topic Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS.. in Revit Architecture Forum

Too much WORKAROUNDS..

henkkoster1683 — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 14:07:21 GMT

Hello Everybody,

I have been working with Revit for eight years now at an architectural office. I guess we chose Revit because our customers expected us to do so. After all those years in learning a lot about Revit's habits and workarounds I still can't be happy with this software. Sometimes it is really frustrating and giving me the idea that Autodesk hasn't any clue or even interest in the purpose we and lots of others like us are using this software for. In eight years time the development of this software is almost frozen. I can't be happy for all those minor improvements that are presented as spectaculair. In fact most improvements are corrections of failures and should have been made in a year time.

The most hated word for revit users could be WORKAROUNDS I guess. Workarounds are nice for nerds but shouldn't be necesarry in good working software.

Just an example. We are expected to make sheets with all windows and doors in an overview. Together with dimensioning of every window. The nice way for this should have been the use of Legends. But it doesn't work. No way of rotating legend floor plans of windows or tagging them. Instead of this simple way I am forced to draw extra walls in another phase and copy all the windwos or doors into that wall. In all those eight years no single improvement in this.

I could mention a dozen other examples like this but time is limited. (stairs/groups..)

I really wish that Autodesk would improve its organization and started to learn what the software is used for at the smaller architectural European offices. (10p) And started to learn from its users/customers what is missing.

Best regards

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

bimscape — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 14:17:56 GMT

I guess it's either a "Glass half full" or a "Glass half empty" opinion.

Revit isn't perfect. But in my mind, it is very, very good indeed. I would never dream of going back to the tools (AutoCAD > Drawing Board) that I have come from.

You are right- always room for improvement in most things. But let's not forget just how many things it does do right and how much time it saves compared to other tools / workflows.

,Just my thoughts

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

barthbradley — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 20:17:37 GMT

And what's wrong with "workarounds"? I love it when I find a workaround. Does that make me a "nerd"? Okay, I'll take that label - with a good workaround - anytime!

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

Sahay_R — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 20:23:46 GMT

Look at it this way - with a workaround you are beating the software up and making it cry for its Mommy! Creative thinking outside the box RULES!!

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

henkkoster1683 — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 20:43:56 GMT

Well that's one way of looking at things. If anyone likes it beating the software with smart workarounds then go ahead and enjoy. Personally the software is just a tool for me in making technical drawings and visualizing architectural designs. I am not interested in the software itself. Of course it is very fine working in 3D at once whithout having to imagine the 3D buildings from 2D drawings. I do like the 3D environment very much and BIM has his advantages for building contractors.

I don't think that architects gain a lot of profit from the BIM methods of working. In our daily work we have to do more efforts to make the drawings for a project as we used to do in 2D. But again I would be the last one to defend that we should go back in history.

Despite of that I have the strong impression that Autodesk doesn't know what kind of buildings we are drawing and how difficult this Revit software makes our daily job sometimes. That is why I think they should make our work easier and also better. In my opinion they should have made more improvements in the last eight years. Sometimes I am working in Revit 2014 and it surprses me often how little difference there is in 2014 or 2018.

Groups are still a bad comparison to Blocks or W-Blocks and Stairs and there Railings are not deployed for the European market.

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

RobDraw — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 17:46:37 GMT

I don't think there is any feature packed program that is perfect or has anticipated how every single person would like to use it. We all have to make adjustments and find other ways of doing something when you have reached a limitation or something doesn't work as expected.

The legend issues you mentioned are very minor compared to some of Revit's other limitations and idiosyncrasies. Consider yourself lucky that you're not on the MEP side. You would not be a happy camper.

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

Sahay_R — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 18:08:11 GMT

I really and truly do not want to go back to the days of visualizing and painstakingly drawing plans, sections, and elevations one line / trim / extend at a time, manually filling out schedules, etc. But I guess everyone to their own, right?

Moral of the story in these tech savvy times - if you are working too hard, then you are not doing it right. 'Nuff sed.

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

constantin.stroescu — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 18:36:06 GMT

I have a strong feeling that I can can not remain silent anymore....

