William,
Lots of great and right on comments.
This whole discussion reminds me of the discussions about 10 years ago when I was trying so hard to convince professors and professionals about the importance of switch from hand drafting to CAD. Just like then, people were slow to change, and there were always ways of doing things the old way that were better than the new way. There were those who were good at CAD, and could shave hundreds of hours off of a project time, and there were those who were bad at it, who weren't fast, and whose drawing looked absolutely horrible. There was a learning curve for the industry, in how to take computers drawings and make them look artistic and beautiful. So now is it with CAD to BIM.
To add and agree with a few things said by William...
First, I am a sole practitioner and usually work on small projects. Revit is a huge huge time saver. I am able to do the work of three people, in half the time, by myself. I cut my time in half on even tiny projects. I am working on a simple garage right now, and I can make the plans in a matter of minutes, rather than hours. Then I have all of my elevations, sections, 3d drawings as a bonus, and everything else I need. I spend an extra 20 minutes to make a really nice rendering by just changing a few settings, and I am able to greatly impress the client. I also know the drawings are incredibly accurate. At the same time, I could then offer to charge extra to the client for high end renderings, material take-offs, etc. If gives the client the option if they want, and me and opportunity to earn more.
In contrast, a few weeks ago I had another very small garage building. It was so simple, I figured I would just sketch it out really fast in AutoCAD. By the end, I was kicking myself and ended up spending much longer on the project doing things like making small corrections, changing the roof line and all those normal things. Then at the end, I don't have 3d, I don't have material take offs, I have areas I have to triple check for accuracy, and I have drawings that will be slow to modify when my ridiculous California city comes back saying it wants all the window to be rotated 10 degrees or some other such nonsense.
What it comes down to in the end, is training, and knowing the software. Just like learning CAD, just like learning how to draw with a pen. It's really an all or nothing approach. Most people have fun for the first few days sketching plans and 3d drawings, but then slow to a crawl when they get to details and more complicated tasks. This is simply a matter of a learning curve. Your first project will be slower, but if you commit, within one or two projects you will be moving quick as lightning. If you don't cut your time in half after 2 or 3 projects, you're doing something wrong.
I don't know what architect or designer wouldn't want to do three times the work, with half the amount of people, in half the time (think of the money savings!) to produce a higher quality end product.
As for not being able to model something in Revit....there are limitations. For example, I work a lot with shipping container buildings, and it's not really practical to do a lot of the work in Revit. But for most work, if you can't put it in Revit, then either: a) You don't know how to use Revit; or b) you don't know how a building actually goes together in the real world.
Switching can be a big investment in time and money for a bigger firm. It's quick and easy with a small one (except the price tag). For any size firm, it's a matter of "I am willing to invest some upfront time and money, to reduce production time, increase quality, and increase the amount of work I can achieve in a given week."
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Jeff Hammond Assoc. AIA
Owner
Hammond Design
Yucaipa CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-19-2011 09:40
From: William Campbell
Subject: Adoption of AutoDesk Revit
I would add to my previous comments that I have used Revit very successfully for the past 6 years on both small and large projects alike. I don't understand the thinking that Revit can't save time on small projects when Revit will provide you with all your interior elevations, sections, coordinate call-outs and view tags, schedule items, etc. Why wouldn't this save time? Not only that, but you provide your clients with additional services like 3-D views to help them visualize the spaces you are creating for them, and if you know what you're doing, can even produce some fairly nice renderings. A new service to provide or a new revenue stream, however you choose to structure your business model. But I've seen Revit save big time on small projects where I don't have the time to construct individual elevations of areas and can produce a quick and coordinated set of documents that even have features that wouldn't be possible in other platforms, like annotated 3D views of some complicated area that would take 4 2D plan, elevation section details to explain. You have to use the software intelligently and it will reward you.
I know this is long post, but I wanted to take some time address some all too common misconceptions about Revit (or other BIM platforms) raised in some of the posts to this thread.
To Ken Brogno: I would agree, Revit may not be the most user friendly application out there compared to iPads, etc. But it has made some improvements. I would also argue that it is more user friendly in many respects than AutoCAD though and I've used them both. I would also agree that Autodesk will need to address the cloud computing issue in future releases. The industry landscape seems to be trending in that direction and they will eventually have to address this important issue which will only make Revit stronger.
To Ricardo Ramos: I don't understand why your firm is one foot in, one foot out of the pool. The ID folks have obviously not had someone show them and explain to them how Revit can save them countless hours. If they spend one minute constructing 2D interior elevations then they are simply wasting time that the Revit software they have in the office can do for them. When they finish the plan view, their elevations are 70-80% complete. There are "tricks of the trade" that you can use with Revit if you don't want to spend time modeling certain aspects in 3 dimensions, but Revit would still save you time for 80% of your effort. Your staff has simply not yet learned how Revit can increase their performance. Even on a simple project like a doctor's office renovation, or a restaurant build out, if Revit is used properly, it could still save you easily 50-80% of time over conventional 2D platforms. I know from experience.
