Purpose of Revit Structure

[viktor.kulikovskiy]

We don't do building design but we do have plenty of work around metal structures. I'm in utility business where most of our steel is used in platforms, deadends, takeoffs, bus supports, etc. The name Revit Structure suggests that it could do all kinds of structural work.

So I received a trial copy of it and it seems very tailored for building structural design. Although I can see how it could work for our work.

My question, is it rather difficult to customize it? the families of parts, create new ones, delete unnecessary ones. Is it also possible to make details of drawings that can be sent to a metal fab shop?

Thanks,
Viktor.

[m20roxxers]

Viktor

In your case I would probably look at the AutoCAD Structural Detailing disk that comes with the Revit Structure trial, it handles shop drawings far better then Revit at this stage without heavy customisation.

The Family editor in Revit is easy in principle but harder to master. You do not need to be a programmer or anything like that but medium math skills would be required as well as a good understanding of 3D drawings.

Customisation of Revit as a whole is quite easy but there are limitations compared to something as open ended as AutoCAD.
That being said I've seen bridges completely done in Revit Structure in complete 3D so I know for a fact nothing is beyond the softwares capabilites. But be prepared to put in the grunt work for creating new families, the process isn't too complicated once you master it, but creating lots of items can take time. Just plan the implementation effectively and you should be fine.