Revit + Inventor

[santiago]

In the design-build company I work at, we use Inventor for modeling and creating shop drawings, even though it is a program made for the manufacturing industry. So far we can manage with the workarounds required, but there's always an interest in finding better, more efficient ways to work.

 

From what I understand, Revit is not meant to produce shop drawings.

The automatic creation of views and sections is something that Inventor does well, perhaps except for lineweights which are not assigned in an architectural fashion. Inventor is also fully parametric, it also creates BOM's automatically, and its API is more mature, or so I've been told by third-party developers, I do some minor programming only.

 

We use Autodesk VIZ + VRay for renderings already anyway, so that topic is not of our interest thus far. Also, our projects are so different one from another, that we hardly have any use for standard objects, and those already available in Revit, which I've been able to see so far such as doors, walls, windows, would not be of any use to us. We design structures, in which we heavily use wood, and from what I've seen Revit Structure is meant for concrete and steel. You might ask then, why do we consider Revit at all? Basically, because we haven't seriously looked into it yet, and also because it is an AEC application, whereas Inventor is a mechanical engineering program.

 

So my question is, does anyone here have experience with both Revit and Inventor, and could you shed some light on the topic of using both applications together?

I signed-up for a course at the AU 2007 about working with Revit and Inventor, it was called bridging the gap, I think. Unfortunately I couldn't make it to the AU until Wednesday afternoon, I'm just really busy lately.

I read the handouts, but it's not the same as being at the actual course.

Perhaps someone here attended the course and could tell me a bit about it.

 

Also, if anyone here has already gone through the process of exchanging models between Revit and Inventor, I have a lot of questions to ask!

 

I'm pretty sure that with some basic programming I can set-up a workflow via which I can control a project which is modeled in both Revit and Inventor, using external files, where each model has a different focus and scope (Revit for coordination and structural design, Inventor for full model and fabrication). The Inventor side of it is the easy part, I already know how I'd do it, it's the Revit side I'm not familiar with yet, since I've never used it before. According to what I've read, shared parameters in Revit are stored in an external tab-formatted file, which I think is all I really need to make this plan work.

But perhaps I'm missing the big-picture of this. Although I'm quite convinced that Revit lacks the powerful modeling tools that Inventor already has, maybe there is still the chance that Revit could replace Inventor in our workflow.

[blueshift17]

Hey Santiago... I am very interested in finding as much as I can about Revit and Inventor interoperability.. I noticed you didnt get much response here. Were you able to find any information or pursue this any further? Our company is getting ready to start a very large project that involves alot of mechanical and structural integration. Let me know please

Edited August 5, 2009 by blueshift17
typo

[santiago]

Hey Santiago... I am very interested in finding as much as I can about Revit and Inventor interoperability.. I noticed you didnt get much response here. Were you able to find any information or pursue this any further? Our company is getting ready to start a very large project that involves alot of mechanical and structural integration. Let me know please

 

Hi Blueshift, if you are still interested in the topic, send me an e-mail:

santiago.diaz.ames@gmail.com

 

cheers

[RevitGary]

"From what I understand, Revit is not meant to produce shop drawings.

The automatic creation of views and sections is something that Inventor does well, perhaps except for lineweights which are not assigned in an architectural fashion."

 

I am not sure what inventor is but you seem to not understand what revit is. Revit produces section drawings and complete cd's apparently just like inventor. Go to the autodesk site and see what revit is capable of.