Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Revit for Site, Utilities, Coordination, Field Layout... and Fab?

Sometimes i feel remiss about my Revit blog, like: When i look at it and realize i havent posted since 2012 came out! Well, its not for lack of interest, to be sure. We've been pretty busy at The Beck Group, working on a project that started out as our standard practice 3D coordination, for the field.
From the beginning, it was evident that the Site Component of the project would be paramount- Something that isnt Revit's strong suit. Still, over the years i have tired of the Coordination Game: plagued with Object Enablers, interoperability constraints, elements lost in translation, and having to push farther downstream to really "see." So, we set out to put the entire coordination model in to Revit. We had our share of ups and downs with it (anyone modeling Sites in Revit has...), but its been a great springboard of a study. I would do it again with this workflow, in a heartbeat. I dont believe Revit will be the end-all-be-all of BIM Wares, or file formats, or interop solutions... But for now its the most efficient for the biggest part of my game, so that makes it the defacto standard im leaning against. Thats a double edged sword, however.
An opportunity to see the Underground Site Utilities, proposed surfaces, sidewalks, regrading... While in the Revit model, CREATING the buildings for Coordination? Its ideal... In the authoring environment, where you have access to all of your data, to be able to see everyone else moving around you... If you can get it.
A few more items started coming up as the project went forward, and we began finding more and more chances to leverage what we had in this: a Revit model. We build them for Design, or in this case... We build them for Coordination. But is that all we should expect of these models, and the platforms that create them?
During all of this, i had to make some calls to Toronto, inquiring about some Revit collaboration in the area. At Steve Stafford's (and many others) advice, i reached out to Jay Polding of SolidCad.
After some catching up (we know of each other from the forums), we started talking about "what were up to." Since he was putting on a local Revit Users Group in Toronto soon, he was kind enough Beck up to be a part of it!
So if you have some free time, tonight there will be a Goto Meeting (connectivity providing), and you can join us for an hour while we talk about what we tried. Not just what worked, but a bunch of what didnt. (Im not the smoke and mirrors type, and i promise... We "missed" in some areas!).
Join if you fancy! 9/27/11- 7pm EST (6pm CST)
VoIP or call in 1(773)897-3001
Access Code: 353-689-034