Complete Novice requires help

[Anonymous]

I am a complete novice in terms of REVIT and BIM. I have worked with AutoCAD with CAD-DUCT Solids and Autodesk Fabrtication for the last 12-13 years so I have a basic understanding of this. I am asking for help in what is the best way to learn about and implememnt BIM standards in the future. Any help, any suggestions would be greatky appretiated. I have been trawling tyhe site and the internet but its pretty much information overload at the minute. 

Oh you can probably tell this is my first ever forum post toop so breaking whole new ground here.

[L.Maas]

First of all, do you want to know about Revit or about BIM. Revit is piece of software and BIM is more of a (broad) concept.

If it is the concept of BIM, there are several books about BIM which you could read.

If you want to know more about Revit, there are plenty of books. As alternative you also could take live courses or video courses (e.g. infiniteskills, lynda).

As Revit is quite different from Autocad and the likes it will be good to take some kind of course (book, live or video). While the internet is good to check for specific solutions to a specific problem it is less useful for a comprehensive understanding of Revit and how everything works together.

[smbrennan]

Well because you were using CAD-DUCT Solids, that is a BIM add-in for Revit. It contains Intelligent Data, or the 'I' in BIM - Information. The 3D solids are the 'M' in BIM - Model. The 'B' is just Building - so for now think of it as a Building-specific concept. not civil, infrastructure, manufacturing, etc. At least that's how I look at it.

As for BIM Standards, what type of company are you? Designer, Installer, or both? The reason why I ask is you may want to develop your content to a specific LoD (https://bimforum.org/lod/). Minimum requirements may vary depending on your company type. I typically don't see design firms building anything above a 200 (generic size & shape). Some designers go up to a 300 (specific size & shape) in time when they have time to build that detailed content. However, an installer can benefit from the LOD 400 (fabrication). 

There's a slew of blogs out there too. Here's a good one-stop-shop page with links to a lot of blogs:

http://www.autodesk.com/blogs

For starters try to avoid the whole cloud, A360, BIM360, etc. That's just content sharing, whether it's working Revit files or PDFs for project teams. 

If you or your company has some extra cash on hand, try to attend next year's Revit Technology Conference. You can meet and network with a lot of Revit Users. Next year's in mid July in Scottsdale, AZ. Registration would be some time near early spring. It's 3 Days of 'pick-your-own classes' and a lot of time for networking.

There are also local Revit User Groups, check your area for any. AUGI has a pretty good handle on the current groups.

Hope all of this helps. Feel free to post specific questions in these forums as well as you're going along. There's plenty of people to help.