Revit Newbie

Hey guys

I have worked as a MEP CAD Draughtsman/technician for about 5 years now working with client / contractors mark-ups and providing them with the AutoCAD drawings.

However I have now joined a new company that wants to push me towards learning Revit (they seem to use it in quite a few projects).

I have no engineering background and have very limited knowledge of the MEP side of things since most my work previous was tracing of contractors mark ups and not really knowing too much about the design side of things...

(I do however work alongside engineers who do know what they're doing).

So my question to you guys is can I actually learn Revit without knowing the terminology and having any experience as an engineer?

I managed to get by in autocad because that was just drafting what the contractors had drawn but I fear with Revit I need to actually know what I am doing..

No.

Just like most things in life, you are much better off if you know what you are doing, instead of faking it.

If you were doing 2D, you were drafting. 3D is modeling and you most likely won't be using lines and arcs to represent ducts, pipes, and wires. Since Revit uses engineering terms in addition to the names of the actual devices, it's going to be hard to fake it.

Yes you can! You don't give up or let people tell you to ..

But it will be hard to learn both the habits of a revit animal while you still have to gain a lot of knowledge of the MEP business aside.

I would advice you to concentrate on just one at the time. Think its clever to firstly search for someone to work with closely (preferable on project base)

Yes you can!

Do ya know what we call people who can drive the software with little knowledge of the trade?

So..What do you call them? Surprise me.

(I've been some revit monkey business throughout the years)

Hey guys

 

 

I have worked as a MEP CAD Draughtsman/technician for about 5 years now working with client / contractors mark-ups and providing them with the AutoCAD drawings.

However I have now joined a new company that wants to push me towards learning Revit (they seem to use it in quite a few projects).

 

 

I have no engineering background and have very limited knowledge of the MEP side of things since most my work previous was tracing of contractors mark ups and not really knowing too much about the design side of things...

(I do however work alongside engineers who do know what they're doing).

 

 

So my question to you guys is can I actually learn Revit without knowing the terminology and having any experience as an engineer?

 

 

I managed to get by in autocad because that was just drafting what the contractors had drawn but I fear with Revit I need to actually know what I am doing..

Just be honest with your team and within a few months you'll be rolling along nicely. Also stick around here, we will help you with all your questions and guide you on the "right way" in doing things.

-TZ

You'll be fine. Picking up redlines gives you an advantage because you still learned "something" regarding MEP stuff. Revit will just make you model it accurately. You don't have to have engineering knowledge if you're only going to model and produce drawings.

 

Just be honest with your team and within a few months you'll be rolling along nicely. Also stick around here, we will help you with all your questions and guide you on the "right way" in doing things.

 

-TZ

I appreciate that so much!

I will try not to bombard you guys with too many questions - I always try to find a way myself before seeking help.

We do have a Revit guy here in the office but he's just gone on leave for 2 weeks and I would like to get a bit of a head start before I start my training

Bombard away. It's why the forum exists. Questions you can't find on Google, once you ask here, now can be found on Google so you'll be doing the community a favor.

-TZ

You'll be fine. Picking up redlines gives you an advantage because you still learned "something" regarding MEP stuff. Revit will just make you model it accurately. You don't have to have engineering knowledge if you're only going to model and produce drawings.

 

Just be honest with your team and within a few months you'll be rolling along nicely. Also stick around here, we will help you with all your questions and guide you on the "right way" in doing things.

 

-TZ

tzframpton I have a question about your comment.

I work with stair handrail and we are getting into REVIT A- because that is the file format our clients have for us, B- the owner is convinced we need to be in the BIM portion.

So I have been getting samples of REVIT files from some clients to see what I should expect what type of the files we will be getting.

Your statement - highlighted above.

So what I have received are very generic stair layouts and guardrail and handrail layouts.

What I mean is some of the stairs are not meeting the floors/landings and the handrail they have placed most of the time doesn't connect at the corners and is placed at different heights and sometime angles that isn't the same as the stair pitch.

Before seeing some of these I fully expected to provide details equal to what we send out in CAD, but after see the files I have started to think REVIT is more about the 100ft view and CAD would still be needed for the 10ft view to show details.

Question, Is REVIT meant to show the 10ft view of details or should REVIT be for showing the concept from 50ft and then have CAD inserts that show dimension of the height of parts?

I haven't seen any drawing that show the level of detail I was expecting to provide. I have received just a few drawings that are what others have provided our clients as approval drawings, and there wasn't any details. That is part of why they are wanting us to get into REVIT.

Your input would be appreciated.

Here's my take on that. Architects will model a lot of things as place holders when there is a consultant in place. In your case, just enough to say, stairs go here. I'm on the MEP side and they are famous for doing all kinds of weird things for light fixtures. With that being said, they are architects and one would think that they could model a decent set of stairs so maybe what you have is an unfinished model.

As far as Revit is concerned, it does have it's limitations (1/32") but not at the level you are thinking. You will be doing fine detailing with 2D line work in Revit, but you should be able to model the stairs as they will be constructed, to a certain level. You won't be modeling fasteners but you should be able to do pretty much all of the construction.

