How does
Revit relate to AutoCAD and other drafting programs?
The quote below was pulled from the AutoDesk website which
went into further detail explaining how these two programs are different and their design capabilities.
“The main
difference is that AutoCAD is primarily a drafting tool to create basic
geometry that represents real life, while Revit is used to create geometry that’s
equipped with real-life information, hence the term building information modeling, or BIM.”
As stated above the key difference between Revit and AutoCAD
is that Revit is an intelligent 3D model-based design tool and AutoCAD is a
professional drafting and documentation tool. There are many key advantages to
using Revit as a design tool. One of the biggest is the integrative platform
that is offered with Revit. There is the ability to have multiple disciplines
working on the same model at the same time as one other, and when one discipline
makes a change all the others get a notification a change was made. This makes
the design more integrative and much quicker than having weekly meetings or
forcing one discipline to follow the other. This becomes very useful in large
apartment buildings where there are many different mechanical, electrical, and
plumbing challenges to consider and avoid the structural system all at the same
time you are attempting to maximize the rentable square footage in the building.
With this type of building, the owner will want to ensure they can purchase the
property and be renting apartments in the shortest amount of time. This is also
a reason to have a software like this. It speeds up the design process and with
a 3D model it limits the amount of potential RFI’s.
Revit helps to streamline the overall design process and the
final drafting process. This is because as the design is being developed, the
plans, sections, elevations, perspectives, schedules, etc. are being generated
within the program and all the user needs to do is pull the information from
the proper menu. This program is also powerful in that when a change is made in
a single window the change is being made throughout all the windows. The key to
understand with Revit is that a “model” is being created.
The primary difference between Revit and AutoCAD is that Revit
is modeling the building as you create the 2D plan view. Revit allows you set
various constraints in the beginning and as you go to help create the model, so
then when you select to draw a wall in the 2D plan view it creates a 3D wall
with specific floor and ceiling height constraints. This is very different from
traditional drafting programs like AutoCAD and Microstation where the lines
that are being drawn on the computer are not being translated into a 3D model.
The lines are just lines. The biggest issue with “drafting” programs is that
when an engineer or architect changes the location of a wall, the drafter needs
to go and find every location in which that wall is shown and edit it
accordingly. Drafting programs simply are that, they are simply a computerized
version of pen and paper.
There are many benefits to using Revit when designing a
building and I believe that this is only the beginning when it comes to
software like this. This software will only continue to improve and sooner
rather than later I believe the heavy civil industry will have a program much
like this for all of their work. As long as the municipalities, DOT’s, etc.
come out of the Stone Age.
COMMENTS:
Jordan
Shuster
You bring up some good points on how BIM will not be BIM in
the future to the extent that the program will do a majority of the leg work
for the designers. It will work out the mathematical and logical building
design choices for the set of parameters inputted creating a very efficient and
cost effective building. I believe there will still be the need to check the
building to ensure it is designed correctly and up to code. Also, I believe
that this technology will most likely exist someday, but that is somewhat
worrisome because there will be a lot of very similar buildings out there in
100 to 200 years because a computer is designing them. Some buildings are meant
to be artistic and not the most sustainable or green in design, but that is
because the owner and architect wanted to make a statement with the building.
If we let the building design up to a computer software, it will simply spit
out a cookie cutter building for a majority of sites in a certain region.
Sarina
Tufano
I like the point that you make about people potentially
losing the knowledge base they once may have had before they let a computer do
all the work for them. I too can see that there is need and a want for a newer
and better program all the time to do the various tedious and sometimes
cumbersome calculations that go along with designing structural or MEP systems.
We are lazy as a society so if we can get a computer to calculate all these
numbers for us the happier we tend to be. While at the same time, there comes a
steep learning curve with a program like that. The user needs to know what they
are entering, why they are entering whatever it is they are entering, how to go
about entering it, how to go about checking everything was entered correctly,
and then ultimately checking to ensure the program spit out the “correct answer.”
Mark
Oddorizzi
I like that you bring up the point of just blindly following
what the computer does because it can be dangerous and make a critical mistake
which will affect the operation of the entire building. I would like to discuss
the first issue you brought up about the hardware that computers are running on today do not have the
capabilities to keep up with software being developed. My computer is about 4
years old, the second I open Revit for just a few minutes my fan runs non-stop
and my battery dies within 20 minutes depending on the size of the project.
This is because my computer does not have the ability to run Revit 2017
efficiently. Which, for a large company having to replace 50% of your computers
for a $2,000 computer all so it can run a program efficiently will become
costly and most likely become a negative selling point for a program like
Revit. It could turn a lot of companies away because not only will they have to
buy the computers, but they will need to purchase licenses every year for the
software.
It is absolutely true that AutoCAD is a digital version of pencil and drafting paper. Thus, it is very time-consuming while architects and/or engineers decide to replace something in the technical drawing of project. During my first Co-Op, We have waited for 2 weeks for changing an elevation of 7' sanitary sewer in the technical drawing due to a mistake. That mistake was a misrepresentation of linetype (the correct linetype was a dashed line instead of straight line on the previous drawing). Thus, a BIM drawing represted on 3-D should solve this miscommunication between the design unit and the contractor. However, it might raise into another issue as foremen should be educated to be able to read a BIM drawing.
ReplyDeleteZac,
ReplyDeleteI love your topic just because you can go on and on about they differences between the two programs. I think you nailed the primary difference however. All this time, we have been finding quick tools and tricks to make modeling a building's floor easier, with offsets and geometry, when BIM can do it all for you. You can even get those same 2D drawings that are exactly representative of the 3D building because they are a direct result of the building. Personally, I wish I could still work with CAD since I spent all that time learning those tricks, but I am excited for the future that can be found in BIM.
Zac,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on giving your analysis of the differences between AutoCAD and Revit. I agree with your explanation to how CAD is comparable to pen-and-paper while Revit is so much more. I also agree with the fact that Revit's real-time design process makes it very efficient for all different fields to interact and facilitate any issues during the design phase. However, since Revit is relatively new in the industry, I can't brush of the fact that not every company uses, let alone, is familiar with, Revit. This might create chaos during the design phase with real-time feature. For example, if one discipline dictates a design and the rest bases off of it, this first discipline has to make sure their design is the final one without changes. Because as the first one designs, the rest follows and any changes to the first design will affect the rest like a domino effect. Such a case would favor the disciplines to complete their design first and pass on their file rather than working simultaneously.