HELP: need lots of help

[thomasf]

I am a big fan of Revit and I convinced my firm to make the switch about 18 months ago. My bosses decided to jump right in and start doing projects w/o setting up standards, creating families, making view templates etc. I'm sure y'all can imagine the headaches it has caused, not to mention Revit wasn't exactly desinged for residential projects.

I have gotten a lot of help here in the forums and my quesiton is; is there anybody (preferably in the Houston area) that is using Revit for high-end custom residential projects that is willing to guide me, or mentor me or whatever word may fit, as I attempt to un-cluster this cluster-@!#*


Thanks,

Tom

[patricks]

Why do you think it wasn't designed for residential projects?

While I haven't done any in-depth residential projects, I have drawn a couple of houses in Revit on the side and it seemed to work fine.

[thomasf]

Mainly because all the reseller's and trainers have told me that and even a couple people from Autodesk said the same thing.

We do really custom homes, multi level, complicated roofs etc. The biggest pain we have found is with the roofs. Revit wants to measure the overhang from finish to finish and, obviously, that's not how it's built. We've done 3 projects so far and everyone of them has a fudged roof with about a third of it line work. I'm hoping this is because we haven't figured out how to model roofs given Revit's quirks.

That's why I'm looking for help from people who have successful used Revit to produce CDs for 10,000 sq. ft. and larger homes.

[twiceroadsfool]

Revit is certainly capable of doing high end custom residential, its just like anything else... You need to get the in's and the out's of all the spceific tools down really well (specifically the roof tool) before you get in to something like a high end custom residential roof.

But it certainly better be capable... Im doing a 6000 SF House at home currently, and if Revit cant do it, id better keep ignoring that fact. Cuz im not using anything but. :)

[patricks]

Regarding the roofs, if you sketch the footprint lines going to the core face of the exterior wall, then specify the overhang distance from the core face (which would be outside face of stud), and then change the roof to Rafter instead of Truss, the roof will be situated as it typically is with wood-frame construction. That is, the bottom edge of the rafter (roof's core layer) will intersect the wall at the inside face of stud, just as it should.

See my post in this thread:
http://forums.augi.com/showpost.php?p=797434&postcount=4

And also the 4th post down in this thread:
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=58013

[kpaxton]

Thomas,

Hang in there Buddy!
FWIW, I've sent you a Private Message - please read and give me a call.

Kyle

[DoTheBIM]

Why do you think it wasn't designed for residential projects?

While I haven't done any in-depth residential projects, I have drawn a couple of houses in Revit on the side and it seemed to work fine.Revit can do Residential, but it depends on what level of detail you need/want and how much effort your willing to put into custom families to make it work the way you need it to. From what I've heard the residential side of the business is too scattered for any seriouse effort to be put into making Revit more residential friendly, so most of the effort goes toward making it work better for commercial firm and they have a larger precentage of seats I'm sure so commercial guys will get the preference treatment.

[kpaxton]

Mainly because all the reseller's and trainers have told me that and even a couple people from Autodesk said the same thing..


Revit can do Residential, ...From what I've heard the residential side of the business is too scattered for any seriouse effort to be put into making Revit more residential friendly, so most of the effort goes toward making it work better for commercial firm and they have a larger precentage of seats I'm sure so commercial guys will get the preference treatment.

At times I guess when I read comments regarding the 'use' of Revit, I sometimes have to smirk...and scratch my head. (DoTheBim, this isn't directed at you btw!) I've used Revit for both Commercial and Residential projects and in my experience, I wouldn't say it is "geared" towards one way or the other. Was the program made specifically for the residential market? No, it wasnt'. Yes, the program has a wide variety of tools available to the user to do their work and a lot of them are used in the commercial realm. And they can be used just as well doing a residential project. Now, whether the firms use the tools or not is up to them.

When I do a project, it is Architecture... not just residential or commercial. I still have to define the foundation, the structure, the skin and the coverings as well as the interior aspects - volume, form, space, light and colors. I have to make plans, elevations, sections, site plans, etc... How much is done or conveyed in the project set is the only true aspect I've seen that varies from office to office. But then, this is true whether you're using Revit or a pencil and paper...

I'm not sure what tools or aspects could be added to the program that would make it more 'residential friendly', so to speak. I know of some users who've complained because the program doesn't show every single stud in a wall or joist/truss in the roof. In my opinion, the program doesn't need that specificity that can't be handled in some other way. But this is bordering on an off topic-discussion, so I'll keep it simple.

Bottom line is that Revit can do whatever you want it to do. It does require that you learn the program, its tools and it's intricacies (and quirks) and sometimes it requires you to change the way you look at things from time to time. In the end, many users have had very successful projects within the program, whether its residential or commercial.

My two cents,
Kyle

[DoTheBIM]

Totally agree with you but with the condition that it all depends on how much you want to achieve with the program without having to use additional tools. Success is defined in many ways and is very different from person to person, firm to firm. What one architect might define as the goal, another might define that as only 75% complete as an example that is. To blindly say Revit can do whatever you want it to is assuming any number of things involved with a project don't need to be done. For instance, we need quantity take-offs or Bill of Materials. Revit can't really do this. Well it can to some extent using nested families, but you really wouldn't want to maintain database type info in families and files. We've developed a seperate interface that uses ODBC to get the data and then map all the needed items to Revit objects in order to output a semi-complete BOM. But yeah for most "normal" Architectural needs Revit does just fine commercial or residential... and "normal" is obviously defined differently as well depending on your point of view, but I'd like to define normal in this case as "traditional" Architectual service.