I've run across a very informative graphic to explain how Revit is set up at the most basic level. I've polished things up a bit and here you are:

I've been following the BIM troublemaker for a while now, and he pulled another one out of the hat. For some light reading, just check out this:

http://bimtroublemaker.blogspot.com/2011/01/complex-rigging-and-built-up-forms-pt1.html

and

http://bimtroublemaker.blogspot.com/2011/01/complex-rigging-pt2-skin-that-sucker.html

I thought I was pretty savy with Revit, but the Troublemakes is in a class of his own. I stand amazed.

Since I have been slow to discover new things that I absolutely have to share with the rest of the world (who propably already knows...) I figured I will start writing a few things about basic concepts in Revit. My aim here is to further understanding of the program so that you don't just know the "to do this follow these steps" but the "why" behind it.

Today we'll start with something relatively simple: Views and Schedules. What are they, what are they for and how do you use them.

The first thing we need to let go as we transition from a 2D/3D CAD program (like AutoCAD) into a program that uses a Building Model (like Revit) is the way we view a drawing. In a 2D program a drawing is just a digitized version of lines on paper, which represent a floor plan or an elevation.

In Revit that is not true.

In Revit you build the (almost) entire building inside the computer, putting the information into a database that runs in the background. This means that instead of two lines representing a wall in the floor plan I put into the database an object that is a wall with a certain length, height, position in the building, structure and other characteristics. And from this information Revit will then calculate a drawing that shows the parts of the building that fall within the visible range, e.g. a floor plan or an elevation.

Once we get our minds around this we start to see the possibilites opening up. We have a database! And databases are great not only for storing information but also retrieving the specific information you need.

One way of retrieving this information is by creating Views. This is basically a way to ask the database to "show me any and all objects that I can see from this point, looking in this direction for this distance." This specified by the type of View (Floor Plan, Elevation, Section, etc), the View Range, the Far Clipping, etc. Any 3D object that is in the line of sight will be displayed. I can then further customize each view with Annotations (we'll get to that later), shadows, and a few other things, to suit my needs.

The great thing of this is also that when I change an object in the model - move a wall - the change is refelcted in all views where this object is visible. I also means that I can have multiple plans of the same section of the building - floor plan of the ground floor - that convey different information - electrical installations, square meters, wall and floor finishes - without having to redraw them every time. This reduces the danger of drawing errors considerably.

Another way of retrieving information form the building database is using schedules. This is a non-graphical way of looking at the same data, and so as architects and draftspeople something we are not really used to. But tell the builder who does the calculations on how expensive the project is going to be that you can give him exact numbers on the square meters of brick wall or the number of doors and he well love you forever (or at least until he sees what the costs of your funky design are...).

So stop seeing schedules as something alien and weird and start seeing them as just another way of presenting your design. In the end there are (unfortunately) a lot more people interested in the numbers than in the esthetics.

This concludes my first article on Basic Concepts in Revit. As you can see this is all theoretical and no hands-on. I will try to write some hand-on instructions on the concepts that I cover in other posts. If you have some concept of Revit that you are struggling with, please feel free to leave a comment.

Today I would like to get your take on where you get most of your Revit Families from. Do you have a subscription from a professional vendor, do you make your own or do you spend a lot of time looking for that one window that just fits your project on the internet?

According to the Autodesk Website, from 2010 on the subscription updates of Revit in 27 "participating countries" will no longer be shipped as a DVD, but rather be available through a download-option.

If you want your box shipped, you need to set the prefered delivery method to "boxed" on your Autodesk Subscription profile. This needs to happen before march 12th (end of this week).

We are working on an extension to an existing building and need to demolish a few parts of it.

So we set up the drawing to create the existing building by setting the Phase of the View (in the View Properties) to "Existing" and drew the structure. The properties of the elements that needed to be demolished were changed accordingly.

A new View, this time set to "New Construction" revealed the old building and dashed, red lines where elements needed to be torn down. I didn't like that line style, so I figured I'd change it.

Silly me thought this would be accomplished by going to R > Manage > Settings > Line Styles and changing the line style.

 

As posted here, we use a set of different colors to highlight rooms and make plans more readable.

Thing is, sometimes the colors do not show up as expected. This can have a number of different reasons and it has cost me quite a bit of frustration so far. So I figured I'd list a few the reasons that I have found that can make difficulties. I will try to go from basic to complex and if you are experiencing issues with the colors, follow the instructions by number.

This list does not pretend to be complete. If you find other issues / hidden switches that can cause the color scheme to not show up correctly, post a comment.

So here goes...

1. Are there rooms in the view that can be filled? Check the drawing by selecting everything in sight and filter out the rooms.
2. Do you have a color-scheme set up and the view set to show it? See the View Properties dialoge on the right:
3. Do the rooms in your view have a color based on the color scheme you have selected? (If the color scheme is based on the Name of the Room, this should be the case. But check anyway.)
4. Is there something blocking the colors? When you have a Floor in a Plan View that has its own color (check Surface Pattern and -Color of the material of the floor) it can lead to complications. Set the Surface Pattern to none.
5. The same goes for Walls in Section Views.
6. On the same note, it may help to set the Color Scheme Location in the View Properties dialogue to Foreground. (see right) Note that this will place the colors in front of everything, even the walls your view is cutting through.
7. Are Rooms visible in this view? Check the Visibility Settings of the current view to see whether Rooms are visible.