The following are all my opinions based on my own experience and I do not intend to impose them to others:

First, I must confess that definitely I am a Revit fan.

I have a long experience in working in a bunch of architecture design programs (AutoCAD and Spirit , AutoCAD Architecture, 3D Studio-later 3 d Max). I worked in a chaine : 2d technical documentation in AutoCAD , 3d in ACA and finishing and 3d presentation in 3d Studio Max.

At that time I have also tested Archicad but it didn’t convinced me to make the step into.

So , all these till I discovered Revit ( eight years ago). It was after a period of using AutoCAD Architecture , and I was frustrated at that time, because I had the temptation to make too many settings and then I almost forgot that my real aim was to make architecture design.

It was GREAT!! No need any more to make manual updates of the architectural object from one software to another, Revit does all these jobs : Mass study , technical drawings , List of Quantities, Presentation.

But I think the real power of Revit is that it allows an easy and excellent control of the whole project in a centralized mood ( using Parameters and Schedules ) and coordination becomes an easy task.

I realized that for many people that use to work in AutoCAD is difficult to swap to Revit . I said them : think different , not as a draftsmen but as an architect – imagine you build the project not drawing it in 2d abstract way, be aware that you work with architectural entities not with abstract lines and other 2d shapes.

It was easier with young architects and students , much difficult with experienced AutoCAD users….even guided, they have permanently the temptation to swap to what they already know, to AutCAD and so to ruin the team work. Then I said them that when they stuck with working in 3d Model and no assistance is available, they can solve the problem temporary in the working 2 d View with 2d instruments, taking care to came back later to solve the problem adequately.

As I mentioned before I have the oportunity to teach many young arhitects and students in architecture. Many of them have sparse knowledge of Archicad. The transition to Revit was surprisingly easy and I ‘m glad to say that most of them became experienced Revit users.

Coming to using Workaround vs OOTB:

Using Workarounds and not only OOTB’s seems to me to be perfectly normal as long as you can preserve Categories and accuracy in Schedules.

Imagination of an architect must be always above the predefined functions of any software…

Constantin ( fan of Revit)

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 18:38:01 GMT

@henkkoster1683

You are one of those that never customized Autocad OOTB either and left all your lines white with no lineweights aren't you?

Or used a LISP routine as that would have been a workaround....

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

barthbradley — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 18:43:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

Or used a LISP routine as that would have been a workaround....

YES! LISPS! Love those too! That must make me a certified nerd.

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

Sahay_R — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 18:52:50 GMT

My personal favorite - three different AutoCAD blocks (2D or 3D) for three sizes of the same piece of furniture. In Revit with the power of parameters - it's all ONE - differnet sizes, materials and all - and in a schedule too!!

@barthbradley - in the days of yore when the world was young and we were unsullied and innocent, I wrote a LISP routine to do something that eludes the memory. Does that make me a nerd too?

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

ben — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 19:06:12 GMT

@RobDraw wrote:
Consider yourself lucky that you're not on the MEP side. You would not be a happy camper.

That's the God's honest truth! We have to go find all of our own equipment from suppliers, who usually have their rfa's for their equipment screwed up, no connectors, wrong connectors, wrong ref planes, backwards, sideways, upside down, etc. I downloaded an rfa of a water heater from the manufacturer that didn't have any connectors, and when I tried to place it in the model instead of putting the base of the water heater on the floor and right-side up they had it set to place it on it's back and halfway into the floor - a lot of time editing families. The only thing we get out of the box is generic pipe and fittings, that might be fine for the engineer, but as contractors that doesn't do us any good. We have to either by expensive 3rd party software that gives us actual pipe and fittings, and learn how to run that on top of Revit, and/or go find pipe and fittings from manufacturers, plus we have to make/create all of or own pipe types and piping systems. It's a lot of leg work just to get started.

@RobDrawis right, the MEP side of Revit seems to be far behind the architectural and structural side.

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 19:10:43 GMT

Tend to not use any manufacturer family and build my own....less screw ups and I control the level of detail.

Have had way too many inventor to Revit families come across my desk...it's like heck no! That family would kill the model's performance.

