e. materials types and properties. Sometimes dual dimension metric and imperial are required, I like to put descriptions associated with my dimensions - problems ... Yes you can do all of this with workarounds ... there should be no need for this.

Importing tabular info from Excel - screw around with PDF's ... the list goes on and on. The text tool has no support for common used symbols ... the list is endless.

I'm sure this is extremely irritating for some and not for others.

Guess it boils down to attitude - just tired of waiting and waiting for nothing to happen in the next release of software. Just seems futile at times.

Regards

Dick Barath