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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Move over ADT... Make room for Revit

I have had some time this week to dive deep into Revit. I was hesitant in the beginning like many are, but I just finished my first project. As an ADT user for years, I found Revit fairly easy to pick up as long as I kept one thought in mind-- forget what you know about CAD. I know that goes against the name of this blog, but it is necessary to understand how Revit works. I have been promising people that I would extend this blog to include Revit, and now is the time.

The basic commands in Revit work similarly to ADT. The walls clean up when joined, doors and windows can be inserted into walls, and there is a line command that you can use by picking a start point and an end point. That, however, is where the similarities end.

I was serious when I said to forget what you know about CAD. I forced myself to do this as I was learning this program. When I caught myself trying to do something in the way I would in ADT, I quickly became frustrated. I believe if I had never learned ADT, I would have been able to pick Revit up without a hitch. Once I got into it, I started enjoying it more and more. Looking back at my first project, although it was small, I can see how you can make design decisions at an early stage and see the effects of that decision in multiple views.

In the past I have had the attitude of, "well, ADT can do that too." Yes, ADT can do much of what Revit does. But you have to work to make it do it. The coordination of drawings, or views as Revit calls them, is what impressed me the most. I never had to worry about updating xrefs or schedules, or about making sure that I had the right callout on my elevations.

I do not want to run any of my ADT users away. I will continue writing about ADT, but expect to see me writing more and more about Revit.

Below are several images of my first Revit project. I am impressed, even if nobody else is.


6 comments:

Pedro Aroso said...

I hate Revit.

Pedro Aroso
Porto - Portugal

Anonymous said...

i think it looks cool.
would be good to know how long it took to produce the work, from whoa to go.
regards,
geof matthews
adelaide, australia

Mike Massey said...

I am assuming that you are outside the U.S. I am in the U.S. and the primary units that we use are imperial. Autodesk has relesed Revit Systems 2 in the last month here in the U.S. This release includes metric. I am not sure when it will be available outside the U.S. ABS is a good solution to use until Revit Systems 2 is available.

Mike Massey said...

It took me about 30 hours to complete. This includes final sheets for construction.

Unknown said...

Revit Systems is not even 1 year old. It cannot be expected to be 100% complete in its first release. It is already a great design tool and will be CD capable in 1-2 releases.

Revit Building and Structural are fully DWG capable. You can import and export in the DWG format. Most of the companies using Revit in production are working easily with existing MEP firms that still use DWG based software.

Anonymous said...

I think Revit is a really good tool... you spend a bit more time in the design period but... everything after that is so much time saving.... and it works