And as for the resolution of 3D details, you mentioned that your staff and designers are "getting caught up in solving...details" that would normally be resolved in the field. To that I'd say, Hallelujah! That is part of the beauty of this software, it helps you become better architects by being able to see and resolve some of these issues that might have or probably would have resulted in a change order in the field. You should count this as a blessing that your staff is learning to solve some of these things that they used to just leave for someone else. It transforms them from just "designers" to the artist-builders that they are supposed to be. While you can help staff manage which issues they choose to resolve, I would be cautious to characterize this as an "inherent problem". Rather, I see this as enlightenment for your staff. Pretty soon, they'll become better designers by resolving enough of these issues to design better details and elements from the start by having a better understanding of the materials they are using.
To Stephen McLaughlin: You said, "I am waiting for just one architect to stand up and say that the use of Revit or BIM has improved their bottom line and will now allow them to send their kids to college, as I did with CAD." Wait no longer. I am that architect. I will gladly stand up and say that Revit has helped me to tackle larger projects with fewer resources and in less time than could have been done with a larger staff. As a sole practitioner, I've been able to tackle very large complex hotel projects by myself that would have taken me months longer to do in 2D CAD. Because I let Revit do a lot of the mindless repetitive drafting that I'd lose countless hours on in another platform. Set up your templates the correct way and once you've finished modeling, your door schedule, jamb and head details are "poof" DONE! I even had my door hardware consultant comment that it was the most coordinated door schedule and plans he'd ever seen; increased performance and bottom line. I do area takeoffs now in seconds whereas with 2D CAD it took a full day of drawing polylines for each space (mind-numbing). You are paying a highly educated staff member salary to sit for hours on end and pick points inside of a plan just to get the net areas of the various spaces. That's very inefficient and losing money. With Revit, a few clicks and a room schedule is automatically generated. I export to excel or word and I send off to the client. Took me about two minutes from start to when the e-mail left my inbox. Your staff is still working on their first few polylines. And I have challenged many a person that I'd give them a $100 bill if they can look through one of my drawing sets and find an elevation tag, section tag, plan callout tag, etc. that isn't coordinated, because in Revit, it is IMPOSSIBLE for these items not to be coordinated. That is a huge time saver. If I decide to rearrange details on a sheet, I don't have to even think about spending time going back and coordinating the tags. The software does it for me!
As for the information question, of course there is value in additional information, but just not in the way you are describing it. The value is not in being able to detail any window the same, it is in being able to do that window schedule automatically and instantly and then if there are any changes to a window later on, the window schedule is updated automatically and you never even have to think about it. Imagine that you are working on a hotel and the owner comes in one day and says he wants all the guestroom windows to be 10% larger. That might take you an hour or two to do in 2d CAD. In Revit, that requires a few clicks of the mouse to change the x and y dimensions of the guestroom window type. Voila! Done! It took all of 10 seconds to complete that entire change to the WHOLE set. And it updated that change EVERYWHERE; exterior elevations, plans, sections, interior elevations, dimensions, window schedule. BOOM! All DONE! I do sincerely hope this gives you the glimmer of hope you desire. I can and do regularly save lots of time and resources using this software all the while providing my clients with extra levels of service. I can compete with much larger firms and do a better job with less time. That's bottom line savings right there and putting the kids through college! It IS serving our clients and it does require initial investment, but those investments come with big returns for those who engage it.
To Richard Speicher: Amen brother!
To Thomas Streicher: Kudos to you that you have elevated your practice from simple 2d AutoCAD to more intelligent work flow. There is no argument that AutoCAD Architecture will do many of the things Revit can do, and in the case of your example of wall joins, do them better. (the issue of wall joins has been on my wish list for years and something that I hope Autodesk will resolve in a future release) But, there are also several areas where Revit outshines AutoCAD Arch. And, in my humble opinion, makes it a preferred platform. However, if you have made a significant investment in that platform, I can certainly understand not wanting to make the change. And, honestly, you really don't have to, at least not yet. But, you will also find that since you are using AutoCAD Arch the way it was intended, making the leap to Revit would not be that big of a deal for you, because your staff will already understand some of the basic principles that are common between the two platforms. They'll be frustrated by the wall joins issue, I still am. But they will appreciate other things very much, like the fact that they don't have to manage a hundred small xref files in a file manager anymore. Or the fact that they don't have to take an extra step to update 2D views of elevations once a change is made. In Revit, those things are done automatically. There are some other advantages too, but can't discuss them all here. There are strategies as well for converting some of your AutoCAD details and libraries into Revit data but there is no question, it will take you time and effort to fully convert your no doubt extensive CAD libraries into Revit content. But, honestly, that is your biggest issue in making the switch. Training won't be an issue, you'll find you are already probably 90% of the way there.
Rudy Beuc in St. Louis gets it!
I agree with Charles Graham as well. In house is best, if you can find the person. It will pay off in the long run.
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William Campbell AIA
Principle
Sugar Hill GA
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