Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011

By Eddy Krygiel, Phil Read and James Vandezande

The Ultimate Real-World Reference for Revit Architecture

This comprehensive guide has been completely updated to providethe most modern, detailed, and in-depth coverage of Autodesk'sleading building information modeling software. This packed newedition features clear discussions of core topics that arereinforced by compelling examples and tutorials to guide you toRevit Architecture mastery.

The expert authors use real-world workflows to show you how toimmediately implement and use Revit Architecture 2011 withspectacular results. They delve deeply into every crucial topic,including how to most productively use the interface, how to createfantastic building designs with Revit, and how to produce soliddocumentation. They also explore such advanced topics as usingRevit Architecture during construction and how to leverage theAPI.

Coverage includes:

• A thorough, complete overview of the Revit Architecture toolchest

• Advanced modeling and massing using the Family Editor

• Designing simple and complex walls, curtain walls, roofs,floors, stairs, and railings

• Preparing your designs for presentation with color fills,animations, visualizations, and more

• Using the Revit API to create custom applications

• Performing various types of sustainable design analysis

• Advanced topics not covered anywhere else, including modelingfor construction, and Revit for film and stage

• Other critical coverage such as managing Revit projects, familycreation, office standards, and more

Quickly Become Productive Using Core Revit Features andFunctions

Document, Detail, Annotate, and Present Your Designs

Improve Your Workflow with Worksharing and Collaboration

Explore the Essentials of Sustainable Design

Prepare for the Revit Architecture 2011 Certified Associate andCertified Professional Exams

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Jul 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9780470908228

Book preview

Title Page

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Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-470-62696-2

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Krygiel, Eddy, 1972-

Mastering Autodesk Revit architecture 2011 / Eddy Krygiel, Phil Read, James Vandezande.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-470-62696-2 (pbk.)

1. Architectural drawing—Computer-aided design. 2. Architectural design—Data processing. I. Read, Phil, 1965– II. Vandezande, James, 1972– III. Title.

NA2728.K795 2010

720.28’40285536—dc22

2010021345

TRADEMARKS: Wiley, the Wiley logo, and the Sybex logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Autodesk and Revit are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

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Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011. This book is part of a family of premium-quality Sybex books, all of which are written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a gift for teaching.

Sybex was founded in 1976. More than 30 years later, we’re still committed to producing consistently exceptional books. With each of our titles, we’re working hard to set a new standard for the industry. From the paper we print on, to the authors we work with, our goal is to bring you the best books available.

I hope you see all that reflected in these pages. I’d be very interested to hear your comments and get your feedback on how we’re doing. Feel free to let me know what you think about this or any other Sybex book by sending me an email at [e-mail]. If you think you’ve found a technical error in this book, please visit http://sybex.custhelp.com. Customer feedback is critical to our efforts at Sybex.

Best regards,

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Neil Edde

Vice President and Publisher

Sybex, an Imprint of Wiley

Writing a book is definitely a team effort. None of this would be possible without the support of my family—Angiela, Zoë, and Maya—who not only put up with my around-the-clock writing but help me take the breaks that keep me mostly sane. Thank you.

—Eddy

Dearest Jasper, Millicent, Harrison, and Justine—thanks so much for being particularly patient with me over these past months. Please address all your Where’s my Spring Break 2010? questions to Eddy Krygiel. And if he puts up a fight, you can take him, as he doesn’t have good depth perception. I’d also like to express my deepest gratitude to the many wonderful people who I’ve worked with while implementing Revit. The vast majority were gracious beyond expectation, many of you remain close personal friends, and only a few of you were complete ******. The bottom line is all of you taught me about myself and life. Thanks!

—Phil

I couldn’t have even thought about authoring a book without the patience and understanding of my wife Tara and our beautiful kids, Stephen, Christopher, Arianna, and Joseph. My parents, brother, and extended family have gone a long way in bringing me to where I am today, and I am grateful to each and every one of you. Along my professional journey, I’ve been inspired by a great number of wonderfully talented people, all of whom I couldn’t list in this space; however, I would like to thank those who have had a profound impact on my direction: Carl Galioto, Paul Seletsky, Felicia Davis, Charles D’Alessio, Joe Randazzo, Frank Messano, Chuck Mies, Matthew Jezyk, Angelo Arzano, Kevin Peters, and the crew of the Pioneers Lunch. Thank you.

—James

Acknowledgments

First, we, the authoring team, would like to extend our sincere thanks to the fine folks at Autodesk Revit. Thanks to the hard work of Anthony Hauck and the rest of his team; they have continued to build a fine product and make it better. While it’s not possible to name them all, the work of the developers, product designers, quality assurance team, and all the others doesn’t go unrecognized or unappreciated. Thank you, gals and guys, for taking a tough job and doing it with a great attitude.

Second, we were fortunate enough to have the help of some of the leading industry experts for a portion of this book. Part 6, Construction and Beyond, features chapters about cutting-edge technologies and workflows that you can perform using Revit. We cover topics such as dealing with a BIM model during construction, using Revit in direct-to-fabrication, creating Revit models for film and stage, creating BIM clouds, and even teaching fellow architectural students to approach Revit and design with an open mind. To that end, we’d like to thank contributors David Light, Josh Lowe, Mike Whaley, Laura Handler, Adam Thomas, Jereme Smith, Don Rudder, Jeffery McGrew, Peter Streibig, Chris France, and Bryan Sutton for pushing the boundaries and taking the time to put their thoughts into words. It’s material we couldn’t have created without your help and knowledge.

