Crossing Over

The slow death of the Revit platform and BIM in general has come to somewhat of a halt. As I have worked with Revit for some time now, I remember in the beginning that many firms were slow to react to the change in the design process and when they did accept or "try" Revit, they became so frustrated with the program and shelved it. As I knew of Revit's full potential back in the early days, many were quick to write of the program as a fad.

As the years have passed, that misconception has dwindled in numbers. More and more firms are adopting BIM as if it were second nature. How has it changed from five years ago to now even? Why are people that were shunning BIM now adopting it?

Its quite simple. Revit in general has created a full line of products ranging from Revit Architecture to Revit Structure and beyond. Believe it or not, but Revit as a platform series helps the overall process by having team members on the same working model. If you are concerned about DWG files then no worries. Revit also works well with many different CAD formats. There are more third party applications now than ever which give a user a wide array of usefull tools ranging from rendering add ons to green architecure and analysis tools. More and more tools are added with each new release helping to facilitate efficient workflows but also greater ease of use. Family components, which are similar to AutoCAD blocks, are being developed by comanies such as Kohler and Anderson to name a few. The AIA took less that 2 years to develop a National BIM Standard whereas in comparison took over 12 years to develop the AutoCAD Standards. Firms are beginning to realize the full potential of BIM and thus realizing their full potential as designers as well.

At first the learning curve is steep in that it will take some time to get used to new commands, procedures, workflows, layouts, et cetera. I generally advise clients that you will be comfortable with Revit after 1-2 projects. I see this at every session I train where users can become frustrated very easily. However, with proper nurturing and consulting, these same users will eventually become the "power users" of the firm. So if you are thinking that Revit is something of a fad, I implore you to further research this topic by click here. This link is to an AUGI post. The first post lists an array of sites that detail each concern. I hope this helps you on your quest. Until next post.......