when you are done learning REVIT, you can walk around looking down your nose at all your old 2d CAD buddies. While they are talking about their favorate dynamic block,...you can quietly think of your advanced Parametric Family Library.


<also, dont think you can just go out get SU and and think you are just as good as REVIT with CAD and SU,...just commit now , go big...REVIT pays>

Every firm I have interviewed with in the last few weeks was very interested in Revit experience....come over to the dark side, it isn't that bad.

ive recently downloaded the 30-day revit trial, and i'm in the same boat as you. i know acad 2d like the back of my hand, but revit seems to be where the money/large companies are.

if anyone has pointers or good recommendations on tips/training/etc i am all ears.

I was always a super lefty in CAD..It felt more efficient..I was proud of "No toolbars"....when i got into REVIT, I never really learned the hotkeys, so now I do everything with the mouse...which is annoying.
I used to be Lab Tech...you could always tell someone is learning REVIT when you hear them talking about how cool it is...and WOW... and when you go over and look at their screen , you just see a box with a roof on it...hahaha

old CAD experts always get euphoric when they switch... so I always make fun of them,.."What took you so long?"

Yeh im def. considering making the jump pretty soon.
Im just a little intimidated in learning a new program because I am really good with CAD and I hate how I will loose all that knowledge that ive gained.

ff33-what is SU?

J- I would love to take a small project all the way through to CD's with this program but in the year that I have been working I have only seen one really big project through to CDs with my PM.. haha

hmmm... Im wondering If I could do that project in a couple of months-part time and without any revisions

I have read theres not much UI control in Revit.. I love the command alias editor in ACAD

sketchup

some firms will use thecommon method of "interns on 2d" for their cds, and do the rest of their DD in SU...its cheaper on the pocketbook, but is not parametric. I know of a firm that uses SU and AI for everything. REVIT is both of these programs and more ...and faster.

you draw elements in revit while drawing lines in cad

the drawing process is dramatically speed up in basic steps like modeling STAIRCASE and SPIRAL RAMPS as well as punching holes on a wall for doors and windows

Revit is amazingly easy to manipulate however requiring much system resources as u're actually building 3D all the time

in college ... i used REVIT & AutoCAD together
normally draft the basics like stairs, doors, wall, windows in REVIT
then add design details and nicer symbol objects in ACAD (still not satisfied with revit object library.. and too slugish to produce my own)

and i will further use the less detailed REVIT 3D model for rendering in max

Please pay attention to the SNAPPING when drawing in REVIT
i am fxxked up by my project partnering arch firm who uses revit to produce their drawing .... and always produce 1.017899987 dimensions instead of 1.00

typing in dimensions are usually preferred and actually convenient

if u are producing very fancy forms
REVIT is never the right graphic tool
i'd rather go for max or physical models

it doesn;t get more textbook than all that

cons: you're creating architecture out of a kit of parts rather than creating Architecture.

Lots of firms are either using REVIT or looking to get into it.
besides, wouldn't hurt to learn something new and add it to the list of growing skills.
there are video tutorials you can buy for training. you could just turn it on during breaks, sit back and eat a pb&j. in no time, you'll be a guru (or close to it).

This is the same lament heard constantly during the shift from manual drafing to 2-D CAD.

Try to remember that our mission is to design and deliver good buildings - not just good drawings. Making that distinction helps you be flexible about the tools you learn and use.

If your concept of self-worth is tied up mostly in your drafting skills - rather than your design and detailing skills - then you're going to find this inevitable transition mighty tough.

Meta ..i have no clue what your talking about yet but i think i get your drift ...

Well so far here and on other forums I have not heard anyone highly against REVIT other than ppl who screwed up a project b/c of lack of knowledge in the program

I probably shouldnt be asking this but does anyone have a KeyGen for Revit that they could send me so I can learn the program ...It would be greatly appreciated

isohunt.com

mininova.org
etc

meta -thanks for the feedback yeh i knew what you meant by massing im just a little unfamiliar with what you meant by 36 variables and the technical data of revit.. but i can imagine a facade component with 36 variables to achieve a completely customizable modular facade that can be manipulated easily

ff33- that site is great ..thanx!

can we be a little more judicious about stealing other people's intellectual property ... we complain here a lot about protecting our own intellectual property ... are we really that selective in our judgment about what is right or wrong?

thieves the world over use the "because I could not afford it" excuse ... that does not make theft right.

one of the essential ingredients of being a professional is having certain ethical standards that we embrace, even when that decision may not be in our own personal interests.