And finally, thanks are due to our friend and technical editor, Dave Willard, and our excellent support team at Sybex, who helped us develop and focus the content. Thanks to Kim Wimpsett for helping us form complete sentences and finally bring justification to our fifth-grade grammar class; to Liz Welch and Rachel McConlogue for not letting us spell allright as one word; and a special thanks to Willem Knibbe, for convincing us that this would be a fun thing to do in the first place.

We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to our friends, the architects who generously shared their work, allowing us to inspire you with it: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Davison Architects, Elerbe/AECOM, HNTB, HOK, Late Flato, RTKL, Richard Kirk Architect and Hassell, and SOM.

About the Authors

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Eddy Krygiel is a senior project architect, a LEED Accredited Professional, and an Autodesk Authorized Author at HNTB Architects headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. He has been using Revit since version 5.1 to complete projects ranging from single-family residences and historic remodels to 1.12-million-square-foot office buildings. Eddy is responsible for implementing BIM at his firm and also consults for other architecture and contracting firms around the country looking to implement BIM. For the last four years, he has been teaching Revit to practicing architects and architectural students in the Kansas City area and has lectured around the nation on the use of BIM in the construction industry. Eddy also coauthored Green BIM: Successful Sustainable Design with Building Information Modeling with Bradley Nies (Sybex, 2008).

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Phil Read is an industry leader in research and development on BIM, visualization, and cloud-based collaboration. After working in both civil engineering and architecture, he downloaded Revit version 1.0 (at the suggestion of an ArchiCAD reseller) and was hooked. Less than a year later, he began working for Revit Technology and then Autodesk as a project implementation specialist, where he had the honor and pleasure of working with some of the most remarkable people and design firms around the world helping them to implement BIM within their own workflows. He’s a regular speaker, blogger, Twitterer and relishes the role of change agent as long as it makes sound business sense. Phil holds degrees in communications and architecture, as well as a master's degree in architecture.

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James Vandezande is a registered architect and a senior associate at HOK in New York City, where he is a member of the firm-wide BIM leadership and is managing their buildingSMART initiatives. After graduating from the New York Institute of Technology in 1995, he worked in residential and small commercial architecture firms performing services ranging from estimating to computer modeling to construction administration. In 1999, he landed at SOM and transformed his technology skills into a 10-year span as a digital design manager. In this capacity, he pioneered the implementation of BIM on such projects as One World Trade Center, a.k.a. Freedom Tower. James has been using Revit since version 3.1 and has lectured at many industry events, including Autodesk University, VisMasters Conference, CMAA BIM Conference, McGraw-Hill Construction, and the AIANYS Convention. He is a co-founder and president of the NYC Revit Users Group and is an adjunct lecturing professor at the NYU School for Continuing and Professional Studies, as well as the Polytechnic Institute of NYU.

Foreword

If you have come this far, the concept of building information modeling (BIM) is on your mind, and I commend you for that! I can also assure you that you are in the right place. My name is Lynn Allen, Autodesk Technical Evangelist, and after 25 years in the CAD and design industry, the writing couldn’t be clearer on the wall. BIM is here to stay, and Revit is the software product that will take you there.

If I were to take a Revit course right now, the writers of this book—Eddy Krygiel, Phil Read, and James Vandezande—would be the ultimate teachers. Each of them is a BIM star in their own right—top-rated Autodesk University speakers, highly respected industry leaders, the true Revit and BIM evangelists. Having their combined mindshare in one book is the perfect combination. These are the writers who will get you to where you need to go in BIM!

In my profession, I speak to about 30,000 customers a year, and each day I see more and more architects making the move to Revit Architecture. I also see the enthusiasm from those who have made the move, which solidifies to me that Revit and BIM are clearly the correct route to take. As more and more architectural firms are making the move to BIM every day, it is clear the BIM is now the current standard for architectural design, and not just the future standard. I am mostly known for my AutoCAD expertise and hate to lose all these great customers to another product, but even I can see the light here!

Technology is changing, the world is changing, and in order to stay current you’ll need to embrace the world of BIM. Here you can model, render, analyze, test for sustainability, prototype, and validate. These 3D intelligent models can be passed down through all the phases of the building cycle with the building owner as the final recipient. Which would you rather have someone hand you, a huge roll of paper drawings or an intelligent 3D model? The answer seems pretty clear to me.

So, here is your chance to get started with the pros! I know many of you are currently AutoCAD users, so let me assure you that if you can learn AutoCAD, you can certainly learn Revit. Revit Architecture was designed specifically for architects, to think the way they think and to work the way they work. AutoCAD has had to be all things to all people over the years and is not the easiest product to learn.

So what are you waiting for? Don’t let BIM pass you by; jump on the Revit bandwagon, and be ready for an exciting future of smart buildings you can really be proud of!

—Lynn Allen

Autodesk Evangelist

www.autodesk.com/lynnallen

Introduction

Welcome to the second edition of Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011, based on the Revit Architecture 2011 release.

When we sat down to plan this book, we realized that in the past three years, so many have made such great advances in their use of Revit that we felt we needed to start this book from scratch and work to fill it with really solid content. We looked to serve the needs of individuals who had used Revit in the past, but wanted to take it up a notch all the way to teams that were looking for advanced content. We hope you will find that our efforts to that extent were successful.

