workflow question from revit to 3ds max

[SgWRX]

hi. so i've slowly added to my knowledge of revit in terms of using it to export models to FBX and importing into max.

 

one thing i have not thought of or noticed until now is, light fixtures will appear in two different categories (terminology?) in revit VG (vis graphics). other objects as well. light fixtures will appear in "architectural" and in "electrical". floors will often appear in more than one etc...

 

is this just a lack of process in our departments? VG is somewhat confusing as well mostly due to naming. for example i didn't see the exact same name "light fixtures" in arch and elec parent categories.

 

does that make sense? i'm wondering if there is a process that can address this so that when i open the central file and export, i'm not exporting duplicate items.

 

thanks,

[beestee]

I am pretty sure templates can be set up for VG, but it depends on the quality of the information coming in to be categorized correctly as you have discovered. I typically just set up my own 3d view and just do a cursory hide by element/category and set up my own section box and typically set the phasing to complete since the data I get comes from many different sources of varying quality/standards.

 

This can become more difficult and cumbersome when you have to show 3d data from multiple disciplines.

[Francisco Penaloza]

The way REVIT work is not written in stone, so depending of the company and drafters, is the organization that you'll see in REVIT projects.

This gets even more complicated when you receive a REVIT model that's been produced with Electrical consultants, or Structural, Engineers partners and so on.

Engineers don't trust Architects, Architects dislike Engineers, so they usually overwrite heirs stuff.

For Printed drawings, nothing of this confusions matters, because you can choose what to print or not. also to create sheets, but if you do a raw export of the whole file, you'll get double or triple information. even those nasty topografy CAD at different levels way outsize of 0,0,0

 

What I do, is to seat with a designers and ask him to produce a REVIT view with all the data they want to display in theirs renderings, they will know exactly(well more or less) what goes and what's redundant.

 

yep.. the magic of BIM topia

[TomD_Arch]

The lights might also be a result of the way the light fixture family is modeled in revit. The electrical element is probably the IES light part that is the actual light (Illumination source). The architectural part is the actual model of the light fixture. The multiple levels might be from named views people create for working in the model, i.e. a "Working" view. that stuff can get messy if there isn't really a BIM modle manager to police the model and keep people working clean. Scrubbing a revit model is trickier then a CAD .dwg.

[SgWRX]

thanks all. it sounds like i need to develop a work flow and talk with the appropriate parties. we do have a couple of revit masters and a couple that are arch designers. an hour of sitting with them sounds like it'd save 4-5hrs of me sloshing through the muck i'm big on efficiency, process and details.

 

the thing that precipitated all this was importing the whole shebang and finding that there was no webbing in the bar joists. so i figured i could isolate those and import them separately. i think that would be easy enough (edit: it is easy enough, i've done it!) but then i started thinking about importing a lot more things separately and that quickly spun out of control.

 

it seems that "fine", "medium" or "corse" has a big effect. webbing was gone with medium or corse but there with fine. one of our newer architects thought that the level of detail can also help when getting C channels that have 10-11 million polys! up till now i've been just recreating them and placing them. ugh.