I do not beleive in stealing other peoples intellectual property but if it is to learn a program that I will be using for a really long time I will be giving them business by working at a firm that purchases licensing rights for this program.

I also could potentially promote this program by refering people to use it.

I am still feeding them just not directly

Now if i was to go out and start a business on my own with this program that would be a different story.

I DO NOT CONDONE STEALING. IF YOU FEEL YOUR SOFTWARE CHOICE REQUIRES MORE THAN A TRIAL COPY FOR TRAINING, THEN BY ALL MEANS DO WHAT YOU CAN TO LEARN IT. WHY AM I YEALLING..?!

..oh caps lock a was on .sorry. there thats better

outsourced drafting:
dude builds a revit model of a residential addition for me in about 20 hours including setting up sheets. the set looks pretty damn good for 20 hours of work i think. i send a set of redlines and then he refines the model per my mark-ups and bills me 60 hours....

if i compare the two sets of drawings, i'd have to say that in autocad, i'd expect about 16 hours of work would've produced a similar end product. so where the fuck did the time go???????

he tells me that he had to fix some internal model stuff, roof heights, etc....

i had told him at the outset - we're just getting the client a permit - that's it. i don't need a perfect model to design down to the gnat's ass.

so here's my question since i don't know revit (that's turning out to be a big ass problem...)

is the overhead in building a revit model for a simple residential addition so high that it becomes untenable? on a larger project i can see the value of an accurate model being amortized over the design & documentation process.

do i chalk it up to a drafter who can't see the forest for the trees and he thinks his job is to build a revit model when really his job is to get the client a permit so we can actually build something?

do i need to completely rethink how to calculate a fee with revit on small jobs?

oh - and the drawings look like crap unless i ride him endlessly to watch lineweights/hatching/text size...he blames revit and having to setup 'standards'.

thanks meta.
dude is billing himself as one of the top revit experts in the state....

but what do you think re: my question on "no project being too small" for revit? is there a minimum amount of overhead to build a revit model that would require a different means of forecasting time vs/ 2d drafting?

i know there's a lot of assumptions in that question; i'm just trying to keep the discussion broad.

new mexico does not have any top revit experts. I set up Modulus Design with Revit and Sam as well...now a Modulus ex is working on Revit for Sam...talk to them...they should know about as much as anyone else in New Mexico.

Revit can be time consuming when it comes to customizing the look and feel to a particular architects style...i.e. the default settings are not the best for every scenario...I am guessing this is where your employee lost his time...but one should not be charging to learn the tool...if that is what he was doing.

yeah jason - i was in sam's place last week and mentioned this to z to get some feedback and confirmation.

i just had a thought that maybe z can open this revit file and quickly do some pathology on it to see what's up....

thanks.

there are a lot of issues with revit. think autocad r14 on a 486 or early p1, it will get better as technology gets better. utilize, at least early on, pre-made revit components/models - doors, windows, casework, etc...the big issue i have is when to stop modeling. when do you draw a line in the sand and move from modeling to document production? not all walls work the way you want them to all of the time, some work well when joining at corners others don't. there is a lot of front end built into this software, and with time it and you will get there.

as for guru's, well i have met a few, and they're guru's to a point, they know what autodesk taught them, and when you have a problem they have to talk to tech support and often the answer is we don't know or haven't made that part of a new update. here's an example; you have an existing building with existing columns and grid, and a new building with new columns and grid. the grids are treated the same way, both grids regardless of how they look are treated as if they are the same. that goes for everything in the existing/new there are no distinctions, as there are in autocad.

revit won't let you create "dumb" drawings without few gymnastics.