Writing a book looks easier than it truly is. It is an effort that we each have taken on beyond our day jobs in the hopes of sharing our experience and knowledge about Revit and BIM with the greater design community. We want to help make better designs and stronger document sets, and continue pushing the envelopes of what you can build. We hope you find the techniques, workflows, and processes, as well as the tips on software, useful and inspiring.

We also wanted to write a book that is as much about architectural design and practice as it is about software. Architecture is a way of looking at the world and the methods that inspire creatively solving the problems of the built world. We hope you’ll agree that we’ve succeeded because the book follows real-life workflows and scenarios and is full of practical examples that show how to use Revit both inside and outside the box.

The book is based on a project that is already in motion—a theoretical project for the Jenkins Music building in Kansas City. The Jenkins Music building was built at the turn of the century as a terracotta block façade building that housed the Jenkins Music store. This was one of many stores nationwide where musical instruments were made, and you could come to purchase them or take classes. The company went out of business in Kansas City, and the property was eventually sold to a developer. In the 1980s, the building was going to be torn down for a parking garage. The historic façade was saved as well as the first bay of the building. This has left Kansas City with 100′ of beautiful, historic terracotta on an 18′ deep building. The model shown in this book is a representation of the remaining building taken and made into living units. How great would it be to have an 18′ × 100′ apartment overlooking the downtown skyline?

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All the tutorial files necessary to complete the book’s exercises plus sample families are hosted online at www.sybex.com/go/masteringrevit2011. To download the trial version of Revit Architecture, go to www.autodesk.com/revitarchitecture, where you’ll also find complete system requirements for running Revit.

Who Should Read This Book

This book is written for architects and designers who have had some exposure to Revit and are eager to learn more. It’s for architects of any generation—you don’t need to be a computer wizard to understand or appreciate the content within. We’ve designed the book to follow real project workflows and processes to help make the tools easier to follow, and the chapters are full of handy tips to make Revit easier to leverage.

This book is also for the entire range of architects, from those who are fresh out of school to the seasoned project managers. We have endeavored to include content for all walks of the profession so that regardless of your role on the project you can learn how BIM changes both workflow and culture within a project team. With that, a basic understanding of Revit will make it easier to work through the book. Revit is a very robust tool requiring more than one project iteration to master.

For BIM managers, the book offers insights into the best practices for creating good project or office templates; these managers should also take a sneak peek into the powerful world of building content and Revit families. We’ve added many time-saving and inspiring concepts to the book, supported by examples from our own projects and the rest of the real world, to help motivate and inspire you on your journey through building information modeling.

What You Will Learn

This book will help you take the basics of Revit and BIM that you already know and expand on them using real-world examples. We will show you how to take a preliminary model and add layers of intelligence to help analyze and augment your designs. We’ll show you how to create robust and accurate documentation, and then help you through the construction process.

We go beyond introductory topics. To that end, we won’t be starting a project from scratch or teaching you how to build a simple BIM model. If you are interested in learning at that level, we strongly recommend you pick up Introducing Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 (Wiley, 2010), before plunging headlong into this book. Instead, our book begins with a brief overview of the BIM approach. As you are already aware, BIM is more than just a change in software; it’s a change in architectural workflow and culture. To leverage the full advantages of both BIM and Revit in your office structure, you will need to make some changes to your practice. We’ve designed the book around an ideal, integrated workflow to help you make this transition.

Starting with the project team, standards, and culture, we’ll discuss how BIM changes your project approach and how to best build your team around a newer workflow. From there, we will delve into conceptual design and sustainability studies, continuing through best practices for design iteration and refinement. You’ll learn about powerful modeling techniques, design documentation best practices, how to make compelling presentation graphics, parametric design with the Family Editor, workflow topics like tracking changes and worksharing, and some strategies moving beyond traditional concepts of BIM. The book concludes with an appendix on troubleshooting and best practices so you can avoid common pitfalls. Throughout the book we’ve tried to share our practical experience with you, particularly in the form of real-world scenario sidebars.

Whether you’re studying Revit on your own or in a class or training program, you can use the Master It questions in the Bottom Line section at the end of each chapter to test your mastery of the skills you’ve learned.

Also featured is a color project gallery containing inspirational Revit projects from friends and colleagues who were generous enough to share their good work with the rest of the world.

The Mastering Series

The Mastering series from Sybex provides outstanding instruction for readers with intermediate and advanced skills, in the form of top-notch training and development for those already working in their field and clear, serious education for those aspiring to become pros. Every Mastering book includes the following:

Real-world scenarios, ranging from case studies to interviews, that show how the tool, technique, or knowledge presented is applied in actual practice

Skill-based instruction, with chapters organized around real tasks rather than abstract concepts or subjects

Self-review test questions, so you can be certain you’re equipped to do the job right

Contacting the Authors

In all, we welcome your feedback and comments. You can find the three of us on our blog, www.architecture-tech.com, or email us at [e-mail]. We hope you enjoy the book.

Part 1: Fundamentals

Although this is a Mastering book, we recognize that not everyone will know how to find every tool or have a mastering of the Revit workflow. The chapters in Part 1 are devoted to rounding out that knowledge and helping to fill in any of those gaps in your knowledge of the toolbox, the UI, or the Revit workflow.

