Revit and Furniture: import CAD or rebuild in Revit

[cekuhnen]

Out of curiosity,

what is best practise in this case:

importing simplified furniture SAT models from Rhino

or

rebuild a simplified model in Revit?

I have a lot of problems to get materials onto imported CAD and also noticed that all Revit furniture tutorials I find are just building them in Revit.

[BIMgirl]

I think there is not one definite answer to this question - in general it's always better to build native geometry, as Revit can handle it in a better way and it's easier to edit. If you have families which you will be reusing in several projects or which you will place very often throughout a project, then it's definitely worth the effort of building a native Revit family. Plus, you can use parametrics in Revit to define different types of the same piece of furniture.

If you have a very complex geometry however, and/or if you are using the furniture just for special occasions, then it's probably easier to simply import the SAT (always import it into a family template, not into the project environment though). 

Building native Revit families is always an extra work, but it gives you benefits as well - at the end the question is whether the benefit will compensate the effort. 

Cheers, Lejla

[cekuhnen]

Thank you for the answer.

We might have to investigate what the clients want to do with the furniture parts. The question is if those are just for placement, getting a visual idea, and then calculating the amount used,

or

if they think about something like having a family in which you have design options such as material selections, different gliders for chairs.

I got the impression that Revit can create such families where you can can also define combination options beside. Right? Wrong?

[David_W_Koch]

A single Revit family can be created in a manner that different types show different options, either by using visibility parameters to control whether certain geometry displays, and/or where a series of mutually exclusive options are modeled as separate, nested families, and a family parameter is used to control which one displays.

[BIMgirl]

You can really do a whole lot with Revit Families, including creating different types etc. - however it's always important to decide how many types and options a family should have, because of course the more options you have, the heavier the family gets as well. So sometimes it may be wiser to create 2 or 3 families with fewer options than one that includes all possible variations. It's very simple to exchange families as well, so it's not necessary to implement everything into one family. This really always depends on how often you will use this family in the project environment and how big your models are.

Autodesk used to have a good families guide prior to version 2011 and I still think it's a good starter (in the meanwhile we have of course some more features, but the guide still gives you a good overview of how you can create types and options). You can find all official information about the family guide and the new online families online help (which is not as good and detailed if you ask me) here: 

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/...

Cheers, Lejla

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli]

I know it is way easier to just import something already done, but sometimes things from outside could be tricky and you may have surprises where it could be corrupted, or too detailed (the company furniture logo is hidden somewhere we can't see) or too far from the origin and Revit become heavy by handling SAT/CAD file.

you could always test it and do an array of this family (500 times) within the project and try to print it, exported to a dwf or even do the orbit and check if Revit and the graphic card could handle it.

If not, 

I guess rebuild a family is the harder way but at least you have the flexibility with it, if ever you need to create a shared parameter or need to include it in a schedule, it will be always easier to do so and  also Revit will handle it with no problem

I guess the family guide linked in the previous reply could be very helpful