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Make a software that doesn't hate itself

Where to begin..

 

The fact that I was sent a link to the Autodesk Product Feedback page by a Revit support associate and Revit wasn't even listed as a program to leave feedback for, and subsequently being redirected to the “Idea Board” just stinks. I’m having to email the associate so then this could be forwarded on to the development team because there’s no direct line to them.  

 

I have consistently had inconsistent issues and errors with Revit 22 since I downloaded it. And that’s the biggest problem: the bugs/errors are so inconsistent situationally, but I seem to consistently have issues/errors. Most commonly with: the roof tool, wall joins, assigning wall constraints, the align tool, and the aligned measurement tools. Beyond these, so many inconsistent bugs or quirky nuances throughout. An edit/change may produce an error code in 3D view but work fine in elevation view. I may get an error code trying to change a top constraint of a wall while drawing the wall but after completing the wall and selecting the “modify” tool, I am able to make the change. The same thing happens in the roof tool: just today, while drawing a roof, I was unable to change fascia depth from 10” to 6” while drawing the roof, but was able to change it after I completed the roof. It seems like I spend more time fighting to attach roofs to one another, trying to adjust the size of fascia, or chasing down the one small aspect of a roof causing an issue populating simple gable/hip roofs on 1500SF houses than I do drawing the entire rest of the house. And I’m aware it’s being worked on, but man, when the only error code I’m given is "Cannot create footprint roof" and my only option being to delete the roof, I spend hours trying to find the one small nuance about the roof causing the problem(and sometimes, there actually isn’t one, Revit is just confused).

 

A consistent situation this problem occurs in would be a roof with an intersection where (3) roofs meet. Two can be joined, but a 3rd cannot be joined to the other two, only to one or the other; OR where a gable roof runs back into a hip/single sloped roof but they both start on the same plane (fascia’s are in line). If the roofs can’t be attached, you can’t cut a dormer, and if you can’t cut a dormer, the one roof will stick through the wall of the gable roof and you have to end up creating a void extrusion to cut the roof back. This works fine, but you should be able to click one button and be done, not waste time with the extrusion.

 

What seems to be the major problem with Revit is that instead of a smart architecture program that can recognize objects and components as building materials like ChiefArchitect or AllPlan, we basically have AutoCAD with pre-built/auto-populated models to place around hosted to a plane (walls, roofs, floors, etc.) The program only recognizes components and objects as different shaped extrusions or lines with names and patterns assigned to them. The program has no concept of what different "components" actually exist in the model/drawing/building and/or how they should interact with one another/what they do. Therefore, when I want to attach a simple gable roof to a simple hip roof, or when I try to adjust facia size on a simple hip roof from the default 10" to 6", somewhere in the program, one piece of code overlaps with/clashes with another piece of code, but doesn't know what the actual issue is, and you just get a blanket statement of an error.

 

One might suggest I open a case or schedule a call with a support team member. If you look into my account you will see I likely have 20+ just this year. Some support team members are more adept with RT22 than others, but even the best in the call center have been stumped many times and had to give me workarounds because "I don't know why it's doing that, it should do ______".  I have looked into other programs but Revit seems to be the most widely used and accepted in the US with regard to 3rd party components such as models and plug-ins, so I'm stuck with it.   

Now here I am, 4 days past due getting a set of drawings done that need to go to permitting, because I waited 4 days for a support team member to help me with two roof issues that were not able to be solved. And I will be another day trying to "work around" these problems.

 

My problem this time was that I was unable to adjust the size of my fascia form the default 10” to 6”. When it comes to roof problems, I've been told in the past "If you can make one large roof, rather than a lot of roofs attached to each other, that should help avoid a lot of the roof bugs". This time I was told after having the file to go through it for 3 days, “We found that if you break your one big roof up into 3 separate roofs, then attach them to each other, that should solve your problem with setting the fascia size". I ended up having to delete my roof and start over a couple of times before it would let me, and like I mentioned earlier, it wouldn’t let me adjust the size while I was creating the roof, only after I had created it. It’s these kinds of inconsistent, but constant bugs/errors/situations causing need for workarounds that make the program so unenjoyable to use.   

 

With regard to the align tool and aligned dimensions, I'm told it's a known problem that with "wall faces" being selected as location for snap, it will not snap to the wall face but to the wall centerline. This is incredibly annoying to have to 'tab' to the wall face every time when making multiple selections in a series.   

 

Just today I ran into an issue I see every once in awhile. In the model there is a “first floor” level at 0-0, a “foundation” level at -1’0”, and a “T.O. Footing” level at -3’4”. My all my foundation walls were set to have a top constraint at First Floor level and bottom constraint at TO Footing level. I wanted to change the top constraint to Foundation. I used shortcut SA to select all foundation walls and set the top constraint to Foundation and got an error saying “The top of the Wall is lower than the base of the Wall”. You can see how this makes no sense. I eventually noticed when all the walls were selected the top and bottom offset rows said “<varies>”. I knew of one 4” top offset under a porch slab, but checked all the walls and found no offset anywhere that would cause the top of wall to be below the -3’4” level of the footer when set to foundation level. Even so, the program would not allow me to set the top of wall constraint to the foundation level until I set top and bottom offsets to zero.

 

It would take me days to try to list all these small but cumulatively large issues I run into on a daily basis. The constant bugs in this program really takes the fun out of my job. I love designing/drawing homes, but having to fight Revit the entire time makes me want to find something else.

 

Thank you for your time.

Comentarios
Advisor
Advisor

Feel your pain. Had issues when trying to create a family. Would have taken me 10 min in program like Inventor to draw up without complex formula to get it to work when dims change. Took me 4-5 hours fighting Revit to get it in to a usable state. For Interest (Constraints like Inventor - Autodesk Community)