Chapter 1: Beyond Basic Documentation

Chapter 2: Principles of Revit

Chapter 3: The Basics of the Revit Toolbox

Chapter 1: Beyond Basic Documentation

In this chapter, we’ll cover some of the principles of a successful building information modeling (BIM) approach within your office environment and summarize some of the many tactics possible using BIM in today’s design workflow. We’ll explain the fundamental characteristics of maximizing your investment in BIM and moving beyond documentation with the BIM model.

In this chapter, you’ll learn to

Leverage the BIM model

Know how BIM affects firm culture

Focus your investment in BIM

Leveraging the BIM Model

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Building Information Modeling or BIM is a parametric, 3D model that is used to generate plans, section, elevations, perspectives, details, schedules—all of the necessary components to document the design of a building. Drawings created using BIM are not a collection of 2D lines and shapes that represent a building, but a series of parametric, interactive elements that allow a model to become infinitely more data-rich. These elements can be changed by manipulation of their parametric data. This means creating one door or window can quickly be made into several simply by changing specific parameters associated with that object. Additionally, all of the elements within the model share a level of bidirectional associativity—if the elements are changed in one place within the model, those changes will be visible in all the other views. So, move a door in plan and that door will be moved in all of the elevations, sections, perspectives, and so on in which it is visible.

We have all seen the growth in the use of BIM in the past few years within the design and construction industries. Firms have been moving from a two-dimensional (2D) documentation process to take advantage of the benefits of BIM and a model-based document set. According to a recent survey by McGraw-Hill (http://construction.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0249-296182_ITM_analytics), the adoption of building information modeling has taken quite a hold within the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. By 2009, almost 50 percent of the industry had fully adopted BIM as a workflow, and many of those firms use BIM for their sustainable design and analysis. Figure 1-1 shows the impact of current BIM adoption and the levels of involvement in sustainable projects.

Figure 1-1: Impact of BIM and use in green projects

Source: McGraw-Hill Construction, 2008

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If you look at this growth in a bit more detail (see Figure 1-2), you’ll note an increase across the board of BIM use. Heavy users—firms that have been invested in BIM and are building on that investment—increased 10 percent in 2009 alone. Light users—typically those firms that are making their initial foray into BIM—have jumped 20 percent over the same time frame.

Figure 1-2: Growth in BIM use on projects

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Even in economically challenging times, it seems that the industry is looking for ways to get projects done better, faster, and greener. The same survey goes on to state that at the 2005 National American Institute of Architects (AIA) convention, out of a room of 4,000 people, there were only about 15 percent of the attendees who could identify with BIM as a workflow and documentation methodology. Four years later, in 2009, more than half the firms are using BIM on a regular basis to document their designs.

Planning for BIM

As architects or designers, we have accepted the challenge of changing our methodology to adapt to the nuances of documentation through modeling rather than drafting. We are now confronted with identifying the next step. Some firms look to create better and better documents, whereas others are leveraging BIM in building analysis. As we continue to be successful in visualization and documentation, industry leaders are looking to move BIM to the next plateau. Many of these new possibilities are, like BIM was a decade ago, new workflows and potential changes in our culture or habits, which require you to ask yourself a very critical question:

What kind of firm do you want to be, and how do you plan to use BIM?

As the technology behind BIM continues to grow, so does the potential. There are a host of things now possible using a BIM model; in fact, that list continues to expand year after year. Figure 1-3 shows some of the potential opportunities.

When moving to the next step with BIM—be that better documentation, sustainable analysis, or facility management—it’s important to identify where you land in three primary goals for your use of BIM. Understanding these areas, and specifically how they overlap within your firm, will help you define how cutting edge your firm is willing to be regarding BIM. These three areas are as follows:

Visualization

Analysis

Strategy

Figure 1-3: The integrated BIM model

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We’ll first define each of these areas individually and then discuss what it means to begin combining them in practice.

Visualization

Creating documentation using BIM has the added advantage of being able to graphically visualize the project in 3D. Although this was initially conceived as one of the low-hanging fruits of using BIM as a workflow, this has led to an explosion of graphics—3D perspectives, wireframes, renderings, and gaming engines—within the industry as a means to communicate design between stakeholders on a project.

This digital creation of the project has given us a variety of tools to communicate aspects of the project. It becomes architecture in miniature, and we can take the model and create a seemingly unlimited number of interior and exterior visualizations. The same model can be imported directly into a gaming engine like an Xbox and be used to create realistic walk-throughs. Clients no longer need to rely on the designer’s preestablished paths in a fly-through—they can virtually walk through the building at their own pace, exploring an endless variety of directions. The same model again can then be turned into a physical manifestation either in part or in whole by the use of digital printers creating small, monochromatic vignettes of space. A variety of types of visualization are currently accessible through a BIM model; we’ll cover some of the different types and their relationships with BIM.

The still image might be one of the easiest creations from the BIM model. Once the first shapes are established, you have created a still image, be it in plan, elevation, or perspective. The still images, however, have taken on a variety of uses beyond simple communication of design intent. These images are used to not only describe design intent but also to illustrate ideas about proportion, form, space, and functional relationships. The ease to which these kinds of views can be mass-produced makes the perspective more of a commodity. In some instances, as shown in Figure 1-4, materiality is intentionally removed to focus on the building form and element adjacencies.

