Taking a step back?

[Martin P]

A revelation in our office over the last few working days - detailing by hand - can be far quicker than by CAD (Revit or otherwise). I am not talking about using a board and a set square etc, but just a few different pen widths and a scale. We are all being told if the detail is not going to be used again - do not do it on CAD......... It is a breath of fresh air to be honest, particularly on one refurb job we are doing where there are loads of one off details to do. it is much quicker, and much more pleasant to do, and it conveys exactly the same information. it is much nicer than getting bogged down over 2mm here and 6.5mm there - just draw a nice fat line!

The boss is pricing some tablets, and we have installed Architectural Studio to have a look at - I honestly think with a tablet and Arch studio hours of super accurate - frankly not required accuracy - detailing in CAD could be over. It is really nice to draw again, it could be amazing with a tablet and arch studio......... quite an exciting prospect.

[aaronrumple]

all I can say is: Best of luck with Arch. Studio.

[Roger Evans]

Martin

That's nice to hear.

I also find Details in Revit are too accurate & need to be exploded a little to convey the information

I also scan in details & scale them up as Jpegs ~ also thumbnail plan layouts can be very useful when you are working up a design in Revit have you tried this yet? It can give a very nice print

I think it more a step into Reality and it can also be more therapeutic.

Haven't tried tablets yet so don't know but a pencil & paper have to be the cheapest, & certainly one of the best methods available.

Cheers

Roger.

[PeterJ]

I think you will find it difficult to replace the pen and paper with Architectural Studio. I have it and have played around with it with limited success, but maybe one needs to persevere.

Good luck

[hand471037]

Drawing by hand *is* faster in many cases.

Making changes by hand, or drawing repeative elements, is most definately not.

I started in a firm that was 'split'- plans on CAD, eveything else by hand. When drawing details, on R12 AutoCAD, I would match the good hand-drafters line for line, and wouldn't really be able to draw things faster than they could. But when it came time to make a change, even to something trivial like a bit of text- I was way out in front now, while the other guy was still getting his electric eraser out.

Now, with Revit, same situation, different plaftorms. If someone is a very experanced & fast 3D modeler with ADT/MAX or something, they will be able to keep up with me using Revit. But the moment there is a change- I'll be way out in front, while the other guy is still ripping apart his model and gluing it back together.

[RobinBallew]

As you know one of the great parts of using parametric software is that everything you draw is displayed in all views. If you start hand drafting your details you might inadvertently alter your design and not know how it will be reflected in all your other drawings. I am the production manager in an office with just 4 project managers including my self and I still make them draw the details in Revit. I agree it can be faster to get the idea down but in the long run I feel that hand drafting details will create more problems costing you time later.

[John K.]

Truly an amazing coincidence that this topic hit Zoogdesign TODAY! I had this discussion just this AM w/the boss: that it would be faster & easier for me to revise one of our civil dwgs with my trusty #00 Koh-i-noor Rapidograph® pen. The alternative?: Faxing the requested [very minor] changes to our engineer; him pulling a CAD-drafter off of another project; making said changes; plotting YET AGAIN on mylar; stamping; signing; and me picking them up to run them to "The Mall of Justice” [My pet name for a particular county’s very mall-like admin & judicial complex...].

[Martin P]

I think you will find it difficult to replace the pen and paper with Architectural Studio. I have it and have played around with it with limited success, but maybe one needs to persevere.

Good luck

That is dissapointing to hear, it looked good on first impressions. I can imagine it wouldnt be much use at all without being able to "draw" on the screen though. Although we did seem to hit a snag straight away with exporting a dwf file thought we were doing something wrong.....

And true, if the details change it can be a pain to alter them. But to be honest, with most of them if they changed much it would be quiker to just re-draw! but this should be a rarity really