A couple of pre-purchase enquiries about Revit

[Anonymous]

Hi,

we are about to take the plunge and go for the Building Design Premium Suite togain access to Revit (as well as Max).

I have gone through a couple of 1 day courses, but have a couple of questions:

1 - is it possible to define a 'block' - a family - say a window and have some dimensions fixed whilst others are adaptable ? for eg. Could I define a door type that has a fixed vision panel width, and a fixed stile dimension (the gap between the edge of the vision panel and the edge of the door) and leave the remainded of the door width as adaptive. In other words, be able to change the overall door width, but keep certain part of if as fixed dimensions. As an extension to that - is it possible to tag certain dimensions as equal, so if a door width is increased that increase is shared equally over certain areas (ie a sash window where you want the glass panels to vary as the window increases in width whilst the timber members remain a constant sizes.

2 - Graphics card and viewport performance - we intend to use a consumer graphics card for the moment (probably a GTX 670)with 2GB of on board memory - is this likely to be OK for viewport perfomance ?

Many thanks

[rosskirby]

The answer to all parts of both your questions is yes.  Overspend on RAM if you're going to overspend on anything; don't waste your money on some high-end graphics card.

And welcome to the world of Revit!  Feel free to post any questions you have, and we'll do our best to help.  Be sure to search the forums first, because most of the general-problem questions have already been adressed, so hopefully we're down to the project/issue-specific problems now.

[Anonymous]

Many thanks for the quick response, looking forward to delving into Revit.

One thing I wanted to clarify on my query re. a door block. In setting up a standard block for a door type, with some fixed dimensions, and other adaptive ones, is it possible to have this defined as a block (family ?) and be able to tweak say the overall width in the model and have the 'type' for that door update in the schedule with the correct fixed dims ?

Not really sure if that is the correct way of doing it, but I'm interested in how we may start to set up a library for the office whilst maintaining a high degree of flexibility. I guess I will really have to wait until gettingmy hands dirty with Revit. Having done a couple of days training, without using the software you soon forget.

As for the GPU - I also use max quite a bit, so I'm looking at the trade off on going for a consumer GPU, albeit one that will allow me to delve into IRAY rendering (our main production is Mental Ray - but I would like to experiment with IRAY)

Thanks again.

[loboarch]

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wyvernwood wrote:

One thing I wanted to clarify on my query re. a door block. In setting up a standard block for a door type, with some fixed dimensions, and other adaptive ones, is it possible to have this defined as a block (family ?) and be able to tweak say the overall width in the model and have the 'type' for that door update in the schedule with the correct fixed dims ?

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What you are describing is the exact workflow Revit is intended/designed to support.  You build your model with a bunch of families (blocks) that have properties related to them and those properties will be able to control the graphics of the item (door size, position of vision lite, etc...) and also be reported in a schedule.  The schedule is really just another "view" of the model.  In a plan or section you are looking at the graphic aspects of the family and in the schedule you are looking at the properties/parameters of the SAME OBJECT.  Change in one place it cnanges in the other because they are the same thing. 

[LisaDrago]

If I may suggest a couple of books to get you started: the Sybex books - Revit Architecture Essentials and the Mastering Revit Architecture are very good and the mastering book gets into families. 

I would strongly suggest getting some training on Revit when you do make the plunge. There is a lot to it and most of it I would have never found unless it is pointed out. 

You may want to consider an ATC (Autodesk Training Center) or if a community college is offering a revit course that would be good (Although I know the one I teach at is 15 weeks long.)  So depending on your time frame - it is a few thoughts...

LD

[Anonymous]

Thanks Lisa,

I have attended a couple of 1 day courses run by Autodesk approved trainers, and have already purchased Revit Architecture Essentials, it's been enough to see what can be done with it, but until getting hands on for a length of time it is difficult to really get a handle on processes etc.

[LisaDrago]

You are very right! You will need to keep working in it to learn the processes and retain the knowledge. 

Unfortunately if you don't continue to use Revit - you will lose it.

As said previously - you can always ask questions here!

LD