By adding materiality to the BIM elements, you can then begin to explore the space in color and light, creating photorealistic renderings of portions of the building design. These highly literal images, as shown in Figure 1-5, begin to convey information about both intent and content of the design. Iterations at this level are limited only by processing power. These images can also become analytical tools for the project stakeholders by demonstrating spatial and functional adjacencies and interactions. The photorealism allows for an almost lifelike exploration of color and light qualities within a built space even to the extent of allowing analytic footcandle calculations to reveal the exact levels of light within a space.

Finally, the next logical step is taking these elements and adding movement. In Figure 1-6, you can see a still image taken from a photorealistic rendering of a project. These renderings not only can convey time and movement through space but also have the ability to be highly physically accurate in demonstrating how the building will react or perform under real lighting and atmospheric conditions. All of this creates a better idea of building predictability and performance before the built form is realized.

Figure 1-4: Sectional rendering

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Figure 1-5: An analytic rendering

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Figure 1-6: A still from an animation showing accurate physical conditions for the project

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Analyze

As with visualization, the authoring environment of a BIM platform isn’t necessarily the most efficient one to perform analysis. Although you can create some rendering and animations within Revit, a host of other applications are specifically designed to capitalize on a computer’s RAM and processing power to minimize the time it takes to create a rendering or animation. Analysis is much the same way—although some basic analysis is possible using Revit, other applications are much more robust and can create more accurate results. The real value in BIM is the interoperability of model geometry and metadata between applications. Consider energy modeling as an example. In Figure 1-7, we’re comparing three energy modeling applications: A, B, and C. In the figure, the darkest bar reflects the time it takes to either import model geometry into the analysis package or redraw the design with the analysis package. The middle shaded color reflects the amount of time needed to add data not within Revit, such as loads, zoning, and so on. The lightest bar represents the time it takes to perform the analysis once all the information is in place.

Figure 1-7: BIM environmental analysis time comparison

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In A and B, we modeled the project in Revit but were unable to use the model geometry in the analysis package. This caused the re-creation of the design within the analysis tool and also required time to coordinate and upkeep the design and its iterations between the two models. In application C, you can see we were able to import Revit model geometry directly into the analysis package, saving almost 50 percent of the time needed to create and run the full analysis. Using this workflow, it is possible to bring analysis to more projects, perform more iterations, or do the analysis in half the time.

This same workflow is true for daylighting (Figure 1-8) and several other types of building performance and design analysis. By being able to repurpose the Revit model geometry, we are able to lose many of the rules of thumb we have created as designers along the way and begin to rely on calculated results. The Revit model also ensures consistency and accuracy of design through analysis by using the model as the sole point source for design geometry.

Figure 1-8: Daylighting overlay from 3ds Max Design

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Building analysis can reach beyond just the design phase and into facility management. Once the building has been constructed, that doesn’t mean the use of the BIM model needs to end. More advanced facilities management systems allow us to track—and thereby trend—building use over time. Building use historically changes over a building’s life span. By trending building use, you can begin to then predict future use patterns and help anticipate future use. This can help you become more proactive with maintenance and equipment replacement because you will be able to see how equipment performance begins to degrade over time. Trending will also aid you in providing a more comfortable environment for the building occupants by understanding historic use patterns and allow you to keep the building tuned for optimized energy performance.

Strategize

To maximize your investment in a BIM-based workflow, it’s necessary to apply a bit of planning. As in design, a well-planned and flexible implementation is paramount to a project’s success. By identifying goals on a project early on in the process, it allows the BIM model to be created to efficiently reach those ideals. A good BIM strategy answers three key questions about a project:

What processes do we need to employ to achieve our project goals?

Which people and team members are key to those processes?

What technology or applications do we need in place to support the people and process?

Ask these questions to your firm as a whole so you can collectively work toward an expertise in a given area, be that sustainable design or construction, or something else. Ask the same questions of an individual project as well so you can begin building the model in the early stages for the proper downstream use. In both cases (firm-wide or project-based), the processes will need to change in order to meet the goals you’ve established. Modeling techniques and workflows will need to be established. Analysis-based BIM requires different constraints and requirements than a model used for clash detection. If you’re taking the model into facilities management, you’ll need to add a lot of metadata about equipment but might need the level of detail significantly lower than if you are looking to perform daylighting. Having to apply a new level of model integrity after the fact (like halfway through documentation) can be a frustrating and time-consuming endeavor. Regardless of the goal, setting and understanding those goals early on in the project process is almost mandatory for success.

Setting Firm Goals for BIM

Combining visualization, analysis, and strategy will help you define your adoption curve and help you locate your future direction. It’s important to note that no matter where you fall or how these elements are combined, there is no wrong answer. Identifying a direction is the critical piece so you can better plan for the success of your projects. BIM ultimately is a communication tool. It can aid in analysis and documentation, but the primary goal is to communicate design ideas and concepts to the team in all the various states of the project’s life cycle.

The adoption curve isn’t really much of a curve. We’ll discuss the process of moving beyond basic documentation with the use of three concentric circles. Each circle represents one of the primary elements we discussed in the previous sections. Figure 1-9 shows two of the iterations possible with the curve. The combination on the left shows a late adopter and one where each of the elements—visualization (V), strategy (S), and analysis (A)—are fairly separate of each other. The other iteration shows almost a complete integration of these tools.

Figure 1-9: Two extremes of adoption

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Although the graphic shows a fairly balanced use of each of these tools, any of them can be used in any combination depending on your goals and uses for BIM. To better understand where you fall into any of the possible iterations, we’ll discuss three examples and what those possible workflows will look like to your projects: late adopters (the image on the left), intermediate adopters, and early adopters.