The strength of Revit lies within its families. The better your families, the more efficient you can work.

I - and a lot of other people, judging by all the tutroials online on the subject - find this to be very true indeed. But mostly this is discussed for parametric wall openings (changing door-widths or window-heights) and less so for your sheet titles or things like your scale-bar:

Creating a Project Template is a fairly well documented feature of Revit. You create a new Project Template by selecting the New Project Template option, put all the walls, floors, text-styles, etc in there that you will need for a new project and save.

• create a new family using the established templates that come with Revit
• put the stuff in that you need
• save as a family
• change the ending from .rfa to .rft

When creating Elevations in Revit, you need to pay attention to the rotation of your view. If you are not perfectly perpendicular to the Grids, they will not be displayed in your view.

Luckily, Revit knows this and adjusts the rotation accordingly:





Pretty cool, I thought.

In my previous post I talked about the use of snap shortcuts.

Even if you don't use them, revit will tell you what it'll snap to. Not only by highlighting the objects/lines in your drafting view, but also in the status bar on the bottom right:

As stated here, Revit enables you to rotate the view to align with any horizontal or vertical wall you like.

Revit also gives you multiple other way to align with or stand perpendicular to walls, lines, groups and a host of other objects. Sometimes this can get confusing and if you have many different directions represented in one drawing.

To make things easier when drafting, use these shortcuts to make Revit snap to the point you want:

In response to a comment from W. left with this post, I thought I'll compile a list of things that have made my Revit faster:

• Close all views that you do not need at the moment.
• This is especially true when saving as Revit re-calculates all open views after saving.
  
• Only have one file open at a time.
  
• Use constraints with caution.
• Turn off shadow(s) until you want to print.
• Keep your template and your project file as clean as possible.
• Close Revit during lunch.
  
• When working with central files:
• Create a new local file every day.
• Regularly compact the central file.
• When working with single files:
• Don't. Still make a central file out of it, put it on a server, and work in the local file.
• Work in a local file that resides on your own computer. Don't put files on a server unless it's the central file.
  

Autodesk has released what they call the Subscription Advantage Pack. You can download it via the website or just by going to your subscription center in Revit (as long as you have a subscription).

Earlier today we ran into the problem that when creating a section in one plan view, it would not be visible in another plan view, not even as a hidden object.

Turns out that Revit seems to assume that when you create a section in a view with a certain scale (1:100 for example), that this section should only be represented in views with a scale smaller than that.

In other words: Revit automatically sets the Hide at scales coarser than - property to whatever scale the view is you created the section in:

We are currently working on a fairly complex design with walls going in many different directions. To keep walls parallel is a challenge:

1. Make sure the view is aligned to Project North
2. Disply the Crop Region
3. Select the Crop Region
4. Rotate the Crop Region

Working together on a project can really speed up the drafting process.

To avoid complications, Revit has some built in safety-features, like forbidding other users to edit objects that you are working on. To keep track of this, I (and everyone else here) uses the Worksharing Monitor from Autodesk:

1.Confirm you are on the latest build/update: Check the communications center of Revit to see if you are on the latest build. In 2010 it looks like the little satellite in the upper right area. It's in the lower right in 2009.

2.Purge the File: In Revit 2009: File => Purge Unused, in Revit 2010: Manage tab => Project Settings panel => Purge Unused

3.Audit the File: You can only audit the file when you open it. When opening the file there is a checkbox for Audit.

4.Compact the File: In Revit 2009: File => Save to Central => check the box at the top of the Save to Central dialog for Compact Central File, In Revit 2010: Collaborate tab => Synchronize panel => Synchronize with Central => check the box for Compact Central File)

5.Create a new Central File: If you are working in a work shared file, try opening your local file "detached from central". This gives you a new, unnamed central file. Save that to your network and have everyone on the project make new local files from that new central file. Note: before you do this make sure everyone has saved all their changes to the central file and that they are not actively working on the project as their local files will not be able to be synchronized with the new central file you are creating. This is best done on the weekend or when no one is in the office or working on the file.

6.Create a new Local File: My recommendation is to make a new local file every single day. If you are not currently do that we would recommend that you do so.

7.Hard Drive Space: Check available free space on your hard drive. To do this simply right click on your C:\ drive and go to Properties and see how much free space you have. If you are nearly out of hard drive space you'll have to delete files to free up more space.

8.Review Errors/Warning in the File: Your goal should be to have 0 errors/warnings in your Revit file. You may not be able to get the errors/warnings down to 0 but you essentially want as few as possible. In Revit 2009: Tools => Review Warnings, in Revit 2010: Modify tab => Inquiry panel => Warnings.

9.Defrag Your Hard Drives: XP computers: Start => Programs => System Tools => Defrag. Vista computers: Start => All Programs => Accessories => System Tools => Defrag