Deal with Revit file iterations - and incorrect models - how?

[Morne Erasmus]

Hi Guys

How do you deal with Revit file and design iterations? Is there some magic plugin, perhaps from Sini or other's that can make life easier?

If we model things ourselves, then iteration is simple enough. But often, clients would send Revit files, that sometimes are not correctly modelled or materials have been applied incorrectly or not at all. That means it takes a bit longer to clean up in Max. Often you have to detach subobjects, pull vertices etc. This is good and well in a single design, but often the client would send a redesigned model and that of course completely invalidates any poly edits you were forced to make etc and you almost have to start from scratch again.

[James Vella]

For us generally any change to the structure is considered an amendment to the quote/price.

 

Its a bit of a tough line to walk since usually we are usually rendering while changes are happening to the design so there has to be some discussion about this from the studio to the client. If everyone is on the same page then it should be easy enough to either hold on the project until a major section is revised or the client is welcoming to the ongoing costs.

 

Technical side: I prefer using sini software for the things you mentioned, welding, breaking, joining geometry. Again depending on the conversation with the client this can be done for a portion of the building that is signed off on. The red cloud bubbles are usually indications of incomplete designs and can be ignored or contained for a replacement later or any discussion about intended design changes. As a side note, normally I just jump straight on the phone with the architect and this can be discussed in a technical manner so that everyone is working towards the same goal or they can contain specific parts in layers for you that can be easily dropped in later.

Edited December 1, 2021 by James Vella

[Morne Erasmus]

Costs is a totally different discussion. My question mainly relates to the technical side.

 

The type and size of our projects are usually very large, and trying to manage the architects and their modellers\drafter's\technicians are not reallly an option. In a perfect world the model would just work and things will be on correct layers, families, and correct materials assigned. But often on the client side there are multiple people handling different parts of the model and people my be replaced as they move on to other projects and on their end they have to deal with 3rd parties like engineers etc. Communication is key yes, but this is not a perfect world and hardly ever will you get a model that does not need any kind of modifications.

 

I'm just looking for ways to streamline things our end in a smarter way without having to force the client to work "correctly".

[James Vella]

Agree its not a perfect world, you mention some good points. 

In this case, the only extra thing I could suggest is to work with xrefs and update revit links as required within those xrefs. When reloading revit links you can preserve your materials. Additional geometry required is built on splines or parametric tools like (railclone, atiles, loft, sweep etc) so you can shift walls/gutters/window profiles easily for the updated regions. The only issue I see is that if the drafters don't have a consistent way of working this could break your materials so keeping things contained in xrefs would be a somewhat easier way to catch this without affecting other items in your master scene.

Generally with revit files I try to avoid any changes to the base geometry unless its absolutely required, for example wall chamfers can be done through the material instead of editing the geometry if theres a good chance that particular model will be updated. edit: Also you could also just hide the object/layers on your side inside the xref scene where the revit file is linked for objects you need to replace entirely (eg. window panes). This way the links should not break and you can hide/unhide to check things as you go.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2021 by James Vella

[Scott Schroeder]

Realistically, if you are rendering with Revit during the design phases there isn't much you can do to control the geometry. As you said, the architect you are dealing with directly may be able to try to keep the model clean but the electrical, mechanical, structural subs that also feed the Revit model may not be able to be controlled all too well.

The biggest thing I try to do is be up front with them on day one about how the process needs to go if there are major changes and their Revit models are not exactly up to speed. For me, I try to delay applying final level detail materials until as far as I can push it in a deadline. That's the area where I tend to notice huge chunks of time being devoted to redoing work. Once we start applying materials, we really start to let clients know that we're crossing a few milestones in which we can't turn back without potentially delaying the deadline.

[Tom Bussey]

I work 'in house' at an architect where Revit is the mainstay, so I've thought about this a lot. If you can get hold of a copy of Revit and learn how to use VG and display filters it'll make things less painful by cleaning up before import. I know it feels more intuitive to do it with the tool you know but you really don't have to go deep in to Revit to clean up before import. Basically creating an new 3D view and hiding all the categories you can, and beyond that filtering out families from the view by type name or family name. I think you can even right click and hide by category or family too. This will mean you're not importing geo you don't need which, because it's single threaded, can be a slow process, as I'm sure you know. 