Late Adopters

Late adopters, shown with the configuration in Figure 1-10, see each of these tools as very distinctive efforts. There is little overlap between each of the systems, and any of them can be taken and removed from a process without negatively impacting any of the others. Late adopters typically come to new technologies as a strong second. This means you’re not picking up the latest and newest tools or workflows that come to the industry, but instead you’re waiting for others to test these new ideas a bit before adoption. In late adoption, the I in BIM is not critical. Information within the model will be used for documentation (i.e., door schedules), but analysis will probably be done using different model sources.

Figure 1-10: Late adoption

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Intermediate Adoption

Intermediate adopters, as shown in Figure 1-11, tend to assume a much stronger relationship between visualization, analysis, and strategy. These elements are seen in a more concurrent workflow and are more dependent on each other for their individual successes. For intermediate adopters, the I in BIM is very important, and a more robust level of data is pulled from various model resources. Intermediate adopters see the changes in technology as a means to help improve current processes and make them more efficient and effective. These changes in technology are used to explore new markets and help create new opportunities for growth.

Figure 1-11: Intermediate adoption

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Early Adoption

Early adoption, shown in Figure 1-12, focuses on a combination of all these elements in a dependent relationship. Early adopters are creating new tools, technologies, and workflows to implement new processes and opportunities that did not previously exist in the marketplace. In each of these cases, there is a significant development investment and a perception where higher risk can equal higher reward. It is not nearly enough to have the best or most advanced applications available on the marketplace, but there is a need to create the next best thing. The I in BIM to early adopters becomes a core part of their strategy for project success. They do not wait to follow markets but instead work to create new ones, which they can then lead.

Figure 1-12: Early adoption

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How BIM Affects Firm Culture

In understanding where you are and where you want to be in this adoption curve, it’s also important to understand that moving between any of the iterations of this curve requires a shift in your internal firm culture. As anyone who’s adopted BIM can tell you, the difficulties you might experience do not come from learning a new application but understanding how that application affects your workflow—and managing that change. That ability to adapt and accept that change within an organization will in some way determine where you fall on the adoption curve.

Predictability vs. Innovation

To understand the process of any change, think about it as a product of happiness over time, as shown in Figure 1-13. The process of any change, be it adoption of a new workflow or tool within your office to a more personal one, such as acquiring a new cell phone, can be described by this curve.

Figure 1-13: Happiness vs. time in technological adoption

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Let’s use the simple example of a new cell phone. When you first get the new cell, there is an increase in your happiness. The new device might have a color screen, allow you to send or receive emails, play games, or find the nearest Starbucks. As you gain familiarity with these features, your happiness goes up. At some point in your adoption or process, there is an initial pinnacle to your happiness. You briefly plateau. This occurs when you are now asked to do something within a limited time frame or utilize a new feature that is outside your comfort zone—and things don’t proceed as planned.

In our cell phone example, this could occur the first time you try to synchronize your phone with the office email server, and instead of performing correctly, it duplicates or shuffles your contacts. Now the names are no longer associated with the proper phone numbers or email addresses, and the system you’ve come to rely on is now unpredictable. In a BIM-based example, this could mean you have a schematic design deadline, or you need to create a wall section or model a set of ornate stairs in a limited amount of time. You might know that the task is technically possible, but you have yet to ever perform that task personally.

There comes a point as your stress level goes up that your happiness begins to decline and you hit a point (shown as a dot on the graph in Figure 1-13). At this point, you perceive a crossroads: do you go back to the previous technology (the old phone) and choose a path of predictability, or do you muscle forward and push for mastering the change for the hopes of innovation? Any system, no matter how inefficient, if it is predictable, there is a certain amount of comfort associated with the existing system. As you try to find your way along the adoption curve, understand that part of what you are trying to manage—either personally or for your project team—is this predictability versus innovation while trying to maintain a level of happiness and morale.

Evolution vs. Revolution

While you’re in the process of trying to manage the amount of change you’re willing to endure, you also need to consider the rate that change will affect your project teams. Progress and innovation are iterative and can take several cycles to perfect a technique or workflow. That can become a real challenge if you’re working on a very large-scale design. The process of change and creating new methodologies using BIM is an evolution, not a revolution.

Figure 1-14 shows two bicycles. The image on the left is the penny-farthing bicycle taken from Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of Applied Mechanics of 1892. Although not the first bicycle (which was invented in 1817 in Paris), it does demonstrate many of the rudimentary and defining features of what we think of a bicycle today: two wheels, a handlebar, and pedals to supply power. The image on the right is the 2006 thesis design of Australian University student Gavin Smith. The bike was designed to assist people with disabilities or those with impaired motor skills in riding a bike unaided. The basic concept is that the bike would supply its own balance at low speeds, and the wheels would remain canted. As the bike moves faster and wheel speed increases, the wheels become vertical and the rider is able to ride at faster speeds while balancing mostly on his or her own. As the bike slows, the wheels cant back in again, giving the rider the necessary balance needed at lower speeds. The bike on the right, still possessing all of the distinguishing characteristics of what we define as a bicycle, is an evolution of the bike over many, many iterations. A similar evolution will occur with your use of BIM—the more often you iterate the change, the better and more comfortable it will become.