stick with it, it's confounding as hell, but i think in the long run the tool will benefit the profession, i just hope it happens sooner rather than later as i hope to get the heck out of production very soon....

revit for smaller buildings is a waste of time. especially since the smaller the building is the more customized non repeating details it is likely to have. doing non standard stuff on revit can sometimes be very frustrating. what else is frustrating is that not all parts of a building (ok, i'll say components) offer the same amount of control - think of trying to do a non-standard staircase that is part dog legged and part spiral. if you model the stair you loose a lot of the 'intelligence' of a staircase component....i can go on and on.

yeah, your right REVIT blows...fuck that software...stick with cad

El Jeffe and ayodh bring up small project inefficiency... well I don't like the sound of that, given that we're about to go Revit office-wide. How well DOES it work for houses and additions? I was expecting it to be great for a one-guy small project..no?

maybe they haven't figure out how to use templates yet.

I have used it on mostly very small projects and it works fine. You have to be able to be flexible enough to utilize it as you need to...so, it ends up being a lot of menu sub menu editing of line types etc to get a certain look on a certain drawing...not necessarily intuitive...but in the last version you couldn't edit styles for a specific page...so it is getting better and better.

Sometimes your best solution in Revit is to resolve on the sheet in 2d as opposed to trying to make everything work perfectly in both 2d and 3d space...it is just not there and it is not worth beating the tool when you know its short comings...work around them...it is easy enough.

The big issue I run into is that the operator "isn't there" yet. I have used it for over 5 years now. There is a certain efficiency and competence required of any tool to get it to work properly. You can give a chimp a hammer, but he wont necessarily put the nail in the right place.
I use Revit for everything. I do design build TI's where the contractor gives me 2d acad, I import it, do my work in Revit (3d) and export it back to him as acad 2d. No project too small, if you know what you are doing.
Revit, like acad, is heavy on the front end. You HAVE to set up standards, build your own components, and establish your own linestyles if you want it to look the way you are used to. The difference is that I can tell Revit that the line is .05 mm and it will look like .05 mm on screen. No ctb to mess with, no trying to remember if the magenta is heavy or the red.
I helped a friend out over the weekend to create some linetypes for ACAD and didn't really enjoy the hour it took us to edit the .lin file in notepad to get the right look, that only looked right if ltscale was set to 1 blah, blah, blah.
In short, I can't imagine doing architecture in 2d cad ever again.
j

jason and josh -- good information from you both as usual... like I say I'm also interested in using it on one-man-show projects I might do on my own, so I wasn't sure what to make of some of the other comments about small scale problems... thanks --

i've got to disagree. i see no advantage using it on small projects. if anything it seems less efficient than conventional 2d cad. bim is great for coordination. you have a massive door schedule. use bim. you have complicated mechanical and structural systems. go bim. you have thirty sheets of details. bim all the way. if you're doing a 1,000 sf addition, there's absolutely no point to using bim. why complicate your practice and add an extra expense to your business?

Never use a hammer for a job requiring a screwdriver.

BIM's just a tool - and we have to choose the right tool for any specific job. And, in my estimation, BIM is not necessarily the most effective or efficient tool for delivering either an academic project or a small project - at least at this state of the art.

But, consider the potential to the profession. Not only will BIM evolve into a powerful design tool over time, but it provides a real possibility to improve the economics of professional practice, if we don't squander the opportunity.

Ultimately, clients - especially sophisticated clients - will force the profession to embrace BIM because it will lead to more efficient project delivery and fewer mistakes. Any business that ignores the legitimate needs and desires of its customers is doomed.

BIM, by itself, will not make average designers great designers. But, BIM can help good designers operate more successful practices.