 

It's slightly easier for me to do because I can create this view in the architects model and it will persist between design iterations, but you can save this view to a template and load it in to another copy of the file when the architect send that across. 

 

If I know the design is likely to change soon I'll sometimes use Revit links, which is basically an xref to the 3D view. If you update the link it'll keep your material assignments and modifiers which is a life saver. Obviously if you've used an effort poly and the underlying geo changed it's going to go screwy, I don't tend to mess with the Revit geo where possible for this reason, and it's usually messy anyway with loads of floating verts, so I do things like chamfers and profiles with materials where possible if they're not already modeled. The caveat is I'm always linking from the same file, so I don't know how well it would work with a completely new file, but so long as it's the same on the architects end and you've used your VG template it should work in theory.

 

If I don't link and just import, I have combined by material before, but material are often the last thing the architects going to give much attention to, and it's not always easy to do in Revit in fairness, so you'll get the window reveals merged with the floor and plasterboard for example, or 3 objects called 'glass'. Therefore I have imported without combining recently. It takes a while but shouldn't be too bad if your Revit view is stripped right back. You'll still be looking at 20k+ objects for a normal tower block. The big advantage of doing it this way is that any Revit family with the same parameters (so windows the same size for example) will be instanced, so modifications are going to faster (this doesn't apply with Revit link without combining). 

 

I have the Autodesk bundle that's Revit, Max and Autocad, if you're in a studio maybe you could get one Revit licence just for cleaning up the incoming models. 

 

tl;dr what James said basically. 

[Francisco Penaloza]

I am also a in house artist, and as you read everyone that post here there is not a 'single straight answer'  The System that Autodesk created and developed is base one a perfect utopian workflow, that it doesn't apply to anybody LOL.

The same as @VelvetElvis mentioned our REVIT model bounce from one designer to other, to interiors, structural, electrical and many more. and each one of them push a pull the building as they need, it.  REIT is not designed to create visualization, is to create BIM Data. no matter how much they try to sell you otherwise.

Just like @Tom Bussey I been digging a little more in to REVIT, doing my views cleaning elements in there before exporting. Though I do not change the geometry at all, because all the people involved on the project, I don't want to deal with a structural engineer that didn't connect a column with a beam because he already has a detail for that corner. 

I just hide everything that I won't need for my views and then export FBX to 3DsMax. Inside max I try to keep that live link as much as possible, I usually use family or elements no materials, because the issues already described by others/. I try to keep the link live just in case someone move a wall or delete half of the building. I put edit mesh in top of the linked mesh and try to work that ways until 3Ds Max won't let me do more. I also rely on Raiclone a lot to build parametrics elements and I use lots of scripts to collapse material repetitions, cleaning textures, welding vertex or copy and replace objects, to optimize the scene as much as possible.

What I been doing successfully is opening the REVIT model inside REVIT and setup cameras and doing preview images with Enscape and send them right away to the designers or clients, that way, the overall design shows, lights and shadows really shape the building, holes and dual geometry pop right away and you can then have a good talk with designers and try to minimize futures geometry changes.

I know this workflow is not perfect and still I have big dramas from time to time, and changes always will be there. But if you output images right away, they really help the designer to see the model with fresh eyes.  I also been pushing our designers to use Enscape as much as possible, this really help me, because they can see how horrible the model is when they thought it was "done and great, ready to render'

 Best luck.

[Jose Negrete]

On 12/3/2021 at 1:28 PM, Francisco Penaloza said:

The System that Autodesk created and developed is base one a perfect utopian workflow, that it doesn't apply to anybody LOL.

?

 

I try to do some cleanup in the Revit model as well before exporting it as .FBX. For any edits I've done to the mesh I usually compare against a new update to see if I can retain my modified version.