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

Sahay_R — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 19:33:43 GMT

@Anonymous Inventor content - oh Gawd no! The same horror is addressed to manufacturer families. What a waste of time they are!

I just finished reading a lovely thread called I Hate Revit in the CAD Managers Forum. What a delight that was!

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

ben — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 21:06:48 GMT

@Anonymous & @Sahay_R I tried to find the link to a forum question I posted about manufacturer content that was either made in CAD or Inventor (because I had screenshots), and it had crazy ribbons flying out of it everywhere. It looked like the rings of Saturn where shooting out of it's a**.

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

henkkoster1683 — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 22:38:15 GMT

@Anonymous Well I wasn't a long time Autocad user. About four years sometime ago. I started CAD in 1992 and worked with Arkey (Europe only I suppose) Autocad, Microstation, Triforma and Vectorworks. Most of them were 2D. I simple have the feeling that development of Revit is slow and there is still a lot of improvement to be made if I look in our daily work.

No offense if anyone likes to do the nerdy stuff. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just not our ambition at our office. I like it when software is a complete tool that makes my work easy so that I can concentrate on other stuff like architectural design or technical quality of our details and drawings. That's not only a software matter. It will always be a matter of personal development and experience. Happy for that.

Just an example in my office of a building that's costing me way too much time drawing because Revit has those charateristics that don't fit well with the purpose of my work: A project of 70 small houses that all have the same interior. But all of them different elevations. I use groups for quick working so that I can change 70 drawings in one time by changing only one group of the total interior. (interior includes floors, walls, everything inside) Although I am trying to make all walls or any other parts whithout any join to something outside the group, still these groups keep falling apart by the 'fix group' warning from Revit. I can change that every time but it is very time consuming.. I do think that there could be a better working way when groups could be totally isolated from the rest of the drawing.

So my only point is that Autodesk could do more in collecting info from there users what could be better. In fact they must have very much info on these from these forums or from AUGI but the biggest problem is that they act as if Revit is a complete product where only minor adjustments are necessary. That's my impression.

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

barthbradley — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 23:16:22 GMT

I get where you're coming from, and you make some salient points. Those limitations bug us all as well -- hence, our delight when we find a way to work around those limitations. And, I too, much more prefer designing over the grunt work. I imagine we're all on the same page there too. So, you're really preaching to the choir here -- not a bunch of wannabee nerds.

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

RobDraw — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 23:31:21 GMT

@henkkoster1683 wrote:

I like it when software is a complete tool that makes my work easy so that I can concentrate on other stuff like architectural design or technical quality of our details and drawings.

We all do and most of us realize that there is a lot of work to do in order for the software to do that. It's the same for any related software. It takes a long time to go from ground zero to a fully implemented company Revit standard and content. Even smaller places realize that they need someone that is experienced or pulling in a 3rd party to provide that work.

I'm sorry, but you've got your head in the clouds if you truly think that Autodesk is not constantly improving a quality product that has become industry standard.

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

ben — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 23:45:01 GMT

Re: Too much WORKAROUNDS..

constantin.stroescu — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 10:01:09 GMT

henkkoster1683 "A project of 70 small houses that all have the same interior. But all of them different elevations. I use groups for quick working so that I can change 70 drawings in one time by changing only one group of the total interior. (interior includes floors, walls, everything inside) Although I am trying to make all walls or any other parts whithout any join to something outside the group, still these groups keep falling apart by the 'fix group' warning from Revit. I can change that every time but it is very time consuming.. I do think that there could be a better working way when groups could be totally isolated from the rest of the drawing. "

I wonder why you do not use simple Link Revit ?

Make the Site into a Container File where you work the Toposurface ( imported from other application of the surveyor or just made in the file using Placing Points)

The house that is to be repeated 70 times it will be made in another file and that file it will be imported into the Container File as Link Revit.

The Link Revit File can easy be moved and copied so to be placed in the right position on Building Pads made in the Container File.

Then use Publish Coordinate of each house position to the File that contains the house....

How the Linked File is seen into the Container File can be controlled using VGO..