Multi-Department Firm

[harkeychad]

I am starting a new project with a new firm that has Electrical-Mechanical-Structural and Architectural in house.We have Arch, Struct and Mech Revit and I am the only one with real experience using the software (Arch) My main question is about electrical/lighting. Should I let the Electrical put in the lighting? Do they have the same lighting that the Arch Revit uses ? We only have one network license per disipline I pretty much know how it works with Struct and Mech on inserting into the main project, just not sure on who puts the lighting objects in.

How about any links to previous questions on the lines of this? Thanks for the info.

[m20roxxers]

I would defintely let the electrical guys put in the lighting if your using MEP 2009.

Co-ordinating lighting is alot harder when your trying to channel it between 2 Revit Files. I would also makre sure the lighting is all face based components again alot easier to control as opposed to bringing in ceilings again which may not be co-ordinated.

The 2009 workflow with Revit MEP doesn't require the copy/monitor of walls, and columns only of levels and grids and trying to copy ceiling hosted lighting components across an Architectural file is a nightmare, I know having to help the lighting guys prepare a BIM model for the client only last week and they had barely any Revit experience. Trying to bring things across from the Arch file is harder. It's alot easier for them to link your model in, build lighting and switches as face based components off your linked model then linking in their electrical model straight over yours and running any interference checks that may need to take place. We ended up stripping the Arch file of everything but ceilings and lighting (since they were ceiling based components and you can't change a Host component into anything else which requires you to have ceilings in the MEP model. Then any changes must be co-ordinated with the ceilings which means bringing all the changed ceilings and rehosting the lighting to the new Arch ceilings or changing them manually.

I would definately run with face based components onto top of a linked model and linking that model back into your Architectural model.

[twiceroadsfool]

What are the projects needs in terms of renderings? I know its minutia in the scheme of things, but consider that linked files dont carry light sources during rendering, if youre doing it right in Revit instead of Max. So if youre not putting them in, consider that.

Just a minor thought to consider...

[harkeychad]

I will be doing a lot of rendering in revit. We dont have max. This sounds like I am going to end up doing the lighting myself then correct? thanks for the respnces.