You can fight it or you can embrace it - that's your choice. Our firm has chosen to adopt BIM, even though it's not yet a mature technology. We already can see the benefits it affords our clients, our staff and our firm. We're buying in to the promise.

it takes the same amount of time to draw a line in CAD as a wall in REVIT. A good Residential Template does the rest. so yes, if you want a bare bones 2d addition , I am sure you can bang it out quickly.

many clients appreciate the 3d views though....and DD is only easier with 3d.

i like that saying "out of a kit of parts"
inside a box

i know where you're coming from, ff. i would likely have a model made for presentation that i would use for rendering and have separate development files. yes, it's an extra step, but i generally believe trying to multitask a bim model for presentation does not fly, but that's a whole nother issue.

my feeling on bim is that there are major advantages when trying to coordinate large proejcts, but i also think there are an awful lot of principals out there that pick up arch record, read how great it is, and want to implement it in his or her office without the faintest clue what that actually means. there is a time and a place for bim. the hard part is knowing when and where that is.

"...but i also think there are an awful lot of principals out there that pick up arch record, read how great it is, and want to implement it in his or her office without the faintest clue what that actually means...."

Hah. Right now that's pretty much exactly what's happening in our office...! A good point as well, ja...

My office ordered the complete Revit DVD tutorial. Truly amazing tutorials...very easy to understand...covers just about everything....except I havent found anything on Importing and exporting to Sketch-up...something I need to learn to do.

weAREtheSTONES... if I'm reading the website correctly, did your complete REVIT purchase run around 215 bucks? Seems like a bargain, given that we have maybe 8 people interested in learning it...

yeah that was about right

You get all the updates the tutor from the website gives via internet as soon as they are availible...as well as recieve the same updates (DVD) via snail mail about 4 to 5 weeks later.

There is a total of about 800 REVIT tutorials give or take a hundred or 2. either way amazing

3D for DD SD and CDs is key and very important but to do it with a boxed solution is limiting and disabling i feel. especially if it is from Autodesk who got it threw a hostile take over and plays both sides of the coin in order to profit

Antisthenes -
-I felt the same way when I first starting using REVIT -....................a year later...and I cant really say that anymore...I'm back to saying what I did when I was an AutoCAD pro - "You can do anything in AutoCAD.....anything"

I will eat sleep and breathe REVIT until something bigger and better comes along

bim works maybe through dds; i am yet to see cds produced with bim (maybe reflects more the offices i've worked for, but i doubt it). file sizes quickly become an issue with cds, even worse when you are on a network. i've seen very good networks taken down very quickly on large projects. most offices will tend to go 2d when beginning cds (if not earlier).

like wearethestones, i wanted to believe in bim, especially coming out of school where bim-type thinking greatly increased my production. but the more i've seen in practice, the less i am a believer. at this point, i think a very well-organized project architect and diligent interns can produce a project just as quickly if not more in 2d.

i started using revit when it came out before autodesk bought it

and i was never a fan of autocad because i knew about rhinoceros

BOM is my preference

Is anyone using Bentley...their new supposedly full parametric BIM version? There is a vague "push" by some in our office to use this... I have NO experience with it...

AllPlan has a 2008 BIM version too.

but ya no experience either

I actually sent out my first set of CD's in Revit this past Thursday. We used revit from SD to DD to CD...and never used autoCAD to produce any drawings...details too!!! The only time AutoCAD was used was to take consultants drawing and underlay them in revit and manage the Acad drawing that way. other times we have imported our old acad details...only lines...very basic...no hatches. then added repeating details and such.
Details are what people (from my experience with revit) seem to be scared of...as were we when we pioneered revit. But it is actually the easiest thing...I actually love drafting details in revit

-The biggest problem Ive seen is that people have to know when to draft 2D and when to model 3D....modeling can dig you into a huge hole.

Antisthenes - you shoudl give Revit a stab again...though it still has some minor glitches...it has come a long way since autodesk bought it...not to say that autodesk did some monumental things ... but it has been a while.

hey STONES, can you hang out in my office for a couple six months or so?....

By th way, what do you send non-Revit using consultants to work from?

SandRoad - funny you should say that
Got back just before x-mas - maybe I should update the other thread

File>Export to CAD formats.....
Send attached email
- as well as a bunch of shit about getting them to make the conversion to BIM.

weARE theStones- What size ,type of project did u work on ..and about how long did it take you?

Speaking of small projects I just watched a lecture by SHOP on GSD webcasts ..they did a small one story building and produced there set of CDs in all 3D ..pretty amazing stuff