I'm trying to rap my head around how to best use Revit from the contractor perspective. I've gotten up to speed on a lot of the basic stuff, but I feel that in order to really use this program well I need to know what we need to do differently from engineers. First some .
I work for a CAD Company that does coordination and construction drawings for contractors. I also occasionally work in contractor's offices which is nice because I have easy access to project managers/foremans. Our typical workflow with AutoCAD would start with getting some horrid combination of 2D AutoCAD, 3D AutoCAD, PDFs, or Revit. Sometimes we would have to model the entire project, usually in sections to keep up with the schedule. If we used 3D AutoCAD that was given to us we often wish we would have modeled it ourselves because we would often get incomplete models (no fittings, sloped system not sloped, wrong material, elevated 2' above f.f.) To make matters worse we often get jobs that require us to post our first model next week or in a few days. Sometimes we get work where the previous CAD Firm didn't do anything for 4 months, the contractor just found out and we have to start the job 3 weeks behind every other trade and the only thing we had to work with is a revit model, which we didn't know how to use at the time. We've worked with a combination of AutoCAD pipe and wireframe mesh before (NOT JOKING.) Part of my interest in Revit is being able to start a job without modeling time. Once we got the model ready things usually calm down, but we still dealt with AutoCADs short falls like sloped pipe and hangers. I really don't want to go back to AutoCAD's sheet setup after working in Revit.
We're having trouble learning how to use Revit as a contractor. Most guides seem to be orientated towards engineers who start they're models from scratch using their templates and standards. We on the other hand get files from different companies every project, which were made from different templates with different families and standards. Some projects have some filters set up some don't. Some projects have all trades in them while others only have the one we're working on. Some projects accurate materials some have none. I've only worked on two Revit jobs but it seems we will always have to learn how the engineer made the model. It's been two an infuriating puzzles so far. I don't think that engineers care if their model is usable.
Some question now:
1. Would making a template help us at all if we're starting from engineer's models?
2. Could take pipe/conduit/whatever from the engineers model and place it into our file based on our template? Would that help?
3. Is there a best way to get rid of unneeded systems and views without loosing stuff we need? We got a project that has every MEP trade and we only needed plumbing.
4. We've had pipes that don't have system types or classifications. What should we do?
5. One engineer wanted us to use their central file and do everything in design options so they could approve changes. Then they decided not to incorporate our changes into the main model and then not look at our changes at all. They were also not done modeling. Is there any benifit to using the engineers central, I'd rather just make our own and bring in their changes if we have to.
I work for a CAD Company that does coordination and construction drawings for contractors. I also occasionally work in contractor's offices which is nice because I have easy access to project managers/foremans. Our typical workflow with AutoCAD would start with getting some horrid combination of 2D AutoCAD, 3D AutoCAD, PDFs, or Revit. Sometimes we would have to model the entire project, usually in sections to keep up with the schedule. If we used 3D AutoCAD that was given to us we often wish we would have modeled it ourselves because we would often get incomplete models (no fittings, sloped system not sloped, wrong material, elevated 2' above f.f.) To make matters worse we often get jobs that require us to post our first model next week or in a few days. Sometimes we get work where the previous CAD Firm didn't do anything for 4 months, the contractor just found out and we have to start the job 3 weeks behind every other trade and the only thing we had to work with is a revit model, which we didn't know how to use at the time. We've worked with a combination of AutoCAD pipe and wireframe mesh before (NOT JOKING.) Part of my interest in Revit is being able to start a job without modeling time. Once we got the model ready things usually calm down, but we still dealt with AutoCADs short falls like sloped pipe and hangers. I really don't want to go back to AutoCAD's sheet setup after working in Revit.
We're having trouble learning how to use Revit as a contractor. Most guides seem to be orientated towards engineers who start they're models from scratch using their templates and standards. We on the other hand get files from different companies every project, which were made from different templates with different families and standards. Some projects have some filters set up some don't. Some projects have all trades in them while others only have the one we're working on. Some projects accurate materials some have none. I've only worked on two Revit jobs but it seems we will always have to learn how the engineer made the model. It's been two an infuriating puzzles so far. I don't think that engineers care if their model is usable.
Some question now:
1. Would making a template help us at all if we're starting from engineer's models?
2. Could take pipe/conduit/whatever from the engineers model and place it into our file based on our template? Would that help?
3. Is there a best way to get rid of unneeded systems and views without loosing stuff we need? We got a project that has every MEP trade and we only needed plumbing.
4. We've had pipes that don't have system types or classifications. What should we do?
5. One engineer wanted us to use their central file and do everything in design options so they could approve changes. Then they decided not to incorporate our changes into the main model and then not look at our changes at all. They were also not done modeling. Is there any benifit to using the engineers central, I'd rather just make our own and bring in their changes if we have to.
I'm a terrible writer. We don't oversee coordination, we actually do it. If pipe is going thru a duct we move it. We have the authority to move stuff and change routing as long as it wouldn't affect sizes. If it does we would need to do a RFI. Engineers never draw something that is build-able, we take their models and make construction documents that field people can actually use.
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