I've been using it for a year. It's not any harder to invent details with Revit than it is on paper. Our office has completed retail, commercial, industrial and civic projects with it. I've used it on projects up to 100,000 sf. It takes an adjustment, not only on the software side, but on the management side as well.
SOM is using it for the Freedom Tower project and Autodesk put together a webcast on it a couple weeks ago. It's archived somewhere out there.
Thats great that its actually being used "for real"... what would you say the time is that it would take a team of say 4 people (with CAD background) to get up and running with it?
Our projects here are quite a bit larger than what you are talking about (100,000 sf per floor x 20 floors or so), and I have heard that the software can get REAL slow with files that large.
About the SOM thing... a little birdie told me that they just used it to study basic massing options in order to generate instant floor and window wall area calcs for rude estimates during concept design... but who knows, they may have stuck with it...
I have seen the Revit model SOM is working on, and it is not just schematic massing. The only thing they are not using it for is energy calcs. Some if the complex geometry was generated in Autocad because they could write code to crank through the math, but once the linework was created, they moved into Revit and built on the framework. Initially they planned to transition out of Revit after DD's I think, but they wound up being impressed with it enought to continue.
File size and performance can be an issue, but there are ways to manage that.
As for getting started with it, I'll say this. One person in our office, who had 3-4 years of Autocad experience, absolutly hated Revit when he started with it. Complained daily how it can't do this and it won't work for that. A month later, you couldn't get him to go back to Autocad for anything. It takes some getting used to, and when you start out it feels like you're moving real slow. But then you get a feel for it and start to realize what it can do.
If you are intrerested, look at the Revit forums Here.
LOL - frit, I know what you are talking about with former ACAD monkeys who started using Revit. There were some very frustrating weeks for awhile, as our office switched over. But when you don't have to deal with xrefs, and can actually visualize what your are doing and learn how a building goes together by working in a cad program (instead of drawing meaningless lines)...well, it's fantastic. The program works like architects think.
I would say for people with all ACAD experience, allow a good month to get acclimated. Also, DO THE TUTORIALS. All of them. After a couple months, do them again. There is no better way to learn the program. the people in my office are lucky, they have other Revit users to bug if they have questions.
As frit says there are ways to manage file size, by breaking up larger projects into floors and linking the models together. My office has just begun working on larger scale projects and we are in the process of developing our method for file sharing and multiple users. The savings in terms of time and coordination issues (problems with acad) are huge.
Energy calcs can now be done by thrid parties using the model created in Revit. You give them the model and they can model the SAP figures out for each building element / room.
REVIT
Anyone have any experience using BIM software to actually do a real non-residential scale project (i.e. a larger building)?
Anyone?
Banged out a few tutorials and it looks interesting yet super hard to start playing with form or invent details.
I've been using it for a year. It's not any harder to invent details with Revit than it is on paper. Our office has completed retail, commercial, industrial and civic projects with it. I've used it on projects up to 100,000 sf. It takes an adjustment, not only on the software side, but on the management side as well.
SOM is using it for the Freedom Tower project and Autodesk put together a webcast on it a couple weeks ago. It's archived somewhere out there.
Thanks Frit...
Thats great that its actually being used "for real"... what would you say the time is that it would take a team of say 4 people (with CAD background) to get up and running with it?
Our projects here are quite a bit larger than what you are talking about (100,000 sf per floor x 20 floors or so), and I have heard that the software can get REAL slow with files that large.
About the SOM thing... a little birdie told me that they just used it to study basic massing options in order to generate instant floor and window wall area calcs for rude estimates during concept design... but who knows, they may have stuck with it...
I have seen the Revit model SOM is working on, and it is not just schematic massing. The only thing they are not using it for is energy calcs. Some if the complex geometry was generated in Autocad because they could write code to crank through the math, but once the linework was created, they moved into Revit and built on the framework. Initially they planned to transition out of Revit after DD's I think, but they wound up being impressed with it enought to continue.
File size and performance can be an issue, but there are ways to manage that.
As for getting started with it, I'll say this. One person in our office, who had 3-4 years of Autocad experience, absolutly hated Revit when he started with it. Complained daily how it can't do this and it won't work for that. A month later, you couldn't get him to go back to Autocad for anything. It takes some getting used to, and when you start out it feels like you're moving real slow. But then you get a feel for it and start to realize what it can do.
If you are intrerested, look at the Revit forums Here.
LOL - frit, I know what you are talking about with former ACAD monkeys who started using Revit. There were some very frustrating weeks for awhile, as our office switched over. But when you don't have to deal with xrefs, and can actually visualize what your are doing and learn how a building goes together by working in a cad program (instead of drawing meaningless lines)...well, it's fantastic. The program works like architects think.
I would say for people with all ACAD experience, allow a good month to get acclimated. Also, DO THE TUTORIALS. All of them. After a couple months, do them again. There is no better way to learn the program. the people in my office are lucky, they have other Revit users to bug if they have questions.
As frit says there are ways to manage file size, by breaking up larger projects into floors and linking the models together. My office has just begun working on larger scale projects and we are in the process of developing our method for file sharing and multiple users. The savings in terms of time and coordination issues (problems with acad) are huge.
Energy calcs can now be done by thrid parties using the model created in Revit. You give them the model and they can model the SAP figures out for each building element / room.
SAP
Do you guys think it's worth the learning curve for small projects?
How about exporting to Max?
trace, as far as i surmise, the powers of Revit are mainly for the way it integrates with project management, other building components etc.
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