Revit vs. The World

Revit, in most firms in the country, has become the go to industry standard for construction projects nowadays. In my own professional career I have found myself using it much more often than any other drafting software I’ve had access to. This also is partially due to my specific field. If my field was architecture I might use programs such as Sketchup much more often, but from an electrical engineering drafting perspective Revit is the leading standard. Second to this however, is AutoCAD. Both software is made by Autodesk but while AutoCAD does have 3D design capabilities, Revit is geared more for 3D design whereas Autodesk is geared more for 2D design; specifically in the ACE industry. With both being created by Autodesk, there is a lot of integration between the two software which has provided a lot of people a smooth transition from a CAD workflow to a BIM workflow. Instead of forcing everyone to jump over to Revit overnight, the software includes a lot of great features to link in CAD files for adding things like drawing details that the engineer has used for decades that they don’t want to update and things of the like.

In my experience, I’ve primarily used this integration between the two to import lighting fixture schedules, typically from lighting designers, into Revit projects. A lot of the time, fixture schedules are done in Excel primarily for ease of use purposes and then linked into a CAD file. This avoids having to use AutoCADs horrible table creating process and allows for a cleaner more efficient workflow. And smaller firms, like a lot of lighting design firms are still using AutoCAD to do a lot of their work. Sometimes linking the two can be an aggravating process if not setup or done correctly.

Revit also allows for you to import files from Sketchup, however this is typically done differently than how AutoCAD files are imported. As I mentioned, CAD is primarily 2D related where as Sketchup is a 3D software similar to Revit. Because of this, the two can interface very differently. Especially considering that they were not both made by Autodesk. A lot of people will you Sketchup to assist in family creation due to its ease of use in creating 3D objects compared to Revit. At least in my opinion. But what is also very common is architects using sketchup to do their massing and then exporting it to Revit to assist in the modeling process.

There are a handful of other drafting software like Civil 3D and ArchiCAD that can probably interact with Revit, but I have no experience in this process, just the ones listed above.

Liam Ossenfort

Hey Liam,

I enjoyed reading your post because one of the things I always found super interesting about Revit was its use of parameters and how the software organizes them. They allow for a lot of control in different ways between changing something that is an instance parameter versus something that is a type parameter. And getting a better understanding between the two has helped me immensely in my work flow.

Brian Mynaugh

Hey Brian,

I thought your post was interesting because I agree that this is the most difficult part of what the future has in store for Revit/BIM. I've noticed in the company I work at which is rather large in comparison, is that we even have people refusing to change their workflow and adapt to the new programs simply because they don't want to have to relearn the process. And those that have HAD to adapt either complain constantly or only use it as a 2D drafting software which is not at all what it was made for.

Michael Manley

Hey Michael,

I enjoyed reading this post because it points out some of the amazing uses of BIM in the future. This technology offers a wide range of advantages for how we do work in this industry and it will hopedully make the process much easier and cooled with a lot of the VR simulation based technology.