Hello All,
**A brief disclaimer- I am transitioning from Civil 3d to Revit. I may still be holding a torch for Civil 3d.
That being said. I have really enjoyed using Revit 2019. It is simple to use, simple to understand, and efficient. All except for the site designer. To me, it is extremely clunky and not productive. I was recently hired for a new company where I'm drafting for both the architect and the civil engineer. I need to be able to efficiently create a site plan alongside the building plans for Construction Documents. So, I have some complaints (which may be unfounded, as I'm still quite new to Revit):
-Why do I need to place a topo surface before placing any street elements?
Many times I have completed the preliminary plans for a client before we have any kind of survey data. I would like to be able to import to topo surface later. Because of this I have started using floors for sidewalks.
-Why aren't there easy to use families for site elements (curbs, sidewalks, ramps...)?
I envision being able to place a curb with the same functionality of a wall. I would like to draw a line where the back of curb should be and then be able to join it to a slab or floor (sidewalk). I envision being able to place a wheelchair ramp into a slab or side walk the same way you can place a window into a wall, where it creates a void in the material it is placed in to make room for the component.
-Which leads me to creating families. I realize that my solution to easy to use site elements is to create them myself. But, I find the tools provided in the family creator to be extremely limited. Making it difficult to manipulate the objects into the shapes that I need. I won't talk about creating parameters because I haven't gotten there yet. I realize this may be that I am just in experienced with Revit. But, while so many of the features in Revit are intuitive, the family creator is not in the least user friendly to a newbie like myself.
And Finally, I have just a general complaint on the Toposurface. I have been trying to watch as many tutorials on how to create a toposurface. I have only seen people using the points to manipulate it which have to be created one at a time. As an I architectural drafter I can see two needs. I either need to imitate the existing topography and/or I need to design an new topography. If I haven't received the survey data yet, then I need to do this myself. Which is cumbersome difficult in Revit.
Thanks to anybody who read my post all the way to the end! I know this is just a bit of ranting. To be honest, I only posted because Autodesk prompted me to give feedback after three week with a subscription. Please give me your thoughts. Please let me know if there is a better way to create a site plan. Please let me know if my complaints are typical for a newbie.
