Clash Detection with Imported 3D Piping

[sfraney]

We are working with Revit Arch and Revit MEP 2009 on a current project and received some critical 3d piping that was done in autocad, we've imported the 3d piping into the Revit Model and need to run a clash detection report on the project.

My question is, is their a way that the imported 3d piping model can be analyized by the clash detection report? Or will Revit just ignore ithe piping because it was not created in Revit? Any help would be great.:lol:

[sfraney]

I just wanted to add to this further. I haven't tried this yet, but what about if the imported 3d piping was imported into a plumbing fixture family prior to being adding to the project? Maybe Revit would inteprete the 3d piping this way and analyize it during the clash detection report?

[Zoltan]

Yes. This is the way to do it. Create an in-place family and import the pipes into it. You can select the check box that says "Show Categories from All Disciplines" and select the Pipe Fittings category. Then import the AutoCAD geometry into the in-place family. You can run in Interference Check between the pipe fittings and any other category.

[tomnewsom]

Beware that on any project larger than a regular house, autocad MEP geometry will bog the model down very quickly. It did for us anyway.

[sfraney]

This is indeed good news. Thank you for the response.

On a slighty different note.
The imported piping I was describing was actaully created in Autodesk Inventor.

Anyone know if Inventor will be eventually integrated into Revit MEP? Although I've never used Inventor, I understand it does have parametric modeling abilities as well as an underlying database which tracks parts, assemblies, etc.

Having a robust tool such as Inventor integrated into Revit would seem very powerful. As I understand it now, a design team would need to link an exported Inventor file into Revit as a dwg or similar file, insert the data as a family, then manage the clash detection as the project advances. A similar inversed approach would be needed to serve the Inventor designer. Anyone have workflow experiences using both of these apps on a single project?

What makes Inventor so different from Revit as for why Inventor has not been fully Integrated into Revit MEP yet? Anyone know if Autodesk is looking at doing this? :lol:

[adb]

Remember that it is important as to what catagory you choose to create your family. Some families are cuttable so you can cut through the imported mep geometry whereas other families are not cuttable. In the latter case, no matter where you cut your geometry you will see all of it in front of and behind the clipping plane.

I ran across this issue about a year ago and it was a head scratcher for awhile.

[Calvn_Swing]

Autodesk has taken a very good single building modeling and database tool called Revit Building and diverged into Revit Architecture, Revit MEP, and Revit Structure completely ignoring the fact that an increasing number of firms and contracts are swinging towards integrated project delivery. What makes you think they would combine two "full featured" products and reduce their possible income from both? They may migrate certain toolsets from oen program to another, and they are certainly working on getting some kind of an import-export path and workflow set up, but you'll never see either product go away because then Autodesk would have one less to sell.

Now, this bugs he hell out of me with Revit because we have to buy all three flavors to model what we need to model. But, it doesn't bug me as much with inventor because it is significantly different than Revit. Revit is not meant to model at a level of detail sufficient for manufacture. That's why when you define complex door or curtainwall geometry (try making a curtainwall mullion profile match what will actually be extruded and even a tiny project will crawl...) bad things happen in Revit. Inventor is made specifically for this purpose. This is why when you try and design an entire building's curtainwall system in Inventor it breaks. Inventor is so detailed current hardware cannot handle the massive size of the models either. You're talking two different tools with two totally different purposes here. The fact that they're both BIM does not make them similar in purpose or function.

Personally, I'd bet on a streamlined import export similar to what we see in 2009 between Revit and Max. There are some firms in our area already working on this process with help from Autodesk. This will probably happen sooner than later. Then it is just a matter of designing content in Revit so that it can be effectively exported to Inventor for fabrication.

My two cents...