Figure 1-14: Understanding replication vs. innovation

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Focusing Your Investment in BIM

One of the common assumptions is that larger firms have a bigger investment than smaller firms in their capacity to become early adopters, take on new technologies, or innovate. Although larger firms might have a broader pool of resources, much of the investment is proportionally the same. We have been fortunate enough to help a number of firms implement Revit over the years, and each has looked to focus on different capabilities of the software that best express their individual direction. Although all of these firms have varied in size and individual desire to take on risk, their investments have all largely been relatively equal. From big firms to small, with very little variation, the investment ratio consistently equals about 1 percent the size of the firm. If you consider a 1,000-person firm, that equals about 10 full-time people; however, scale that down to even a 10-person firm, and if you apply the same one percent, that becomes one person’s time for three full weeks.

The key to optimizing this 1 percent investment is focusing the firm’s energy and resources. As the technologies behind BIM continue to expand, so do the opportunities for specialization, so you will need to pick and choose strategically to focus the efforts and direction of your firm. The following list highlights many of the expanded uses possible today based on a BIM model. Some of these things are core precepts of what BIM is and does, such as 3D visualization; some, like energy modeling, are more emerging technologies; and others, such as facility management, are truly cutting edge.

Construction documentation

Coordinated documentation

Automated keynoting

Consultant coordination (integrating multiple models)

Design visualization

Scheduling systems/materials/quantities

Specifications

Furniture, Finishes, and Equipment (FF&E): tracking/logging/procurement

Spatial program validation

Construction

Constructability analysis

Clash detection

Quantity take-offs

Cost analysis/estimating

Direct to fabrication

Traffic studies

Building performance analysis

Rainwater reclamation

PV access

Energy analysis

Daylighting

Solar studies

Computational fluid dynamics analysis

LEED documentation

Programming

Facilities management

Asset tracking

Trending

If the investment (regardless of scale) is focused and planned, it can still leverage strong potential. Identifying the importance of visualization, analysis, and strategy to your firm and process will help guide you in selecting areas of focus within your own practice. When choosing the specialization or how much focus to give to visualization, analysis, or strategy within BIM, there are no wrong answers. Just choose a path that reflects the comfort level of your firm to take risks while focusing on selected areas of specialization.

Throughout this book, we will elaborate on many of these elements and demonstrate, using real-world examples, how to use these techniques to visualize, analyze, and strategize with your use of Revit.

The Bottom Line

Leverage the BIM model. Understanding the level of risk your firm is willing to take in new technologies will help you establish goals for your future use of BIM.

Master It Using the three areas of firm integration (visualization, analysis, and strategy), define how those areas overlap for your firm or project.

Know how BIM affects firm culture. Not only is the transition to BIM from 2D CAD a change in applications, but it’s also a shift in workflow and firm culture. Understanding some of the key differences helps to ensure project and team success during the transition.

Master It What are some of the ways that BIM differs from CAD, and how does this change the culture of an office or project team?

Focus your investment in BIM. One of the key elements to understanding BIM beyond documentation is simply to have an awareness of the possibilities. This allows you to make an educated decision as to what direction your firm or project would like to go.

Master It List some of the potential uses of a BIM model beyond documentation.

Chapter 2: Principles of Revit

After one decade in the AEC space, Revit continues to be unique in its holistic whole-building BIM approach to design integration. Sure, there are other BIM-ish tools that allow you to design in 3D. And 10 years ago, 3D might have been a differentiator, but today 3D is a commodity!

Whole-building BIM is the ability to design, manage, and document your project information from within a single file, something that no other BIM tool will allow you to do. In a non-Revit workflow, you’d have to design your project across multiple files—not just across disciplines but within the same discipline! Imagine the dysfunctional workflow of having separate files for the building shell, roof, and each interior level for a modest 50-story building. That means you’ll be managing at least 50 files just for the architecture. Count on another 50 files for the MEP and structural design, and now your team has to juggle more than 150 separate files that have to be manually linked together. Then you would have to export your files to separate sheets and views for documentation.

So, now your building has been smashed up into 2D information. And when you have changes, expect to go back to the model and repeat the process, because you can’t risk making changes in 2D when they’re not bidirectionally associative. No thanks!

How would you complete the same project in Revit? Well, worst case is that you’re probably looking at three files for the same building (architecture, structure, and MEP), because design is a team sport, and you’re not all in the same office or geography. So, everyone does their work and links each other’s projects. Three files!

And as for documentation, it’s all in the same file as the respective project. No exporting required. It’s a completely bidirectional, multiuser working environment, so if you’re trying to compare Revit to what you’re used to in other 2D CAD or 3D BIM tools, stop now.

As for the UI, well, there have been some much needed changes in Revit Architecture 2011. Last year’s introduction of the Ribbon introduced us all to what one well-respected Revit expert succinctly referred to as drunken leprechaun mode because the tools were not only highly contextual, but they kept moving around in subjective ways. We’re glad to tell you the Ribbon UI has evolved into what we like to call sober leprechaun mode! Yes, the UI is still contextual because the now-sober leprechaun keeps contextually hiding commands and panels the moment you put them down. But at least he’s learned to put the commands and panels in the same place the moment you start to do something else. And we think this is a terrific improvement.

In this chapter, you’ll learn to:

Understand Revit project organization

Understand Revit interface organization

Project Organization

If you are coming from 2D CAD background, you are already familiar with a lot of terms and concepts that don’t have exact corollaries in Revit. You’re probably used to thinking in terms of what needs to be drawn and coordinated: plans, sections, elevations, details, schedules, and so on. You’re also used to keeping that information in a lot of separate files that have to be linked together in order to reference other parts of the building. And you’re used to being allowed to have only one person in one file at a time (which can be particularly frustrating from a workflow standpoint). And finally, maintaining all your project settings and management is a struggle across so many disconnected files.