If that really is your perception of Revit, you have been misguided. You should eventually be able to drop AutoCAD entirely. Take a class, do some tutorials, anything to get your feet wet.

Here's my take on that. Architects will model a lot of things as place holders when there is a consultant in place. In your case, just enough to say, stairs go here. I'm on the MEP side and they are famous for doing all kinds of weird things for light fixtures. With that being said, they are architects and one would think that they could model a decent set of stairs so maybe what you have is an unfinished model.

 

As far as Revit is concerned, it does have it's limitations (1/32") but not at the level you are thinking. You will be doing fine detailing with 2D line work in Revit, but you should be able to model the stairs as they will be constructed, to a certain level. You won't be modeling fasteners but you should be able to do pretty much all of the construction.

 

If that really is your perception of Revit, you have been misguided. You should eventually be able to drop AutoCAD entirely. Take a class, do some tutorials, anything to get your feet wet.

Thanks RobDraw, if we can do 1/32" that's plenty, we are looking to be at 1/16" and .2 degrees. We expect to get drawings that are close to expected field conditions but we are finding out most are not hitting what the architect has drawn.

So we hopefully get close then send them out for field measurements to get a final dimension.

Question, Is REVIT meant to show the 10ft view of details or should REVIT be for showing the concept from 50ft and then have CAD inserts that show dimension of the height of parts?

Here's the thing about out-of-the-box Revit, architecturally speaking: it's not a "design to fab" level program, getting down to the nitty-gritty details in certain things. What it is, is an excellent tool to produce very well coordinated models of a building for "design intent".

Revit gives you stair and handrail tools that are great for architects, but not so great for a stair and handrail contractor. There's a threshold in the design process where you go to a certain point, then the rest is left to the contractor. In your case, Revit certainly could be used for detailing stairs, but I would take a different approach and find another means and method other than Revit's Stair tool. I'd use Stair parts, but let them be piece by piece where they can be placed with much more precision. Handrail tools? Hmm... not sure on that one... it's tricky from a fab perspective.

If your company does stairs and handrails, I wouldn't be so convinced that Revit is the program I'd be using. Most "BIM" projects get appended into Navisworks anyways, which is as far as I'd let the BIM exist - at least for now - with your design models. Unless there is some 3rd party program specifically designed for your trade in Revit, of course - and there very well may be.

I'm not saying Revit can't do it. It can, and it may mean using nothing but Generic Models to do it with (and, honestly, that's okay). But Revit is an investment in both time and money and I'm simply saying there's no definitive answer on how you approach fab-level shop drawing 3D design models in Revit. Personally, I wouldn't be scared to do it. I'd have fun with it... and I'd bet you could get pretty d@mn accurate with the basics of the Stair tools if you monkeyed with them enough, then use 2D Detail Components (aka "2D Dynamic Blocks" in Revit) to sort of "piece together" the remaining fab pieces to make the drawings complete.

As a consultant, and since you're in Dallas, I'd be okay with meeting with you and your company to show off the pro's and con's if you guys were to show me your current workflows.

Here's my take on that. Architects will model a lot of things as place holders when there is a consultant in place. In your case, just enough to say, stairs go here. I'm on the MEP side and they are famous for doing all kinds of weird things for light fixtures. With that being said, they are architects and one would think that they could model a decent set of stairs so maybe what you have is an unfinished model.

Thanks RobDraw, if we can do 1/32" that's plenty, we are looking to be at 1/16" and .2 degrees. We expect to get drawings that are close to expected field conditions but we are finding out most are not hitting what the architect has drawn. So we hopefully get close then send them out for field measurements to get a final dimension.

But yes, ultimately, if you really put effort into Revit, you can definitely take what the architect gave you and produce high-quality fab-ready models. You can even use Assemblies to produce a shop drawing of each component, complete with BOM and everything, if you take it that far.

And then, there's always exporting to Inventor, and finishing up details there:

https://dddmodeling.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/taking-stair-from-design-to-fabrication-with-revit-and-inventor-just-in-10-minutes/

You can even export back to native Revit geometry (although, not parametric) so that a Revit compatible file can be used by the Revit teams. Either way, it's going to be a lot more effort for a while, until you get good enough where you're firing on all eight cylinders.

-TZ

Well put, Tannar.

Thanks for the information from both of you.

It is very helpful, tzframpton I will take you up on your offer to show us the pro and cons.

Not all of our clients use REVIT so we may only see 2-3 jobs a year. He hope it will increase but it's ok to be light for now while I'm learning REVIT and still doing my normal work.

It will easly be after 1/1/17 before I would be ready to absorb any info as I want to get familiar with the software.

Thanks for the information from both of you.

It is very helpful, tzframpton I will take you up on your offer to show us the pro and cons.

Not all of our clients use REVIT so we may only see 2-3 jobs a year. He hope it will increase but it's ok to be light for now while I'm learning REVIT and still doing my normal work.

It will easly be after 1/1/17 before I would be ready to absorb any info as I want to get familiar with the software.

-TZ