Can Revit be used for designing large projects (like entire buildings)?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I was wondering how well can Revit handle large projects such as buildings.

For example, one of my students created a large file. Well, it was only 70 MB but had a lot detailing, joints and components.

It took about 7 to 10 minutes to load into the RAM which was about 5 GB in usage just for that file of Revit.

Is Revit made to support such large projects?

Is there a better alternative for large projects? Such as entire buildings.

Thank you and regards.

[ToanDN]

Yes.  Hospitals, Airports, you named it.  For campuses with multiple buildings you can build each building as a separate model and link them into the campus site model.  Levels of model details matter.  You don't want to model every nut and bolt for large buildings, or any buildings at all.

If you are going to work on large projects, don't skim on RAM.  32GB should be the starting point.

[barthbradley]

Sounds like your students are ready for Revit 102: Improving Performance of Revit Projects.  

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/I...

[scott_d_davis]

it's not a Revit problem...its a hardware problem. What are the specs of this student's computer?  With the right computer, many of our customers are running files that are over 1 GB in size.  A 70mb project is small in today's modeling world.

[Corsten.Au]

Hi

Revit sample projects which gets installed are more that 70mb

Sample Project List

As everyone mentioning, check the configuration required for the Revit version.

This is the link for System requirements..

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/S...

As you get experience in Revit, you will learn how to manage bigger project using

1. Linked model ( Split files for various stages, building etc )

2. Workset ( for collaboration, this may not be available in Student version )

3. Phases to handle Various construction/design phases

4. Parametric families to reduce file sizes and smooth working..

5. There is a learning curve to shift working on Revit, from other softwares.. AutoCAD to Revit

is a big jump and many things one needs to unlearn in a way... 

Best luck.

Cheers

[Anonymous]

@ToanDN wrote:

Yes.  Hospitals, Airports, you named it.  For campuses with multiple buildings you can build each building as a separate model and link them into the campus site model.  Levels of model details matter.  You don't want to model every nut and bolt for large buildings, or any buildings at all.

If you are going to work on large projects, don't skim on RAM.  32GB should be the starting point.

@barthbradley wrote:

Sounds like your students are ready for Revit 102: Improving Performance of Revit Projects.  

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/I...

@Corsten.Au wrote:

Hi

Revit sample projects which gets installed are more that 70mb

Sample Project List

As everyone mentioning, check the configuration required for the Revit version.

This is the link for System requirements..

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/S...

As you get experience in Revit, you will learn how to manage bigger project using

1. Linked model ( Split files for various stages, building etc )

2. Workset ( for collaboration, this may not be available in Student version )

3. Phases to handle Various construction/design phases

4. Parametric families to reduce file sizes and smooth working..

5. There is a learning curve to shift working on Revit, from other softwares.. AutoCAD to Revit

is a big jump and many things one needs to unlearn in a way... 

Best luck.

Cheers

Thank you for your responses everyone, I will definitely give everything you mentioned a try.

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@scott_d_davis wrote:

it's not a Revit problem...its a hardware problem. What are the specs of this student's computer?  With the right computer, many of our customers are running files that are over 1 GB in size.  A 70mb project is small in today's modeling world.

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Well the specs of the computer are:

Intel i7 (don't remember the exact model number and I am not anywhere near the machine right now but it's an eight-core processor above 2.4 GHz)

16 GB RAM (No other programs were running in the background, Windows took about 2.5 GB and Revit took 5 GB for that one heavily detailed file, so 8 GB used out of 16).

256 GB SSD (Windows, Revit and the file in use are all installed / placed on the SSD).

Windows 10 Pro en-US x64 Version 1803 (Build 17134.165)

I don't think there was a hardware bottleneck over here.
The file actually has multiple components but one of the component is heavily detailed and simply duplicated multiple times, which is why the file size is low but when executed that single component is duplicated and placed on the 3d plane multiple times causing it the file to take a long time to load.

Is my assumption correct?

[RobDraw]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Is my assumption correct?

---

Maybe. It's impossible to tell from here.

If that "component" contains objects that were created in another program and imported into Revit, it's very likely that is the culprit.

[Sahay_R]

Has the component been created in the project? Creating components which are being inserted multiple times as a family is the best way to go.