Revit contains all of these kinds of things. But at a high level Revit is about the four key components of a holistic and successful design process: relationships, repetition, representations, and restrictions. These concepts are respectively managed in Revit by data, content, views, and project management. And they are managed from within a single, bidirectional database.

Figure 2-1 shows what we like to think of as a Revit organization chart, which should give you a visual description of these four top-level categories and the kinds of things these categories contain. In the following sections, we’ll discuss each of these categories and describe their particular role in your Revit project environment.

Datum

Datum consists of references, grids, and levels (Figure 2-2). The reason that datum is all about the relationships of your Revit project is because they establish and control your content (the building, stuff that goes in a building, and the stuff you need to document your building).

Reference planes can be created in any 2D view from the Home tab, but once created they may be visible in 3D. After you add reference planes to your project, they can be set and seen from the Work Plane panel. This will allow you to work with respect to the desired work plane.

Like reference planes, grid lines can also be added to any 2D view. Keep in mind that grids may only be perpendicular to levels. Furthermore, grids are only visible in views that are aligned with the grid. So if the grid is in a North/South orientation, you’ll only be able to see it in plan and from the North/South–oriented views.

Levels may be seen and created only in views that are parallel to the analytic ground plane in Revit. So you can’t create levels in plan and they can’t be diagonal to the ground plane. To create any datum in Revit, simply select the desired type and then pick two points to define the start and end location.

Figure 2-1: Revit organization chart

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Figure 2-2: Datum in Revit

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Creating and Duplicating Levels

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Creating a new level may or may not create a corresponding plan view (controlled by the Make Plan View option). Sketching a level defaults to creating a plan view. But copying an existing level will default to not creating a plan view, which is useful for creating relationships to content where no plan view is needed (for example, if you want to control multiple window elevations). The graphic indication of a level, which doesn’t have a corresponding view, will be that the head of the level is black rather than blue.

If you want to convert a datum level that doesn’t have a view to one that does, simply select the Plan View option in the Create panel on the View tab. This will open the dialog box shown in Figure 2-3. You’ll be able to select among all the non-view levels in your project and convert them to view corresponding levels.

Figure 2-3: Converting datum level to view level

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You can also use this option to create duplicate views of existing levels. Simply uncheck the option at the bottom of the dialog box (Figure 2-4) and you’ll see all the levels in your project.

Figure 2-4: All project-level datum

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Analytic and Graphic Datum Extents

We need to mention two important notes about the control and visibility of levels and grids. First, you can control both the graphic and analytic ends of levels and grids. If you control the analytic end of the grid, you’re controlling the extents of the datum across the entire project and all views, and the 3D option will be visible as you pull the datum, as shown in Figure 2-5 (seen above Level 2).

Figure 2-5: Controlling the analytic extents of datum

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If you only want to move the graphic extents of your datum, first click the 3D icon. Now you can graphically modify the datum but not the analytic extents (Figure 2-6).

Figure 2-6: Controlling the extents of datum

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Second, datum can only be visible in a view that is being crossed by its analytical extents. Here’s the difference. The elevation in Figure 2-6 shows lowering the ends of the grid above Level 2. This might be done to make an elevation graphically cleaner at a large scale.

In Figure 2-7, the analytic (3D) extents of the grid don’t cross the levels. As a result, the grids would not be visible in those views.

Figure 2-7: Analytic (3D) datum extents

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But in Figure 2-8, the analytic extents cross both Level 1 and Level 2 datum. But the graphic (2D) extents are above Level 2. This means that the grid datum would still be visible in both levels.

Figure 2-8: Graphic (2D) datum extents

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When you move datum in Revit, one way or another content is going to respond. If you move a level, walls and furniture are going to move accordingly. If you move a grid, structural elements are going to relocate. And if you move references, the elements associated with them update. As a matter of fact, you’ll often pin datum or lock dimensions in order to restrict movement of datum after your project is starting to develop.

In turn, content can have a relationship to other content. For example, content can be hosted or associated with other content. Walls host doors and windows. A wall can be attached to a roof above it (or a floor or even another wall below it). Tops and bottoms of walls can even be attached to the top or bottom of other walls. But did you know that walls can maintain relationships inside other walls?

Here’s a simple exercise to understand these relationships between content:

1. First, create a simple wall. Now let’s edit the profile of the middle segment. Select the wall and click Edit Profile. Now you can’t edit the middle wall’s profile as shown in Figure 2-9 until you select the Edit Profile option. Once you’re in Edit Profile mode, simply delete all the boundary lines and then redraw them as shown.

Figure 2-9: Editing the wall’s profile

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2. Now finish Edit Profile mode. Then in a plan view, draw another wall directly on top of the one that you just created. Go ahead and use a different type that’s wider than the first wall you used. Initially the walls will overlap and you’ll get a warning, which is fine and can be ignored (Figure 2-10). In this case, the view is also set to Wireframe so you can see the edited wall’s profile that’s being enveloped by the second wall.

Figure 2-10: Overlapping walls

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3. Now here comes the fun part. Using your Cut Geometry tool, cut the enveloped wall from the enveloping wall. Figure 2-11 shows the